Joseph Balsamo (18 page)
His eminence, who had the usual tact of great nobles, felt that he had to do with no country clown, and continued, ” This is your summer reside?ice ? “
“Summer and winter,” answered the baron, who wished to put an end to disagreeable queries, but accompanying each reply with a low bow.
Philip could not help turning from time to time uneasily toward his father, for the house, as they drew nearer it, wore an aspect threatening and ironical, as if pitilessly determined to show all their poverty. The baron had already resignedly extended his hand to point the way to the door of his house, when the dauphiness, turning to him, said : ” Excuse me, sir, if I do not enter ; these shades are so delightful that I could pass my life in them. I am tired of rooms. For fifteen days I have been received in rooms I, who love the open air, the shade of trees, and the perfume of flowers.” Then, turning to Andre : ” You will bring me a cup of milk here, under these beautiful trees, will you not ? “
“Your highness,” said the baron, turning pale, “how should we dare to offer you uch poor refreshment ?”
” I prefer it, sir, to anything else. New-laid eggs and milk formed my banquets at Schoenbrunn.”
All at once La Brie, swelling with pride, in a splendid livei’y and a napkin on his arm, appeared under an arch-way of jasmine, the shade of which had attracted the eye of the dauphiness. In a tone in which importance and respect were strangely mixed, he announced : ” Her royal highness is served ! “
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“Am I in the dwelling of an enchanter?” cried the princess, as she ran rather than walked to the perfumed alley.
The baron, in his uneasiness, forgot all etiquette, left the gentleman in black, and hurried after the dauphiness. Andre and Philip looked at each other with mingled astonishment and anxiety, and followed their father.
Under the clematis, jasmine, and woodbine was placed an oval table, covered with a damask cloth of dazzling whiteness, on which was arranged, in a brilliant service of plate, a collation the most elegant and rare. There were exotic fruits made into the most delicious confections ; biscuits from Aleppo, oranges from Malta, and lemons of extraordinary size, all arranged in beautiful vases. Wines, the richest and most esteemed, sparkled like the ruby and the topaz, in decanters ornamented and cut in Persia, and in the center, in a silver vase, was placed the milk for which the dauphiness had asked.
Marie Antoinette looked around, and saw surprise and alarm imprinted on the face of her host and on the countenance of his son and daughter. The gentlemen of her escort were delighted with what they saw, without understanding it, and without endeavoring to understand it.
” You expected me, then, sir ?” said she to the baron.
” I, madame ! ” stammered he.
” Yes ; you could not, in ten minutes, have all this prepared, and I have only been ten minutes here ; ” and she looked at La Brie with an expression which said : ” Above all, when you have only one servant.”
” Madame,” answered the Baron, ” your royal highness was expected, or, rather, your coming was foretold to me.”
” Your son wrote to you ? “
” No, madame.”
” No one knew that I was coming here, as I did not wish to give you the trouble which I see I have done. It was only late last night that I expressed my intention to your son, and he reached this but half an hour before me.”
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“Scarcely a quarter of an hour, madame.”
” Then some fairy must have revealed to yon what was to occur. Mademoiselle’s godmother, perhaps ? “
” Madame,” said the baron, offering a chair to the princess, “it was not a fairy who announced my good fortune to me.”
” Who, then ? ” asked she, observing that he hesitated.
” An enchanter, madame.”
” An enchanter how can that be ? “
” I know nothing of the matter, for I do not meddle with magic myself, yet to that, madame, I am indebted for being able to entertain your highness in a tolerable fashion.”
“In that case we must not touch anything, since the collation is the work of sorcery. His eminence,” added she, pointing to the gentleman in black, who had fixed his eye on a Strasbourg pie, “seems in a hurry to begin, but we shall assuredly not eat of this enchanted collation ; and you, dear friend,” turning to her governess, “distrust the Cyprus wine, and do as I do ; ” and she poured some water from a globe-formed caraffe with a narrow neck into a golden goblet.
” In truth,” said Andre, with alarm, ” her royal highness is perhaps right.”
Philip trembled with surprise, and ignorant of what had passed the evening before, looked alternately at his father and his sister for explanation.
” But I see,” continued the dauphiness, “his eminence is determined to sin in spite of all the canons of the Church.”
“Madame,” replied the prelate, “we princes of the Church are too worldly to be able to believe that Heaven’s wrath will fall on us about a little refreshment for the body, and, above all, too humane to feel the least inclination to burn an honest sorcerer for providing us with good things like these.”
“Do not jest, I pray, monseigneur,” said the baron. <: I swear to you that a sorcerer a real sorcerer foretold
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to me, about an hour ago, the arrival of her royal highness and my son.”
” And has an hour been sufficient for you to prepare this banquet ? ” demanded the dauphiness. ” In that case you are a greater sorcerer than your sorcerer ! “
” No, madarne ; it was he who did all this, and brought the table up through the ground, ready served as you see.”
” On your word, sir ? “
” On the honor of a gentleman ! ” replied the baron.
“Ha!” said the cardinal, in a serious tone, putting back the plate which he had taken, ” I thought you were jesting. Then you have in your house a real magician ?”
” A real magician ; and I should not wonder if he has made all the gold on that table himself.”
” Oh, he must have found out the philosopher’s stone ! ” cried the cardinal, his eyes sparkling with covetousness.
” See how the eyes of his eminence sparkle he who has been seeking all his life for the philosopher’s stone ! ” said the dauphiness.
” I confess to your royal highness,” replied his very worldly eminence, ” that nothing interests me more than the supernatural nothing is so curious, in my estimation, as the impossible.”
“Ah ! I have traced the vulnerable part, it seems ! ” said the dauphiness ; ” every great man has his mysteries, particularly when he is a diplomatist and I, I warn your eminence, know a great deal of sorcery. I sometimes find out things if not impossible, if not supernatural, at least incredible ! ” and the eye of the dauphiness, before so mild, flashed as from an internal storm, but no thunder followed. His eminence alone, doubtless, understood what this meant, for he looked evidently embarrassed. The dauphiness went on :
“To make the thing complete, Monsieur de Taverney, you must show us your magician. Where is he ? In what box have you hidden him ?”
” Madame,” answered the baron, ” he is much more able to put me and my house in a box, than I to put him.”
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” In trnth, you excite my curiosity,” said Marie Antoinette. ” I must positively see him ! “
The tone in which this was uttered, although still retaining the charm which Marie Antoinette knew so well to assume, forbid all idea of refusal to comply with her wish.
The baron understood this perfectly, and made a sign to La Brie, who was contemplating with eager eyes the illustrious guests, the sight of whom seemed to make up to him for his twenty years of unpaid wages.
” Tell Baron Joseph Balsamo,” said his master, “that her royal highness the dauphiness desires to see him.” La Brie departed.
“Joseph Balsamo!” said the dauphiness. “What a singular name ! “
” Joseph Balsamo ! ” repeated his eminence, as if reflecting. “I think I know that name.”
Five minutes passed in silence then Andre felt a thrill run through her frame she heard, before it was perceptible to other ears, a step advancing under the shade of the trees the branches were put aside and Joseph Balsamo stood face to face with Marie Antoinette.
CHAPTER XV.
MAGIC.
BALSAMO bowed humbly, but no sooner had he raised his head than he fixed his bright, expressive eyes firmly but respectfully on the face of the dauphiness, and waited calmly until she should interrogate him.
” If it is you of whom the Baron de Taverney has been speaking to us, draw near, sir, that we may better see what a magician is.”
Balsamo advanced another step and bowed.
” Your profession is to foretell events, sir ? ” said the dauphiness, regarding him with more curiosity than she
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would herself have been willing to acknowledge, and sip ping some milk which had been handed her.
” It is not my profession, but I do foretell events.”
” We have been brought up in an enlightened creed ‘ said the dauphiness, “and the only mysteries in which we believe are those of the Catholic faith.”
“They are to be venerated,” replied Balsamo, reverently ; ” but here is Monseigneur the Cardinal de Rohan, who will tell your royal highness, though he be a prince of the Church, that they are not the only mysteries which deserve to be regarded with respect.”
The cardinal started ; he had not told his name, it had not been pronounced, yet this stranger knew it. Marie Antoinette did not appear to remark this “circumstance, but continued :
“You will confess, sir, that at least they are the only mysteries which cannot be controverted ? “
” Madame,” answered Balsamo, with the same respect, “as well as faith there is certainty.”
” You speak rather obscurely, sir ; although thoroughly French in heart, I am but indifferently acquainted with the niceties of the language, and must beg you to be less enigmatical if I am to comprehend you. “
” And I, madame, would entreat that all may remain unexplained. I should deeply regret to unveil to so illustrious a princess a future which might not correspond to her hopes. “
” This becomes serious,” said Marie Antoinette. ” The gentleman wishes to excite my curiosity, that I may command him to tell my fortune.”
” God forbid that your royal highness should force me to do it i “
“Yes,” replied the dauphiness; “for you would be rather puzzled to do it,” and she laugbed.
But the dauphiness’s laugh died away without meeting an echo from any of the attendants. Every one present seemed to submit tacitly to the influence of the singular man who was for the moment the center of general attraction.
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” Come, confess it frankly ‘ said the clanphiness.
Balsamo bowed.
” Yet it was you who predicted my arrival to the Baron de Taveruey,” resumed Marie Antoinette, with a slight movement of impatience.
” Yes, madame, it was I.”
” And how did he do it ? ” she added, turning to the baron, as if she felt the necessity of a third party taking share in this strange dialogue.
‘< Very simple, madame ; merely by looking in a glass of water.”
” Was it so ? ” she asked of Balsamo.
” Yes, madame ‘ answered he.
‘ Then, having read the future for the Baron de Taverney in a glass of water, surely you can read it for me in a decanter?”
” Perfectly well, madame.”
” And why refuse to do so ?”
” Because the future is uncertain, and if I saw a cloud on it ” He stopped.
“Well?”
“Ik would give me pain to sadden your royal highness.”
” Have you known me before, or do you now see me for the first time ? “
” I have had the honor of seeing your royal highness when a child, in your native country, with your august mother.”
” You have seen my mother, then ? “
” I have had that honor. She is a great and powerful queen.”
” Empress, sir,”
” I used the word queen in reference to the heart and mind and yet “
” Keservatious concerning, my mother ? ” said the dauphiness, haughtily.
” The greatest hearts have weaknesses, madame, particularly where they think the happiness of their children is concerned.”
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” History, I trust, sir, will not discover one single weak ness iu Maria Theresa. “
” Because history will not know what is known only to the Empress Maria Theresa, to your royal highness, and to myself.”
” We have a secret, sir we three ? ” said the dauphiness, smiling dJsclainfuly.
‘ We three, madame,” replied Balsamo, solemnly. ‘ Come, then, tell this secret, sir ! ” It will then be no longer one.” No matter. Tell it.” ‘ Is it your royal highness’s will ?” It is.”
Balsamo bowed. ” There is in the Palace of Schoenbrunn,” said he, “a cabinet, called the Dresden Cabinet, on account of the splendid vases of porcelain which it contains “
” Yes ” said the dauphiness ; ” go on.”
” This cabinet lorms a part of the private suite of rooms of the Empress Maria Theresa ; in it she writes her letters.”
“Yes.”
” On a certain day, about seven in the morning, when the empress had not yet risen, your royal highness entered this cabinet by a door through which you alone were permitted to pass, for your highness is the favorite daughter of her imperial majesty.”
“Well, sir?”
” Your highness approached a writing-desk, on which lay open a letter which her imperial majesty had written the night before. Your royal hignness read that letter, and doubtless some expressions in it must have been displeasing “to you, for you took a pen, and with your own hand erased three words ‘
The dauphiness blushed slightly.
” What were the words erased ? ” she asked, anxiously.
” They were too condescending, doubtless, and showed too great affection for the person to whom they were addressed. This was a weakness, and to this it was I alluded in speaking of your august mother.”
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” Then you remember the words ?”
