"Madam, I cannot be outspoken without disrespect," replied the doctor.
"Oh," she said, "dreadful is this epoch when men pretending to be honorable isolate two principles that should never be parted, and have always marched forward together: France and her King. Is there not a tragedy in which a queen, abandoned by all, is asked: What remains? and she answers 'I!' Well, like Medea, I am here--and we shall see the outcome."
She passed out, in vexation, leaving Gilbert in stupor. By her fiery breath she had blown aside a corner of the veil beyond which simmered the hell-broth of the Anti-Revolution.
"Let us look to ourselves," thought Gilbert, "the Queen is nursing a scheme."
"Plainly nothing can be done with this man," muttered the sovereign, regaining her rooms. "He is a strong one, but he lacks devotion."
Poor princess, to whom servility is thought to be devotion!
Marie Antoinette felt the weight upon her most when alone.
As woman and queen, she had nothing to lean upon or help her support the crushing burden.
Doubt or wavering was on either hand. Uneasy about their fortune, the sycophants fled. Her relatives and friends brooded on exile. The proudest of all, Andrea, gradually drew aside from her, body and soul.
The noblest and dearest man of all, Charny, was wounded by her fickleness and was a prey to doubt.
She who was instinct and sagacity themselves, was fretted by the crisis.
"This pure, unalloyed heart has not changed, but it is changing," she reasoned.
A dreadful conviction for the woman who loved with passion, and insupportable for one who loved with pride, as the Queen did Charny.
Being a man, all that George understood was that the Queen was unfairly jealous of his wife. Nothing pains a heart incapable of false play so much as to be suspected of it. Nothing so points attention on the person unjustly accused of inspiring an attachment than jealousy. The suspected one reflects. It looks from the jealous heart to the one believed to be its rival.
Indeed, how suppose that a noble and elevated creature should be vexed over a trifle? What has a lovely woman to be worried about? what, the powerful lady?
Charny knew that Andrea had been the bosom friend of the Queen, and wondered why their love had cooled and the confidante stood away. He had to look to her and the idol lost so much of the eye-adulation as Andrea gained. By her unfairness and anger Marie Antoinette told Charny that he must feel less a lover for her. He sought for the cause, and naturally whither the Queen was frowning.