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Marie Antoinette Romances, Vol 1: Balsamo, The Magician

<h2>CHAPTER XVI. THE KING'S FAVORITE.</h2> 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." "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. <hr style="width:65%;"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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