THE MARIE ANTOINETTE ROMANCES.
LE CHEVALIER DE MAISON-ROUGE.
"OH, HOW LONG IT IS SINCE I HAVE SEEN ANY FLOWERS!"
Drawn and etched by E. Abot.
Chevalier de Maison-Rouge.
LE
CHEVALIER DE MAISON-ROUGE.
BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1897.
Copyright, 1890, 1894,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The "Chevalier de Maison-Rouge," though it deals with events subsequentto those covered by the earlier stories of the Marie Antoinette cycle,was written at an earlier date. In it we are introduced to a new set ofpersonages, and see no more of the characters whose fortunes furnishthe fictitious as distinguished from the historical interest of theearlier stories.
The months which elapsed between the execution of the King and theappearance in the Place de la Révolution of the ill-fated MarieAntoinette were thickly strewn with tragedy, particularly after thefinal conflict between the Gironde and the Mountain, and the decisivevictory of the latter, resulting in the undisputed supremacy of theband of men in whom we now see the personification of the Reign ofTerror.
Those portions of the narrative which describe the life of the queen atthe Temple, and subsequently in the Conciergerie, are founded strictlyupon fact. Of the treatment accorded to the little Dauphin by Simon,who is given much prominence in the story, it need only be said that itfalls far short of the truth as it is to be found in numberless memoirsand documents. There is nothing in all history more touching andheart-rending than the fate of this innocent child, who was literallydone to death by sheer brutality in less than two years; nor is thereany one of the excesses committed by the extreme revolutionists whichhas done more to cause posterity to fail to realize the vast benefitswhich mankind owes to the Revolution, in the face of the unnamablehorrors which were perpetrated in its name.
The noble answer of Marie Antoinette to the unnatural charges broughtagainst her by Hébert (not Simon) was actually made at her trial.
There is no direct historical authority for the various attempts hereindetailed to effect the escape of the Queen, although rumors of suchwere circulating unceasingly. The titular hero of the book is not anhistorical personage, nor are Maurice Lindey and Lorin; but the latterare faithful representatives of a by no means small class of sincereand devoted republicans who turned aside with shrinking horror fromthe atrocities of the Terror.
The mutual heroism of Maurice and Lorin in the final catastrophereminds us of the similar conduct of Gaston in the "Regent's Daughter"when he fails to reach Nantes with the reprieve until the head of oneof his comrades had fallen. Nor can one avoid a thought of SydneyCarton laying down his life for Charles Darnay, in Charles Dickens's"Tale of Two Cities," wherein the horrors of the Terror are so vividlypictured.
One must go far to seek for a more touching and pathetic love-episodethan that of Maurice and Geneviève, whose sinning, if sinning it was,was forced upon them by the cold and unscrupulous Dixmer in the pursuitof his one unchangeable idea.
On the 16th of October, 1793, the daug