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

or being gutted by their farm people—many were coming from no farther afield than Paris or places even closer.

There was one woman who had only come from nearby Villed’Avray and had had the merest brush with danger, but because she spoke in a loud voice and was red-faced and voluminous, she nevertheless contrived to interest one and all in her epic narrative. She was the widow of a Farmer-General of Royal Taxes, and since the death of her husband, she had ceased to keep abreast of political events. Hence, on the morning of July 14, when an express messenger had arrived from Paris and handed her a note to the effect that Paris was in the throes of upheaval and that a troop of rebels had set out in the night to lay hands on her and her neighbor—Monsieur Thierry, the King’s Personal Valet—and carry them forcibly away, she was stunned. Monsieur Thierry, who was a more plausible candidate than herself for being carried forcibly away, had taken to his heels without asking for details, so that she found herself alone with her daughter. Agony! That’s what she had endured, sheer agony! It was written right there on that paper: they intended to carry her off and burn her house down. Prompt action was called for. She had taken with her, besides her daughter, only one servant woman and had left all the other domestics where they were. The three women had started to bury the good plate but finally, unequal to the task, had left orders with some of the servants to do it for them. (“You can imagine how well my instructions will be followed!”) Agony! It had been nothing less than agony! The only money she had brought away was five thousand livres and a pocketbook of valuable papers . . . It wasn’t much to manage on for several days; it was too much, if she started to think about robbers. Well, now, the fact was that during the entire journey she had thought of nothing but robbers. When they arrived at Versailles, the torment had reached the limit of what a person could bear. For one thing, where were they supposed to sleep? Three women, including a fearfully squint-eyed servant . . . On the first night, that wretch of a Jeannon had led them to a hovel, and the next day, before vanishing into the blue, she had led them to a den of thieves. This was what things had come to. This was where that slattern of a Jeannon had taken them. Everything in that pigsty was on the side of the rebels: the campbeds, the filth, the bedbugs. Look, just look . . . She stuck out her chin, not, in her case, an attractive feature. People were starting to wish they could interrupt her. But the stream of words resumed. In the course of the journey there had been a hundred moments when she was sure she was going to die. Every time she had encountered two or three country people in a group, or a merchant had doffed his hat to her, she was sure they were going to kill her. And she was still convinced it was so. Nothing could rid her mind of that notion: they were out to kill her.

“But the fact is they spared you. You did not die,” I said, because I did not care for the way this woman, in the throes of her “agony,” clung to me, squeezed my hands, and treated me exactly the way one might mangle a handkerchief or twist one’s dress in a fit of despair.

My observation was taken as a piece of insolence. The new arrivals, who throughout all her lamentations had shown no sympathy for the Farmer-General’s widow, were suddenly in league with her. They loathed our view of the situation, the attitude, in their eyes, of a privileged, protected group. We had stayed snug in the château. We did not know what was happening out there. If proof were needed, it lay in our readiness to flee, to choose the attacks of highwaymen over the comfort of our indolent existence in the lap of luxury. Whereas they had seen how things were. They had the right to state an opinion. We were to keep our opinions to ourselves and help them. That was all they expected of us.

I said no more. The lady let go of my hands. Her daughter fanned her and settled her comfortably so she could give her full attention to the terrible adventure of a Noble Representative. He began by expressing agreement with the lady’s point of view. The roads were indeed dangerous and the peasants armed. The most frightful events, however, were taking place in the capital city, seat of the insurrection and source of the torrent of violence threatening the entire country. Unlike the lady, who was still extremely upset and had not stopped weeping and wailing, the Representative had initially shown a certain cool detachment, as though he were giving a well-prepared public speech. But, with his very first words, his confidence deserted him. He could only stammer out a few phrases, to the effect that the populace had stopped the coach he had hired to come back from the Assembly. After that, everything had happened very quickly. He had been taken to City Hall through a crowd of armed people. On the Place de la Grève, where criminals were executed, they had shown him the black-clad body of a decapitated man, and said, “See that? That’s Monsieur de Launay. What’s left of Monsieur de Launay. Take a good look, because in a little while you’ll be just like him.”

The man was shaking, speaking incoherently. The saber that takes your head off in one sweeping blow, the hands tightening around your neck to strangle you, the rope being slipped over your head: to them, these things were tangible and concrete. They made it clear that they considered us soft,