The two most popular men in France, Lafayette and Mirabeau, again became royalists.

  Mirabeau had said to Lafayette, “Let us unite, and save the king.”

  Lafayette was essentially an honest man, but had a narrow mind. He despised the character of Mirabeau, and did not comprehend his genius.

  He went to see the Duke of Orleans.

  .Much has been said of his royal highness; even that at night, in a slouched hat, hiding his eyes, he had been seen to excite, brandishing a switch, the crowd collected in the marble court, inducing them to pillage the castle, and trusting that the grand finale would be death.

  To the Duke of Orleans Mirabeau was everything.

  Instead of uniting with Mirabeau, Lafayette went to the duke and invited him to leave Paris. The duke hesitated, argued, contended, and became angry.

  Lafayette was so much of a king, that it was necessary to obey.

  “And when do I return?”

  “When I think proper, prince, that you should.”

  “But if, monsieur, I become weary, and return without your leave, what will be the consequence?”

  “Then,” said Lafayette, “I shall expect your royal highness will fight with me the next day.”

  The duke left, and did not return until he was sent for.

  Lafayette was not much of a royalist before the 5th and 6th of October, when he really and sincerely changed his opinion. He had saved the king, and protected the queen.

  We become bound to persons by services we render them, not by those we receive. The reason of this is, that men are rather proud than grateful. During the few days which passed, during which the new inmates of the Tuileries had become established and resumed their old habits, Gilbert, not having been sent for by the king, had not thought proper to visit him; at last, his day of visit having come, he thought his duty would be an excuse, which he did not feel his devotion would.

  Louis XVI., too, knew in his own heart, in spite of the prejudices of the queen against Gilbert, that the doctor was his friend, if not absolutely the friend of royalty; the difference was unimportant.

  He then remembered that it was Gilbert’s day of visit, and had ordered him to be introduced as soon as he came.

  Scarcely had he crossed the door of the palace, than the valet de chambre arose, went to him, and accompanied him to the presence of the king.

  The king walked up and down, so immersed in thought that he paid no attention to the announcement.

  Gilbert stood silent and motionless at the door, waiting for the king to observe his presence.

  The object which interested him, and it was easily seen from his stopping from time to time to observe it, was the famous portrait of Charles I., by Vandyck, the same which is now at the Louvre, and which an Englishman proposed to cover with gold as its price.

  Charles I. is on foot under some of those rough hardy trees found on downs. A page holds his horse. The sea is in the distance. The head of the king is expressive of sadness. Of what did the unlucky Stuart think? His predecessor was the beautiful and unfortunate Mary of Scotland, and his successor will be James II.

  Often the king paused before the picture, and with a sigh resumed the walk, which always seemed ready to terminate in one place — the picture.

  At last, Gilbert remembered that there are occasions when it is better to announce one’s self than to stand still.

  He moaned, the king trembled, and looked around.

  “Ah, doctor, is it you? I am glad to see you. How long have you been here?”

  “Some moments, sire.”

  “Ah,” said the king, again becoming pensive.

  After a pause, he took Gilbert before the picture.

  “Do you know this picture?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “Where did you see it?”

  “At the house of Madame du Barry.”

  “Madame du Barry! Yes, that is it,” said the king.

  After another pause of some moments: “Know you the history of this picture?”

  “The subject, or the picture itself, does your majesty speak of?”

  “I speak of the history of the picture.”

  “No, sire, I only know that it was painted in London, about 1645 or 1646. I know no more, and am ignorant how it came into France, and how it is now in your majesty’s rooms.”

  “How it did pass into France, I know: how it came here, I know not.”

  Gilbert looked at Louis XVI. with astonishment.

  “Who has ordered it to be placed here? Why is it here, or rather, why does it pursue me, doctor?” said Louis XVI.; “lurks there no fatality beneath this?”

  “A fatality certainly, if this portrait says nothing to you, sire, but a providence if it speaks to you.”

  “How would you that such a portrait spoke not to a king in my situation, doctor?”

  “After having permitted me to speak the truth to you, will your majesty allow me to question you?”

  Louis XVI. seemed to hesitate a moment.

  “Question me, doctor,” said he.

  “What does this portrait say to your majesty, sire?”

  “It tells me that Charles the First lost his head for having made war upon his people, and that James the Second lost his throne for having neglected his own.”

  “In this case, the portrait is like myself, sire — it speaks the truth.”

  “Well, then?” asked the king, soliciting Gilbert with a look.

  “Since the king has permitted me to question him, I will ask him what answer he will make to a portrait that speaks so loyally?”

  “M. Gilbert,” said the king, “I give you my word as a gentleman that I have resolved nothing as yet; I shall take counsel of circumstances.”

  “The people fear, lest the king should think of making war on them.”

  Louis XVI. shook his head.

  “No, sir, no,” said he, “I could not make war on my people without employing foreign swords, and I know the state of Europe too well to tempt me to do that. The king of Prussia offered to enter France with a hundred thousand men, but I know the intriguing and ambitious spirit of this petty monarchy, which wishes to become a great kingdom, which pushes itself into every dispute, hoping that through some dispute she may acquire a part of new Silesia. Austria, on her side, placed a hundred thousand men at my disposal, but I loved not my brother-in-law, Leopold, a double-faced Janus, whose mother caused my father to be poisoned. My brother of Artois proposed to me the assistance of Sardinia and Spain, but I put no trust in these two powers led by my brother of Artois; he has about his person M. de Calonne, that is to say, the most cruel enemy of the queen. I know all that passes down there. In the last council, the question of deposing me and appointing a regent was discussed, who would probably be my other very dear brother, M. le Comte de Provence; in the last one, M. de Conde, my cousin, proposed to enter France, and to march upon Lyons, although he might himself, ultimately, ascend the throne. As for the great Catherine, that is another affair; she limits herself to advice, she — she gives me advice which seems perfect, and is after all ridiculous. ‘Above all, after what has passed during the last few days, kings,’ says she, ‘ought to pursue their way without troubling themselves with the cries of the people, as the moon pursues her path regardless of the bayings of dogs.’ It seems that Russian dogs are satisfied with merely barking; oh that she would send and ask at Deshuttes, and at Varicourt, if ours do not bite as well.”

  “The people fear lest the king should think of flying, of leaving France.”

  The king hesitated to reply.

  “Sire,” continued Gilbert, smiling, ‘‘one is always wrong in taking in a literal sense a king’s permission. I see that I have been indiscreet, and merely express a fear. “

  The king placed his hand on Gilbert’s shoulder.

  “Monsieur,” said he, “I promised to tell you the truth, and I will. Yes, the suggestion was made, and I will tell you the whole truth. Yes, it is the opinion of many loyal subjects, who surround me, that I should escape, but on the night of the 6th of October, when, weeping in my arms, and clasping her children in hers, and all of us expecting to die, she made me swear that I would never fly alone, that we sit, escape, and live or die together. I gave my oath, and, sir, I will keep it; now, as I do not think we could all fly together, without being taken before we reached the frontier, again and again, we will not attempt to do so.”

  “Sire, I am lost in admiration of the justness of your mind. Why cannot all France hear you, as I have done? How the hatred which pursues your majesty would be mollified! How all dangers would be removed!”

  “Dangers!” said the king; “think you that my people hate me? Dangers! You attach too much importance to sombre thoughts with which that picture filled my mind. I think I could tell you of greater dangers I have undergone.”

  Gilbert looked at the king with an expression of deep melancholy.

  “Think you not so, M. Gilbert?” asked Louis XVI.

  “My opinion is that your majesty is about to engage in a contest of great severity, and that the 14th of July and the 6th of October are but the two first acts of a terrible drama, to be played before the nations of the world by France.”

  Louis XVI. became slightly pale, and said: “I trust, sir, you are mistaken.”

  “I am not mistaken, sire.”

  “How, on a point of this nature, can you be better informed than I, who have both my police and counter-police?”

  “Sire, it is true I have neither police nor counter-police. My very profession, however, places me in contact both with the things of heaven and earth’s very core. Sire, what we have as yet experienced is but an earthquake. We have yet to face fire, lava, and the ashes of the volcano.”

  “You said face? Had you not better say combat with?”

  “I did, sire.”

  “You know my opinion of foreign lands, I will never invite them into France. What matters my life? — I will sacrifice it, unless the lives of my wife and children be in real danger.”

  “I thank God, sire, that you entertain similar sentiments. No, sire, we need no foreign power — what is the use of them as long as you have not exhausted your own resources? You fear that you have been excelled by the revolution?”

  “I own I do.”

  Well, there are two ways to save both Franco and the king.”

  ‘; Tell me, sir, and you will have deserved well of both.”

  “The first is to place yourself at the head of the revolution, and to direct it.”

  “They will drag me on with it, M. Gilbert. I do not wish to go.”

  “The second, is to put a bit in its mouth strong enough to break it.”

  “What bit is that, sir?”

  “Popularity and genius.”

  “And who shall forge that combination?”

  “Mirabeau.”

  He looked at Gilbert, as if he had misunderstood him.

  Gilbert saw there was a battle to be fought.

  The king turned towards the great Vandyck. “If you felt the earth tremble beneath you, and you were told to rely on Cromwell?”

  “Charles Stuart would have refused, and rightly. There is no similarity between Cromwell and Mirabeau.”

  “I do not know how you look at things, doctor, but to me there are no degrees of treason, and I find no difference between who is, and who is slightly a traitor.”

  “Sire,” said Gilbert, with deep respect, but at the same time with invincible firmness, “neither Cromwell nor Mirabeau are traitors.”

  “What, then, are they?” asked the king.

  “Cromwell was a rebellious subject, Mirabeau a malcontent gentleman.”

  “Why malcontent?”

  “On every account. Because his father shut him up in the Chateau d’If, and the Donjon of Vincennes. He was dissatisfied with courts that sentenced him to death, with the king, who did not understand his genius and was mistaken in him.”

  “The genius of a politician, M. Gilbert, is honesty.”

  “The reply, sire, is most apt and worthy of Titus Trajan, or Marcus Aurelius. Unfortunately experience contradicts it.”

  “How so?”

  “Was Augustus, who divided the world with Lepidus and Anthony, killed Anthony to have it all himself, honest? Was Charlemagne, when he placed his brother Carloman in a cloister, and who to destroy Witikind, almost as great a man as himself, cut off the heads of all Saxons longer than his sword, honest? Was Louis XI. who revolted against his father, to dethrone him, and who inspired such terror to Charles VII., of poison, that the prince died of hunger, honest? Was Richelieu, who formed plots in the alcoves and galleries of the Place de Greve, and which had their denouement in the Place de Greve, honest? Was Mazarin, who signed a treaty with the protector, and who refused a half million and five hundred men to Charles II., and also drove him from France, honest? Was Colbert, who betrayed, accused and sold Fouquet, his protector, and who, having sent him to die in a dungeon, occupied his scarcely warm seat, honest? Yet none of them, thank God, ever injured either kings or royalty.”

  “Doctor, you know very well that Mirabeau, being the friend of the Duke of Orleans, cannot be mine.”

  “But, sire, the Duke of Orleans being exiled, Mirabeau belongs to no one.”

  “Would you have me confide in a man who is in the market? How could I?”

  “By buying him. Could you not pay more than any one else?”

  “He is a cormorant, who would ask a million.”

  “If M. Mirabeau, sire, sells himself for a million, he will give himself away. So, you think, he is worth two millions less than a male or female Polignac?”

  “Doctor Gilbert!”

  “The king withdraws his promise, and I am silent.”

  “No; speak.” — ”I have spoken.”

  “Let us argue.”

  “I ask nothing better, sire. I know Mirabeau by heart.”

  “You are his friend, unfortunately. I have not that honour. Besides, M. Mirabeau has but one friend, who is also the friend of the queen.”

  “Yes! the Count de la Marck. I know it; we reproach him with the fact every day. Your majesty, on the contrary, should prohibit him, under pain of death, from ever quarrelling with him.”

  “And of what earthly importance in politics, doctor, is a petty gentleman like M. Riquetti de Mirabeau?”

  “First, sire, let me tell you, M. de Mirabeau is a nobleman, and not a petty gentleman. There are few nobles in France who date farther back than the eleventh century; since, to have yet a few around them, our kings exacted in requital of the honour of riding in their coaches no proof beyond 1399. Now, sire, a man descended from the Arrighetti of Florence is not a petty gentleman, even though, in consequence of the defeat of the Ghibellines, he should establish himself in France. A man is not a petty gentleman because he had an ancestor engaged in trade at Marseilles; the nobility of which city, like that of Venice, is not liable to derogation from having engaged in commerce.”

  “A debauchee in reputation: a hangman; a gulfer of money.”

  “Ah, sire! men must be taken according to their natures. The Mirabeaux have always been disorderly in their youth, but ripen in old age. When young, they are unfortunately what your majesty calls them, but when they become heads of houses, they are imperious, haughty, but austere. The king who did not reward them would be ungrateful; for they have furnished the army with gallant soldiers, and the navy with daring sailors. I know their provincial spirit makes them detest all centralization, and that in their half-feudal, half-republican pride they brave from the summit of their donjon keeps all ministerial orders. I know that more than once they have placed in restraint officers of the treasury who visited their estates, and equally disdained courtiers and clerks, farmers-general and clerks, valuing but two things on earth, their sword and farmers’ wagons. I know that one of them wrote, ‘Flunkeyism is the instinct of people of the court, with their plaster hearts and faces, just as ducks love the gutters.’ All this, however, sire, does not make a man a petty gentleman, but, on the contrary, may be the highest token of true nobility, though not, perhaps, of the highest moral sense.”

  “Come, doctor,” said the king, with something of mortification, for he fancied he knew men of importance better than any one else did; “you said you knew Mirabeau by heart. Go on, for I who know him not would learn.”

  “Yes, sire,” said Gilbert, pricked by the kind of irony evinced by the king’s intonation, “and I will tell you. That Bruno or Riquetti was a Mirabeau who, when M. de la Feuillade inaugurated the statue of Victory, in the square of Victory, with four chained nations, when marching by with his guards, paused and halted his regiment in front of the statue of Henry IV., taking off his hat, said,’ Let us salute this statue, for it is worth as much as the other.’ Francisco di Riquetti, who on his return from Malta, at the age of seventeen, found his mother, Anne de Poitiers, in mourning, asked her ‘why?’ his father having been dead sixteen years; and being told because she had been insulted — ’And did you not avenge yourself?’ said he. The mother said, ‘I wished to, and one day I placed a pistol at his head, and said I would avenge myself, but that I have a son who will do it for me.’ ‘You were right, mother,’ said the young man. Without taking off his boots, he asked for his horse and cap, girded on his sword, and went in search of the Chevalier de Griasque, of whom his mother complained. He challenged him; took him to a garden; locked the gates, and threw the keys over the wall. He killed him, and returned quietly home. He, too, was a Mirabeau, as also was the Marquis Jean Antoine, who was six feet high, and beautiful as Antinous and strong as Milo; yet to him his mother said, in her Provencal accent, ‘You are no longer men but dwarfs.’“

  “Well,” said Louis XVI., evidently captivated by this nervous and interesting anecdote; “you speak well,” for he was evidently amazed by the recital of this and other anecdotes of the Mirabeaux. “Yon have not told me how the Marquis Jean Antoine was killed, nor how he died.”

  “He died at the Castle of Mirabeau, after a sad retreat. The hold was on a strong rock, defending a double gorge, on which the north wind perpetually blew. He, too, had that stern and rugged exterior the Mirabeau family ever acquire as they grow old and educate their children, and keeping them at such a distance, that the eldest said, ‘I never had the honour to touch either hands, lips, or flesh of that excellent man.’ This eldest son was the father of the present Mirabeau. A hazard bird whose nest was made in four turrets, and who never would Versaillise themselves, which is the reason why your majesty neither knows, nor can do them justice.”