Joseph Balsamo (29 page)

” Ha ! Monsieur de Sartines, and are you also against me ? ” cried the countess.

The minister of police understood this in qiioqne, and retreated before her anger. There was a moment of deep and ominous silence.

” Ah ! Chon,” said the king, in the midst of the general consternation, ” you see your handiwork ! “

” Your majesty will pardon me,” said she, ” if the grief of the sister has made me forget for a moment my duty as a subject ‘

” Kind creature ! ” murmured the king. ” Come, countess, forget and forgive.”

“Yes, sire ; I shall forgive only I shall set out for Laciennes, and thence for Boulogne.”

” Boulogne-snr-Mer ?” asked the king.

” Yes, sire ; I shall quit a kingdom where the king is afraid of his minister.”

“Madame !” exclaimed Louis, with an offended air.

” Sire, that I may not any longer be wanting in respect to you, permit me to retire ; ” and the countess rose, observing with the corner of her eyes what effect her movement had produced.

The king gave his usual heavy sigh of weariness, which said plainly, ” I am getting rather tired of this.” Chon understood what the sigh meant, and saw that it would be dangerous to push matters to extremity. She caught her sister by the gown, and approaching the king :

” Sire,” said she, ” my sister’s affection for the poor viscount has carried her too far. It is I who have committed the fault it is I who must repair it. As the hum-blest of your majesty’s subjects, I beg from your majesty justice for my brother. I accuse nobody your wisdom will discover the guilty.”

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” Why, that is precisely what I wish myself,” said the king : ” that justice should be done. If a man haye not committed a certain crime, let him not be reproached with it ; but if he have, let him be punished.” And Louis looked toward the countess as he spoke, with the hope of once more catching the hopes he had entertained of an amusing morning a morning which seemed turning out so dismally. The good-natured countess could not help pitying the king, whose want of occupation and emptiness of mind made him feel tired and dispirited except when with her. She turned half round, for she had already made a step toward the door, and said, with the sweetest submission: “Do I wish for anything but justice? Only let not my well-grounded suspicions be cruelly re-

” Your suspicions are sacred to me, countess,” cried the king ; ” and if they be changed into certainty, you shall see. But now I think of it how easy to know the truth ! Let the Duke de Choiseul be sent for.”

” Oh, your majesty knows that he never comes into these apartments. He would scorn to do so. His sister, however, is not of his mind ; she wishes lor nothing bet-ter than to be here.” ‘i

The king laughed. The countess, encouraged by this, went on : ” The Duke de Choiseul apes the dauphin ; he will not compromise his dignity.”

” The dauphin is religious, countess.”

” And the duke a hypocrite, sire.”

” I promise you, my dear countess, you shall see him here, for I shall summon him. He must come, as it is on state business, and we shall have all explained in Chon’s presence, who saw all we shall confront them, as the lawyers say. Eh, Sartines ? Let some one go for the Duke de Choisenl.”

” And let some one bring me my monkey. Doree, my monkey ? ” cried the countess.

These words, which were addressed to the waiting-maid, who was arranging a dressing-box, could be heard in the anteroom when the door was opened to despatch the usher

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for the prime minister, and they were responded to bv a broken, lisping voice.

” The countess’s monkey ! that must be me. I hasten to present my self. “

And with these words entered a little hunchback, dressed with the utmost splendor.

” The Duke de Tresmes I ” said the countess, annoyed by his appearance. ” I did not summon you, duke.”

” You asked for your monkey, madame,” said the duke, bowing to the king, the countess, and the minister, “and seeing among the courtiers no ape half so ugly as myself, I hastened to obey your call ; ” and the duke laughed, showing his great teeth so oddly that the countess could not help laughing also.

“Shall I stay ?” asked the duke, as if the whole life could not repay the favor.

” Ask his majesty, duke ; he is master here.”

The duke turned to the king, with the air of a suppliant.

” Yes, stay, duke, stay ! ” said the king, glad to find any additional means of amusement. At this moment the usher threw open the doors.

” Oh,” said the king, with a slight expression of dis-satisfaction on his face, ” is it the Duke de Choiseul already ? “

” No, sire ‘ replied the usher, ” it is Monseigneur the Dauphin who desires to speak to you ‘

The countess almost started from her chair with joy, for she imagined the dauphin was going to become her friend ; but Chon, who was more clear-sighted, frowned.

” Well, where is the dauphin?” asked the king, impatiently.

” In your majesty’s apartments ; his royal highness awaits your return.”

” It is fated I shall never have a minute’s repose,” grumbled the king. Then, all at once remembering that the audience demanded by the dauphin might spare him the scene with M. de Choiseul, he thought better of it. “I am coming,” said he, “I am coming. Good-by, countess. See how 1 am dragged in all directions 1 “

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” But will your majesty go just when the Duke de Choiseul is coming ? “

” What can I do ? The first slave is the king. Oh, if those rogues of philosophers knew what it is to be a king ! but, above all, a king of France.”

“But, sire, yon can stay.”

” Oh, I must not keep the dauphin waiting. People say already that I have no affection except for my daughters.”

” But what shall I say to the duke ?”

” Oh, tell him to come to my apartments, countess.”

And, to put an end to any further remonstrance, he kissed her hand and disappeared, running, as was his habit whenever he feared to lose a victory gained by his temporizing policy and his petty cunning. The countess trembled with passion, and clasping her hands, she exclaimed : ” So, he has escaped once more ! “

But the king did not hear those words ; the door was already closed behind him, and he passed through the anteroom, saying to the courtiers, ” Go in, gentlemen, go in, the countess will see you ; but you will find her very dull on account of the accident which has befallen poor Viscount Jean.”

The courtiers looked at one another in amazement, for they had not heard of the accident.- Many hoped that the viscount was dead, but all put on countenances suitable to the occasion. Those who were best pleased looked the most sympathetic, and they entered.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE SALOON OF TIME-PIECES.

IN that large hall of the palace of Versailles which was called the Saloon of Time-pieces, a young man walked slowly up and down with his arms hanging and his head bent forward. He appeared to be about seventeen years of age, was of a fair complexion, and his eyes were mild in

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their expression ; but it must be acknowledged that there was a slight degree of vulgarity in his demeanor. On his breast sparkled a diamond star, rendered more brilliant by the dark, violet-colored velvet of his coat, and his white satin waistcoat, embroidered with silver, was crossed by the blue ribbon supporting the cross of St. Louis.

None could mistake in this young man the profile so expressive of dignity and kindliness which formed the characteristic type of the elder branch of the house of Bourbon, of which he was at once the most striking and most exaggerated image. In fact, Louis Augustus, Duke de Berry, Dauphin of France afterward Louis XVI. , had the Bourbon nose even longer and more aquiline than in his predecessors. His forehead was lower and more retreating than Louis XV. ‘s, and the double chin of his grandfather was so remarkable in him, that, although he was at the time we speak of young and thin, his chin formed nearly one third of the length of his face.

Although well made, there was something embarrassed in the movement of his legs and shoulders, and his walk was slow and rather awkward. Suppleness, activity, and strength seemed centered only in his arms, and more particularly in his fingers, which displayed, as it were, that character which in other persons is expressed on the forehead, in the mouth, and in the eyes. The dauphin continued to pace in silence the Saloon of Time-pieces the same in which, eight years before, Louis XV. had given to
Mme.
de Pompadour the decree of the Parliament exiling the Jesuits from the kingdom and as he walked he seemed plunged in reverie.

At last, however, he seemed to become impatient of waiting there alone, and to amuse himself he began to look at the time-pieces, remarking, as Charles V. had done, the differences which are found in the most regular clocks. These differences are a singular but decided manifestation of the inequality existing in all material things, whether regulated or not regulated by the hand of man. He stopped before the large clock at the lower end of the saloon the same place it occupies at present which, by a clever

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arrangement of machinery, marks the days, the months, the years, the phases of the moon, the course of the planets in short, exhibiting, to the still more curious machine called man, all that is most interesting in his progressive movement through life to death.

The prince examined this clock with the eye of an am-ateur, and leaned now to the right, now to the left, to examine the movement of such or such’ a wheel. Then he returned to his place in front, watching how the second hand glided rapidly on, like those flies which, with their long, slender legs, skim over the surface of a pond, without disturbing the liquid crystal of its waters. This contemplation naturally led him to think that a very great number of seconds had passed since he had been waiting there. It is true, also, that many had passed before he had ventured to send to inform the king that he was waiting for him.

All at once the hand on which the young prince’s eyes were fixed, stopped as if by enchantment, the wheels ceased their measured rotation, the springs became still, and deep silence took possession of the machine, but a moment before so full of noise and motion. No more ticking, no more oscillations, no more movement of the wheels or of the hands. The time-piece had died.

Had some grain of sand, some atom, penetrated into one of the wheels and stopped its movements ? Or was the genius of the machine resting, wearied with its eternal agitation ? Surprised by this sudden death, this stroke of apoplexy occurring before his eyes, the dauphin forgot why he had come thither, and how long he had waited. Above all, he forgot that hours are not counted in eternity by the beating of metal upon metal, nor arrested even for a moment in their course by the hindrance of any wheel, but that they are recorded on the dial of eternity, established even before the birth of worlds, by the unchange-able hand of the Almighty.

He therefore opened the glass door of the crystal pagoda, the genius of which had ceased to act, and put his head inside to examine the time-piece more closely. But the

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large pendulnm was in his way ; lie slipped in his supple fingers and took it off. This was not enough. The dauphin still found the cause of the lethargy of the machine hidden from him. He then supposed that the person who had the care of the clocks of the palace had forgotten to wind up this time-piece, and he took down the key from a hook and began to wind it up, like a man quite accustomed to the business. But he could only turn it three times a proof that something was astray in the mechanism. He drew from his pocket a little file, and with the end of it pushed one of the wheels ; they all creaked for half a second, then stopped again.

The malady of the clock was becoming serious. The dauphin, therefore, began carefully to unscrew several parts of it, laying them all in order on a console beside him. Then, drawn on by his ardor, he began to take to pieces still more and more of the complicated machine, and to search minutely into its hidden and mysterious recesses. Suddenly he uttered a cry of joy he discovered that a screw which acted on one of the springs had become loose, and had thus impeded the movement of the motive wheel.

He immediately began to screw it ; and then, with a wheel in his left hand, and his little file in his right, he plunged his head again into the interior of the clock.

He was busy at his work, absorbed in contemplation of the mechanism of the time-piece, when a door opened, and a voice announced, ” The king ! “

But the dauphin heard nothing but the melodious sound of that ticking, which his hand had again awakened, as if it were the beating of a heart which a clever physician had restored to life.

The king looked around on all sides, and it was some minutes before he discovered the dauphin, whose head was hidden in the opening, and whose legs alone were visible. He approached, smiling, and tapped his grandson on the shoulder.

” What the devil are you doing there ? ” said he. The dauphin drew out his head quickly, but at the same time

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with all the care necessary to avoid doing any harm to the beautiful object which he had undertaken to mend.

” Sire, your majesty sees,” replied the young man, blushing at being surprised in the midst of his occupation, “I was amusing myself until you came.”

“Yes, in destroying my clock a very pretty amusement !”

” Oh, no, sire, I was mending it ; the principal wheel would not move it was prevented by this screw. I have tightened the screw, and now it goes.”

” But you will blind yourself with looking into that thing, I would not put my head into such a trap for all the gold in the world.”

” Oh, it will do me i o harm, sire I understand all about it. I always take to pieces, clean, and put together again that beautiful watch which your majesty gave me on my fourteenth birthday.”