A ROYAL CLOCK-REPAIRER.
In the Hall of the Clocks, in Versailles Palace, a pink-cheeked and
meek-eyed young gentleman was walking about with a somewhat vulgar
step. His arms were pendent and his head sunk forward. He was in his
seventeenth year. He was recognizable as the king's heir by being the
living image of the Bourbon race, most exaggerated. Louis Auguste,
Duke of Berry and heir to the throne as the dauphin, soon wearied of
his lounge and stopped to gaze with the air of one who understood
horology, on the great clock in the back of the hall. It was a
universal machine, which told of time to the century, with the lunar
phases and the courses of the planets, and was always the prince's
admiration.
Suddenly the hands on which his eyes were fastened came to a
standstill. A grain of sand had checked the mechanism, and the
master-piece was dead.
On seeing this misfortune, the royal one forgot what he had come to do.
He opened the clock-case glazed door, and put his head inside to see
what was the matter. All at once he uttered a cry of joy, for he had
spied a screw loose, of which the head had worked up and caught another
part of the machinery. With a tortoise shell pick in one hand, and
holding the wheel with the other, he began to fix the screw, with his
head in the box. Thus absorbed he never heard the usher at the door,
cry out: "The king!"
Louis was some time glancing about before he spied the prince's legs as
he stood half eclipsed before the clock.
"What the deuse are you doing there?" he asked, as he tapped his son on
the shoulder.
The amateur clockmaker drew himself out with the proper precautions for
so noble a timepiece.
"Oh, your majesty, I was just _killing time_ while you were not
present."
"By murdering my clock! Pretty amusement!"
"Oh, no, only setting it to rights. A screw was loose and----"
"Never mind mechanics! What do you want of me? I am eager to be off to
Marly."
He started for the door, always trying to avoid awkward situations.
"Is it money you are after? I will send you some."
"Nay, I have savings out of my last quarter's money."
"What a miser, and yet a spendthrift was his tutor! I believe he has
all the virtues missing in me."
"Sire, is not the bride near at hand yet?"
"Your bride? I should say fifty leagues off. Are you in a hurry."
The prince royal blushed.
"I am not eager for the motive you think."
"No? So much the worse. Hang it all! You are sixteen and the princess
very pretty. You are warranted in being impatient."
"Cannot the ceremonies be curtailed, for at this rate she will be an
age coming. I don't think the traveling arrangements are well made."
"The mischief! thirty thousand horses placed along the route, with men
and carts and coaches--how can you believe there is bad management
when I have made all these arrangements?"
"Sire, in spite of these, I am bound to say that I think, as in the
case of your clock, there is a screw loose. The progress has been right
royally arranged, but did your majesty make it fully understood that
all the horses, men and vehicles were to be employed by the dauphiness?"
A vague suspicion annoyed the monarch, who looked hard at his heir;
this suggestion agreed with another idea fretting him.
"Certainly," he replied. "Of course you are satisfied, then? The bride
will arrive on time, and she is properly attended to. You are rich with
your savings, and you can wind up my clock and set it going again. I
have a good mind to appoint you Clockmaker Extraordinary to the Royal
Household, do you hear?" and, laughing, he was going to snatch the
opportunity to slip away, when, as he opened the door, he faced a man
on the sill.
Louis drew back a step.
"Choiseul!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten she was to send him to me.
Never mind, he shall pay for my son irritating me. So you have come, my
lord? You heard I wanted you?"
"Yes, sire," replied the prime minister, coldly. "I was dressing to
come, any way."
"Good; I have serious matters to discuss," said the sovereign, frowning
to intimidate the minister, who was, unfortunately, the hardest man to
browbeat in the kingdom.
"Very serious matters I have to discuss, too," he replied, with a
glance for the dauphin, who was skulking behind the clock.
"Oho!" thought the king; "my son is my foe, too. I am in a triangle
with woman, minister and son, and cannot escape."
"I come to say that the Viscount Jean----"
"Was nearly murdered in an ambush?"
"Nay, that he was wounded in the forearm in a duel. I know it
perfectly."
"So do I, and I will tell you the true story."
"We listen," responded Choiseul. "For the prince is concerned in the
affray, so far as it was on account of the dauphiness."
"The dauphiness and Jean Dubarry in some way connected?" questioned
the king. "This is getting curious. Pray explain, my lord, and conceal
nothing. Was it the princess who gave the swordthrust to Dubarry?"
"Not her highness, but one of the officers of her escort," replied
Choiseul, as calm as ever.
"One whom you know?"
"No, sire; but your majesty ought to know him, if your majesty
remembers all his old servants; for his father fought for you at
Fontenoy, Philipsburg and Mahon--he is a Taverney Redcastle."
The dauphin mutely repeated the title to engrave it on his mind.
"Certainly, I know the Redcastles," returned Louis. "Why did he fight
against Jean, whom I like--unless because I like him? Absurd jealousy,
outbreaks of discontent, and partial sedition!"
"Does the defender of the royal princess deserve this reproach?" said
the duke.
"I must say," said the prince, rising erect and folding his arms, "I am
grateful to the young gentleman who risked his life for a lady who will
shortly be my wife."
"What did he risk his life for?" queried the king.
"Because the Chevalier Jean in a hurry wanted to take the horses set
aside by your majesty for the royal bride."
The king bit his lips and changed color, for the new way of presenting
the case was again a menacing phantom.
"Yes, Chevalier Dubarry was putting the insult on the royal house of
taking the reserved royal horses, when up came the Chevalier Redcastle,
sent onward by her highness, and after much civil remonstrance----"
"Oh!" protested the king. "Civil--a military man?"
"It was so," interposed the dauphin. "I have been fully informed.
Dubarry whipped out his sword----"
"Was he the first to draw?" demanded the king.
The prince blushed and looked to Choiseul for support.
"The fact is, the two crossed swords," the latter hastened to say, "one
having insulted the lady, the other defending her and your majesty's
property."
"But who was the aggressor, for Jean is mild as a lamb," said the
monarch, glad that things were getting equalized.
"The officer must have been malapert."
"Impertinent to a man who was dragging away the horses reserved for
your majesty's destined daughter?" exclaimed Choiseul. "Is this
possible?"
"Hasty, anyway," said the king, as the dauphin stood pale without a
word.
"A zealous servitor can never do wrong," remarked the duke, receding a
step.
"Come, now, how did you get the news?" asked the king of his son,
without losing sight of the minister, who was troubled by this abrupt
question.
"I had an advice from one who was offended by the insult to the lady of
my choice."
"Secret correspondence, eh?" exclaimed the sovereign. "Plots,
plots! Here you are, beginning to worry me again, as in the days of
Pompadour."
"No, this is only a secondary matter. Let the culprit be punished, and
that will end the affair."
At the suggestion of punishment, Louis saw Jeanne furious and Chon up
in arms.
"Punish, without hearing the case?" he said. "I have signed quite
enough blank committals to jail. A pretty mess you are dragging me
into, duke."
"But what a scandal, if the first outrage to the princess is allowed to
go unpunished, sire."
"I entreat your majesty," said the dauphin.
"What, don't you think the sword cut was enough punishment?"
"No, sire, for he might have wounded Lieutenant Taverney. In that case
I should have asked for his head."
"Nay," said the dauphin, "I only ask for his banishment."
"Exile, for an alehouse scuffle," said the king. "In spite of your
philosophical notions, you are harsh, Louis. It is true that you are
a mathematician, and such are hard as--well, they would sacrifice the
world to have their ciphering come out correct."
"Sire, I am not angry with Chevalier Dubarry personally, but as he
insulted the dauphiness."
"What a model husband!" sneered the king. "But I am not to be gulled
in this way. I see that I am attacked under all these blinds. It is
odd that you cannot let me live in my own way, but must hate all whom
I like, and like all I dislike! Am I mad, or sane? Am I the master, or
not!"
The prince went back to the clock. Choiseul bowed as before.
"No answer, eh? Why don't you say something? Do you want to worry me
into the grave with your petty hints and strange silence, your paltry
spites and minute dreads?"
"I do not hate Chevalier Dubarry," said the prince.
"I do not dread him," added Choiseul.
"You are both bad at heart," went on the sovereign, trying to be
furious but only showing spite. "Do you want me to realize the fable
with which my cousin of Prussia jeers me, that mine is the Court of
King Petaud? No, I shall do nothing of the kind. I stand on my honor in
my own style and will defend it similarly."
"Sire," said the prince with his inexhaustible meekness but eternal
persistency, "your majesty's honor is not affected--it is the dignity
of the royal princess which is struck at."
"Let Chevalier Jean make excuses, then, as he is free to do. But he is
free to do the other thing."
"I warn your majesty that the affair will be talked of, if thus
dropped," said the prime minister.
"Who cares? Do as I do. Let the public chatter, and heed them
not--unless you like to laugh at them. I shall be deaf to all. The
sooner they make such a noise as to deafen me, the sooner I shall cease
to hear them. Think over what I say, for I am sick of this. I am going
to Marly, where I can get a little quiet--if I am not followed out
there. At least, I shall not meet your sister the Lady Louise there,
for she has retired to the nunnery of St. Denis."
But the dauphin was not listening to this news of the breaking up of
his family.
"It is going," he exclaimed in delight, real or feigned, as the clock
resumed its regular tickings.
The minister frowned and bowed himself out backward from the hall,
where the heir to the throne was left alone.
The king going into his study, paced it with long strides.
"I can clearly see that Choiseul is railing at me. The prince looks
on himself as half the master, and believes he will be entirely so
when he mounts with this Austrian on the throne. My daughter Louise
loves me, but she preaches morality and she gives me the go-by to live
in the nunnery. My three other girls sing songs against me and poor
Jeanne. The Count of Provence is translating Lucretius. His brother of
Artois is running wild about the streets. Decidedly none but this poor
countess loves me. Devil take those who try to displease her!"
Sitting at the table where his father signed papers, his treaties and
grandiloquent epistles, the son of the great king took up the pen.
"I understand why they are all hastening the arrival of the
archduchess. But I am not going to be perturbed by her sooner than can
be helped," and he wrote an order for Governor Stainville to stop three
days at one city and three at another.
With the same pen he wrote:
"DEAR COUNTESS: This day we install Zamore in his new government.
I am off for Marly, but I will come over to Luciennes this evening
to tell you all I am thinking about at present.
FRANCE."
"Lebel," he said to his confidential valet, "away with this to the
countess, and my advice is for you to keep in her good graces."