All at once there
was a cry in the distance, "The queen, where is the queen? "
Marie Antoinette sprang up and dried her eyes. No one should see
that she had wept. Tears belong only to solitude, but she has no
longer even solitude. The voice comes nearer and nearer, and Marie
Antoinette follows the sound. She knows that she is going to meet a
new misfortune. People have not come to Trianon to bring her tidings
of joy; they have come to tell her that destruction awaits her in
Versailles, and the queen is to give audience to it.
A man came with hurried step from the thicket down the winding
footpath. Marie Antoinette looked at him with eager, sharp eye. Who
is he, this herald of misfortune? No one of the court servants, no
one of the gentry.
He wears the simple garments of a citizen, a man of the people, of
that Third Estate which has prepared for the poor queen so much
trouble and sorrow.
He had perhaps read her question in her face, for, as he now sank
breathless at her feet, his lips murmured: "Forgive me, your
majesty, forgive me that I disturb you. I am Toulan, your most
devoted servant, and it is Madame de Campan who sends me."
"Toulan, yes, I recognize you now," said the queen, hastily. "It was
you, was it not, who brought me the sad news of the acquittal of
Rohan?"
"It appears, your majesty, that a cruel misfortune has always chosen
me to be the bearer of evil tidings to my exalted queen.
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