"I must know every thing, every thing," said she. "Go on bringing me every thing, and do not be hindered by my tears. It is of course natural that I am sensitive to the evil words that are spoken about me, and to the bad opinion that is cherished toward me by a people that I love, and to win whose love I am prepared to make every sacrifice." [Footnote: The queen's own words.--See Malleville, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 197]
At this moment the door of the cabinet was dashed open without ceremony, and the Duchess de Polignac entered.
"Forgiveness! your majesty, forgiveness that I have ventured to disturb you, but--"
"What is it?" cried the queen, springing up. "You come to announce misfortune to me, duchess. It concerns the dauphin, does it not? His illness has increased?"
"Yes, your majesty, cramps have set in, and the physicians fear the worst."
"O God! O God!" cried the queen, raising both her hands to heaven, "is every misfortune to beat down upon me? I shall lose my son, my dear child! Here I sit weeping pitiful tears about the malice of my enemies, and all this while my child is wrestling in the pains of death! Farewell, sir, I must go to my child."
And the queen, forgetting every thing else, thinking only of her child--the sick, dying dauphin--hurried forward, dashing through the room with such quick step that the duchess could scarcely follow her.
"Is he dead?" cried Marie Antoinette to the servant standing in the antechamber of the dauphin. She did not await the reply, but burst forward, hastily opened the door of the sick-room, and entered.
There upon the bed, beneath the gold-fringed canopy, lay the pale, motionless boy, with open, staring eyes, with parched lips, and wandering mind--and it was her child, it was the Dauphin of France.
Around his bed stood the physicians, the quickly-summoned priests, and the servants, looking with sorrowful eyes at the poor, deathly-pale creature that was now no more than a withered flower, a son of dust that must return to dust; then they looked sadly at the pale, trembling wife who crouched before the bed, and who now was nothing more than a sorrow-stricken mother, who must bow before the hand of Fate, and feel that she had no more power over life and death than the meanest of her subjects.
She bent over the bed; she put her arms tenderly around the little shrunken form of the poor child that had long been sick, and that was now confronting death. She covered the pale face of her son with kisses, and watered it with her tears.
And these kisses, these tears of his mother, awakened the child out of his stupor, and called him back to life. The Dauphin Louis roused up once more, raised his great eyes, and, when he saw the countenance of his mother above him bathed in tears, he smiled and sought to raise his head and move his hand to greet her. But Death had already laid his iron bands upon him, and held him back upon the couch of his last sufferings.
"Are you in pain, my child?" whispered Marie Antoinette, kissing him affectionately. "Are you suffering?"
The boy looked at her tenderly. "I do not suffer," he whispered so softly that it sounded like the last breath of a departing spirit.
"I only suffer if I see you weep, mamma." [Footnote: The very words of the dying dauphin.--See Weber, "Memoires," vol. L, p. 209.]
Marie Antoinette quickly dried her tears, and, kneeling near the bed, found power in her motherly love to summon a smile to her lips, in order that the dauphin, whose eyes remained fixed upon her, might not see that she was suffering.
A deep silence prevailed now in the apartment; nothing was heard but the gently-whispered prayers of the spectators, and the slow, labored breathing of the dying child.
Once the door was lightly opened, and a man's figure stole lightly in, advanced on tiptoe to the bed, and sank on his knees close by Marie Antoinette. It was the king, who had just been summoned from the council-room to see his son die.
And now with a loud voice the priest began the prayers for the dying, and all present softly repeated them. Only the queen could not; her eyes were fastened upon her son, who now saw her no more, for his eyes were fixed in the last death-struggle.
Still one last gasp, one last breath; then came a cry from Marie Antoinette's lips, and her head sank upon the hand of her son, which rested in her own, and which was now stiff. A few tears coursed slowly over the cheeks of the king, and his hands, folded in prayer, trembled.
The priest raised his arms, and with a loud, solemn voice cried:
"The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen."
"Amen, amen," whispered all present.
"Amen," said the king, closing with gentle pressure the open eyes of his son. "God has taken you to Himself, my son, perhaps because He wanted to preserve you from much trouble and sorrow. Blessed be His name!"
But the queen still bowed over the cold face of the child, and kissed his lips. "Farewell, my son," she whispered, "farewell! Ah!, why could I not die with you--with you fly from this pitiful, sorrow-stricken world?"
Then, as if the queen regretted the words which the mother had spoken with sighs, Marie Antoinette rose from her knees and turned to the priest, who was sprinkling the corpse of the dauphin with holy water.
"Father," said she, "the children of poor parents, who may be born to-day in Versailles, are each to receive from me the sum of a thousand francs. I wish that the death-bed of my son may be a day of joy for the poor who have not, like me, lost a child, but gained one, and that the lips of happy mothers may bless the day on which my boy died. Have the goodness to bring me to-morrow morning a list of the children born to-day."
"Come, Marie," said the king, "the body of our son belongs no more to the living, but to the grave of out ancestors in St. Denis; his soul to God. The dauphin is dead! Long live the dauphin! Madame de Polignac, conduct the dauphin to us in the cabinet of his mother."