And
again, in presence of the mayor, who stood there, respectful,
disconcerted, hesitating, ready to fling every gate open had but one
imperious word been spoken; and at the shop of M. Sauce, the worthy
village grocer; and, last of all, when Goguelat and de Choiseul had
arrived with their hussars, bringing rescue, salvation--did not all
depend, a hundred times over, on a mere yes or no, a step, a
gesture, a look? Take any ten men with whom you are intimate, let
them have been King of France, you can foretell the issue of their
ten nights. Ah, it was that night truly that heaped shame on
fatality, that laid bare her weakness! For that night revealed to
all men the dependence, the wretched and shivering poverty of the
great mysterious force that, in moments of undue resignation, seems
to weigh so heavily on life! Never before has she been beheld so
completely despoiled of her vestments, of her imposing, deceptive
robes, as she incessantly came and went that night, from death to
life, from life to death; throwing herself at last, like a woman
distraught, into the arms of an unhappy king, whom she besought til
dawn for a decision, an existence, that she herself never can find
save only in the depths of the will and the intellect of man.
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