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

"Sartines is very wrong in not finding him."

"Sire, I do not refuse, but I cannot."

"Cannot ought not to be in the police dictionary," said Dubarry.

"We have a clew."

"Ha, ha! that is the old story."

"It is the truth. The fault is that your description is so slight."

"Slight? she painted him so brightly that I forbid you to find the dog."

"I only want to ask a piece of information."

"What for, when his prophecy is accomplished?"

"If I am almost a queen, I want to ask him when I shall be placed in the court."

"Presented formally?"

"It is not enough to reign in the night; I want to reign a little in the daytime."

"That is not the magician's business, but mine," said Louis, frowning at the conversation getting upon delicate ground. "Or rather yours, for all that is wanted is an introductress."

"Among the court prudes – all sold to Choiseul or Praslin?"

"Pray let us have no politics here."

"If I am not to speak, I shall act without speaking, and upset the ministers without any further notice."

At this juncture the maid Doris entered and spoke a word to her mistress.

"It is Chon, who comes from traveling and begs to present her respects to your majesty."

"Let us have Chon in, for I have missed something lately, and it may be her."

"I thank your majesty," said Chon, coming in, and hastening to whisper to her sister in kissing her:

"I have done it."

The countess could not repress an outcry of delight.

"I am so glad to see her."

"Quite so; go on and chat with her while I confer with Sartines to learn whence you come, Chon."

"Sire," said Sartines, eager to avoid the pinch, "may I have a moment for the most important matter? – about these seers, illuminati, miracle workers – "

"Quacks? make them take out licenses as conjurers at a high figure, and they will not be any cause of fear."

"Sire, the situation is more serious than most believe. New masonic lodges are being opened. This society has become a sect to which is affiliated all the foes of the monarchy, the idealists, encyclopedists and philosophers. Voltaire has been received at court."

"A dying man."

"Only his pretense. All are agitating, writing, speaking, corresponding, plotting and threatening. From some words dropped, they are expecting a leader."

"When he turns up, Sartines, we will turn him down, in the Bastille."

"These philosophers whom you despise will destroy the monarchy."

"In what space of time, my lord?"

"How can I tell?" said the chief of police, looking astonished. "Ten, fifteen or more years."

"My dear friend, in that time I shall be no more; tell this to my successor."

He turned away, and this was the opportunity that the favorite was waiting for, since she heaved a sigh, and said:

"Oh, gracious, Chon, what are you telling me? My poor brother Jean so badly wounded that his arm will have to be amputated!"

"Oh, wounded in some street affray or in a drinking-saloon quarrel?"

"No, sire! attacked on the king's highway and nearly murdered."

"Murdered?" repeated the ruler, who had no feelings, but could finely feign them. "This is in your province, Sartines."

"Can such a thing have happened?" said the chief of police, apparently less concerned than the king, but in reality more so.

"I saw a man spring on my brother," said Chon, "force him to draw his sword and cut him grievously."

"Was the ruffian alone?"

"He had half a dozen bullies with him."

"Poor viscount forced to fight," sighed the monarch, trying to regulate the amount of his grief by the countess'; but he saw that she was not pretending.

"And wounded?" he went on, in a heartbroken tone.

"But what was the scuffle about?" asked the police lieutenant, trying to see into the affair.

"Most frivolous; about posthorses, disputed for with the viscount, who was in a hurry to help me home to my sister, whom I had promised to join this morning."

"This requires retaliation, eh, Sartines?" said the king.

"It looks so, but I will inquire into it. The aggressor's name and rank?"

"I believe he is a military officer, in the dauphiness' dragoon guards, and named something like Baverne, or Faver – stop – it is Taverney."

"To-morrow he will sleep in prison," said the chief of police.

"Oh, dear, no," interrupted the countess out of deep silence; "that is not likely, for he is but an instrument and you will not punish the real instigators of the outrage. It is the work of the Duke of Choiseul. I shall leave the field free for my foes, and quit a realm where the ruler is daunted by his ministers."

"How dare you?" cried Louis, offended.

Chon understood that her sister was going too far, and she struck in.

She plucked her sister by the dress and said:

"Sire, my sister's love for our poor brother carries her away. I committed the fault and I must repair it. As the most humble subject of your majesty, I merely apply for justice."

"That is good; I only ask to deal justice. If the man has done wrong, let him be chastised."

"Am I asking anything else?" said the countess, glancing pityingly at the monarch, who was so worried elsewhere and seldom tormented in her rooms. "But I do not like my suspicions snubbed."

"Your suspicions shall be changed to certainty by a very simple course. We will have the Duke of Choiseul here. We will confront the parties at odds, as the lawyers say."

At this moment the usher opened the door and announced that the prince royal was waiting in the king's apartments to see him.

"It is written I shall have no peace," grumbled Louis. But he was not sorry to avoid the wrangle with Choiseul, and he brightened up. "I am going, countess. Farewell! you see how miserable I am with everybody pulling me about. Ah, if the philosophers only knew what a dog's life a king has – especially when he is king of France."

"But what am I say to the Duke of Choiseul?"

"Send him to me, countess."

Kissing her hand, trembling with fury, he hastened away as usual, fearing every time to lose the fruit of a battle won by palliatives and common cunning.

"Alas! he escapes us again!" wailed the courtesan, clenching her plump hands in vexation.

CHAPTER XVII

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."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE COUNTESS OF BEARN

A hackney coach stopping at the doorway of Chancellor Maupeou, president of Parliament, induced the porter to deign to stalk out to the door of the vehicle and see why the way was thus blocked.

He saw an old lady in an antiquated costume. She was thin and bony but active, with cat's eyes rolling under gray brows. But poverty stricken though she appeared, the porter showed respect as he asked her name.

"I am the Countess of Bearn," she replied; "but I fear that I shall not have the fortune to find his lordship at home."

"My lord is receiving," answered the janitor. "That is, he will receive your ladyship."

The old lady stepped out of the carriage, wondering if she did not dream, while the porter gave two jerks to a bellrope. An usher came to the portals, where the first servant motioned that the visitor might enter.

"If your ladyship desires speech with the lord high chancellor," said the usher, "step this way, please."

"They do speak ill of this official," uttered the lady; "but he has the good trait that he is easily accessible. But it is strange that so high an officer of the law should have open doors."

Chancellor Maupeou, buried in an enormous wig and clad in black velvet, was writing in his study, where the door was open.

On entering, the old countess threw a rapid glance around, but to her surprise there was no other face than hers and that of the law lord, thin, yellow and busy, reflected in the mirrors.

He rose in one piece and placed himself with his back to the fireplace.

The lady made the three courtesies according to rule.

Her little compliment was rather unsteady; she had not expected the honor; she never could have believed that a cabinet minister would give her some time out of his business or his repose.

Maupeou replied that time was no less precious to subject than his majesty's ministers, although preference had to be given to persons with urgent affairs, consequently, he gave what leisure he had to such clients.

"My lord," said the old lady, with fresh courtesies, "I beg most humbly to speak to your excellency of a grave matter on which depends my fortune. You know that my all depends, or rather my son's, on the case sustained by me against the Saluces family. You are a friend of that family, but your lordship's equity is so well known that I have not hesitated to apply to you."

The chancellor was fondling his chin, but he could not help a smile to hear his fair play extolled.

"My lady, you are right in calling me friend of the Saluces; but I laid aside friendship when I took the seals of office up. I look into your business simply as a juris consultus. The case is soon coming on?"

"In another week I should beg your lordship to look over my papers."

"I have done so already."

"Oh! What do you think of it?"

"I beg to say that you ought to be prepared to go home and get the money together to pay the costs – for you will infallibly lose the case."

"Then my son and I are ruined!"

"Unless you have friends at court to counterbalance the influence of the Saluces brothers, who are linked with three parts of the courtiers. In fact, I know not if they have an enemy."

"I am sorry to hear your Excellency say this."

"I am sorry to say so, for I really wanted to be useful to your ladyship."

The countess shuddered at the tone of feigned kindness, for she seemed to catch a glimpse of something dark in the mind, if not the speech of the chancellor; if that obscurity could be swept away she fancied she would see something favorable to her.

"Do you know nobody at court?" he insisted.

"Only some old noblemen, probably retired, who would blush to see their old friend so poor. I have my right of entry to the palace, but what is the good? Better to have the right to enter into enjoyment of my two hundred thousand livres. Work that miracle, my lord."

"Judges cannot be led astray by private influence," he said, forgetting that he was contradicting himself. "Why not, however, apply to the new powers, eager to make recruits? You must have known the royal princesses?"

"They have grown out of remembrance."

"The prince royal?"

"I never knew him."

"Besides, he is dwelling too much on his bride, who is on the road hither, to do any one a good turn. Oh! why not address the favorites?"

"The Duke of Choiseul?"

"No, the other, the Countess – "

"Dubarry?" said the prude, opening her fan.

"Yes, she is goodhearted and she likes to do kindnesses to her friends."

"I am of too old a line for her to like me."

"That is where you are wrong; for she is trying to ally herself with the old families."

"But I have never seen her."

"What a pity! Or her sister, Chon, the other sister Bischi, her brother Jean, or her negro boy Zamore?"

"What! is her negro a power at court?"

"Indeed he is."

"A black who looks like a pug dog, for they sell his picture in the streets. How was I to meet this blackamoor, my lord?" and the dame drew herself up, offended.

"It is a pity you did not, for Zamore would win your suit for you. Ask the dukes and peers of the realm who take candies to him at Marly or Luciennes. I am the lord high chancellor, but what do you think I was about when your ladyship called? Drawing up the instructions for him as governor of Luciennes, to which Zamore has been appointed."

"The Count of Bearn was recompensed for his services of twenty years with merely the same title. What degradation! Is the monarchy indeed going to the dogs?" cried the indignant lady.

"I do not know about the government, but the crumbs are going to them, and, faith! we must scramble among them to get the tidbits away from them. If you wanted to be welcomed by Lady Dubarry, you could not do better than carry these papers for her pet to her."

"It is plain that fate is against me; for, though your lordship has kindly greeted me, the next step is out of the question. Not only am I to pay court to a Dubarry, but I must carry her negro-boy's appointment – a black whom I would not have deigned to kick out of my way on the street – "