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One day she received certain anonymous letters or rather letters signed with a noble pseudonym which conveyed a declaration of love: at first they were love-letters, flattering, ardent, appointing a rendezvous: then they quickly became bolder, threatening, and soon insulting and basely slanderous: they stripped her, exposed her, besmirched her with their coarse expressions of desire: they tried to play upon Antoinette's simplicity by making her fearful of a public insult if she did not go to the appointed rendezvous.
At first I saw no one, and I was about to turn away, believing my ears must have deceived me, when suddenly the tall alder-bushes parted, and a man stepped forth, beckoning to me, and that man, my lady, was Mr. Victor Lamont!" Sally Gardiner grew deathly pale as Antoinette's words fell upon her ear. Had she heard aright, or were her ears playing her a horrible trick? "Mr.
Antoinette who, among the Catholics, had been brought sharp up against a wall of icy indifference, was keenly alive to the worth of the interest, however superficial it might be, which the Nathans took in her. Madame Nathan had marked Antoinette's life of devoted sacrifice: she was sensible of her physical and moral charm: and she made a show of taking her under her protection.
They were reduced, when all was said, to a knowledge of the pamphlet published in 1815, a pamphlet which Lupin, no doubt, like Massiban, had found by accident and thanks to which he had succeeded in discovering the indispensable document in Marie Antoinette's book of hours. Therefore, the pamphlet and the document were the only two fundamental facts upon which Lupin had relied.
The other was Helene, and it seemed to me that her eyes met mine across the waters and drew them. Then we were at the landing. I heard Madame de St. Gre's voice, and Antoinette's in welcome I listened for another. I saw Nick running up the steps; in the impetuosity of his love he had seized Antoinette's hand in his, and she was the color of a red rose. Creole decorum forbade further advances.
"Yesterday you were distributing Antoinette's wedding-gifts to your children; I alone received nothing. Is there nothing for me?" "Nothing for you, my son!" exclaimed Maria Theresa, astonished. "Why, every thing is yours, and therefore I have nothing to give. Where your right is indisputable, my presents are superfluous."
By the time they were back of the Little Trianon, this beginning had led them naturally enough away from the frivolities of historical conversation to serious considerations, namely themselves. The start had been a reminiscence of Sylvia's, induced by the slow fall of golden leaves from the last of the birches into the still water of the lake in the midst of Marie Antoinette's hamlet.
He wore himself out in trying to understand.... "Why had he known him? Why had he loved him? What good had Antoinette's devotion been? What was the meaning of all the lives and generations, so much experience and hope ending in that life, dragged down with it into the void?"... Life was meaningless. Death was meaningless.
Matters continued in this state for some time, until the baptism of the Duke d'Angoulême, Maria Antoinette's infant son. The king made his idolized boy a baptismal present of a diamond epaulette and buckles, which he purchased of Boehmer, and directed him to deliver to the queen.
Sometimes on a tender impulse, without saying anything, he would go and visit Antoinette's grave and lay flowers on it. It was some time before Olivier had any idea of it. He did not discover it until one day when he found fresh flowers on the grave: but he had some difficulty in proving that it was Christophe who had laid them there.
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