Farewell, My Queen by Black Moishe (children's ebooks online txt) 📗

The Duke de Penthièvre, Master of the Horse

Count Vaudreuil, Master Falconer

Count Hausonville, Master Wolfer

Count Zizendorf, from the land of Greater Tartarie

The Prince de Lambesc, Grand Equerry

The First Equerry,

The quarterly equerries, the equerries in ordinary,

Equerry Cavalcadour

The equerries, all of them . . .

JULY 15, 1789

DAY

SOMEONE HAD DARED TO

INTERRUPT THE KING’S SLUMBER.

The news spread with the dawn of day, shattering news that left me dumbfounded: the King had been awakened in the middle of the night. How could that be? Access to the King was impossible at night. The gates were shut, watch was kept over entrances and main staircases. Who could have gotten past the first line of protection consisting of the guards stationed at the entrance to the Royal Courtyard, and then the second obstacle of the sentries in the Cour du Louvre? After that, how could any person make his way into the château? Or go all the way to the Grand Apartments and reach the actual door to the King’s Bedchamber? Bodyguards were on duty there. After the guards, there were the Lads of the Bedchamber, awake and watchful in the next room. And supposing that some unheard-of, supernatural being, some sylph or creature who walks through walls, had somehow got past all these obstacles, there remained the final obstacle, the presence of the trimestrial King’s First Valet, who slept right there at the foot of the King’s bed. And yet, against all plausibility, that is what people were saying: someone had awakened the King.

On the floor where we lived, high up under the eaves, unable to believe it, we ran from room to room, knocking on doors and spreading the wild rumor. I ventured to suggest: indigestion, perhaps? Louis XVI was subject to terrible attacks that left him almost lifeless . . . I was roundly taken to task. The King had been awakened by someone. Someone who had something to tell him.

A fine rain was falling. The paving stones were black and glistening. The small shops set up along the metal fences looked shabby. Walking into the kitchen of the Grand Lodgings, I was overwhelmed by a smell of wine and food and the unattractive remains of our previous night’s supper . . . Gradually, not immediately perceptible, a feeling of cold and nausea crept over me. The soup I was served had a sharp, sour taste. The bread that came with it had gone stale and was hard to swallow. We sat together again, much the same group as the night before, minus the priests. Honorine was not there either. She had gone down to Madame de La Tour du Pin’s apartment. I expected to learn more from her about the events of the previous night. So did the others. Our information bureau, that’s what Honorine was. She arrived at last, disheveled and unkempt. She was wrapped round in a greenish cape (that she had had from her mistress, a tall, rather thinnish, fair-haired woman, where Honorine was short, plump, and brunette). Every face turned in her direction. Well? Tell us. That outlandish business of waking the King in the middle of the night? Who was it? What did he have to tell? Actually in the King’s Bedchamber? Honorine, normally chatty, quick-tongued, and inclined to put on airs (her verbal agility, which made her so attractive, she owed to her lively Southern temperament; as to the air of superiority, that reflected the haughtiness of the Marquise de La Tour du Pin, who was very intelligent and used this natural gift to hold the rest of the human race in contempt), was being silent on this occasion. In a piteous voice, she confessed that she could not answer our questions. Yes, this morning there was much animated discussion between Monsieur and Madame de La Tour du Pin, but as was their frequent practice, and whether spontaneously or so as not to be understood by the servants, they spoke in English.

“Mind you,” said Honorine, “one word I did hear several times was Bastille.”

Not till midmorning, and after several people had arrived in great haste from Paris, did an assertion vouched for by a few individuals begin to gain general credence: it was said that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Grand Master of the Wardrobe, was the person who had wakened His Majesty at two o’clock in the morning. To tell him something concerning the Bastille. An escape? A fire? There was time enough for me to hear any number of stories and memories involving the citadel-prison (“The Bastille!” one old gentleman had exclaimed, “Why, my entire youth is bound up with it!”), before the incredible news broke: the people of Paris had seized the Bastille. I can hear to this day the sarcastic jibes, the outcries, the hoots of derision that greeted those words. Words uttered by whom, incidentally? From whose mouth did I hear them? I don’t remember now. Probably I paid them no heed, for I certainly put no faith in them whatsoever. I had seen the Bastille; no more was required to convince me that it was an impregnable fortress. Its huge bulk dominated the ill-famed Faubourg Saint-Antoine—a quarter that only ill-advised persons traversed, even in a carriage with locked doors and surrounded by armed manservants.

There came a succession of messengers. We accosted them; we asked them whether this impossible thing could be true. Most of them doubted it, as did we. Some of them were quite positive: “The Bastille, seized by the common people? You’re not serious? It’s a lie, antiroyalist propaganda, invented by those who preach sedition.” If we persisted in our questioning, they would finally say that nothing special was taking place in the capital. I finally concluded that the Parisians were still stirred up by what had occurred on the previous Sunday, but that was all . . . And the deeply entrenched notion, a sort of basso sostenuto of the