Alexandre Dumas

“ When a man has rightful heirs he can not give away his property to outsiders."
"You are wrong, Pitou; he can."
"Then he ought not."
"I have no heirs," replied Billet, with a dark cloud passing over his face.
"No heirs? How about heiresses, then? What do you call Miss Catherine?"
"I do not know anybody of that name, Pitou."
"Come, come, farmer, do not say such things; you make me sad."
"Pitou, from the time when something is mine, it is mine to give away; in the same way, should I die, what I leave to you will be yours, to deal with as you please, to be given away as freely." ”

“ King and queen spoke together.
"The palace is surrounded, and the people are making this uproar in wanting to see you."
"We shall not leave you, sire," said the queen and Princess Elizabeth.
"Will the king kindly allow me for an hour such power as a captain has over his ship?" asked Gilbert.
"I grant it," replied the monarch. "Madame, hearken to Doctor Gilbert's advice, and obey his orders, if needs must." He turned to the doctor: "Will you answer to me for the queen and the dauphin?"
"I do, or I shall die with them; it is all a pilot can say in the tempest!" ”

“ Alas! it had taken many grave events to bring the flame of Viscount Charny, the mother of little Isidore, to become Mistress Pitou.
Everybody was chattering over these events; but in whatever manner they related and discussed them, there was always something to the greater glory of the devotion of Ange Pitou and the good behavior of Billet's daughter.
Only, the more interesting the couple were, the more they were pitied.
Perhaps they were happier than any in the crowd; but human nature is inclined that way—it must pity or applaud! ”

“ For me a king is not solely a man who may say, 'I do not wish,' but one who can say, 'Thus I will.'"
She alluded to the famous veto which led to this crisis.
"Yes, madame," said Gilbert, "and for your majesty, a king is a ruler who takes revenge."
"Who defends himself," she retorted; "for you know we are openly threatened, and are to be attacked by an armed force. We are assured that five hundred desperadoes from Marseilles, headed by one Barbaroux, took an oath on the ruins of the Bastile, not to go home until they had camped on the ruins of the Tuileries." ”

“ When Gilbert came, he had been wrestling with his wife, who guessed that the massacre was determined upon. He had told her that she talked like a woman in asking him to die rather than let the red tide flow on.
"You say that you will die of the stain, and that my sons will blush for me. No; they will be men some day, and if true Dantons, they will carry their heads high; if weak, let them deny me. If I let them commence the massacre by me, for opposing it, do you know what will become of the revolution between that blood-thirsty maniac, Marat, and that sham utopist, Robespierre? ”

“ Alone on the horizon stood the red guillotine, with the king at the foot of the scaffold on which it rose.
In a materialistic era, when such a man as Danton was the head of the indulgent party, it was difficult for the wish not to be outrun by the deed; yet only a few of the Convention comprehended that royalty should be extirpated, and not the royal person slain.
Royalty was a somber abstraction, a menacing mystery of which men were weary, a whited sepulcher, fair without, but full of rottenness. ”

“ Tell me so, madame, I will forthwith hand my resignation to the king, and go and wail the fate of my country and its ruler in some nook."
"No, no," said the queen; "remain, and excuse me."
"Do you ask me to excuse you? Oh, madame, I entreat you not to humble yourself thus."
[Pg 35]
"Why should I not be humble? Am I still a queen? am I yet treated like a woman?"
Going to the window, she opened it in spite of the evening coolness; the moon silvered the leafless trees of the palace gardens.
"Are not the air and the sunshine free to all? ”

“ Do you admit that a nation, believing itself oppressed, should have the right to disestablish its church, lower or even demolish the throne, fight and make itself free?"
"Not a doubt of it."
"Then it has the right to gather in the spoils of the victory?"
"Yes, Billet; but not to compass such things with murder and violence. Remember that it is written, 'Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor.'"
"But the king was no neighbor of mine," returned Billet; "he was my enemy. I remember what my poor mother read me in the Bible of what Samuel said to the Israelites who asked him to appoint a king." ”

“ The king went back into the palace, a downright retreat—almost a flight. When he got to his private rooms he dropped, puffing and blowing, into an easy-chair.
Stopping by the door, the queen looked around for some support. She spied Charny standing up by the door of her own rooms, and she went over to him.
"Ah, all is lost!" she moaned.
"I am afraid so, my lady," replied the Life Guardsman.
"Can we not still flee?"
"It is too late."
"What is left for us to do, then?"
"We can but die," responded Charny, bowing.
The queen heaved a sigh, and went into her own rooms. ”

“ We will compromise the Assembly and Commune and the people of Paris. We must soak Paris in blood; for you understand that Paris is the brain of France, or of Europe, so that Paris, feeling that there is no forgiveness possible for her, will rise like one man, urge France before her, and hurl the enemy off the sacred soil."
"But you are not a Frenchman; what odds is it to you?" asked Gilbert.
"You were not an American, but you were glad to have the rebel Paul Jones take you to America and aid the rebels to free the Colonies from the British yoke. ”

“ Mme. Campan was waiting. She whispered to her: "How I wish I dwelt in a tower by the sea!"
The abandoned attendants looked at each other and seemed to say, "Is this the monarch for whom we came here to die?"
Colonel Chesnaye understood this mute inquiry, for he answered:
"No, gentlemen, it was for royalty. The wearer of the crown is mortal, but the principle imperishable."
The queen's ladies were terrified. They looked like so many marble statues standing in the corners and along the lobbies.
At last the king condescended to remember those he was casting off. ”

“ This note evidently agreed with the secret wishes of the king and the queen. Dumouriez laughed at it. But he took it to the king.
As much as Marie Antoinette, the woman for extreme measures, desired a war which she believed one of deliverance for her, the king feared it, as the man for the medium, slowness, wavering, and crooked policy. Indeed, suppose a victory in the war, he would be at the mercy of the victorious general; suppose a defeat, and the people would hold him responsible, cry treason, and rush on the palace! ”

“ What is transpiring is not an intrigue of the Duke of Orleans, as you are led to think; not the effect of Pitt's hatred, as you have supposed; not even the outcome of popular impulse, but the almost unanimous insurrection of a great nation against inveterate abuses. I grant that there is in all this great hates which fan the flames. Leave the lunatics and the villains on one side; let us see nothing in this revolution in progress but the king and the nation, all tending to separate them brings about their mutual ruin. ”

“ Believe me, in the mortal strife preparing between hatred, fear, revenge, fanaticism, few will remain unspotted; some will be fouled with mud, some with blood. Go, my friends, go!"
"But France?" said the doctor.
"Yes, France?" echoed Billet.
"Materially," said Cagliostro, "France is saved; the external enemy is baffled, the home one dead. The Revolution holds the ax in one hand and the tri-colored flag in the other. Go in tranquillity, for before she lays them down, the aristocracy will be beheaded, and Europe conquered. Go, my friends, go to your second country, America!" ”

“ I appreciate the devotion which made you leave those dear to you, to offer your services to a foreigner."
"The queen is unjust toward me," replied Charny. "My sovereign's existence is always the most precious of all in my eyes, as duty is always the dearest of virtues."
"Duty—yes, my lord," murmured the queen; "but I believe I understand my own when everybody is bent on doing theirs. It is to maintain royalty grand and noble, [Pg 73] and to have it fall worthily, like the ancient gladiators, who studied how to die with grace."
"Is this your majesty's last word?" ”

“ The first minister's place is not what it was. Without ceasing to be your majesty's faithful servant on entering the post, I become the man of the nation. From this day, do not expect the language my predecessors used; I must speak according to the Constitution and liberty. Confined to my duties, I shall not play the courtier; I shall not have the time, and I drop all etiquette so as to better serve the king. I shall only work with you in private or at the council—and I warn you that it will be hard work. ”

“ The queen drew a pair of scissors from her bosom, where they were hidden like a weapon to be used in an extremity.
"Then would you kindly—" She spoke almost supplicatingly, as she held out the joined blades to the mourner.
Andrea cut a lock of hair from the corpse's brow, and handed it and the instrument to the other. She caught her hand and kissed it, but Andrea snatched away hers, as though the lips of her royal mistress had scorched her.
"Ah!" muttered the queen, throwing a last glance on the remains, "who can tell which of us loved him the most?" ”

“ The king, the queen, and I take meals together, ringing for what we want. Madame Campan brings us what we like, secretly, and hides it under the table; we pretend to eat the usual things while the servants are in the room. This is how we live, sir; and yet the queen and I tremble every instant lest the king should turn pale and cry out he was in pain."
"Let me say at once, madame," returned the doctor, "that I do not believe in these threats of poisoning; but in any event, I am under his majesty's orders. What does the king desire? That I should have lodgings in the palace? ”

“ The queen smiled; as a woman, she was not sorry to hear another woman decried who just then was widely talked about.
"But her talent, her parts, her merits?"
"She is good and generous, madame; none of her enemies would remain so after a quarter of an hour's conversation."
"I speak of her genius, sir; politics are not managed by the heart."
"Madame, the heart spoils nothing, not even in politics; but let us not use the word genius rashly. Madame de Stael has great and immense talent, but it does not rise to genius; she is as iron to the steel of her master, Rousseau. ”

“ Good—yes," exclaimed the young man, who began to understand; "then, if anything bad happens to you—But how stupid I am; nothing bad could happen to you."
"You yourself said just now that we are all mortal."
"So I did; but—well, I do not know but that you are right. I take the will, Master Billet; but is it true that if I fall heir, I can do as I please with the property?"
"No doubt, since it will be yours. And, you understand, you are a sound patriot, Pitou; they will not stand you off from it, as they might folk who have connived with the aristocrats." ”

“ But some recompense had come to the proud lady, after the six years' wedded life to the very man she adored, though fate and misunderstanding had estranged them. On learning what a martyr she had been through the unconscious motherhood, Count George had more than forgiven her—he worshiped her; and in their country seat at Boursonnes, eighteen miles from Paris, he was forgetting, in her lovely arms the demands of his queen, his king, and his caste, to use his influence in the political arena. ”

“ I wish to ask you, therefore, whether we have most to hope or to fear?"
"Little to hope, madame, and everything to fear."
"The mob is really marching upon the palace?"
"The front of the column is in the Carrousel, parleying with the Swiss Guards."
"Parleying? but I gave the Swiss the express order to meet brute force with force. Are they disobeying?"
"Nay, madame; the Swiss will die at their posts."
"And we at ours. The same as the Swiss are soldiers at the service of kings, kings are the soldiers at the beck of royalty." ”

“ But the king was a different matter; a man who was far from interesting in his prosperity, but purified by misfortune and made great by captivity. Even on the queen the magic of adversity was such that she had learned, not to love—for her broken heart was a shattered vase from which the precious ointment had leaked out—but to venerate and adore, in the religious sense of the word, this prince, though a man whose bodily appetite and vulgar instincts had so often caused her to blush. ”

“ It was the queen, and he bowed.
"Has the queen doubted the sincerity of my offers?"
"Oh, sir, so many heads and hearts have turned in this tempestuous wind, that one knows not whom to trust."
"Which is why your majesty receives from the Feuillants Club a Premier shaped by the Baroness de Stael?"
"You know that?" cried the royal lady, starting.
[Pg 21]
"I know your majesty is pledged to take Count Louis de Narbonne."
"And, of course, you blame me?"
"No; it is a trial like others. When the king shall have tried all, he may finish by the one with whom he should have commenced." ”

“ Instead of attracting dissenters, Louis XVI., in going up to them, seemed expressly made to show how little glamour majesty can lend a man who has no genius or strength of mind.
Here, as in the rooms, when the Royalists managed to get up a shout of "Long live the king!" an immense hurrah for the nation replied to them.
The Royalists being dull enough to persist, the patriots overwhelmed them with "No, no, no; no other ruler than the nation!"
And the king, almost supplicating, added: "Yes, my sons, the nation and the monarch make but one henceforward." ”

“ Danton was the gong of riots; the blow he received he imparted vibratingly to all the multitude around him. Through Hebert he was linked to the populace, as by the Duke of Orleans he was affixed to the throne.
Whence came his power, doomed to be so fatal to royalty? To the queen, the spiteful Austrian who had not liked Lafayette to be mayor of Paris, but preferred Petion, the Republican, who had no sooner brought back the fugitive king to the Tuileries than he set to watch him closely. ”