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Marie Antoinette Romances, Vol 2: The Mesmerist's Victim

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<h2>CHAPTER III. THE RESTORATION.</h2> WHILE the thousand casualties were precipitated upon each other, Baron Taverney escaped all the dangers by some miracle. An old rake, and hardened in cynicism, he seemed the least likely to be so favored, but he maintained himself in the thick of a cluster by his skill and coolness, while incapable of exerting force against the devouring panic. His group, bruised against the Royal Storehouse, and brushed along the square railings, left a long trail of dead and dying on both flanks but, though decimated, its centre was kept out of peril. As soon as these lucky men and women scattered upon the boulevard, they yelled with glee. Like them, Taverney found himself out of harm’s reach. During all the journey, the baron had thought of nobody but his noble self. Though not emotional, he was a man of action, and in great crises such characters put Caesar’s adage into practice—Act for yourself. We will not say he was selfish but that his attention was limited. But soon as he was free on the main street, escaped from death and re-entering life, the old baron uttered a cry of delight, followed by another of pain. “My daughter,” he said, in sorrow, though it was not so loud as the other. “Poor dear old man,” said some old women, flocking round ready to condole with him, but still more to question. He had no popular inclinations. Ill at ease among the gossips he made an effort to break the ring, and to his credit got off a few steps towards the square. But they were but the impulse of parental love, never wholly dead in a man; reason came to his aid, and stopped him short. He cheered himself with the reasoning that if he, a feeble old man had struggled through, Andrea, on the strong arm of her brave and powerful brother, must have likewise succeeded. He concluded that the two had gone home, and he proceeded to their Paris lodging, in Coq-Heron street. But he was scarcely within twenty paces of the house, on the street leading to a summerhouse in the gardens, where Philip had induced a friend to let them dwell, when he was hailed by a girl on the threshold. This was a pretty servant maid, who was jabbering with some women. “Have you not brought Master Philip and Mistress Andrea?” was her greeting. “Good heavens, Nicole, have they not come home?” cried the baron, a little startled, while the others were quivering with the thrill which permeated all the city from the exaggerated story of the first fugitives spreading. “Why, no, my lord, no one has seen them.” “They could not come home by the shortest road,” faltered the baron, trembling with spite at his pitiful line of reasoning falling to pieces. There he stood, in the street, with Nicole whimpering, and an old valet, who had accompanied the Taverneys to town, lifting his hands to the sky. “Oh, here comes Master Philip,” ejaculated Nicole, with inexpressible terror, for the young man was alone. He ran up through the shades of evening, desperate, calling out as soon as he saw the gathering at the house door: “Is my sister here?” “We have not seen her—she is not here,” said Nicole. “Oh, heavens, my poor young mistress!” she sobbed. “The idea of your coming back without her!” said the baron with anger the more unfair as we have shown how he quitted the scene of the disaster. By way of answer he showed his bleeding face and his arm broken and hanging like a dead limb by his side. “Alas, my poor Andrea,” sighed the baron, falling, seated on a stone bench by the door. “But I shall find her, dead or alive,” replied the young man gloomily. And he returned to the place with feverish agitation. He would have lopped off his useless arm, if he had an axe, but as it was, he tucked the hand into his waistcoat for an improvised sling. It was thus we saw him on the square, where he wandered part of the night. As the first streaks of dawn whitened the sky, he turned homeward, though ready to drop. From a distance he saw the same familiar group which had met his eyes on the eve. He understood that Andrea had not returned, and he halted. “Well?” called out the baron, spying him. “Has she not returned? no news—no clew?” and he fell, exhausted, on the stone bench, while the older noble swore. At this juncture, a hack appeared at the end of the street, lumbered up, and stopped in front of the house. As a female head appeared at the window, thrown back as if in a faint, Philip, recognizing it, leaped that way. The door opened, and a man stepped out who carried Andrea de Taverney in his arms. “Dead—they bring her home dead,” gasped Philip, falling on his knees. “I do not think so, gentlemen,” said the man who bore Andrea, “I trust that Mdlle. de Taverney is only fainted.” “Oh, the magician,” said the baron, while Philip uttered the name of “the Baron of Balsamo.” “I, my lord, who was happy enough to spy Mdlle. de Taverney in the riot, near the Royal wardrobe storehouse.” But Philip passed at once from joy to doubt and said: “You are bringing her home very late, my lord.” “You will understand my plight,” replied Balsamo without astonishment. “I was unaware of the address of your sister, though your father calls me a magician, kindly remembering some little incidents occurring at your country-seat. So I had her carried by my servants to the residence of the Marchioness of Savigny, a friend who lives near the Royal Stables. Then this honest fellow—Comtois,” he said, waving a footman in the royal livery to come forward, “being in the King’s household and recognizing the young lady from her being attendant of the Dauphiness, gave me this address. Her wonderful beauty had made him remark her one night when the royal coach left her at this door. I bade him get upon the box, and I have the honor to bring to you, with all the respect she merits—the young lady, less ill than she may appear.” He finished by placing the lady with the utmost respect in the hands of Nicole and her father. For the first time the latter felt a tear on his eyelid, and he was astonished as he let it openly run down his wrinkled cheek. “My lord,” said Philip, presenting the only hand he could use to Balsamo, “You know me and my address. Give me a chance to repay the services you have done me.” “I have merely accomplished duty,” was the reply. “I owed you for the hospitality you once favored me at Taverney.” He took a few paces to depart, but retracing them, he added: “I ask pardon; but I was forgetting to leave the precise address of Marchioness Savigny; she lives in Saint Honore Street, near the Feuillant’s Monastery. This is said in case Mdlle. de Taverney should like to pay her a visit.” In this explanation, exactness of details and accumulation of proofs, the delicacy touched the young lord and even the old one. “My daughter owes her life to your lordship,” said the latter. “I am proud and happy in that belief,” responded Balsamo. Followed by Comtois, who refused the purse Philip offered, he went to the carriage and was gone. Simultaneously, as if the departure made the swooning of Andrea cease, she opened her eyes. For a while she was dumb, and stunned, and her look was frightened. “Heavens, have we but had her half restored—with her reason gone?” said Philip. Seeming to comprehend the words, Andrea shook her head. But she remained mute, as if in ecstasy. Standing, one of her arms was levelled in the direction in which Balsamo had disappeared. “Come, come, it is high time our worry was over,” said the baron. “Help your sister indoors my son.” Between the young gentleman and Nicole, Andrea reached the rear house, but walked like a somnambulist. “Philip—father!” she uttered as speech returned to her at last. “She knows us,” exclaimed the young knight. “To be sure I know you; but what has taken place?” Her eyes closed in a blessed sleep this time, and Nicole carried her into her bedroom. On going to his own room, Captain Philip found a doctor whom the valet Labrie had sent for. He examined the injured arm, not broken but dislocated, and set the bone. Still uneasy about his sister, he took the medical man to her bedside. He felt her pulse, listened to her breathing and smiled. “Her slumber is calm and peaceful as a child’s,” he said. “Let her sleep on, young sir, there is nothing more to do.” The baron was sound asleep already assured about his children on whom were built the ambitious schemes which had lured him to the capital. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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