Farewell, My Queen

hear. Let us think it through, my dear. Can such an enterprise be undertaken without an order from the King?”
“N . . . n . . . no . . . o.”
“And to your knowledge, has the King given such an order? Remembering that one of the projects he has had in mind for a long time is, as it happens, to have the Bastille demolished.”
I hesitated.
“Not that I am aware, no . . . ”
“Then why would you expect it to be destroyed?”
It began to rain hard. Monsieur Moreau stood up. He was of average build, rather short, pale-complexioned, round-faced, with sagging cheeks. He sat down at his table and lit a candle. I felt cast into outer darkness, buried beneath the books. And even when we were once again at eye level, my feeling of being underneath persisted. He said again:
“The Bastille cannot be seized, it would be a superhuman endeavor, you might as well set out to smash the Alps or dry up the Ocean. But we are still doomed, for all that; outsmarted, as Monsieur the King’s brother said.”
“Odd,” the Historiographer added, “that someone so refined and demanding in matters of speech should have used such an expression. Outsmarted, a hateful word. The King is well spoken, though I have never been able to form a personal judgment in the matter, as he has not so far done me the honor of addressing me personally, but there is no comparison with the sense of style shown by His Lordship the Count de Provence. Monsieur is a poet. Outsmarted must have been the result of fatigue, the physical and mental fatigue of the morning’s events. Just imagine: requiring Monsieur to go from the château to the Tennis Court and back, on foot. Even asking him to go one way on foot would have been cruel.”
*      *      *
“We are doomed . . . ” I thought about the Queen, standing so stiffly up there on the balcony; about her pallor, emphasized by the dark-colored dress. I thought of her as an ivory statuette outlined clearly against a background of mourning garb, or as a silver tear-drop set against a black sheet. I thought of her . . . What would she do now? What about the King? If he no longer had an army, if he was left with no means of asserting his mastery over the National Assembly. . .
“The King is sorely tried by this defeat—a defeat that may have the outward appearance of a triumph, but a defeat. His immediate plans are not known. He has shut himself up alone in his apartments. He is considering . . . This morning, before his visit to the Tennis Court, he spoke vaguely of transferring the National Assembly to Noyon or Soissons, while he himself removed with the royal family to the château of Compiègne. Then he could remain in communication with the Assembly without living in the same place. This close proximity is unhealthy.”
At that moment we heard the scraping of footsteps on the other side of the wall. Rapid footsteps. Someone had been eavesdropping.
We sat there silently for a moment, listening intently. Then each of us became absorbed in our separate unhappy thoughts. Mechanically, I picked out the titles of the books published by Jacob-Nicolas Moreau. They sat imposingly on the shelves above his head, and at the very sight of them I was filled with veneration.
THE COURT UNABLE TO SLEEP.
ROAMING ABOUT, NEAR THE GRAND APARTMENTS
(from ten o’clock until midnight).
Those suspicious noises had terrified me. I was afraid to leave the room. My friend sensed my panic and offered to walk back to my room with me. Then he would come back into his study, he said, and try to get back to his work, his Lessons in Morality. No sooner had we set foot in the long, winding corridor leading above the Hall of Mirrors, than I noticed something out of the ordinary. The corridor, usually bustling with life at that time of the evening (that floor also housed part of the kitchens, and work went on there day and night), was empty. The third story, on the other hand, which had apartments and so should have been quiet at this hour, surprised us with the great number of people who were heading, as we were, in the direction of the Grand Apartments. We didn’t know how to interpret this circumstance. It could not be some nighttime festivity; the Menus Plaisirs, the Royal Entertainments, were not much sought-after these days. And there was nothing festive about the facial expressions or the attire we were encountering. Indeed, it seemed to me that some individuals were wearing nightcaps and dressing gowns.
The press of people grew as we came closer to the Grand Apartments. They all appeared disoriented, a little shamefaced at having heeded the urge to leave their living quarters and seek out the Grand Apartments and the Hall of Mirrors, plunged in semidarkness at the time, for the sole purpose of being “closer to the news,” as Lady Olderness said to us. There had been no prior consultation, but as the evening wore on, those who had come back to sup in their apartments (the caterers had condescended to come as usual with their trays of food that evening), and who had started a game of backgammon after their meal, had perceived that there was no help for it: they were not in the mood for pleasant pastimes. Then they had begun paying courtesy calls on one another. At last, since no one contrived to sit still at anyone else’s apartment, since no conversation took lasting hold, since it had seemed to all of them that while they were sitting there in a polite circle perhaps vital decisions were being made, anxiety had finally swept social convention aside. They had cut the visits short and stepped out-of-doors, and like the Historiographer and I, they had been astonished to find that everyone else was