Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician

A scream pealed from inside the carriage, which the horses were whirling along like a feather on the gale. The postboy made a superhuman effort and managed to keep his horses from trampling on the boy, though one of the leaders gave him a kick.

"Good God!" screamed a woman again; "you have crushed the unhappy child."

The lady traveler got out, and the postillion alighted to lift Gilbert's body from under the wheel.

"What luck!" said the man; "dashed if he be hurted – only swooned."

"With fright, I suppose."

"I'll drag him to the roadside, and let us go on, since your ladyship is in hot haste."

"I cannot possibly leave this poor boy in such a plight. So young, poor little thing! It is some truant scholar undertaking a journey beyond his powers. How pale he is – he will die. No, no! I will not abandon him. Put him inside, on the front seat."

The postboy obeyed the lady, who had already got in the berlin, as were called such carriages. Gilbert was put on a good cushion with his back supported by the padded sides.

"Away you go again," said the lady. "Ten minutes lost, for which you must make up, while I will pay you the more."

When Gilbert came to his senses he found himself in the coach, swept along by three posthorses. He was not a little surprised, too, to be almost in the lap of a young woman who attentively studied him.

She was not more than twenty-five. She had cheeks scorched by the southern sun, with a turn-up nose and gray eyes. A clear character of cunning and circumspection was given to her open and jovial countenance by the little mouth of delicate and fanciful design. Her arms, the finest in the world, were molded in violet velvet sleeves adorned with gilt buttons. Nearly the whole vehicle was filled up by the wavy folds of her large flower-patterned gray silk dress.

As the countenance was smiling and expressed interest, Gilbert stared for fear he was in a dream.

"Well, are you better, my little man?" asked she.

"Where am I?" counter-queried Gilbert, who had learned this phrase from novels, where alone it is used.

"In safety, my dear little fellow," replied the lady in a southern accent. "A while ago you ran great risk of being smashed under my carriage wheels. What happened you, to drop on the highroad right in the middle?"

"I swooned from having walked some eighteen leagues since four yesterday afternoon, or, rather, run."

"Whither are you bound?"

"To Versailles, lady. I come from Taverney, a castle between Pierrefitte and Bar-le-Duc."

"Did you not give yourself time to eat?"

"I had neither the time nor the means, for I lost a bit of money, and I soon ate the crusts I carried."

"Poor boy! but you might have asked for more bread."

"I am too proud, lady," said Gilbert, smiling loftily.

"Pride is all very well, but not when it lets one die of hunger."

"Death before disgrace!"

"Hello! where did you learn such talk?"

"Not at home, for I am an orphan. My name is Gilbert, and no more."

"Some by-blow of a country squire," thought the woman. "You are very young to roam the highway," she continued.

"I was not roaming," said the youth, who thought the truth would recommend him to a woman. "I was following a carriage."

"With your lady love in it? Dear me! there is a romance in your adventure?"

Gilbert was not enough his own master not to redden.

"What was the carriage, my little Cato?"

"One of the dauphiness' retinue."

"What, is she ahead of us?" exclaimed the woman. "Are they not making a fuss over her along the route?"

"They wanted to, but she pressed on after having talked of staying for rest at Taverney Castle, for a letter came from Versailles, they said, and she was off in three-quarters of an hour."

"A letter?"

"Brought by the Governor of Strasburg."

"Lord Stainville? Duke Choiseul's brother? The mischief! Whip on, postillion! faster, faster!"

The whip snapped and Gilbert felt the vehicle jump with more velocity.

"We may outstrip her if she stops for breakfast, or at night," meditated the woman. "Postillion, which is the next town of any account?"

"Vitry."

"Where do we change horses?"

"Vauclere."

"Go on; but tell me if you see a string of carriages on the main road. Poor child!" she continued, seeing how pale Gilbert was; "it is my fault for making him chatter when he is dying of hunger and thirst."

To make up for the lost time, she took out a traveling flask with a silver cap as stopper, into which she poured a cordial.

"Drink that and eat a cake," she said, "until you can have a substantial breakfast in an hour or two. Now, as you are a whit refreshed, tell me, if you have any trust in me, what interest you have in following the carriage belonging to the dauphiness' train?"

He related his story with much clearness.

"Cheer up," she said. "I congratulate you. But you must know that one cannot live on courage at Versailles or Paris."

"But one can by toil."

"That's so. But you have not the hands of a craftsman or laborer."

"I will work with my head."

"Yes, you appear rather knowing."

"I know I am ignorant," said Gilbert, recalling Socrates.

"You will make a good doctor, then, since a doctor is one who administers drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less. In ten years I promise you my custom."

"I shall try to deserve the honor, lady," replied Gilbert.

The horses were changed without their having overtaken the royal party, which had stopped for the same and to breakfast at Vitry. The lady offered bounteously for the distance between to be covered, but the postillion dared not outstrip the princess – a crime for which he would be sent to prison for life.

"If I might suggest," observed Gilbert, "you could cut ahead by a by-road."

The vehicle therefore turned off to the right and came out on the main road at Chalons. The princess had breakfasted at Vitry, but was so tired that she was reposing, having ordered the horses to be ready to start again at three or four P. M. This so delighted the lady traveler that she paid the postboy lavishly and said to Gilbert:

"We shall have a feast at the next posting house."

But it was decreed that Gilbert should not dine there.

The change of horses was to be at Chaussee village. The most remarkable object here was a man who stood in the mid-road, as if on duty there. He looked along it and on a long-tailed barb which was hitched to a window shutter and neighed fretfully for its master to come out of the cottage.

At length the man knocked on the shutter, and called.

"I say, sir," he demanded of the man who showed his head at the window, "if you want to sell that horse, here is the customer."

"Not for sale," replied the peasant, banging the shutter to.

This did not satisfy the stranger, who was a lusty man of forty, tall and ruddy, with coarse hands in lace ruffles. He wore a laced cocked hat crosswise, like soldiers who want to scare rustics.

"You are not polite," he said, hammering on the shutter. "If you do not open, I shall smash in the blind."

The panel opened at this menace and the clown reappeared.

"Who does this Arab belong to?"

"A lady lodging here, who is very fond of it."

"Let me speak with her."

"Can't; she is sleeping."

"Ask her if she wants five hundred pistoles for the barb."

"That is a right royal price." And the rustic opened his eyes widely.

"Just, so; the king wants the creature."

"You are not the king."

"But I represent him, and he is in a hurry."

"I must not wake her."

"Then I shall!" and he swung up a cane with a gold head in his herculean fist.

But he lowered it without hitting, for at the same instant he caught sight of a carriage tearing up the slope behind three fagged horses. The skilled eye of the would-be buyer recognized the vehicle, for he rushed toward it with a speed the Arabian might have envied.

It was the post carriage of Gilbert's guardian angel, which the postboy was enchanted to stop, on seeing the man wave him to do so, for he knew the nags would never reach the post house.

"Chon, my dear Chon," said the stranger. "What joy that you turn up, at last!"

"It is I, Jean," replied the lady to whom was given this odd name; "what are you doing here?"

"A pretty question, by Jove! I was waiting for you."

The Hercules stepped on the folding-step, and kissed the lady through the window. Suddenly he caught sight of Gilbert, and turned as black as a dog from which is snatched a bone, from not knowing the terms between the pair in the berlin.

"It is a most amusing little philosopher whom I picked up," returned Chon, caring little whether she wounded the pet's feelings or not, "on the road – but never mind him."

"Another matter indeed worries us. What about the old Countess of Bearn?" asked Jean.

"I have done the job, and she will come. I said I was her lawyer's daughter, Mademoiselle Flageot, and that, passing through Verdun, I repeated from my father that her case was coming on. I added that she must appear in person, whereupon she opened her gray eyes, took a pinch of snuff, and saying Lawyer Flageot was the first of business men, she gave orders for her departure."

"Splendid, Chon! I appoint you my ambassador extraordinary. Come and have breakfast!"

"Only too glad, for this poor boy is dying of hunger. But we must make haste, for the dauphiness is only three leagues off."

"Plague! that changes the tune. Go on to the posting house, with me hanging on as I am."

In five minutes the coach was at the inn door, where Chon ordered cutlets, fowl, wine and eggs, as they had to be off forthwith.

"Excuse me, lady, but it will have to be with your own horses, for all mine are out. If you find one at the manger, I will eat it."

"You ought to have some, for the regulations require it. Let me tell you," thundered Jean with a hectoring air, "I am not the man to jest."

"If I had fifty in the stable it would be the same as none, for they are all held on the dauphiness' service."

"Fifty, and you would not let us have three?" said Jean; "I do not ask for eight, to which number royal highnesses are entitled, but three."

"You shall not have one," returned the post master, springing in between the stables and the obstinate gentleman.

"Blunderhead, do you know who I am?" cried the other, pale with rage.

"Viscount," interposed Chon, "in heaven's name, no disorder."

"You are right, my dear; no more words; only deeds." He turned to the innkeeper, saying, "I shall shield you from responsibility by taking three horses myself."

"It must not be done, I tell 'ee."

"Do not help him harness," said the posting house keeper to the grooms.

"Jean," said Chon, "don't get into a scrape. On an errand one must put up with anything."

"Except delay," replied Viscount Jean with the utmost ease.

And he began taking down three sets of harness, which he threw on three horses' backs.

"Mind, master," said the post master, as he followed Jean, leading the horses out to the coach, "this is high treason."

"I am not stealing the royal horses but taking them on loan."

The innkeeper rushed at the reins but the strong man sent him spinning.

"Brother, oh, brother!" screamed Chon.

"Only her brother!" muttered Gilbert.

CHAPTER XV

TAVERNEY TO THE RESCUE

At this period a window in the cottage opened and a lovely woman's face appeared, above the Arabian courser, the uproar having aroused her.

"The very person wanted," cried Jean. "Fair lady, I offer you five hundred pistoles for your horse."

"My horse?" questioned the lady in bad French.

"Yes, the barb hitched there."

"Not for sale," and the lady slammed the window.

"Come, come, I am not in luck this day," said Jean, "for folk will neither sell nor hire. Confound it all! I shall take the Arab, if not for sale, and the coach horses if not for hire, and run them to their last legs. Put the horses to," he concluded to the lady traveler's lackey, who was on the coach.

"Help me, boys?" shouted the post master to his hostlers.

"Oh, don't," cried Chon to her brother; "you will only be massacred."

"Massacred, with three to three? for I count on your philosopher," said Jean, shouting to Gilbert, who was stupefied. "Get out and pitch in with a cane, or a rock, or the fist. And don't look like a plaster image!"

Here the burlesque battle began, with the horses pulled between Jean and their owner. The stronger man hurled the latter into the duckpond, where he floundered among the frightened ducks and geese.

"Help! murder!" he shrieked, while the viscount hastened to get the fresh horses into the traces.

"Help, in the king's name!" yelled the innkeeper, rallying his two grooms.

"Who claims help in the royal name?" challenged a horseman who suddenly galloped into the inn yard and pulled up his reeking steed amid the fighting party.

"Lieutenant Philip de Taverney!" exclaimed Gilbert, sinking back deeper than ever in the carriage corner.

Chon, who let nothing slip her, caught this name.

The young officer of the dauphin's dragoon guards leaped off his horse amid the scene, which was attracting all the villagers. The innkeeper ran up to him imploringly as the saver.

"Officer, this gentleman is trying to take away the horses kept for her Royal Highness," he faltered.

"Gentleman?" queried Philip.

"Yes, this gentleman;" retorted Jean.

"You mistake, you are mad – or no gentleman," replied the Chevalier of Redcastle.

"My dear lieutenant, you are wrong on both points," said the viscount; "I have my senses, and I am entitled to ride in the royal carriages."

"How dare you, then, lay hands on the horses for the royal princess?"

"Because there are fifty here and the Royals are entitled to but eight. Am I to go afoot when lackeys have four nags to draw them?"

"If it is the order of his Majesty, they may have what they like. So be good enough to make your fellow take back those horses."

"Yes, if you are on duty to guard them, lieutenant," replied Jean; "but I did not know that the dauphiness' dragoons were set to guard grooms. Better shut your eyes, tell your squad to do the same, and I wish you a pleasant journey!"

"You are wrong, sir; I am on duty, as the dauphiness has sent me forward to look after the relays."

"That is different. But allow the remark that you are on paltry duty, and the young Bonnibel is shamefully treating the army – "

"Of whom are you speaking in such terms?" interrupted Philip.

"Oh, only of that Austrian beauty."

Taverney turned pale as his cravat, but in his usual calm voice he said, as he caught hold of the bridle:

"Do me the pleasure to acquaint me with your name?"

"If you are bent upon that – I am Viscount Jean Dubarry."

"What, brother of that notorious – "

"Who will send you to rot in the Bastille prison, if you add a word to the adjective."

The viscount sprang into the coach, up to the door of which went the baron's son.

"If you do not come forth in a second I give you my word of honor that I shall run my sword through your body."

Having hold of the door with his left hand, pulling against the viscount, he drew his sword with the other.

"The idea!" said Chon; "this is murder. Give up the horses, Jean."

"Oh, you threaten me, do you?" hissed the viscount, exasperated, and snatching his sword from the cushion.

"We shall never get away at this rate," whispered Chon; "do smooth the officer down."

"Neither violence nor gentleness will stay me in my duty," observed Taverney, politely bowing to the young woman. "Advise obedience to the gentleman, or in the name of the king, whom I represent, I shall kill him if he will fight me, or arrest him if he refuses."

"Shall I lug him out, lieutenant?" asked the corporal, who had Taverney's half-dozen men as escort.

"No, this is a personal quarrel," said his superior. "You need not interfere."

There was truly no need; for, after three minutes, Jean Dubarry drew back from the conflict with Redcastle, his sleeve dyed with blood.

"Go, sir," said the victor, "and do not play such pranks any more."

"Tush, I pay for them," grumbled the viscount.

Luckily three horses came in which would do for the change, and the innkeeper was only too glad to get rid of the turbulent viscount at their price. As he mounted the carriage steps, he grumbled at Gilbert's being in the way.

"Hush, brother," said Chon; "he knows the man who wounded you. He is Philip of Taverney."

"Then we shall be even yet," said the viscount, with a gleam of gladness. "You are on the high horse at present, my little dragoon," he shouted out to Taverney; "but turn about is fair play."

"To the return, if you please," replied the officer.

"Yes, Chevalier Philip de Taverney!" called Jean, watching for the effect of the sudden declaration of his name.

Indeed, his hearer raised his head with sharp surprise, in which entered some unease, but recovering himself and lifting his hat, he rejoined with the utmost grace:

"A pleasant journey, Chevalier Jean Dubarry!"

"A thousand thunders," swore the viscount, grinning horribly as the coach started. "I am in acute pain, Chon, and shall want a surgeon sooner than breakfast."

"We will get one at the first stop while this youth has his meal."

"Excuse me," said Gilbert, as the invalid expressed a desire to drink. "But strong drink is bad for you at present."

"What, are you a doctor as well as philosopher?" queried Jean.

"Not yet, my lord; though I hope to be one some day. But I read that wounded patients must not take anything heated. But if you will let me have your handkerchief, I will dip it in water at the first spring and cool the wound by bandaging it."

The carriage was stopped for Gilbert to get out and wet the cambric.

"This youngster is dreadfully in the way for us to talk business," said Dubarry.

"Pshaw! we will talk in the Southern dialect," said Chon; and it was thanks to this precaution that the two communed to the puzzlement of the youth on the rest of the journey.

But he had the consolation of thinking that he had comforted a viscount who stood in the king's favor. If Andrea only saw him now! He did not think of Nicole.

"Hello!" broke off the viscount, as he looked behind out of the window. "Here comes that Arab with the strange woman on its back. I would give a thousand pistoles for that steed, and a fortune for the beauty."

The black-eyed woman wrapped in a white cloak, with her brow shaded by a broad-brimmed felt hat with long feathers, flew by like an arrow along the roadside, crying:

"Avanti, Djerid!"

"She says 'Forward!' in Italian," said the viscount. "Oh, the lovely creature. If I were not in such pain, I would jump out and after her."

"You could not catch her, on that horse. It is the magician, and she is his wife."

"Magician?" questioned the Dubarrys together.

"Yes, Baron Joseph Balsamo."

The sister looked at the brother as much as to say: "Was I not right to keep him?" and he nodded emphatically.

CHAPTER XVI

THE KING'S FAVORITE

In the apartments of Princess Adelaide, daughter of King Louis X., he had housed the Countess Jeanne Dubarry, his favorite since a year, not without studying the effect it would have on the realm. The jolly, mirthful, devil-may-care mad-cap had transformed the silent palace into a monkey-house, where any one was tolerated who kept the fun alive.

At about nine in the morning, the hour of her reception, Jeanne Vaubernier, to give her her true name, stepped out of her couch, wrapped in an embroidered gauze gown which allowed a glimpse through the floating lace of her alabaster arms. This seductive statue, awakening more and more, drew a lace mantle over her shoulders and held out her little foot for a slipper which, with its jewels, would enrich a woodcutter in her native woods had he found it.

"Any news of Chon, or the Viscount Jean?" she asked at once of her chambermaid.

"None, and no letters, my lady."

"What a bore to be kept waiting!" pouted the royal pet, with a pretty wry face. "Will they never invent a method of corresponding a hundred miles apart? Faith, I pity anybody I visit with my vexation this day. But I suppose that, as this star the dauphiness is coming, I, the poor glowworm, will be left alone. Who is waiting, tell me?"

"Duke Daiguillon, Prince Soubise, Count Sartines and President Maupeou."

"But the Duke of Richelieu?"

"He has not yet come."

"No more than yesterday. That political weathercock has turned from me. He is afraid to be injured, Doris. You must send to his house to ask after him."

"Yes, my lady; but the king is here."

"Very well; I am ready."

The Fifteenth Louis entered the room with a smile on his lips and his head upright. He was accompanied solely by a gentleman in black, who tried by a smile to counteract the baleful effect of thin, hard lips and severe gray eyes. It was Lieutenant of Police Sartines.

The waiting maid and a little negro boy were in the room; but they were not counted.

"Good-morning, countess," hailed the monarch; "how fresh we are looking to-day. Don't be afraid of Sartines; he is not going to talk business, I trust. Oh, how magnificent Zamore is looking!"

The blackamoor was appareled with the barbaric splendor in which Othello was attired at that period.

"Sire, he has a favor to crave of your Majesty."

"He seems to me very ambitious, after having been granted by you the greatest boon one can desire – being your slave, like myself."

Sartines bowed, smiling, but bit his lips at the same time.

"How delightful you are, sire," said the countess. "I adore you, France!" she whispered in the royal ear, and set him smiling.

"Well, what do you desire for Zamore?"

"Recompense for his long service – "

"He is only twelve years old!"

"You will be paying him in advance; that is a good way of not being treated with ingratitude."

"Capital idea! What do you think, Sartines?" asked the king.

"I support it, as all devoted subjects will gain by it."

"Well, sire, I want Zamore to be appointed governor of my summer residence, Luciennes, which shall be created a royal place."

"It would be a parody and make all the governors of the royal places protest, and with reason."

"A good thing, for they are always making a noise for nothing. Zamore, kneel down and thank his majesty for the favor. Sire, you have another royal property from this time forward. Get up, Zamore. You are appointed."

"Sartines, do you know the way to refuse this witch anything?"

"If there is one, it is not yet out into practice, sire."

"When found, I wager it will be by Chief of Police Sartines. I am expecting him to find me something – and I have been on thorns about it for three months. I want a magician."

"To have him burnt alive?" asked the sovereign, while Sartines breathed again. "It is warm weather, now; wait for winter."

"Not to burn him, but to give him a golden rod, sire."

"Oh, did he predict some ill which has not happened?"

"Nay, a blessing which came to pass."

"Tell us, countess," said Louis, settling down in an easy chair, like one who is not sure he will be pleased or oppressed but will risk it.

"I am agreeable, sire, only you must share in rewarding him."

"I must make the present entirely."

"That is right royal."

"I listen."

"It begins like a fairy tale. Once upon a time, a poor girl was walking the streets of Paris, what time she had neither pages, carriages, negro boy to hold up her train and enrage the dowagers, or parrot or monkey. Crossing the Tuileries gardens, she suddenly perceived that she was pursued."

"Deuce take it! thereupon she stopped," said the king.

"Fie! It is clear that your experience has been in following duchesses or marchionesses. She was the more alarmed as a thick fog came on, and the chaser emerged from it upon her. She screamed."

"For the rogue was ugly?"

"No, he was a bright and handsome young man; but still she sued him to spare her from harm. He smiled charmingly and called heaven as witness that he had no such intention. He only wanted her pledge to grant him a favor when – when she should be a queen. She thought she was not binding herself much with such a promise, and the man disappeared."