"I am paid, but not bought," said Mirabeau, as he received his first payment. "Only one of my conditions is fulfilled, but what will become of the other?"
"And so you still insist on having an audience with the queen?" asked La Marck.
"Yes, I insist upon it," said Mirabeau, with naming eyes. "If I am to battle and speak for this monarchy, I must learn to respect it.
If I am to believe in the possibility of restoring it, I must believe in its capacity of life; I must see that I have to deal with a brave, decided, noble man. The true and real king here is Marie Antoinette; and there is only one man in the whole surroundings of Louis XVI., and that is his wife. I must speak with her, in order to hear and to see whether she is worth the risking of my life, honor, and popularity. If she really is the heroine that I hold her to be, we will both united save the monarchy, and the throne of Louis XVI., whose king is Marie Antoinette. The moment is soon to come when we shall learn what a woman and a child can accomplish, and whether the daughter of Maria Theresa with the dauphin in her arms cannot stir the hearts of the French as her great mother once stirred the Hungarians." [Footnote:Mirabeau's own words.--See "Marie Antoinette et sa Famille." Far M. de Lescure. p. 478.]
"Do you then believe the danger is so great," asked La Marck, "that it is necessary to resort to extreme, heroic measures?"
Mirabeau grasped his arm with a sudden movement, and an expression of solemn earnestness filled his lion-like face. "I am convinced of it," he answered, "and I will add, the danger is so great, that if we do not soon meet it and in heroic fashion, it will not be possible to control it. There is no other security for the queen than through the reestablishment of the royal authority. I believe of her, that she does not desire life without her crown, and I am certain that, in order to keep her life, she must before all things preserve her crown. And I will help her and stand by her in it; and for this end I must myself speak with her and have an audience."
[Footnote: Mirabeau's own words.--See Count de la Marck, "Mirabeau," vol. 21. p. 50.]
And Mirabeau, the first man in the revolution had his audience with Marie Antoinette, the dying champion of monarchy.
On the 3rd of July, 1790, the meeting of the queen and Mirabeau took place in the park of St. Cloud. Secrecy and silence surrounded them, and extreme care had been taken to let no one suspect, excepting a few intimate friends, what was taking place on this sequestered, leaf-embowered grass-plat of St. Cloud.
A bench of white marble, surrounded by high oleander and taxus trees, stood at the side of this grass-plat. It was the throne on which Marie Antoinette should receive the homage of her new knight.
Mirabeau had on the day before gone from Paris to the estate of his niece, the Marchioness of Aragan. There he spent the night; and the next morning, accompanied by his nephew, M. de Saillant, he walked to the park of St. Cloud.
At the nether gate of the park, which had been left open for this secret visit, Mirabeau took leave of his companion, and extended him his hand.
"I do not know," he said, and his voice, which so often had made the windows of the assembly hall shake with its thunder, was now weak and tremulous, "I do not know why this dreadful presentiment creeps over me all at once, and why voices whisper to me, 'Turn, back, Mirabeau, turn back! Do not step over the threshold of this door, for there you are stepping into your open grave!' "
"Follow this voice, uncle, there is still time," implored M. de Saillant; "it is with me as it is with you. I, too, have a sad, anxious feeling!"
"May they not have laid snares for me here?" whispered Mirabeau, thoughtfully. "They are capable of every thing, these artful Bourbons. Who knows whether they have not invited me here to take me prisoner, and to cast me, whom they hold to be their most dangerous enemy, into one of their oubliettes, their subterranean dungeons? My friend," he continued, hastily, "wait for me here, and if in two or three hours I do not return, hasten to Paris, go to the National Assembly, and announce to them that Mirabeau, moved by the queen's cry of distress, has gone to St. Cloud, and is there held a prisoner."
"I will do it, uncle," said the marquis, "but I do not believe in any such treachery on the part of the queen or her husband. They both know that without Mirabeau they are certainly lost, and that he, perhaps, is able to save them. I fear something entirely different."
"And what do you fear?"
"I fear your enemies in the National Assembly," said M. de Saillant, and with a pained expression. "I fear these enraged republicans, who have begun to mistrust you since you have begun to speak in favor of royalty and mon archy, and since you have even ventured to defend the queen personally against the savage and mean attacks which Marat hurls against Marie Antoinette in his journal, the Ami du Peuplt."
"It is true," said Mirabeau, with a smile, "they have mistrusted me, these enraged republicans, since then, and they tell me that Petion, this republican of steel and iron, turned to Danton at the close of my speech, and said: 'This Mirabeau is dangerous to liberty, for there is too much of the blood of the count flowing through the veins of the tribune of the people. Danton answered him with a smile: 'In that case we must draw off the count's blood from the tribune of the people, that he may either be cured of his reactionary disease or die of it!'"
"And when they told Marat, uncle, that you had spoken angrily and depreciatingly of his attacks upon the queen, he raised his fist threateningly, and cried: 'Mirabeau is a traitor, who wants to sell our new, young liberty to the monarchy. But he will meet the fate of Judas, who sold the Saviour. He will one day atone for it with his head, for if we tap him for his treachery, we shall do for him what Judas did for himself. This Mirabeau Judas must take care of himself."