More and more horrible, more and more wild became the cries of the rival partisans. Already embittered and exasperated faces were confronting each other, and here and there clinched fists were seen, threatening to bring a shouting neighbor to silence by the use of violence.
The queen, trembling in every limb, had let her head fall powerlessly on her breast, in order that no one might see the tears which ran from her eyes over her death-like cheeks.
"0 God," whispered she, "we are lost, hopelessly lost, for not merely our enemies injure us, and bring us into danger, but our friends still more. Why must that woman turn to me and direct her words to me? She wanted to give me a triumph, and yet she has brought me a new humiliation." Suddenly she shrank back and raised her head. She had caught the first tones of that sharp, mocking voice, which had already pierced her heart, the voice of that evil demon who now occupied the place of the good Princess Lamballe.
The voice cried: "The people of Paris are right. We want no queen!
And more than all other things, no mistress! Only slaves acknowledge masters over them. If the Dugazont ventures to sing again, 'I love my queen, I love my mistress,' she will be punished as slaves are punished--that is, she will be flogged!"
"Bravo, Marat, bravo!" roared Santerre, with his savage rabble.
"Bravo, Marat, bravo!" cried his friends in the boxes; "she shall be flogged!"
Marat bowed on all sides, and turned his eyes, gleaming with scorn and hatred, toward the royal box, and menaced it with his clinched fists.
"But not alone shall the singer be flogged," cried he, with a voice louder and sharper than before--"no, not alone shall the singer be flogged, but greater punishment have they deserved who urge on to such deeds. If the Austrian woman comes here again to turn the heads of sympathizing souls with her martyr looks, if she undertakes again to move us with her tears and her face, we will serve her as she deserves, we will go whip in hand into her box!" [Footnote:
Goneourt's "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 365.]
The queen rose from her chair like an exasperated lioness, and advanced to the front of the box. Standing erect, with flaming looks of anger, with cheeks like purple, she confronted them there--the true heir of the Caesars, the courageous daughter of Maria Theresa--and had already opened her lips to speak and overwhelm the traitor with her wrath, when another voice was heard giving answer to Marat.
It cried: "Be silent, Marat, be silent. Whoever dares to insult a woman, be she queen or beggar, dishonors himself, his mother, his wife, and his daughter. I call on you all, I call on the whole public, to take the part of a defenceless woman, whom Marat ventures to mortally insult.
You all have mothers and wives; you may, perhaps, some day have daughters. Defend the honor of woman! Do not permit it to be degraded in your presence. Marat has insulted a woman; we owe her satisfaction for it. Join with me in the cry, 'Long live the queen!
Long live Marie Antoinette!'"
And the public, carried away with the enthusiasm of this young, handsome man, who had risen in his box, and whose slender, proud figure towered above all--the public broke into one united stirring cry: "Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!"
Marat, trembling with rage, his countenance suffused with a livid paleness, sank back in his chair.
"I knew very well that Barnave was a traitor," he whispered. "I shall remember this moment, and Barnave shall one day atone for it with his head."
"Barnave, it is Barnave," whispered the queen to herself. "He has rescued me from great danger, for I was on the point of being carried away by my wrath, and answering the monster there as he deserves."
"Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!" shouted the public.
Marie Antoinette bowed and greeted the audience on all sides with a sad smile, but not one look did she cast to the box where Barnave sat, with not one smile did she thank him for the service he had done her. For the queen knew well that her favor brought misfortune to those who shared it; that he on whom she bestowed a smile was the object of the people's suspicion.
The public continued to shout her name, but the queen felt herself exhausted, and drawing back from the front of the box, she beckoned to her companion. "Come," she whispered, "let us go while the public are calling 'Long live Marie Antoinette!' Who knows whether they will not be shouting in another minute, 'Away with the queen! we want no queen!' It pains my ear so to hear that, so let us go."
And while the public were yet crying, Marie Antoinette left the box and passed out into the corridor, followed by Mademoiselle Bugois and the two officers in attendance. But the corridor which the queen had to pass, the staircase which she had to descend in order to reach her carriage, were both occupied by a dense throng. With the swiftness of the wind the news had spread through Paris that the queen was going to visit the opera that evening, and that her visit would not take place without witnessing some extraordinary outbreak.
The royalists had hastened thither, to salute the queen, and at least to see her on the way. The curious, the idle, and the hostile-minded had come to see what should take place, and to shout as the majority might shout. The great opera-house had therefore not accommodated half who wanted to be present, and all those who had been refused admittance had taken their station on the stairway and the corridor, or before the main entrance. And it was natural that those who stood before the door should, by their merely being there, excite the curiosity of passers-by, so that these, too, stood still, to see what was going on, and all pressed forward to the staircase to see every thing and to hear every thing.