The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 10

The Revolution smouldered and the fall of the government was predicted.

Astute ambitions of various kinds combined to effect my freedom.

Unbridled l.u.s.t for power grew rank. Our uncle, your present protector, Therese, rallied around him, by employing my name as a summons, the elements of the Restoration, meanwhile secretly paralyzing the efforts directed toward my liberation. This he accomplished by procrastination and discouragement. He was trusting to my prison life to attain the desired consummation. But notwithstanding his efforts to double-bar my cell, and even tho he would have thrown the weight of his body against the door to insure its security, he was thwarted by a man who had temporarily seized the reins of authority,--a voluptuary, dest.i.tute of genuine energy--who realized that the possession of my person would const.i.tute an imposing arm. He planned to place me in concealment from which to produce me when it should suit him to declare me among the living. By this subtlety he might dominate even our uncle with whom he maintained (as did other revolutionists who were deemed incorruptible) a secret intercourse, avowedly with the end of establis.h.i.+ng a moderate Restoration,--which should concede what had been already acquired by the Revolution. I, kept in hiding, would be a double-edged sword, a menace to the arrogance of my uncle in his claim to the regency and a guarantee to the loyal troops who were giving battle in the far East. Behold the stratagem forced by the ingenious and base-born Barras. As instruments, he selected the charming creole (wife of the adventurer who later subjugated Europe) and two military men attached to the royal cause.

Thus it happened that men, who in the midst of anarchy and administrative chaos, held the reins of power, wove, by their audacity and wit, the complicated plot of my rescue and made current the report of my death. Tho it was impossible to remove me bodily from my cell, a simple matter it proved to thrust me into the loft above my bed. A boy who had been smuggled in a basket of clean clothes replaced me. This subst.i.tute was a deaf-mute and so the imitation was perfect, for I had during my imprisonment maintained a constant silence.

I do not remember how the transition was effected. I had been given a dose of drugged sweetened water. During my stupor I was placed in the loft. As I awoke, the voices of my two deliverers implored me to remain perfectly still. s.h.i.+vering with cold and almost fainting from hunger, never did I attempt approaching the door. Food was brought me with the greatest irregularity, which I would devour and then huddle into a corner. While I lay in this stifling hole, the rumor of my escape was disseminated; spies were set on the frontier to watch for me by governmental officers not in the plot.

Meanwhile, Barras gleefully rubbed his hands and in order to further mystify the public he doubled the guard about my prison, while I groveled, shuddering, in my filthy covert.

Barras realized that my mock death and burial would alone complete the strategy; he visited the cell and gave instructions for the replacing of the deaf-mute by a dying boy to be procured at a hospital. This hapless child succ.u.mbed in my name and poets sang dirges over him, queens and princesses robed themselves in crepe, priests held aloft thousands of times the sacred host in sacrifice. That boy dead in rags and squalor, Therese, is often in my mind as I reflect on the vanity of royalty.

Physicians who had never beheld me testified to the Dauphin's demise, after witnessing the death of my subst.i.tute,--the death which was the signal for my release. When the autopsy was completed, a surgeon extracted the boy's heart and sent it to you, the Dauphin's sister, Therese. You rejected that heart. Why?

And now I listen to the culminating horror! The body of that boy was taken from the coffin at night and buried in the tower's garden, whence, years later, the skeleton was exhumed, and that coffin was the sinister vehicle which bore me from my prison. In that coffin I was taken along the road leading to the cemetery. During the journey I was removed and weights placed within. And these weights were found to be the contents when subsequently an attempt was made to recover my body. The coffin was buried with suspicious dispatch after the manner of deeds which fear the light. The public voice clamored that an imposture had been practised, whereupon the Government speedily dispatched a commission which disinterred the coffin, fastened the lid on more securely and placed it in another cemetery. This incident is so well known that I shall call it history.

Chapter IV

MARIE

I was placed in the home of a lady, who was the widow of a Swiss officer who had been beheaded on the memorable tenth of August. In her country place I was screened from curious eyes. Being overcome by a languid illness, I remained indoors for eight months. My hostess dared not call in a physician, for strange children awakened suspicion, inasmuch as the lost Dauphin was being eagerly sought by spies. She fed me on milk and arranged that I should have unlimited repose and fresh air. These simple restoratives at length effected a cure. On leaving my bed, I was again overpowered by the consciousness of a dual personality. I at times felt convinced that I had always lived in that fair green villa and that my insistent past was a delusion. My guardian spoke French brokenly, and we, therefore, conversed in German, which had been my mother's native tongue. I had therefore become habituated to its use. Later in life I was obliged to employ it constantly.

During my convalescence, and while walking one morning in the fields, I was captured by the police and dragged back to prison. What prison? I know not. With equal swiftness was I s.n.a.t.c.hed thither by deputies of my vigilant protectress, the gentle creole, and placed in the home of a n.o.ble family who received me with respect, almost reverence. The head of the family was the Marquis de Bray, a partisan of our House. There it was that I formed the first friends.h.i.+p of my life, that with the Count of Montmorin, a youth older than I and who, like myself, was in concealment, being disguised as a hunter. Montmorin's life had been miraculously saved during one of the ferocious tides that swept our country, and that life he generously consecrated to me. Subterfuges, manoeuvres, almost witch-craft did he employ for the deluding of my persecutors, and to that end valued not his own security and happiness.

Under the protection of de Bray and Montmorin, I lived tranquilly and the spectre of political ambition seemed no longer to haunt me. But my friends feared, owing to the waxing power of Napoleon, that France was no appropriate refuge for me and we removed for a season to Venice, thence to Trieste and finally to Rome, where I enjoyed the gentle protection of Pope Pius VI. My former hostess and nurse, the Swiss lady, had in the interval married a compatriot of her own, who was an expert watch-maker. It chanced that they became our neighbors and so gave me the opportunity to learn the craft of which my father was so fond. The minute and prolix labor enchanted me and, following the advice of Jean Jacques, I mastered it.

A friend of the Pontiff offered me for residence a villa near Rome. How beautiful were the lemon and fig groves! In the garden's centre was a marble pillar surmounted by a nymph which had stood there since the Roman Empire. Amid the fragrance of those flowers were pa.s.sed the dearest days of my youth. Marie, daughter of Bray and fiancee of Montmorin, a gentle girl, five years my senior--a trifle it seemed to me--accompanied me often with affectionate solicitude.

Her white hands smoothed my golden curls, fastened my lace collar and rested on my shoulder, during our rambles. Montmorin, on seeing us together, would turn away and re-enter the house. My head, resting upon Marie's breast, seemed again to repose in the sweet nest from which the Revolution had torn me. Once when Marie flung a flower in my face, the image of my mother rose so vividly to my eyes, as she appeared when romping with us in the royal gardens, that my emotion overcame me and I threw myself into the arms of Montmorin's fiancee. I kissed her lips and asked: "Marie, what have they done to my mother?"--for since the terrible day when I was separated from her, I had never spoken her name, nor received intelligence of her fate. I pictured her still as a pale, worn prisoner and my duty seemed to be to deliver her. This sudden tempest of pa.s.sion transformed me from boy to man. Marie wept softly in my arms.

"My mother,--where is she?" I insisted.

"She is dead," said Marie gently.

"O my mother!" I cried out, falling senseless to the ground.

On regaining consciousness, I saw Marie at my pillow.

"O die with me," I said. "Let us be with my mother."

When I was strong enough to leave my bed, I noticed that Marie, under numerous pretexts, absented herself from me. Our rambles ceased and she was often with Montmorin. This at first enraptured her lover but he soon discovered that she was preoccupied and sad, while I, jealous and melancholy, walked alone in the woods. I wandered near the margins of pestilential lakes, in the hope that, being overcome by malaria, Marie would again sit by my bed.

Montmorin's generous heart divined the cause of my sadness and of Marie's enforced fidelity to him. He said:

"Marie, our first duty is to make Augustus" (for so he called me) "happy. I shall go to France in his interests."

And he left us. Consider Montmorin's action, Therese, and realize to what a generous and absurd height a loyal soul is raised by the principle symbolized in royalty. Montmorin renounced his plighted wife as later on he renounced his life in devotion to the PRINCIPLE. And Marie, beholding in me not a hapless castaway but the incarnation of the PRINCIPLE, erected like a second Lavalliere an altar whereon she radiantly idealized me, after having vainly sought to idealize her betrothed.

On the day after Montmorin's departure, we walked through the fields scarcely touching the ground. Reaching the border of the pestilential lake, we seated ourselves near the verdant fringe of delicate flowers.

My head rested on her breast and our eyes promised what our lips could not utter, for very happiness.

On returning home, Marie complained of feeling cold. The next day she lay s.h.i.+vering in bed. The malaria was having its effect. Her clear eyes grew clouded and after some days her dear form became emaciated.

Montmorin was summoned, but she could scarcely greet him. The bells from the Capuchin convent near by were pealing out into the air and we knelt by her bed as she said:

"Eugene, brother of my soul, forgive me."

For answer, Montmorin took my hand in his.

"Watch over him, Eugene."

Montmorin, shedding hot streaming tears, promised. Together we watched beside her until she died.

Chapter V

A COURTEOUS MAN

So far had Rene read. The revelations were so startling that he could but ask himself if he were the victim of a madman's delusion.

"Am I reading a romance or a sincere autobiography? Before going further, I should look at the doc.u.ments within the box. I must not espouse this man's cause while a shadow of doubt disturbs me. And Amelie? If these pages speak the truth, who am I to look upon Amelie?"

The daylight was fading and a servant appeared bearing a candelabrum which he placed upon a stand, saying:

"Monsieur, a French gentleman asks to be admitted to you."

Rene placed the ma.n.u.script beneath the sofa pillow and said:

"How did the French gentleman learn that I am here? What is his name?"

The man handed him a card bearing these words: The Count de Keller.

"Who may this be?" murmured Rene to himself.

Then aloud:

"Bid him enter."

When alone, the Marquis concealed the ma.n.u.script in his traveling bag which also contained the casket or box. He awaited the visitor, remembering Naundorff's words: You have trusted men; in future beware of them. You have been frank; in future be astute and reticent.

Then an elegantly appareled gentleman entered in a coat of violet cloth ornamented with gold b.u.t.tons and a close-fitting pair of grey cashmere breeches. The many folds in his white cravat made him hold his head high indeed. On his finely shaped thigh dangled resplendently the chain and ornaments of the Sullivan, the latest fad. His appearance was prepossessing and he recalled vividly the famous Chateaubriand type.

"I arrived here but this morning, Marquis de Breze, and permit me to confide to you that I find the hotel execrable," and the Count inclined his body gracefully before Rene. "I cannot forgive my friend, Captain MacGreagor for recommending such a hole to me. When my valet complained of the service, he was told that another French gentleman in the hotel was well satisfied with the accommodations. I asked your name and, as it is one so well known, I hastened to comply with the pleasing duty of compatriots when in foreign parts. I regret to learn that you have been wounded."