Farewell, My Queen Black Moishe (short novels in english .txt) 📖

My task, I discovered, was to leaf rapidly through a number of books on eastern France, or maps if any were to be had (“detailed maps,” the Queen insisted), in order to determine the best possible itinerary between Versailles and Metz.

So the Queen was leaving Versailles and going to Metz! This was something new. All the papers were gone from her table. A burning smell suggested that she had not stopped at reading or rereading. Her gestures were quick and nervous. The expression on her face was one of strain, beyond weariness. Her complexion was muddy, her skin covered with red spots. And the celebrated grimace, the downturn of the lips, that so often made her look odiously contemptuous when in fact she was perhaps feeling no particular emotion, was very marked. But in her eyes, enlarged by the leaden circles spreading all the way to her cheeks, was a hardness I had not seen before. Despondent she was not, or not completely. Or else she was despondent earlier, but not now. Now she radiated determination and vigor.

I liked looking at her. I had acquired a sixth sense that alerted me to her unguarded moments, when she was busy either doing something or daydreaming, so that she was mentally absent but had left behind what one might call an effigy of herself that I could contemplate at will. Only rarely did I look directly at her—the way I had been lucky enough to do on the previous day, in her bedchamber at the Petit Trianon. Most often, what I was free to gaze upon was her reflected image. From the corner where I stood in the Great Gilt Study, all the mirrors favored my wishes.

That haggard face, prematurely aged, with no remaining hint of careless adolescent grace, was still attractive. In fact, in its own way, more attractive. Between then and now, the Queen had been hard hit, beaten. Though endeavoring to give my thoughts a different direction, I could not put from my mind the Historiographer’s words: “We are doomed.” But the keenness of her gaze, the cold, hard brightness of her eyes, defied anyone to think she was prepared to accept defeat.

The Queen had had her servants fetch what she called her “travel table.” It was an inlaid table of very fine workmanship. It had a movable top with double doors that swung open. The table was hollowed out to provide a deep drawer containing her jewel casket. Not all her jewels were stowed in it, only the ones she wore regularly. Seated at this table, she was trying to sort them into two lots, the ones she wanted to take away with her, and the others. She found it impossible to choose.

“I shall take them all . . . and I am asking you, Madame Campan, to remove the settings. You are to assemble the stones in a travel case that I shall keep with me in the carriage. Count Esterhazy is waiting for us along the way with his regiment. At Metz we will mobilize troops and come back to Paris in strength. It is criminal for that city to think it can impose its will on the King. And on France. Paris is not France. And the Parisians are going to understand that fact, before we are done. Get up, Madame Campan . . . As for the itinerary from here to Metz, if you find you are unable to draw me a map (she had just cast a quick glance at the improbable wavy line I had traced), I shall ask my coiffeur, Léonard, to do it instead; he is a resourceful man, with a variety of talents. You, Madame, have talents as well (she must have noticed how crestfallen I looked), but geography does not lie within your sphere of competence. The King, thank heaven, has a passion for geography, and that may just give me my chance in this decision to leave Versailles and reconquer the country. What do you think, Madame Campan? Please, do get up on your feet, you cannot crawl around under that bureau for the rest of your life. You can find that pearl later on, when we have returned!”

At that precise moment, the Campan woman gave a little crow of delight: she had spied the object of her search. She slithered farther under, then reappeared, somewhat flushed, disheveled but very happy. I loathed her.

I had proved to be incompetent at mapping out a travel route (I suspected Madame Campan of having deliberately suggested to the Queen that this was something I could do, so she could rejoice in my humiliation). Aside from that, there was, so it seemed, no need for the special soothing effects of my voice; and so I waited in trembling expectation of being sent back to join the shadows wandering about in the dark. That this did not happen was probably due to the Queen’s haste to see the jewels pried out of their settings: she preferred to put me to work with the others. And from that point on, in the prevailing confusion, the Queen’s treatment of me made no distinction between reader and chambermaid.

Obediently, I went and sat beside Madame Campan. She had finished doing the “travel table”; now she was taking other jewels out of a tall, carved cabinet. There were so very many of them. It was fantastic: rings, bracelets, necklaces, pendant earrings, pins, brooches, lockets, tiaras . . . I would separate out one ring, bend aside the claws holding the stone in place, extract the stone and set it carefully in the travel case. “Will the Queen, when she is away in Metz, simply wear her jewels loose?” Fortunately, I did not ask out loud. My stupidity, my obstinate refusal to understand, would have drawn Madame Campan’s sarcastic fire. We were working very fast, as fast as we could. Our fingers played nimbly over the emeralds and topazes, the rubies and carnelians, over sets of