But where is the Lady that stood aside in gypsy-hat, and touched the wheel-spoke with her _badine_? O Reader, that Lady that touched the wheel-spoke was the Queen of France! She has issued safe through that inner arch, into the Carrousel itself; but not into the Rue de l'Echelle. Flurried by the rattle and rencounter, she took the right hand, not the left; neither she nor her Courier knows Paris; he is indeed no Courier, but a loyal stupid _ci-devant_ Body-guard disguised as one. They are off, quite wrong, over the Pont Royal and River; roaming disconsolate in the Rue du Bac; far from the Glass-coachman, who still waits. Waits, with flutter of heart; with thoughts--which he must button close up, under his jarvie-surtout!
Midnight clangs from all the City-steeples; one precious hour has been spent so; most mortals are asleep. The Glass-coachman waits; and in what mood! A brother jarvie drives up, enters into conversation; is answered cheerfully in jarvie-dialect: the brothers of the whip exchange a pinch of snuff; decline drinking together; and part with good-night. Be the Heavens blest! here at length is the Queen-lady, in gypsy-hat; { 127} safe after perils; who has had to enquire her way. She too is admitted; her Courier jumps aloft, as the other, who is also a disguised Bodyguard, has done; and now, O Glass-coachman of a thousand,--Count Fersen, for the Reader sees it is thou,--drive!
Dust shall not stick to the heels of Fersen: crack! crack! The Glass-coach rattles, and every soul breathes lighter. But is Fersen on the right road? North-eastward, to the Barrier of Saint-Martin and Metz Highway, thither were we bound: and lo, he drives right Northward! The royal Individual, in round hat and peruke, sits astonished; but right or wrong, there is no remedy. Crack, crack, we go incessant, through the slumbering City. Seldom, since Paris rose out of mud, or the Longhaired Kings went in bullock-carts, was there such a drive. Mortals on each hand of you, close by, stretched out horizontal, dormant; and we alive and quaking! Crack, crack, through the Rue de Grammont; across the Boulevard; up the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin,--these windows, all silent, of Number 42, were Mirabeau's. Towards the Barrier, not of Saint-Martin, but of Clichy on the utmost north! Patience, ye royal Individuals; Fersen understands what he is about. Passing up the Rue de Clichy, he alights for one moment at Madame Sullivan's: "Did Count Fersen's Coachman get the Baroness de Korff's new Berline?"--"Gone with it an hour and a half ago," grumbles responsive the drowsy Porter.--"_C'est bien_." Yes, it is well;--though had not such hour-and-half been _lost_, it were still better. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy; then eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can do!