"I thank you, count, I thank you!" cried Marie Antoinette, rising from her seat. "Now, I doubt no more about the future, for my own thoughts coincide with those of our greatest statesmen! I, too, am convinced the court ought to leave Paris--that it must withdraw, in order to escape new humiliations, and that it ought to return only in the splendor of its power, and with an army to put the rebels to flight, and breathe courage into the timid and faithful. Oh! you must tell the king all this; you must show him that our removal from Paris is not only a means of salvation to the crown, but to the people as well. Your words will convince the noblest and best of monarchs; he will follow your counsels, and, thanks to you, not we alone, but the monarchy will be saved! No, go to the work, count! Be active in our behalf; bring your unbounded influence, in favor of the king and queen, to bear upon all spirits, and be sure that we shall be grateful to you so long as we live. Farewell, and remember that my eye will follow all your steps, and that my ears will hear every word which Mirabeau shall speak in the National Assembly."
Mirabeau bowed respectfully. "Madame," said he, "when your exalted mother condescended to favor one of her subjects with an audience, she never dismissed him without permitting the favored one respectfully to kiss her hand."
"It is true," replied Marie Antoinette, with a pleasant smile, "and in this, at least, I can follow the example of my great mother!"
And, with inimitable grace, the queen extended her hand to him.
Mirabeau, enraptured, beside himself at this display of courtesy and favor, dropped upon his knee and pressed his lips to the delicate, white hand of the queen.
"Madame," cried he, with warmth, "this kiss saves the monarchy!"
[Mirabeau's own words.--See "Memoires de Mirabeau," vol iv., p.
208.]
"If you have spoken the truth, sir," said the queen, with a sigh, rising and dismissing him, with a gentle inclination of her head.
With excited and radiant looks, Mirabeau returned to his nephew, who was waiting for him at the gate of the park.
"Oh!" said he, with a breath of relief, laying his hand upon the shoulder of Saillant, "what have I not heard and seen! She is very great, very noble, and very unhappy, Victor! But," cried he, with a loud, earnest voice, "I will save her--I will save her!" [Footnote:
"Marie Antoinette et sa Famille," p 480.]
Mirabeau was in earnest in this purpose; and not because he had been bought over, but because he had been won--carried away with the noble aspect of the queen--did he become from this time a zealous defender of the monarchy, an eloquent advocate in behalf of Marie Antoinette. But he was not now able to restrain the dashing waves of revolution; he could not even save himself from being engulfed in these raging waves.
Mirabeau knew it well, and made no secret of the peril of his position. On the day when, before the division, he spoke in defence of the monarchy and the royal prerogative, and undertook to decide the question of peace or war--on that day he first announced himself openly for the king, and raised a storm of excitement and disgust in the National Assembly. Still he spoke right bravely in behalf of the crown; and while doing so, he cried, "I know well that it is only a single step from the capitol to the Tarpeian rock!"
Step after step! And these successive steps Mirabeau was soon to take. Petion had not in vain characterized Mirabeau as the most dangerous enemy of the republic. Marat had not asserted, without knowing what he said, that Mirabeau must let all his aristocratic blood flow from his veins, or bleed to death altogether! Not with impunity could Mirabeau encounter the rage of parties, and fling down the gauntlet before them, saying, at the same moment, "He would defend the monarchy against all attacks, from what side soever, and from what part soever of the kingdom they might come."
The leaders of the republican factions knew very well how to estimate the power of Mirabeau; they knew very well that Mirabeau was able to fit together the fragments of the crown which he had helped to break. And, to prevent his doing this, they knew that he must be buried beneath these fragments.
Soon after his interview with the queen--after his dissenting speech in behalf of the prerogative of the king--Mirabeau began to fail in health. His enemies said that it was only the result of over-exertion, and a cold which he had brought on by drinking a glass of cold water during a speech, in the National Assembly. His friends whispered about a deadly poison which had been mingled with this glass of water, in order to rid themselves of this powerful and dangerous opponent.
Mirabeau believed this; and the increasing torpor of his limbs, the pains which he felt in his bowels, appeared to him to be the sure indications of poison given him by his enemies.