A MARVEL OF MAGIC.
Humble was Balsamo's bow; but immediately raising his intelligent and
expressive brow, he fixed his clear eye, though with respect, on the
chief guest, silently waiting for her to question him.
"If you are the person Baron Taverney has mentioned, pray draw nigh
that we may see what a magician is like."
Balsamo came a step nearer and bowed to Marie Antoinette.
"So you make a business of foretelling?" said the latter, sipping the
milk while regarding the new comer with more curiosity than she liked
to betray.
"I make no business of it, but I do foretell, please your royal
highness?" was the answer.
"Educated in an enlightened faith, we place faith solely in the
mysteries of our religion."
"Undoubtedly they are worthy of veneration," responded the other
dialoguist with a profound congé. "But the Cardinal de Rohan here,
though Prince of the Church, will tell you that they are not the only
ones worthy of respect."
The cardinal started, for his title had not been announced.
Not appearing to notice this revelation, Marie Antoinette pursued:
"But you must allow that they alone cannot be controverted."
"There can be fact as well as faith," replied Balsamo, with the same
respect but with the same firmness.
"You speak a trifle darkly, my lord Baron of Magic. I am at heart a
good Frenchwoman, but not in mind, and do not yet understand all the
fineness of the language. They say I shall soon pick it up, even to the
puns. Meanwhile, I must urge you to speak more plainly if you want my
comprehension."
"I ask your highness to let me dwell obscure," said the baron, with a
melancholy smile. "I should feel too much regret to reveal to so great
a princess a future not equal to her hopes."
"Dear me, this is becoming serious," said Marie Antoinette, "and
Abracadabra whets my curiosity in order to make me beg my fortune to be
told."
"Heaven forbid my being forced into it," observed Balsamo coldly.
"Of course, for you would be put to much pains for little result,"
laughed the princess.
But her merriment died away without a courtier's echoing it; all
suffered the influence of the mystic man who claimed the whole
attention.
"Still it was you foretold my coming to Taverney?" said the mighty
lady, to which Balsamo silently bowed. "How was the trick done, my lord
baron?"
"Simply by looking into a glass of water, my liege lady," was the old
noble's answer.
"If that be truly your magic mirror, it is guileless at any rate; may
your words be as clear!"
The cardinal smiled, and the master of the place said:
"Your highness will not have to take lessons in punning."
"Nay, my dear host, do not flatter me, or flatter me better. It seems
to me it was a mild quip; but, my lord," she resumed, turning toward
Balsamo by that irresistible attraction drawing us to a danger, "if you
can read the future in a glass for a gentleman, may you not read it for
a lady in a decanter?"
"Perfectly; but the future is uncertain, and I should shrink from
saddening your royal highness if a cloud veiled it, as I have already
had the honor to say."
"Do you know me beforetimes? Where did you first see me?"
"I saw you as a child beside your august mother, that mighty queen."
"Empress, my lord."
"Queen by heart and mind, but such have weaknesses when they think they
act for their daughters' happiness."
"I hope history will not record one single weakness in Maria Theresa,"
retorted the other.
"Because it does not know what is known solely to your highness, her
mother and myself."
"Is there a secret among us three?" sneered the lady. "I must hear it."
"In Schoenbrunn Palace is the Saxony Cabinet, where the empress sits
in private. One morning, about seven, the empress not being up, your
highness entered this study, and perceived a letter of hers, open, on
the writing-table."
The hearer blushed.
"Reading it, your highness took up a pen and struck out the three words
beginning it."
"Speak them aloud!"
"'My dear Friend.'"
Marie Antoinette bit her lips as she turned pale.
"Am I to tell to whom the letter was addressed?" inquired the seer.
"No, no, but you may write it."
The soothsayer took out his memorandum book fastening with a gilt
clasp, and with a kind of pencil from which flowed ink, wrote on a
leaf. Detaching this page, he presented it to the princess, who read:
"The letter was addressed to the marchioness of Pompadour, mistress of
King Louis XV."
The dauphiness' astounded look rose upon this clearly speaking man,
with pure and steady voice, who appeared to tower over her although he
bowed lowly.
"All this is quite true," she admitted, "and though I am unaware how
you could learn this secret, I am bound to allow, before all, that you
speak true."
"Then I may retire upon this innocent proof of my science."
"Not so, my lord baron," said the princess, nettled; "the wiser you
are, the more I long for your forecast. You have only spoken of the
past, and I demand the future."
Her feverish agitation could not escape the bystanders.
"Let me at least consult the oracle, to learn whether the prediction
may be revealed."
"Good or bad, I must hear it!" cried Marie Antoinette with growing
irritation. "I shall not believe it if good, taking it for flattery;
but bad, I shall regard it as a warning, and I promise any way not to
bear you ill will. Begin your witchcraft."
Balsamo took up the decanter with a broad mouth and stood it in a
golden saucer. He raised it thus high up, and, after looking at it
shook his head.
"I cannot speak. Some things must not be told to princes," he said.
"Because you have nothing to say?" and she smiled scornfully.
Balsamo appeared embarrassed, so that the cardinal began to laugh in
his face and the baron grumbled.
"My wizard is worn out," he said. "Nothing is to follow but the gold
turning into dry leaves, as in the Arabian tale."
"I would have preferred the leaves to all this show; for there is no
shame in drinking from a nobleman's pewter goblet, while a dauphiness
of France ought not to have to use the thimble-rigging cup of a
charlatan."
Balsamo started erect as if a viper had bitten him.
"Your highness shall know your fate, since your blindness drives you to
it."
These words were uttered in a voice so steady but so threatening that
the hearers felt icy chills in their veins. The lady turned pale
visibly.
"Do not listen to him, my daughter," whispered the old governess in
German to her ward.
"Let her hear, for since she wanted to know, know she shall!" said
Balsamo in the same language, which doubled the mystery over the
incident. "But to you alone, lady."
"Be it so," said the latter. "Stand back!"
"I suppose this is just an artifice to get a private audience?" sneered
she, turning again to the magician.
"Do not try to irritate me," said he; "I am but the instrument of a
higher Power, used to enlighten you. Insult fate and it will revenge
itself, well knowing how. I merely interpret its moves. Do not fling at
me the wrath which will recoil on yourself, for you can not visit on me
the woes of which I am the sinister herald."
"Then there are woes?" said the princess, softened by his
respectfulness and disarmed by his apparent resignation.
"Very great ones."
"Tell me all. First, will my family live happy?"
"Your misfortunes will not reach those you leave at home. They are
personal to you and your new family. This royal family has three
members, the Duke of Berry, the Count of Provence, and the Count of
Artois. They will all three reign."
"Am I to have no son?"
"Sons will be among your offspring, but you will deplore that one
should live and the other die."
"Will not my husband love me?"
"Too well. But his love and your family's support will fail you."
"Those of the people will yet be mine."
"Popular love and support--the ocean in a calm. Have you seen it in a
storm?"
"I will prevent it rising, or ride upon the billows."
"The higher its crest, the deeper the abyss."
"Heaven remains to me."
"Heaven does not save the heads it dooms."
"My head in danger? Shall I not reign a queen?"
"Yes--but would to God you never did."
The princess smiled disdainfully.
"Hearken, and remember," proceeded Balsamo. "Did you remark the subject
on the tapestry of the first room you entered on French ground? The
Massacre of the Innocents; the ominous figures must have remained in
your mind. During that storm, did you see that the lightning felled a
tree on your left, almost to crush your coach? Such presages are not to
be interpreted but as fatal ones."
Letting her head fall upon her bosom, the princess reflected for a
space before asking:
"How will those three die?"
"Your husband the king will die headless; Count Provence, legless; and
Artois heartless."
"But myself? I command you to speak, or I shall hold all this as a
paltry trick. Take care, my lord, for the daughter of Maria Theresa
is not to be sported with--a woman who holds in hand the destinies of
thirty millions of souls. You know no more, or your imagination is
exhausted."
Balsamo placed the saucer and the decanter on a bench in the darkest
nook of the arbor, which thus resembled a pythoness' cave; he led her
within the gloom.
"Down on your knees," he said, alarming her by the action; "for you
will seem to be imploring God to spare you the terrible outcome which
you are to view."
Mechanically the princess obeyed, but as Balsamo touched the crystal
with his magic wand, some frightful picture no doubt appeared in it,
for the princess tried to rise, reeled, and screamed as she fell in a
swoon.
They ran to her.
"That decanter?" she cried, when revived.
The water was limpid and stainless.
The wonder-worker had disappeared!