"Come, baron," said she, "I know a new path, which none of these gentry have learned, and I am sure that we shall be the first to reach the place where the king is."
Resting on the arm of the baron, she left the saloon, and passed out of the door opposite, upon the little terrace leading to the well-shaded park.
"We will go through the English garden. I have had them open a path through the thicket, which will lead us directly to our goal; while the others will all have to go through the Italian garden, and so make a circuit. But look, my lord, somebody is coming there--who is it?"
And the queen pointed to the tall, slim figure of a man who was just then striding along the terrace.
"Madame," answered the baron, "it is the Duke de Fronac."
"Alas!" murmured Marie Antoinette, "he is coming to lay new burdens upon us, and to put us in the way of meeting more disagreeable things."
"Would it be your wish that I should dismiss him? Do you give me power to tell him that you extend no audience to him here?"
"Oh! do not do so," sighed Marie Antoinette. "He, too, is one of my enemies, and we must proceed much more tenderly with our dear enemies than with our friends."
Just then the Duke de Fronac ascended the last terrace, and approached the queen with repeated bows, which she reciprocated with an earnest look and a gentle inclination of the head.
"Well, duke, is it I with whom the chief manager of the royal theatres wishes to speak?"
"Madame," answered the duke, "I am come to beg an audience of your majesty."
"You have it; and it is, as you see, a very imposing audience, for we stand in the throne room of God, and the canopy of Heaven arches over us. Now say, duke, what brings you to me?"
"Your majesty, I am come to file an accusation!"
"And of course against me?" asked the queen, with a haughty smile.
The duke pretended not to hear the question, and went on: "I am come to bring a charge and to claim my rights. His majesty has had the grace to appoint me manager-in-chief of all the royal theatres, and to give me their supreme control."
"Well, what has that to do with me?" asked the queen in her coldest way. " You have then your duties assigned you, to he rightfully fulfilled, and to keep your theatres in order, as if they were troops under your care."
"But, your majesty, there is a theatre which seeks to free itself from my direction. And by virtue of my office and my trust I must stringently urge you that this new theatre royal be delivered into my charge."
"I do not understand you," said the queen, coolly. "Of what new theatre are you speaking, and where is it?"
"Your majesty, it is here in Trianon. Here operettas, comedies, and vaudevilles are played. The stage is furnished as all stages are; it is a permanent stage, and I can therefore ask that it be given over into my charge, for, I repeat it again, the king has appointed me director of all the collective theatres royal."
"But, duke," answered the queen with a somewhat more pliant tone, "you forget one thing, and that is, that the theatre in Trianon does not belong to the theatres of his majesty. It is my stage, and Trianon is my realm. Have you not read on the placards, which are at the entrance of Trianon, that it is the queen who gives laws here?
Do you not know that the king has given me this bit of ground that I may enjoy my ******* here, and have a place where the Queen of France may have a will of her own?"
"Your majesty," answered the duke with an expression of the profoundest deference, "I beg your pardon. I did not suppose that there was a place in France where the king is not the lord paramount, and where his commands are not imperative."
"You see, then, that you are mistaken. Here in Trianon I am king, and my commands are binding."
"That does not prevent, your majesty, the commands of the king having equal force," replied the duke, with vehemence. "And even if the Queen of France disowns these laws, yet others do not dare take the risk of following the example of the queen. For they remain, wherever they are, the subjects of the king. So even here in Trianon I am still the obedient subject of his majesty, and his commands and my duties are bound to be respected by me."
"My lord duke," cried the queen with fresh impatience, "you are free never to come to Trianon. I give you my full permission to that end, and thus you will be relieved from the possibility of ever coming into collision with your ever-delicate conscience and the commands of the king."
"But, your majesty, there is a theatre in Trianon!"
"Not this indefinite phrase, duke; there is a theatre in Trianon, but I the queen, the princess of the royal family, and the guests I invite, support a theatre in Trianon. Let me say this once for all: you cannot have the direction where we are the actors. Besides, I have had occasion several times to give you my views respecting Trianon. I have no court here. I live here as a private person. I am here but a land owner, and the pleasures and enjoyments which I provide here for myself and my friends shall never be supervised by any one but myself alone." [Footnote: The very words of the queen.--
See Goncourt, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette"]
"Your majesty," said the duke, with a cold smile, "it is no single person that supervises you; it is public opinion, and I think that this will speak on my side."
The duke bowed, and, without waiting for a sign from the queen to withdraw, he turned around and began to descend the terrace.
"He is a shameless man!" muttered the queen, with pale cheeks and flashing eyes, as she followed him with her looks.
"He is ambitious," whispered Besenval; "he implores your majesty in this way, and risks his life and his office, in the hope of being received into the court society."
"No, no," answered Marie Antoinette, eagerly; "there is nothing in me that attracts him. The king's aunts have set him against me, and this is a new way which their tender care has conjured up to irritate me, and make me sick.