Pain, anguish, and suffering in human life are always in proportion to
the strength with which a man is endowed. We will not pretend to say
that Heaven always apportions to a man’s capability of endurance the
anguish with which he afflicts him; for that, indeed, would not be true,
since Heaven permits the existence of death, which is, sometimes, the
only refuge open to those who are too closely pressed--too bitterly
afflicted, as far as the body is concerned. Suffering is in proportion
to the strength which has been accorded; in other words, the weak suffer
more, where the trial is the same, than the strong. And what are the
elementary principles, we may ask, that compose human strength? Is it
not--more than anything else--exercise, habit, experience? We shall not
even take the trouble to demonstrate this, for it is an axiom in morals,
as in physics. When the young king, stupefied and crushed in every sense
and feeling, found himself led to a cell in the Bastile, he fancied
death itself is but a sleep; that it, too, has its dreams as well; that
the bed had broken through the flooring of his room at Vaux; that death
had resulted from the occurrence; and that, still carrying out his
dream, the king, Louis XIV., now no longer living, was dreaming one
of those horrors, impossible to realize in life, which is termed
dethronement, imprisonment, and insult towards a sovereign who formerly
wielded unlimited power. To be present at--an actual witness, too--of
this bitterness of death; to float, indecisively, in an incomprehensible
mystery, between resemblance and reality; to hear everything, to
see everything, without interfering in a single detail of agonizing
suffering, was--so the king thought within himself--a torture far
more terrible, since it might last forever. “Is this what is termed
eternity--hell?” he murmured, at the moment the door was closed upon
him, which we remember Baisemeaux had shut with his own hands. He did
not even look round him; and in the room, leaning with his back
against the wall, he allowed himself to be carried away by the terrible
supposition that he was already dead, as he closed his eyes, in order to
avoid looking upon something even worse still. “How can I have died?” he
said to himself, sick with terror. “The bed might have been let down by
some artificial means? But no! I do not remember to have felt a bruise,
nor any shock either. Would they not rather have poisoned me at my
meals, or with the fumes of wax, as they did my ancestress, Jeanne
d’Albret?” Suddenly, the chill of the dungeons seemed to fall like a wet
cloak upon Louis’s shoulders. “I have seen,” he said, “my father lying
dead upon his funeral couch, in his regal robes. That pale face, so calm
and worn; those hands, once so skillful, lying nerveless by his side;
those limbs stiffened by the icy grasp of death; nothing there betokened
a sleep that was disturbed by dreams. And yet, how numerous were the
dreams which Heaven might have sent that royal corpse--him whom so many
others had preceded, hurried away by him into eternal death! No, that
king was still the king: he was enthroned still upon that funeral
couch, as upon a velvet armchair; he had not abdicated one title of his
majesty. God, who had not punished him, cannot, will not punish me, who
have done nothing.” A strange sound attracted the young man’s attention.
He looked round him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous
crucifix, coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size
engaged in nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing all the time, an
intelligent and inquiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The
king could not resist a sudden impulse of fear and disgust: he moved
back towards the door, uttering a loud cry; and as if he but needed this
cry, which escaped from his breast almost unconsciously, to recognize
himself, Louis knew that he was alive and in full possession of his
natural senses. “A prisoner!” he cried. “I--I, a prisoner!” He looked
round him for a bell to summon some one to him. “There are no bells in
the Bastile,” he said, “and it is in the Bastile I am imprisoned. In
what way can I have been made a prisoner? It must have been owing to a
conspiracy of M. Fouquet. I have been drawn to Vaux, as to a snare. M.
Fouquet cannot be acting alone in this affair. His agent--That voice
that I but just now heard was M. d’Herblay’s; I recognized it. Colbert
was right, then. But what is Fouquet’s object? To reign in my place and
stead?--Impossible. Yet who knows!” thought the king, relapsing into
gloom again. “Perhaps my brother, the Duc d’Orleans, is doing that which
my uncle wished to do during the whole of his life against my father.
But the queen?--My mother, too? And La Vallière? Oh! La Vallière, she
will have been abandoned to Madame. Dear, dear girl! Yes, it is--it must
be so. They have shut her up as they have me. We are separated forever!”
And at this idea of separation the poor lover burst into a flood of
tears and sobs and groans.
“There is a governor in this place,” the king continued, in a fury of
passion; “I will speak to him, I will summon him to me.”
He called--no voice replied to his. He seized hold of his chair, and
hurled it against the massive oaken door. The wood resounded against the
door, and awakened many a mournful echo in the profound depths of the
staircase; but from a human creature, none.
This was a fresh proof for the king of the slight regard in which he was
held at the Bastile. Therefore, when his first fit of anger had passed
away, having remarked a barred window through which there passed a
stream of light, lozenge-shaped, which must be, he knew, the bright orb
of approaching day, Louis began to call out, at first gently enough,
then louder and louder still; but no one replied. Twenty other attempts
which he made, one after another, obtained no other or better success.
His blood began to boil within him, and mount to his head. His nature
was such, that, accustomed to command, he trembled at the idea of
disobedience. The prisoner broke the chair, which was too heavy for him
to lift, and made use of it as a battering ram to strike against the
door. He struck so loudly, and so repeatedly, that the perspiration soon
began to pour down his face. The sound became tremendous and continuous;
certain stifled, smothered cries replied in different directions. This
sound produced a strange effect upon the king. He paused to listen;
it was the voice of the prisoners, formerly his victims, now his
companions. The voices ascended like vapors through the thick ceilings
and the massive walls, and rose in accusations against the author of
this noise, as doubtless their sighs and tears accused, in whispered
tones, the author of their captivity. After having deprived so many
people of their liberty, the king came among them to rob them of their
rest. This idea almost drove him mad; it redoubled his strength, or
rather his will, bent upon obtaining some information, or a conclusion
to the affair. With a portion of the broken chair he recommenced the
noise. At the end of an hour, Louis heard something in the corridor,
behind the door of his cell, and a violent blow, which was returned upon
the door itself, made him cease his own.
“Are you mad?” said a rude, brutal voice. “What is the matter with you
this morning?”
“This morning!” thought the king; but he said aloud, politely,
“Monsieur, are you the governor of the Bastile?”
“My good fellow, your head is out of sorts,” replied the voice; “but
that is no reason why you should make such a terrible disturbance. Be
quiet; _mordioux!_”
“Are you the governor?” the king inquired again.
He heard a door on the corridor close; the jailer had just left, not
condescending to reply a single word. When the king had assured himself
of his departure, his fury knew no longer any bounds. As agile as a
tiger, he leaped from the table to the window, and struck the iron bars
with all his might. He broke a pane of glass, the pieces of which
fell clanking into the courtyard below. He shouted with increasing
hoarseness, “The governor, the governor!” This excess lasted fully an
hour, during which time he was in a burning fever. With his hair in
disorder and matted on his forehead, his dress torn and covered with
dust and plaster, his linen in shreds, the king never rested until
his strength was utterly exhausted, and it was not until then that he
clearly understood the pitiless thickness of the walls, the impenetrable
nature of the cement, invincible to every influence but that of time,
and that he possessed no other weapon but despair. He leaned his
forehead against the door, and let the feverish throbbings of his heart
calm by degrees; it had seemed as if one single additional pulsation
would have made it burst.
“A moment will come when the food which is given to the prisoners will
be brought to me. I shall then see some one, I shall speak to him, and
get an answer.”
And the king tried to remember at what hour the first repast of the
prisoners was served at the Bastile; he was ignorant even of this
detail. The feeling of remorse at this remembrance smote him like the
thrust of a dagger, that he should have lived for five and twenty years
a king, and in the enjoyment of every happiness, without having bestowed
a moment’s thought on the misery of those who had been unjustly deprived
of their liberty. The king blushed for very shame. He felt that Heaven,
in permitting this fearful humiliation, did no more than render to the
man the same torture as had been inflicted by that man upon so many
others. Nothing could be more efficacious for reawakening his mind to
religious influences than the prostration of his heart and mind and soul
beneath the feeling of such acute wretchedness. But Louis dared not even
kneel in prayer to God to entreat him to terminate his bitter trial.
“Heaven is right,” he said; “Heaven acts wisely. It would be cowardly
to pray to Heaven for that which I have so often refused my own
fellow-creatures.”
He had reached this stage of his reflections, that is, of his agony of
mind, when a similar noise was again heard behind his door, followed
this time by the sound of the key in the lock, and of the bolts being
withdrawn from their staples. The king bounded forward to be nearer to
the person who was about to enter, but, suddenly reflecting that it was
a movement unworthy of a sovereign, he paused, assumed a noble and calm
expression, which for him was easy enough, and waited with his back
turned towards the window, in order, to some extent, to conceal his
agitation from the eyes of the person who was about to enter. It was
only a jailer with a basket of provisions. The king looked at the man
with restless anxiety, and waited until he spoke.
“Ah!” said the latter, “you have broken your chair. I said you had done
so! Why, you have gone quite mad.”
“Monsieur,” said the king, “be careful what you say; it will be a very
serious affair for you.”
The jailer placed the basket on the table, and looked at his prisoner
steadily. “What do you say?” he said.
“Desire the governor to come to me,” added the king, in accents full of
calm and dignity.
“Come, my boy,” said the turnkey, “you have always been very quiet and
reasonable, but you are getting vicious, it seems, and I wish you
to know it in time. You have broken your chair, and made a great
disturbance; that is an offense punishable by imprisonment in one of the
lower dungeons. Promise me not to begin over again, and I will not say a
word about it to the governor.”
“I wish to see the governor,” replied the king, still governing his
passions.
“He will send you off to one of the dungeons, I tell you; so take care.”
“I insist upon it, do you hear?”
“Ah! ah! your eyes are becoming wild again. Very good! I shall take away
your knife.”
And the jailer did what he said, quitted the prisoner, and closed the
door, leaving the king more astounded, more wretched, more isolated than
ever. It was useless, though he tried it, to make the same noise again
on his door, and equally useless that he threw the plates and dishes out
of the window; not a single sound was heard in recognition. Two hours
afterwards he could not be recognized as a king, a gentleman, a man, a
human being; he might rather be called a madman, tearing the door with
his nails, trying to tear up the flooring of his cell, and uttering such
wild and fearful cries that the old Bastile seemed to tremble to its
very foundations for having revolted against its master. As for the
governor, the jailer did not even think of disturbing him; the turnkeys
and the sentinels had reported the occurrence to him, but what was the
good of it? Were not these madmen common enough in such a prison?
and were not the walls still stronger? M. de Baisemeaux, thoroughly
impressed with what Aramis had told him, and in perfect conformity with
the king’s order, hoped only that one thing might happen; namely, that
the madman Marchiali might be mad enough to hang himself to the canopy
of his bed, or to one of the bars of the window. In fact, the prisoner
was anything but a profitable investment for M. Baisemeaux, and became
more annoying than agreeable to him. These complications of Seldon
and Marchiali--the complications first of setting at liberty and then
imprisoning again, the complications arising from the strong likeness in
question--had at last found a very proper _denouement_. Baisemeaux
even thought he had remarked that D’Herblay himself was not altogether
dissatisfied with the result.
“And then, really,” said Baisemeaux to his next in command, “an ordinary
prisoner is already unhappy enough in being a prisoner; he suffers quite
enough, indeed, to induce one to hope, charitably enough, that his death
may not be far distant. With still greater reason, accordingly, when the
prisoner has gone mad, and might bite and make a terrible disturbance
in the Bastile; why, in such a case, it is not simply an act of mere
charity to wish him dead; it would be almost a good and even commendable
action, quietly to have him put out of his misery.”
And the good-natured governor thereupon sat down to his late breakfast.