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

realization that the only protections Versailles had were its curtains, its wall hangings, and its shutters. This was a house of cards, a château of cards, collapsing noiselessly at the first breath of hostility. To stay was to get killed; that, uncoded, was the message conveyed by the wild migration I was now witnessing. Well, this deadfall, this mousetrap was suddenly being invaded by a multitude of individuals who were seeking refuge at Versailles, “in these parts,” as though, once within its gates, in the other world tangibly represented by the château, they were entering an impregnable fort. I wrote “multitude.” I am overstating. Their wrought-up condition, the look they had of people with the devil on their tail, made me think they were more numerous than they, in fact, were. Compared with the exodus of the “lodgers,” the refugees were in the minority, but in their greedy desire to put in at the safe haven they had steered for, they were every bit as frenzied as the people running away. I could tell from their bearing and attire that the newcomers were of noble birth. They were arriving for the most part as families, sometimes with a few servants, faithful souls who, seeing their master set off on this desperate venture, had clung to his coattails or else been carried along in spite of themselves from force of habit. These servants, though passive, increased the number of newcomers and made it even more difficult to move around. The people arriving and the ones leaving collided, had confrontations, stood their ground, pushed, and were pushed back with equal firmness, both sides fully determined not to give an inch. Suddenly, under pressure from farther back in the crowd, someone’s resistance would yield. Over the unlucky person’s body, a group of deserters would stream out or a few refugees would surge in. The new arrivals, once they got past the bottle neck and had the illusion of finally being safe, were inclined to be communicative. They dropped into comfortable chairs that other people were just about to heave up out of the way. They wanted to tell their story. And since the time for convoluted speech and apt turns of phrase was long gone, they launched wild-eyed straight into tales of châteaux in flames, looting, and manhunts. Count Grisac, a Representative of the Nobility to the Estates-General, had been returning home to his demesne in the province of Limousin. He had been recognized by his peasant farmers as he turned into the road that led to the little village. Hatred flared. They brandished their pitchforks as they shouted: “String him up! We’re going to hang you high, Your Lordship! We’re going to bust you open, bleed you like a stuck pig! We’re gonna get you, we’ll tear your heart out, we’ll have your guts to weave our baskets with.”

“ ‘We’ll have your guts to weave our baskets with’? Did they really say that?” asked a young woman wearing an immense hat. She was bending over a wicker trunk that she was trying to shut with a dog leash and did not turn around to pose her question.

“Well, yes, in their local dialect, of course.”

Two château servants who were crossing the salon arm in arm, striking the floor very noisily with their heels, burst into loud laughter (walking noisily was, I suppose, one of the lessons in the new Directions to Servants by the Irish Protestant Jonathan Swift; farther away, moreover, I noticed other domestics conscientiously breaking one of the feet on every chair). Count Grisac had a baby face and protruding eyes. The sound of the servants’ laughter made him uncontrollably angry. With his fist raised, he threw himself upon the two louts, who caught him from either side and neutralized him with a few punches. He came to rest on the floor, not far from the lady with the wicker trunk. She went through the motions of tucking her skirt more tightly to her body, as though to emphasize the boundaries to her personal dignity, as well as the fact that the misadventures of the fallen Count were no concern of hers. The Count, though thoroughly battered and still lying there, could not stop talking. His face no longer displayed any kind of emotion, while his mouth continued to say:

“Little Pierrot, the tenant farmer’s son, a lad who has played with my children, managed to clamber up onto the footboard and break the carriage window. I know the child very well, why, I can’t think of anyone I know better than young Pierrot, he’s the one, little Pierrot’s the one who on the anniversary of my birth date always comes and sings me a poem, made up by my villagers specially to please me, for they’re clever people, y’know, they’re not a bunch of boobies, not at all . . . ”

The lady had shut her trunk. She stood up and tried to slip out through the door, but once again it was badly blocked with people. At first she tried to push her trunk along bit by bit. Faced with a negative result, she made no further attempt to push it and waited for the surge of movement to carry it through. But nothing was moving. Suddenly changing her strategy, she looked consider-ingly at a window whose lower edge was level with a mezzanine a few steps up. She withdrew from the group of people petitioning to leave by way of the door and asked me to help her jump out and then throw her trunk out to her. I drew open for her a panel of the honey-colored curtains that hid the window, and she jumped. There was a crash, followed by tears.

They all wanted to tell their story and convince themselves that they really were still alive. From these tales I inferred that while there were some people who were arriving from far away, from big houses on country estates—and who had barely avoided perishing in burning buildings