Joseph Balsamo (30 page)
“Very well; but stop now, if you please, and leave your mechanics. You wish to speak to me ? “
” I, sire ?” said the young man, coloring again.
” Of course, since you sent to say you were waiting for me.”
” It is true, sire,” replied the dauphin, with downcast eyes.
“Well, what is it ? Answer me ; if it is of no importance, I must go, for I am just setting off for Marly.” Louis XV., as was his custom, already sought to escape.
The dauphin placed his wheel and his file on the chair, which indicated that he had really something important to say, since he interrupted his important work for it.
” Do you want money ?” asked the king, sharply ; ” if so, I shall send you some ; and he made a step toward the door.
” Oh, no, sire ; I have still a thousand crowns remaining of the sum I received last month.”
” What economy!” said the king, “and how well Monsieur de la Vauguyon has educated him. I think he has precisely all the virtues I have not.”
The young prince made a violent effort over himself.
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” Sire,” Baid he, ” is the dauphiness yet very far distant ? “
” Do you not know as well as I how far off she is ? ” replied he king.
“I ? ” stammered out the dauphin.
” Of course ; you heard the account of her journey yesterday. Last Monday she was at Nancy, and she ought to be now about forty-five leagues from Paris.”
” Sire, does not your majesty think her royal highness travels rather slowly ? “
” By no means,” replied the king ; ” I think she travels very fast for a woman ; and then you know there are receptions and rejoicings on the road. She travels at least ten leagues every two days, on e with another.”
“I think very little, sir,” said the dauphin, timidly.
Louis XV. was more and more astonished at the appearance of impatience which he had been far from suspecting.
” Come, come !” said he, smiling slyly, “don’t be impatient your dauphiness will arrive soon.”
” Sire, might not these ceremonies on the road be shortened ? ” continued the dauphin.
” Impossible ; she has already passed through two or three towns where she should have made a stay, without stopping.”
” But these delays will be eternal ; and then, sire, I think, besides ” said the dauphin, still more timidly.
” Well, what do you think ? Let me hear it speak ! “
” I think that the service is badly performed.”
” How ? what service ? “
” The service for the journey.”
” Nonsense ! I sent thirty thousand horses to be ready on the road, thirty carriages, sixty wagons I don’t know how many carts. If carts, carriages, and horses were put in file, they would reach from this to Strasbourg. How can you say, then, there is bad attendance on the road ? “
” Well, sire, in spite of all your majesty’s goodness, I am almost certain that what I say is true ; but perhaps I have used an improper term, and instead of badly performed I should have said badly arranged.”
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The king raised his head and fixed his eyes on the dauphin. He began to comprehend. that more was meant than met the ear, in the few words which his royal highness had ventured to utter.
” Thirty thousand horses,” he repeated, ” thirty carriages, sixty wagons, two regiments. I ask you, Mr. Philosopher, have you ever heard of a dauphiness entering France with such an attendance as that before ? “
“I confess, sire, that things have been royally done, and as your majesty alone knows how to do them ; but has your majesty specially recommended that these horses and carriages should be employed solely for her royal highness and her train ? “
The king looked at his grandson for the third time. A vague suspicion began to sting him, a slight remembrance to illuminate his mind, and a sort of confused analogy between what the dauphin was saying and a disagreeable circumstance of late occurrence began to suggest itself to him.
” A fine question ! ” said he ; ” certainly everything has been ordered for her royal highness, and for her alone ; and there, I repeat, she cannot fail to arrive very soon. But why do you look at me in that way ? ” added he, in a decided tone, which to the dauphin seemed even threatening. ” Are you amusing yourself in studying my features as you study the springs of your mechanical works ?”
The dauphin had opened his mouth to speak, but be-came silent at this address.
” Very well, ” said the king, sharply, “it appears yon have no more to say ? Hey ? Are you satisfied now ? Your dauphiness will arrive soon. All is arranged delightfully for her on the road. You are as rich as Croesus with your own private purse, and now, since your mind is at ease, be good enough to put my clock in order again.”
The dauphin did not stir.
” Do you know,” said the king, laughing, ” I have a great mind to make you the principal watch-maker for the palace, with a good salary ? “
The dauphin looked down, and, intimidated by the
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king’s look, took up the wheel and file which he had laid on the chair. The -king, in the meantime, had quietly gained the door. ” What the devil ‘ said he, looking at him, “did he mean with his badly arranged service? Well, well ! I* have escaped another scene, for he is certainly dissatisfied about something.”
In fact, the dauphin, generally so patient, had stamped with his foot as the king turned away from him.
” He is commencing again,” murmured the king, laughing ; ‘- decidedly I have nothing for it but to fly.” But just as he opened the door, he saw, on the threshold, the Duke de Choiseul, who bowed profoundly.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE COURT OF KING PETAUD.
THE king made a step backward at the sight of this new actor in the scene, come, no doubt, to prevent him from escaping as he had hoped. ” Ha ! ” thought he, ” I had forgotten him ; but he is welcome, and I will make him pay for what the others have made me suffer.”
” Ha ! you are there ? ” cried he ; “I sent for you did you know that ? “
” Yes, sire,” replied the minister, coldly ; ” I was dressing to wait on your majesty when your orders reached me.”
“I wished to speak to you on serious matters,” said the king, frowning in order, if possible, to intimidate his minister. Unfortunately for the king, M. de Choiseul was one of tho men least likely to be daunted in his domin-ions.
” And I, also, if it please your majesty,” said he, bow-ing, “I have serious matters to speak of ;” at the same time he exchanged a look with the dauphin, who was still half hidden by the clock.
The king stopped short. ” Ha !” thought he, ” now I am caught between two fires ; there is no escape.”
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” You know, I presume,” said the king, hastily, in order to have the first word, ” that poor Viscount Jean has had a narrow escape from assassination that is to say, that he has received a wound in his arm.”
” I came to speak of that affair to your majesty ‘
” I understand you wished to prevent unpleasant reports ? “
“I wished, sire, to anticipate all remarks.”
” Then you know the whole particulars, sir ?” inquired the king, in a significant manner.
“Perfectly.”
” Ha ! ” said the king, ” I was told so in a place likely to be well informed.”
The Duke of Choiseul seemed quite unmoved. The dauphin continued turning the screw in the clock, his head bent down, but he lost not a syllable of the conversation.
” I shall now tell you how the affair happened,” said the king.
” Does your majesty think that you have been well informed ? ” asked M. de Choiseul.
” Oh, as to that “
” We are all attention, sire.”
” We ? ” repeated the king.
“Yes ; his royal highness the dauphin and I.”
“His royal highness the dauphin ?” repeated the king, turning his eyes from the respectful Choiseul to the attentive Louis Augustus, ” and pray in what does this squabble concern his royal highness ? “
” It concerns his royal highness,” said the duke, bow-ing to the young prince, ” because her royal highness the dauphiness was the cause of it.”
” The dauphiness the cause ?” said the king, starting.
“Certainly; if you are ignorant of that, sir, your majesty has been very badly informed.”
“The dauphiness and Jean Dubarry !” said the king ; ” this is likely to be a curious tale. Come, explain this, Monsieur de Choiseul ; conceal nothing, even though it were the dauphiness herself who pierced Dubarry’s arm.”
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” Sire, it was not the dauphiness,” replied Choiseul, still calm and unmoved ; ‘ it was one of the gentlemen of her escort.”
” Oh,” said the king, again becoming grave, ” an officer whom you know.”
” No, sire, but an officer whom your majesty ought to know, if you remember all who have served you well an officer whose father’s name was honored at Phillipsbourg, at Fontenoy, at Mahon a Tavern ey Maison Rouge.”
The dauphin seemed to draw a deeper breath, as if to inhale this name, and thus preserve it in his memory.
“A Maison Rouge,” said the king ; “certainly I know the name. And why did he attack Jean, whom I like so much ? Perhaps because I like him. Such absurd jealousies ! such discontents are almost seditious I”
” Sire, will your majesty deign to listen to me,” said M. cle Choiseul.
The king saw there was no other way for him to escape from this troublesome business but by getting in a passion, and he exclaimed, “I tell you, sir, that I see the beginning of a conspiracy against my peace, an organized persecution of my family.”
” Ah, sire,” said M. de Choiseul, “is it for defending the dauphiness, your majesty’s daughter-in-law, that these reproaches are cast on a brave young man ? “
The dauphin raised his head and folded his arms. ” For my part,” said he, ” I cannot but feel grateful to the man who exposed his life for a princess who in a fortnight will be my wife.”
” Exposed his life ! exposed his life!” stammered the king. ” What about ? Let me know that what about ?’”
” About the horses of her royal highness the dauphiness,” replied the duke. ” Viscount Jean Dubarry, who was already traveling very fast, took upon him to insist on having send of those horses which were appropriated to the nse of her royal highness no doubt that he might get on still faster.””
The king bit his lip and changed color the threatening
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plantom from which he had so lately hoped to escape now reappeared in all its horrors. ” It is not possible ‘ murmured he, to gain time. ” I know the whole affair ; you have been misinformed, duke ‘
” No, sire, I have not been misinformed ; what 1 have the honor to tell your majesty is the simple truth. ‘ Viscount Jean Dubarry offered an insult to the dauphiness by insisting on taking for his use horses appointed for her service. After having ill-treated the master of the post-house, he was going to take them by force, when the Chevalier Philip de Taverney arrived, sent .forward by her royal highness to have horses in readiness for her, and after he had several times summoned him in a friendly and conciliating manner “
” Oh, oh ! ” grumbled the king.
“I repeat, sir, after he had several times, in a friendly and conciliating manner, summoned the viscount to de-sist, he was at length obliged to draw his sword.”
” Yes,” said the dauphin, ” I pledge myself for the truth of what the duke asserts.”
” Then you also know of this affair ? ” said the king, exceedingly surprised.
” I know all the circumstances perfectly, sire,” replied the dauphin.
The minister bowed, delighted at having such a supporter.
” Will your royal highness deign to proceed ? ” said he. ” His majesty will doubtless have more confidence in the assertions of his august son than in mine.”
“Yes, sire,” continued the dauphin, without testifying for the Duke de Choiseul’s zeal in his cause all that gratitude which might have been expected ; ” yes, sire, I know the circumstances, and I had come to tell your majesty that Viscount Dubarry has not only insulted the dauphiness in interfering with the arrangements made for her journey, but he has also insulted me in opposing a gentleman of my regiment, who was doing his duty.”
The king shook his head. ” We must inquire,” said he ; ” we must inquire.”
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” I have already inquired, sir, “said the dauphin, gently, ” and have no doubt in the matter ; the viscount drew his sword on my officer.”
” Did he draw first ? ” asked the king, happy to seize any chance of putting his adversary in fault.
The dauphin colored, and looked to the minister for assistance.
” Sire,” said the latter, ” swords were crossed by two men, one of whom was insulting, the other defending, the dauphiness that is all.”
” Yes, but which was the aggressor ?” asked the king. ” I know poor Jean ; he is as gentle as a lamb.”
” The aggressor, in my opinion, sire ‘ said the dauphin, with his usual mildness, ” is he who is in the wrong.”
” It is a delicate matter to decide ‘ replied the king ; ” the aggressor he who in is the wrong ? in the wrong ? But if the officer was insolent ?”
” Insolent ! ” cried the Duke de Choiseul ” insolent toward a man who wanted to take by force horses sent there for the use of the dauphiuess ? Is it possible you can think so, sire?”
The dauphin turned pale, but said nothing. The king saw that he was between two fires.
” I should say warm, perhaps, not insolent,” said he.
” But your majesty knows,” said the minister, taking advantage of the king’s having yielded a step to make a step forward, ” your majesty knows that a zealous servant never can be in the wrong.”
” Oh, perhaps ! But how did you become acquainted with this event, sir ? ” said he, turning sharply to the dauphin, without ceasing, however, to observe the duke, who endeavored vainly to hide the embarrassment which this sudden question caused him.
” By a letter, sire,” replied the dauphin.
” A letter from whom ? “