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

stepped forward, offered a supporting hand. The Princess was hoping for a smile, or some acknowledgment. And a moment later she could not hide her chagrin, for the Queen conspicuously ignored her. It was not the Princess de Lamballe she wanted. Not on the Princess’s account had she opened her fan, in which a lorgnette was concealed. Oblivious to the fact that people were watching, the Queen stood there, tense, with her face pressed to her fan. No, she could not find the one she sought. She was forced to pursue her inspection, and she did so, with unimaginable persistence. Madame de Lamballe offered her services once again. And for the second time, the Queen rejected them. Haughtily. Adding arrogance to hard-heartedness. Using cruelty to console herself for the pain she was suffering. She continued to scrutinize the assembled group, her eye still glued to her fan. At last she gave up the quest. Gabrielle de Polignac was not there; the Queen had no reason to linger. She turned her back on us.

I went over to a window and opened it without attracting attention. I did not want to be considered a foolhardy troublemaker. But everyone was too taken up with unhappy private thoughts to take any notice of me. I leaned out. There, in the morning light, pointed like a magnetic compass toward the place where the Queen was, her unrequited lover waited. He caught sight of me and shouted: “You, there, the bookworm: don’t look at me!”

I hastily pulled back into the room. Out there in the gardens, the madman walked away.

I felt even more lost, more orphaned, than I had before the Council meeting adjourned. So the Queen was not leaving after all. She must have given up the idea of going to Metz. Jacob-Nicolas Moreau, who was not in favor of the proposed departure, said to me:

“A queen is not an ordinary private citizen. She may not dispose of her person simply as she wishes. It would have been a shocking thing for her to cast herself and her family out upon the highways like that. Suppose they had been attacked along the road, perhaps been injured . . . It might well have happened, for you heard Marshal de Broglie as well as I did: he is no longer in a position to offer them the protection of the army. It’s as I told you yesterday. I said then: ‘We are doomed.’ The defeat of the Court is irreversible.”

“But when she opted for departure, the Queen was refusing to admit that the game was already over. She was ready to take the risks you describe, in order to preserve royalty.”

“The game is over. From here on, greatness lies only in accepting divine punishment. The Nobles are going to suffer, but they deserve to. They have been selfish and profligate, neglecting every charitable obligation. They have turned a deaf ear to the lamentations of the poor. Now the poor are taking their revenge and justly so. There comes a day when the poor can no longer put up with being poor.”

“This is all happening so suddenly. I’m frightened . . . ”

“We should have taken fright sooner. When the Lord smites us, it is never done treacherously. He sends warnings. Remember, almost exactly one year ago, on July 13, 1788, there was that murderous hailstorm . . . God caused the sky to rain pieces of ice, each one the shape and size of a dagger. Remember, my dear Agathe.”

I tried to take his hand in mine. But when I reached out, what I grasped was the handle of his satchel.

In the Hall of Mirrors, I found that most of the courtiers were gone. I was surprised to see the Marquess de La Suze, standing alone and forgotten. As Grand Marshal of the Royal Household, he held the key post governing life at Versailles: he was the one who assigned living quarters. Monsieur de La Suze was accustomed to being the object of innumerable requests, outrageous flattery, and obsequious fawning, and he had developed various strategies for escaping his petitioners. He had no strategy for dealing with the unprecedented situation that finds you in a room where no one comes and speaks to you. The crowd had dispersed without so much as glancing at him. Monsieur de La Suze did not know what to do with himself. A little prompting, and he would have walked over to chat with me. He pushed aside a curtain and looked idly out over the grounds. Simply to conceal his discomfiture. He ought to have gone away like the others but could not bring himself to do so. He was finally rescued from this dilemma when one of his servants requested his attention. The Marquess turned around. A servant! When was the last time anyone had seen a servant? And this was a likeable fellow: his name was Sautemouche, and he had just come back from Paris.

“Well, now, Sautemouche, tell me: how fares it, in Paris?” Monsieur de La Suze inquired with a smile.

“Very well indeed, My Lord, everything is proceeding quite smoothly. The people took control of the Bastille in so orderly and methodical a fashion that it compels admiration. Messieurs de Launay and du Puget were condemned to be beheaded. Their sentence was carried out with no loss of time. Their heads, as had been decided beforehand, were paraded through the streets on the end of a pike.”

Angst . . . I could feel a great weight pressing on my chest and, forming in beads from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine, sweat that was not induced by heat. I was having difficulty swallowing . . . as when an insect, inhaled accidentally, swells and struggles in your throat, then subsides, lies still, and nests there forever . . . Angst . . . I wiped the sweat from my brow . . . And I remembered a summer at