DOWN IN THE LEAFY SHADOWS.
The old man who had so terrified Marie Antoinette, followed her with
piteous entreaties, until she reached the private door, which had been
carefully left open for her. He even tried to enter by the same passage,
but she had drawn the bolt inside; and he turned from it in meek
despair, muttering to himself and smoothing his silvery beard in the
moonlight. Another man would have gone home, perhaps, spending the whole
of that beautiful night on his way to Paris; this weary pilgrim had lost
all ideas of home that were not connected with his cell in the Bastille,
which now lay a heap of ruins in the heart of the city. During the days
in which he had been at liberty, this broken being had refused to take
up his old habits of civilization; his limbs had never pressed a bed;
and his food was always the same, a crust of black bread and a cup of
water. The free air of a bright day oppressed him; but when the clouds
lowered, and the rain fell, a sense of enjoyment awoke in his bosom, and
he was sure to wander into the streets, and search with mournful
fascination for the ruins of his old prison.
A bright sunshine, and even moonlight, clear and broad as that which lay
around him, oppressed and bewildered this poor wanderer, who had spent
nearly half his life in utter darkness. Below the palace was a
thickly-wooded path, filled with shadows, through which he could, from
time to time, see the sparkle of waters leaping up to meet the
moonlight. As I have said, imprisonment had made darkness a second
nature to this man; so he stole away from the soft radiance that fell
around him, and went into the deep shadows. Here the moist atmosphere,
to which all his frame had become habituated, cooled the fever in his
veins, and the soft tinkle of falling waters lulled him back into the
dull monotony of his prison days. He sat down at the foot of a tree,
where the earth was cushioned all over with emerald-green moss, and
leaning his head against it, grew tranquil under the languid sense of
solitude that crept over him. To be alone was now the great luxury of
his life, as it had formerly been its punishment.
As the old man rested against his pillow of rugged bark, a shadow broke
the moonlight that quivered on the edge of the path, and the footsteps
of a man coming down the broad avenue leading that way startled him.
With a thrill of fear he drew closer to the tree that sheltered him, and
waited for the man to pass; but the path that led close to him was
darkened, and after a minute or two a gentleman stood within three paces
of his retreat. The old man could see enough of the face to read it
clearly, for a break in the tangled boughs overhead let in a stream of
radiance, which the surrounding darkness increased, and this lay full
upon the intruder.
The stranger took off his three-cornered hat, and sighed gently as the
moist air swept across his forehead. Then he moved a step forward, and
seemed about to rest himself on a seat opposite the elm, against which
Gosner was leaning.
The old prisoner, seeing this, arose to his feet and stood before this
man like a ghost; his soft, white beard sweeping to the wind, and his
frightened face etherealized by the light that struggled down to it.
“Forgive me; I was but resting,” he said, in the low quivering voice
with which he had been accustomed to address his keeper. “The air down
here was so cool; and I love the sound of dripping water—it is such
company!”
“Who are you, old man, and how came you here? Have you not been told
that no person is permitted to enter these grounds but the household of
the king?”
“No one told me; but I felt that it was wrong to be so near the palace,
so I came down into this dark path, quite out of the way. Is there any
harm in that?”
“I cannot think that harm of any kind need be apprehended from a person
who speaks with such gentle humility,” answered the stranger. “But tell
me, what brought you here?”
“I was sent! I was sent! But for that I had not come.”
“But how did you gain an entrance?”
“God opened the gate for me!”
“What? I do not understand.”
“I was waiting on the highway, thinking that our Lady, to whom I had
never ceased to pray, might, by a miracle, open some gate, through which
I might pass to the palace. Well, at last the blessed Virgin answered
me. A man came through a little gate which led to the gardens, and left
it ajar. I crept after him holding my breath, and went in among the
flowers, which covered me with perfume, which I do not like—that which
comes from sleeping water, green at the top, is best—the breath of
flowers is so subtle it makes me dizzy!”
“But you have not given his name?”
“Why should I? That is—I know—”
“Well, speak out. I wish to know who it is that I find at night in the
private grounds of Versailles.”
“Are you a friend to the king?”
A sad smile came over the stranger’s face, and he answered with feeling,
“If the king has a friend, I am one!”
“Then caution him—there is some harm intended him by the people of
Paris.”
The stranger drew a deep breath.
“Ah! I understand; you speak wisely and kindly; the king shall hear of
it.”
“No, no! Why should he, after all? They are right, I ought not to warn
this king, whose grandfather slew my youth, and turned my manhood into
this!”
Here the old man grasped the end of his white beard, and held it up in
the moonlight.
The stranger stepped back, and stood for a moment gazing with
astonishment on the old man’s face.
“Who is it that has wronged you so? What is your name? once more I ask
it.”
“The man who wronged me was Louis the Fifteenth. Once people knew me as
Dr. Gosner.”
“Gosner—Gosner! You were a prisoner in the Bastille?”
“Oh, yes! A prisoner of the Bastille!”
“Whom the present king pardoned?”
“And then cast into a deeper dungeon, while his minions gave forth that
I was dead!”
“Was the king guilty of treachery like this?”
“There was treachery somewhere; but what matters it now that you and I
should ask where it rested? The peoples’ hate has fallen with awful
heaviness on one man—that one who so oppressed the sufferers placed
under his despotism. When they led me forth from my dungeon into that
carnival of blood, the head of Delaunay went before me on the point of a
pike. If vengeance had not died out of my soul years before, it would
have sickened and perished then.”
“How, you a prisoner of the Bastille, and do not hate the king?”
“Hate him? No! Come closer, and I will tell you. An evil thing fell upon
him and the fair girl he married on the day I was cast into prison.”
“What was that evil thing?”
“A blessing and a curse; the blessing was taken from me and turned into
a curse for the daughter of Maria Theresa. Ah! If I could see her—if I
only could!”
“You speak of the queen?”
“Yes, of the woman who was wronged and wounded worse than myself, when
they buried my youth in the Bastille.”
“But how?”
“Ah! that is my secret. I will tell it to no human soul—not even to
her.”
The stranger looked earnestly at the singular old man whom he began to
recognize as mildly insane;—a poor wanderer, who had strayed into the
Park through some carelessly closed gate;—possibly a victim of the
Bastille, whose mind had gone astray in his dungeon; but, in any case,
worthy of infinite compassion.
“Would you like me to show you the way out from the Park?” he said,
gently, as if he had been addressing a child. “In a few minutes the
gates will be closed, and the guards doubled.”
The old man shook his head.
“No. I will rest here till daylight comes; then, perhaps, I can see her
again.”
“Whom would you see? Tell me, perhaps I can aid you.”
“The woman who was out yonder to-night.”
“The woman—did you know who she was?”
“No.”
“Did you see her face?”
“No. She gathered her veil over it and fled. Oh! if she had but waited!
I would have wrenched it from her hand, if she had not given it up; but
only to save her—only to save her. Fate has done its work with me.”
There was something mournfully pathetic in the old man’s words; his
thin, white hand trembled visibly as he clenched it in his beard; his
eyes shone in the moonlight, which now and then came down fitfully
through the branches, and seemed to cover him with alternate smiles and
frowns.