The Rose of Old St. Louis Part 34

"Sire," I said quickly, and then stopped in confusion. How could I have made such an egregious blunder as to address the first citizen of the republic by a royal t.i.tle? Yet it was a natural enough mistake, for no Czar or Sultan or Grand Mogul was ever a more autocratic ruler than he, or made men tremble more at his nod. I thought I had no doubt ruined my cause in the very outset, for a dark frown gathered between the Consul's brows, but it quickly disappeared.

"I believe you spoke innocently, young man," he said, with a smile of rare sweetness. "Speak on!"

"Pardon, Citizen First Consul," I said--"it was indeed an innocent mistake"; and then I added with a sudden impulse of audacity, "but a very natural one."

The Consul answered me only with his flas.h.i.+ng smile, that transfigured his face, and I hurried on:

"I wish to say, sir, that I have no claim to the hand of Mademoiselle la Comtesse." I saw from the tail of my eye her head take a prouder pose and her lips curl scornfully as she perceived that I was tamely renouncing my "claim" at the chevalier's bidding; but I went calmly on: "I have always known that there was a great gulf fixed between the proud Lady of France of royal blood and a simple American gentleman.

Mademoiselle la Comtesse has never given me any reason to hope that that gulf could be crossed, but," and I turned and looked straight at the chevalier,--and if my head was flung back too proudly and my eyes flashed too fiercely and my voice rang out too defiantly, it was from no lack of respect to the great Bonaparte, but because my soul was seething with wrath and indignation against that cowardly villain "but should Mademoiselle la Comtesse give me the faintest hope that the honest love of an honest American heart could weigh with her against lands and t.i.tles, that the devotion of a lifetime to her every thought and desire could hope to win her love, then no argument the Chevalier Le Moyne could bring to bear would have a feather's weight with me. I would renounce my 'claim to her hand' only with my life!"

The First Consul's eyes were smiling as I ceased speaking; there was no frown on his brow. The d.u.c.h.esse looked aghast, as if it were inconceivable blasphemy that I should think of aspiring to the comtesse, and the chevalier's face was dark, with an ugly sneer distorting his lips. But I cared little how Consul or d.u.c.h.esse or chevalier took my speech: I cared only for what mademoiselle might think. I glanced quickly at her. Her head was drooping, her long lashes were sweeping her cheek, her face was rosy red, and a half-smile was playing about her mouth. My heart beat high with exultant joy. I turned proudly to the chevalier and awaited the thunderbolt I knew was sure to fall. He, too, had seen mademoiselle's soft and drooping aspect, and the sight had lashed him to fury. But before he had a chance to speak, the First Consul himself spoke with good-natured raillery:

"I think, Citizen Le Moyne, your golden-haired giant makes a very good plea for himself. Suppose I offer him a position on my staff and make a Frenchman of him, and then let the Citizeness de Baloit choose between you? Perhaps her estates would be as safe in his hands as in yours."

Had the First Consul uttered his speech with the purpose of las.h.i.+ng the chevalier to fury and goading him to still greater venom against me, he could have taken no better course to accomplish it.

"Safe!" he hissed. "Safe in the hands of an a.s.sa.s.sin! You would give mademoiselle and her estates to the man who hid in your closet to attempt your life in your bath! Regardez! the coward--the sneak--the villain! When your Mameluke discovers him he flees. I run to your defense. Does he meet me with his sword like an honorable gentleman?

No! he trips me with the foot like a school-boy, and throws me down the stair, to be the laughing-stock of my fellow-officers! Because he is a giant, he falls upon your sentry of small stature and hurls him down the terraces! He calls to his trick horse,--trained in the circus, I do not doubt,--and rides away in the dark, and thinks no one will ever know! But _I_ know. I have seen his tricks in America. He is a clown--a mountebank! No gentleman would touch his hand!"

The chevalier's voice had grown shriller and higher with each word, till he ended in a scream, tearing his hair, rus.h.i.+ng up and down the cabinet in his fury, and pointing every epithet with a long finger extended toward me. I could have smiled at such childish rage but that it was too serious a matter to me for smiling. Mademoiselle's eyes were wide with terror and amaze, and the Consul's brow grew darker with every word of the chevalier's.

"Officer, call the guard!" he said in his rasping voice, as soon as the chevalier gave him a chance to speak, and I knew my doom was sealed.

But mademoiselle sprang forward, one arm outstretched to stay the officer, and one extended toward the Consul in supplication.

"No, no, officer, not yet!" she cried, and then to Bonaparte:

"Oh, Citizen Consul, it is all a terrible mistake! I know him well. He could not be guilty of so dreadful a crime! He could not do anything mean or low or dishonorable. There is no gentleman in the world more generous and n.o.ble! And the man who denounces him owes his life to him!"

"Look at him, Mademoiselle," said the Consul, harshly, "and see if his looks do not confess him the culprit."

I knew that I must look the very picture of conscious guilt, for every word mademoiselle had uttered had pierced me like a two-edged sword. I might have braved the chevalier's accusations and the First Consul's suspicions (for, after all, neither had any evidence against me), but I could not bear her generous confidence in me, feeling that I had so miserably forfeited my right to it by indulging in a foolish boyish prank. I did not raise my head (where it had sunk in shame), but by reason of being so much taller I yet could see her turn toward me, see her look of implicit trust change slowly to doubt and fear. Then I heard her utter one low cry, "Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur!" and turn away.

In a moment my resolve was taken. I would make a clean breast of it; she should not think me worse than I was. I lifted my head.

"Mademoiselle!" I cried, and she turned quickly toward me and looked straight into my eyes with a look that was hard to bear. "I am guilty Mademoiselle! I am the man who was in the First Consul's closet, and who escaped on Fatima's back."

The Consul made a motion toward the officer, but I turned to him quickly.

"I beg you, sire,"--and this time I did not know that I had said it, not until long afterward, when one of those who heard told me of it,--"that you will not send your officer for the guard until I have made my confession; then you can send for it, and I will go away quietly, without resistance."

"Very well, officer; you can wait," said Bonaparte, still harshly. The rest of my confession I addressed directly to him.

"I am no clown, mountebank, or circus rider in my own country, sir, as the Chevalier Le Moyne would have you believe; I am the son of a Philadelphia gentleman, and the nephew of Madame Marbois.

Unfortunately, life in my native land has bred in me a spirit of adventure that has many times been near my undoing. It has also bred in me a great love for the life of a soldier, and a great admiration for the famous soldiers of history. When I accompanied my uncle to St.

Cloud, and knew that he was summoned there to meet the First Consul, I was seized with a desire to enter the palace and roam through the rooms where the First Consul dwelt. When I found admission was not permitted I thought it would be a fine adventure to find my way in without permission. It was a boy's wild spirit of daring, and a boy's almost idolatrous hero-wors.h.i.+p that led me into such a sc.r.a.pe."

The Consul interrupted me here, but I thought his tones a little less harsh than before:

"Did your uncle know of your intention to enter the palace?"

"Most certainly not, Citizen First Consul," I answered, "else had I never accomplished it."

"Then how did you find your way to my closet?"

"I followed a servant through some winding corridors, but an officer suddenly appeared. I fled, opened the first door I came to, saw myself in a dressing-room, opened another, and found myself in the closet connecting with your cabinet."

All of which was literally true, and implicated neither Gaston nor Felice, I hoped. The Consul signed to me to go on with my story.

"All would have been well, and I should have slipped out the way I came, had not the First Consul decided to take a bath."

I was watching my auditor narrowly as I talked, for I felt my life depended upon his change of mood, and I thought I saw here the least glimmer of a twinkle in his eye; but if it was there it was banished instantly, and his face was as set and stern as before.

"I have never heard any words, your"--I started to say "your Majesty,"

caught myself, and stumbled miserably--"your--your--Excellency, that filled me with greater dismay than these: 'Tell my valet to prepare my bath'!"

Again I thought I caught that fleeting twinkle of the eye, but could not be sure.

"There was no hope for me," I went on, "but to wait for the First Consul to finish his bath; but, unfortunately for me, he is fonder of his bath than most men, and I stood in that dark closet in an agony of suspense, and revolving in my mind every conceivable plan of escape, for what seemed to me many long hours. All might still have been well,--for in the nature of things even the First Consul's bath must come to an end sometime,--had I not made a slight noise which the quick ears of the Consul and the Mameluke heard. I was discovered, and there was nothing for me to do but to flee through the audience-chamber and the main corridor, surprising the guard at the door, who, in his turn, raised the whole palace in pursuit.

"I was distancing my pursuers, and should have gotten out of the palace without difficulty, but that at the head of the grand staircase I met the Chevalier Le Moyne, running from the opposite end of the corridor. I would not under ordinary circ.u.mstances refuse a sword encounter with the chevalier (though I would prefer an opponent with a nicer sense of honor), but there was no time for such an encounter now if I would not have the whole palace upon me, and, besides, it was most important that the chevalier should not recognize me. There was nothing to do but to hide my face with my arm as if s.h.i.+elding it from his sword, and trip him up, as he says, school-boy fas.h.i.+on. I am sorry that it should have hurt his self-esteem to be vanquished by such a youthful trick, and regret still more that he should have suffered in the estimation of his fellow-officers thereby."

This time the twinkle in the Consul's eye was unmistakable, and I could hear the chevalier grinding his teeth with rage.

"As for your sentry," I continued, "he was aiming his gun to fire at me. There was no time for ceremony. I could have spitted him upon my sword, which was in my hand, and it might have been more respectful; but I dislike bloodshed, unless it is absolutely unavoidable, and so I threw up his gun with my arm, and sent him spinning after it in the dark. I had left my mare Fatima--who is no trick horse, but a young Arabian trained by myself from colthood to do my bidding--in a pine thicket close by. I was on her back and away just in time to escape your mounted guards, who thundered out the gates of the park scarce twenty paces behind me. Had Fatima been less swift I had not been here to tell the tale. I hope the First Consul will believe me when I say I have suffered much from remorse for my rash and thoughtless act.

It was a wild spirit of adventure that led me into it, but I see clearly now that does not in the least excuse it, and I am ready to atone for it in any way you decree."

The eye of the First Consul, clear, piercing, heart-reading, had been upon me through the whole of this recital; but I, feeling that I was keeping nothing back (save only Gaston and Felice), and being nerved up to meet whatever fate should befall, bore its scrutiny well. He was silent for a moment after I had finished speaking, and my heart sank steadily down, for life looked very bright to me and I began to be very sure I had forfeited it by my foolishness. Suddenly the Consul spoke, but it was not to me nor to the chevalier; he turned to Pelagie.

"Mademoiselle, that was a boyish escapade, certainly, and it was a very pretty boy that contrived it. What do you think would be suitable punishment for such a crime? You shall be the arbiter of his fate."

Mademoiselle gave me one fleeting glance, saucy merriment dancing in her eye; then she turned to Bonaparte, and, curtsying low, she said with pretty archness:

"Citizen First Consul, I know him well, and I know that only death could be a greater punishment to him than to be called a 'pretty boy'!

Do you not think his crime is atoned for?"

Bonaparte's wonderful smile lighted his face and fell on mademoiselle with almost too great sweetness, I thought.

"It is as you say, Mademoiselle," he replied. "Officer, you need not call the guard."

But I, suddenly relieved from the fear of death, stood there scarlet with confusion, head drooping, and ready to sink through the floor with shame, while I mentally anathematized my yellow curls and rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and most of all my _domtiferous_ vanity that had led me to array myself in s.h.i.+ning white satin and glittering gold lace, that I was sure made me look fairer and rosier and more than ever like a big blond baby.

CHAPTER XXIV

A NEW CHEVALIER OF FRANCE

"Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim At objects in an airy height."