KING LOUIS THE FIFTEENTH.
The two spies had scarcely disappeared when Madame Du Berry observed an
old man walking deliberately along the grand avenue leading to the
palace.
“Ah! how fortunate! I might have been compelled to wait, but for this.
He seems in good-humor, too; but I am trembling yet. Mon Dieu, how I
tremble! That awful shock has shaken every nerve in my body. He will see
that I am disturbed, and, perhaps, ask the cause. For the world, I would
not tell him. Zamara! Zamara!”
The dwarf, who was waiting close by the door, entered instantly.
“Wine, Zamara!”
The dwarf turned, and directly came back with a salver, on which was a
crystal flask, full of wine, and a tall glass, engraved with a
frost-work of vine-leaves. Madame forbade him to kneel, and filled the
glass herself, draining it like a bar-maid.
“Now go,” she said; “the king must not be kept waiting.”
She need not have been in so much haste, for the old man coming up the
avenue, walked but slowly. He seemed to enjoy the sunshine of that
pleasant day, and lingered in it as an idle old man might, to whom a
degree of weariness was to be endured every day of his life. Still, if
he walked slowly, it was with a jaunty affectation of youth, which his
costume and singularly handsome features carried out with some
appearance of truth. As the sun shone down upon his coat of plum-colored
velvet, with all its rich bordering of embroidery—on the little hat,
surmounting a peruke of flowing brown hair, and the soft, mist-like lace
fluttering at his wrists and bosom, the picture was far more youthful
than it would have appeared at a closer view, or with less elaborate
appointments. As he walked daintily forward in his high-heeled shoes, on
which the diamond-buckles shot out a tiny flame with each lift of the
foot, the old monarch—for this man was Louis the Fifteenth—saw the
flutter of a rose-colored dress at one of the palace windows, and paused
long enough to kiss his hand.
“Thank heaven, he is in excellent humor!” exclaimed the countess, moving
restlessly around the room, and hiding the parchment Dr. Gosner had made
his calculations on beneath a cushion. “This will make my task easy.”
She was right; the old monarch was in high spirits that day. Like a
school-boy, he had escaped from the etiquette of Versailles, and sought
an hour of relaxation in the pretty palace which, from its very
proportions, gave some idea of a home.
The countess stood near the door of her saloon, waiting to receive him,
her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed with the wine she had been
drinking. The nervous shock she experienced, subsided into what seemed a
pleasant excitement.
The king came in a little tired from his long walk, and breathing
quickly. There was no ceremony in his reception. The woman knew well
enough that half the charm of that place lay in an entire want of
formality. She wheeled a chair near the window, placed a gilded
footstool for the old man’s feet, when he sat down, and settling herself
on the floor close by it, began to chat with the careless grace of a
spoiled child. It was not till just as he was going away in high
good-humor, that she ventured on the object that had all the time been
uppermost in her mind.
“One minute—do not go quite yet, my friend; I have a little favor to
ask.”
“Oh! that is why you have insisted on keeping at my feet,” laughed the
old man. “One must pay for an hour like this. Well, well, if the price
is not heavy, we will consider it.”
The countess went to a table, and brought back a small portfolio, which
she opened upon one knee, sinking the other gently to the floor.
“Only a little signature—just one.”
She held out a paper, on which some lines had been hastily written by
her own hand. The king took it with a little hesitation, and holding it
a long way from his eyes, read the contents.
“What! another _lettre-de-cachet_!” he exclaimed, a good deal
disconcerted. “Do you know, my friend, these things are getting far too
common. The people are beginning to question them. Will nothing else
content you?”
“Nothing else, sire. Why, it is three weeks since I have asked for
one—and my enemies are so many.”
“Ah! I know; but this name—I have never heard of it. Who is the wretched
man?”
“He is a sorcerer, sire. It is not a day since he terrified me fearfully
in this very room.”
“In this room! How did an unknown man get here?”
“He bribed Zamara to give him access, under pretence of presenting a
petition, and once here, said horrible things, threatening me with
death.”
“Ha!”
“And saying, that to save the king’s life was rank treason.”
“Give me a pen.”
She opened the portfolio wide, spread it across his knees, and went to
the table for a pen. Her hand shook as she reached it toward him, and he
remarked it.
“I know! I know!” she said. “The fright has not left me yet.”
Louis signed the order, which was to bury Dr. Gosner in one of the
gloomiest vaults of the Bastille, and laying it in the portfolio, handed
it and the pen back to the countess.
“It will be very difficult for this bold man to frighten you hereafter,”
he said, rising a little wearily. “Such audacity must be checked. You
will know how to put the order in force?”
“Always gracious, always good!” exclaimed the countess. “Ah, sire! if
you could read all the gratitude in my heart!”
“I am just now content to read it in those eyes. Adieu! or rather, _au
revoir_, sweet friend!”
The woman permitted Louis to go. She was anxious to see him depart, that
she might use the cruel order he had just signed. She watched him
eagerly till he disappeared behind the trees of the Park, then rang her
bell for Zamara before seating herself to write a note, which she
completed without looking up, though the Indian dwarf stood by her chair
within a minute after her bell sounded.
“Take this,” she said, sealing the note which inclosed the
_lettre-de-cachet_, “deliver this yourself, and at once. Do not return
to me until you know that this audacious man is on his way to the
Bastille. Above all things, say that I want the ring from his left hand.
Without that, do not dare to look on my face again.”
“Madame shall be obeyed,” said the dwarf, taking the letter and darting
from the room.