Читать книгу The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney - Frances Burney - Страница 153

The king, with the gayest good-humour, did his utmost to comfort them; and then gave a relation of the affair, with a calmness and unconcern that, had any one but himself been his hero, would have been regarded as totally unfeeling.

You may have heard it wrong; I will concisely tell it right. His carriage had just stopped at the garden-door at St. James’s, and he had just alighted from it, when a decently-dressed woman, who had been waiting for him some time, approached him, with a petition. It was rolled up, and had the usual superscription—“For the king’s most excellent majesty.” She presented it with her right hand; and at the same moment that the king bent forward to take it, she drew from it, with her left hand, a knife, with which she aimed straight at his heart.

The fortunate awkwardness of taking the instrument with the left hand made her design perceived before it could be executed;—the king started back, scarce believing the testimony of his own eyes; and the woman made a second thrust, which just touched his waistcoat before he had time to prevent her;—and at that moment one of the attendants, seeing her horrible intent, wrenched the knife from her hand.

“Has she cut my waistcoat?” cried he, in telling it,—“Look! for I have had no time to examine.”

Thank heaven, however, the poor wretch had not gone quite so far. “Though nothing,” added the king, in giving his relation, “could have been sooner done, for there was nothing for her to go through but a thin linen, and fat.”

While the guards and his own people now surrounded the king, the assassin was seized by the populace, who were tearing her away, no doubt to fall the instant sacrifice of her murtherous purpose, when the king, the only calm and moderate person then present, called aloud to the mob, “The poor creature is mad!—Do not hurt her! She has not hurt me!”

He then came forward, and showed himself to all the people, declaring he was perfectly safe and unhurt; and then gave positive orders that the woman should be taken care of, and went into the palace, and had his levee.¹⁷⁶

There is something in the whole of his behaviour upon this occasion that strikes me as proof indisputable of a true and noble courage: for in a moment so extraordinary—an attack, in this country, unheard of before—to settle so instantly that it was the effect of insanity, to feel no apprehension of private plot or latent conspiracy—to stay out, fearlessly, among his people, and so benevolently to see himself to the safety of one who had raised her arm against his life,—these little traits, all impulsive, and therefore to be trusted, have given me an impression of respect and reverence that I can never forget, and never think of but with fresh admiration.

If that love of prerogative, so falsely assigned, were true, what an opportunity was here offered to exert it! Had he instantly taken refuge in his palace, ordered out all his guards, stopped every avenue to St. James’s, and issued his commands that every individual present at this scene should be secured and examined,—who would have dared murmur, or even blame such measures? The insanity of the woman has now fully been proved; but that noble confidence which gave that instant excuse for her was then all his own.