Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold
text by =equal signs=.
PRICE, 25 CENTS. No. 81.
THE SUNSET SERIES.
By Subscription, per Year, Nine Dollars. March 1, 1894.
Entered at the New York Post Office as second-class matter.
Copyright 1891, by J. S. OGILVIE.
THE
ROYAL LIFE GUARD.
BY
Alex. Dumas.
NEW YORK:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 ROSE STREET.
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THE ROYAL LIFE-GUARD;
OR
THE FLIGHT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF THE SUPPRESSION
OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY.
BY ALEXANDER DUMAS.
Author of "Balsamo the Magician," "Monte Cristo," "The Queen's
Necklace," "The Three Musketeers," "Chicot the Jester,"
"The Countess of Charny," "The Knight of
Redcastle," etc.
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST PARIS EDITION.
BY
HENRY LLEWELLYN WILLIAMS.
NEW YORK:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 ROSE STREET.
_Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1892, by A. E. Smith &
Co., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington._
THE ROYAL LIFE-GUARD.
CHAPTER I.
A NEW LEASE OF LIFE.
France had been changed to a limited monarchy from an absolute one, and
King Louis XVI. had solemnly sworn to defend the new Constitution. But
it had been remarked by shrewd observers that he had not attended the Te
Deum at the Paris Cathedral, with the members of the National Assembly:
that is, he would tell a lie but not commit perjury.
The people were therefore on their guard against him, while they felt
that his Queen, Marie Antoinette, the daughter of Austria, was ever
their foe.
But the murders by the rabble had frightened all property holders and
when the court bought Mirabeau, the popular orator, over to its cause
by paying his debts and a monthly salary the majority of the better
classes, who had not fled from France in terror, thought the Royal
Family would yet regain their own.
In point of fact, Mirabeau had obtained from the House of
Representatives that the King should have the right to rule the army
and direct it and propose war, which the Assembly would only have the
sanction of. He would have obtained more in the reaction after the
Taking of the Bastile but for an unknown hand having distributed full
particulars of his purchase by the royalists in a broadside given away
by thousands in the streets.
Hence he retired from the senate broken by his victory, though carrying
himself proudly.
In face of danger the strong athlete thought of the antagonist, not of
his powers.
On going home, he flung himself on the floor, rolling on flowers. He had
two passionate loves: for the fair sex, because he was an ugly though
robust man, and for flowers.
This time he felt so exhausted that he resisted his attendant feebly,
who wanted to send for a doctor, when "Dr. Gilbert" was announced.
A man still young though with a grave expression like one tried in
the furnace of personal and political heats, entered the room. He was
clothed in the wholly black suit which he introduced from America, where
it was popular among Republicans, for he was a friend of Washington and
Marquis Lafayette, who like him had returned to make a sister Republic
of France to that of the Thirteen United States.
Dr. Gilbert was a friend of Mirabeau, for he wished to preserve the King
at the head of the State though he knew it was but the gilded figurehead
without which, if knocked off in the tempest, the Ship rights itself and
lives through all without feeling the loss.
Nevertheless, Gilbert, who was one of the Invisibles, that Secret
Society which worked for years to bring about the downfall of monarchy
in Europe, had been warned by its Chief, the Grand Copt Cagliostro,
_alias_ Balsamo the Mesmerist, _alias_ Baron Zannone--since he had
escaped from the Papal dungeons under cover of his being supposed dead
and buried there--that the Queen cajoled him and that royalty was
doomed.
"I have come to congratulate you, my dear count," said the doctor to the
orator, "you promised us a victory, and you have borne away a triumph."
"A Pyrrhic one--another such and we are lost. I am very ill of it. Oh,
doctor, tell me of something, not to keep me alive but to give me force
while I do live."
"How can I advise for a constitution like yours," said the physician,
after feeling the nobleman's pulse: "you do not heed my advice. I told
you not to have flowers in the room as they spoil the air, and you are
smothered in them. As for the ladies, I bade you beware and you answer
that you would rather die than be reft of their society."
"Never mind that. I suffer too much to think of aught but myself. I
sometimes think that as I am slandered so that the Queen hesitated to
trust me, so have I been physically done to death. Do you believe in the
famous poisons which slay without knowing they are used until too late?"
"Yes; I believe," for Gilbert frowned as he remembered that his secret
brotherhood was allowed to use the Aqua Tofana where an enemy could not
be otherwise reached: "but in your case it is the sword wearing out its
sheath. The electric spark will explode the crystal chamber in which it
is confined. Still I can help you."
He drew from his pocket a phial holding about a couple of thimblefuls of
a green liquid.
"One of my friends--whom I would were yours--deeply versed in natural
and occult sciences, gave me the recipe of this brew as a sovereign
elixir of life. I have often taken it to cure what the English call
the blue devils. And I am bound to say that the effect was instant and
salutary. Will you taste it?"
"I will take anything from your hand, my dear doctor."
A servant was rung up, who brought a spoon and a little brandy in a
glass.
"Brandy to mollify it," said Mirabeau: "it must be liquid fire, then!"
Gilbert added the same quantity of his elixir to the half-dozen drops of
eau-de-vie and the two fluids mixed to the color of wormwood bitters,
which the exhausted man drank off.
Immediately he was invigorated and sprang up, saying:
"Doctor, I will pay a diamond a drop for that liquor, for it would make
me feel invincible."
"Count, promise me that you will take it only each three days, and I
will leave you a phial every week."
"Give it, and I promise everything."
"Now, I have come for another matter. I want you to come out of town
for carriage exercise and at the same time to select a residence there."
"It chances that I was looking for one, and my man found a nice house at
Argenteuil, recommended by a fellow countryman of his, one Fritz, whose
master, a foreign banker, had lived in it. It is delightful and being
vacant could be moved into at once. My father had a house out there,
whence he drove me with his cane."
"Let us go to Argenteuil, then," said Gilbert; "your health is so
valuable that we must study everything bearing upon it."
Mirabeau had no establishment and a hack had to be called for the
gentlemen. In this they proceeded to the village where, a hundred paces
on the Besons Road, they saw a house buried in the trees. It was called
the Marsh House.
On the right of the road was a humble cottage, in front of which sat a
woman on a stool, holding a child in her arms who seemed devoured with
fever.
"Doctor," said the orator, fixing his eyes on the sad sight, "I am as
superstitious as an ancient. If that child dies, I would not live in
this house. Just see what you think of the case."
Gilbert got down while the carriage went on.
A gardener was keeping the house which he showed to the inquirer.
It belonged to St. Denis Abbey and was for sale under the decree
confiscating Church property. Over against the gardener's lodge was
another, a summerhouse simply overgrown with flowers. Mirabeau's passion
for them made this sufficient lure; for this alone he would have taken
the house.
"Is this little cottage, this Temple of Flora, on the property?" he
asked.
"Yes, sir: it belongs to the big house but it is at present occupied by
a lady with her child, a pretty lady, but of course she will have to go
if the house and estate are bought."
"A lovely neighbor does no harm," said the count: "Let me see the
interior of the house."
The rooms were lofty and elegant, the furniture fine and stylish. In
the main room Mirabeau opened a window to look out and it commanded a
view of the summerhouse. What was more, he had a view of a lady, sewing,
half reclining, while a child of five or six played on the lawn among
flowering shrubs.
It was the lady tenant.
It was not only such a pretty woman as one might imagine a Queen among
the roses, but it was the living likeness of Queen Marie Antoinette and
to accentuate the resemblance the boy was about the age of the Prince
Royal.
Suddenly the beautiful stranger perceived that she was under observation
for she uttered a faint scream of surprise, rose, called her son, and
drew him inside by the hand, but not without looking back two or three
times.
At this same moment Mirabeau started, for a hand was laid on his
shoulder. It was the doctor who reported that the peasant's child had
caught swamp fever from being set down beside a stagnant pool while the
mother reaped the grass. The disease was deadly but the doctor hoped to
save the sufferer by Jesuit's Bark, as quinine was still styled at this
date.
But he warned his friend against this House in the Marsh, where the
air might be as fatal to him as that of the senate house, where bad
ventilation made the atmosphere mephitic.
"I am sorry the air is not good, for the house suits me wonderfully."
"What an eternal enemy you are to yourself? If you mean to obey the
orders of the Faculty, begin by renouncing the idea of taking this
residence. You will find fifty around Paris better placed."
Perhaps Mirabeau, yielding to Reason's voice, would have promised; but
suddenly, in the first shades of evening, behind a screen of flowers,
appeared the head of a woman in white and pink flounces: he fancied that
she smiled on him. He had no time to assure himself as Gilbert dragged
him away, suspecting something was going on.
"My dear doctor," said the orator, "remember that I said to the Queen
when she gave me her hand to kiss on our interview for reconciliation:
'By this token, the Monarchy is saved.' I took a heavy engagement that
time, especially if they whom I defend plot against me; but I shall hold
to it, though suicide may be the only way for me to get honorably out of
it."
In a day Mirabeau bought the Marsh House.