Back Aa

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

<h2>CHAPTER XXVI. SARTINES BELIEVES BALSAMO IS A MAGICIAN.</h2> THE mesmerist had galloped on the barb through Versailles in a few seconds and a league on the road to Paris when an idea came as comfort in the midst of his misery at the fear that all he did would be too late. He saw his brothers of the secret society at the mercy of his foes, and the woman who caused all this, through his infatuation for her, going free. “Oh, if ever she returns into my power—— ” He made a desperate gesture, as he pulled up the splendid horse short on its haunches. “Let me see,” he said, frowning, “is silence a word or a fact? can it do or not do? let me try my will, again. Lorenza,” he said while making the passes to throw the magnetic fluid to a distance, “Lorenza, sleep, I will it! Wherever you are, sleep, I will it, and rely upon it. Cleave the air, oh, my supreme will! cross all the currents antipathetic or indifferent; go through the walls like a cannonball; strike her and annihilate her will. Lorenza, I will have you sleep—I will have you mute!” After this mighty effort of animal magnetism, he resumed the race, but used neither whip nor spur and gave the Arab rein. It appeared as if he wanted to make himself believe in the potency of the spell he exercised. While he was apparently peacefully proceeding, he was framing a plan of action. It was finished as he reached the paving stones of Sevres. He stopped at the Park gates as if he expected somebody. Almost instantly a man emerged from a coach-doorway and came to him. It was his German attendant Fritz. “Have you gathered information?” asked the master. “Yes, Lady Dubarry is in Paris.” Balsamo raised a triumphant glance to heaven. “How did you come?” “On Sultan, now ready saddled in the inn stables here.” He went for the horse and came back on its back. Balsamo was writing under the lantern of the town tax-gatherer’s office door with a pen which was self-fed with ink. “Ride back to town with this note,” said he, “to be given to Lady Dubarry herself. Do it in half an hour. Then get home to St. Claude street, where you will await Signora Lorenza, who will soon be coming home. Let her pass without staying her or saying anything.” At the same time he said “He would!” Fritz laid spur and whip on Sultan, who sprang off, astonished at this unaccustomed aggression, with a painful neigh. Balsamo rode on by the Paris Road, entering the capital in three quarters of an hour, almost smooth of face and calm in eye—if not a little thoughtful. The mesmerist had reasoned correctly: as rapid as Dejerrid the steed might be, it was not as swift as the will, and that alone could outstrip Lorenza escaped from her prison-house. As Andrea—the other medium had clearly seen, the vengeful Italian had found her way to the residence of Lieutenant Sartines. Questioned by an usher, she replied merely by these words: “Are you Lord Sartines?” The servant was surprised that this young and lovely woman, richly clothed and carrying a velvet-covered casket under her arm, should confuse his black coat and steel chain of office with the embroidered coat and perriwig of the Lieutenant of Police, though a foreigner. But as a lieutenant is never offended at being called a captain, and as the speaker’s eye was too steady and assured to be a lunatic’s, he was convinced that she brought something of value in the casket and showed her into the secretaries. The upshot of all was that she was allowed to see the Minister of Police. He sat in an octagonal room, lighted by a number of candles. Sartines was a man of fifty, in a dressing gown, and enormous wig, limp with curling and powder; he sat before a desk with looking-glass panels enabling him to see any one coming into the study without having to turn and study their faces before arranging his own. The lower part of the desk formed a secretary where were kept in drawers his papers and those in cipher which could not be read even after his death, unless in some still more secret drawer were found the key to the cipher. This piece of mechanism was built expressly for the Regent Duke of Orleans to keep his poisons in, and it came to Sartines from his Prime Minister Cardinal Dubois per the late Chief of Police. Rumor had it that it contained the famous contract called the “Compact of Famine,” the statutes of the Great Grain Ring among the directors of which figured Louis XV. So the Police Chief saw in this mirror the pale and serious face of Lorenza as she advanced with the casket under her arm. “Who are you—what do you want?” he challenged without looking round. “Am I in the presence of Lord Sartines, Head of the Police?” “Yes,” he curtly answered. “What proof have I of that?” she asked. This made him turn round. “Will it be good proof if I send you to prison?” She did not reply but looked round for the seat which she expected to be offered her by right, as to any lady of her country. He was vanquished by that single look for Count Alby de Sartines was a well-bred gentleman. “Take a chair,” he said brusquely. Lorenza drew an armchair to her and sat down. “Speak quick,” said the magistrate; “what do you want?” “To place myself under your protection,” answered Lorenza. “Ho, ho,” said he with a jeering look, peculiar to him. “My lord, I have been abducted from my family and forced into a clandestine marriage by a man who has been ill-using me during three years and would be my death.” He looked at the noble countenance and was moved by the voice so sweet that it seemed to sing. “Where do you come from?” he asked. “I am a Roman and my name is Lorenza Feliciani.” “Are you a lady of rank, for I do not know the name?” “I am a lady and I crave justice on the man who has incarcerated and sequestrated me.” “This is not in my province, since you say you are his wife.” “But the marriage was performed while I was asleep.” “Plague on it! you must enjoy sound sleep! I mean to say that this is not in my way. Apply to a lawyer, for I never care to meddle in these matrimonial squabbles.” He waved his hand as much as to say “Be off!” but she did not stir. “I have not finished;” she said “you will understand that I have not come here to speak of frivolities, but to have revenge. The women of my country revenge and do not go to law.” “This is different,” said Sartines: “but have despatch for my time is dear.” “I told you that I come for protection against my oppressor. Can I have it?” “Is he so powerful?” “More so than any King.” “Pray, explain, my dear lady: why should I accord you my protection against a man according to your statement more powerful than a king, for a deed which may not be a crime. If you want to be revenged, take revenge, only do not bring yourself under our laws; if you do a misdeed it will be you whom I must arrest. Then we shall see all about it. That is the bargain.” “No, my lord, you will not arrest me, for my revenge is of great utility to you, the King and France. I revenge myself by revealing the secrets of this monster.” “Ha, this man has secrets,” said Sartines interested perforce. “Great political secrets, my lord. But will you shield me?” “What kind of shield?” coldly asked the magistrate; “silver or official?” “I want to enter a convent, to live buried there, forgotten. I want a living tomb which will never be violated by any one.” “You are not asking much. You shall have the convent. Speak!” “As I have your word, take this casket,” said Lorenza; “it contains mysteries which will make you tremble for the safety of the sovereign and the realm. I know them but superficially but they exist, and are terrible.” “Political mysteries, you say?” “Have you ever heard of the great secret society?” “The Freemasons?” “These are the Invisibles.” “Yes; I do not believe in them, though.” “When you open this box, you will.” “Let us look into it then,” he said, taking the casket from her; but, reflecting, he placed it on his desk. “No, I would rather you opened it yourself,” he added with distrust. “I have not the key,” she replied. “Not got the key? you bring me a box containing the fate of an empire and you forget the key?” “Is it so hard to open a lock?” “Not when one knows the sort it is.” He held out to her a bunch of keys in every shape. As she took it, he noticed that her hand was cold as stone. “Why did you not bring the key with you?” he asked. “Because the master of the casket never lets it go from him.” “This is the man more powerful than the King?” “Nobody can tell what he is; eternity alone knows how long he has lived. None but the God above can see the deeds he commits.” “But his name, his name?’ “He has changed it to my knowledge a dozen times—I knew him as Acharat.” “And he lives—— ” “Saint—— ” Suddenly Lorenza started, shuddered, let the casket and the keys fall from her hands. She made an effort to speak, but her mouth only was contorted in a painful convulsion; she clapped her hands to her throat as if the words about to issue were stopped and choked her. Then, lifting her arms to heaven, trembling and unable to articulate a word, she fell full length on the carpet. “Poor dear!” muttered Sartines: “but what the devil is the matter with her? she is really very pretty. There is some jealousy in this talk of revenge.” He rang for the servants while he lifted up the Italian, who seemed with her astonished eyes and motionless lips, to be dead and far detached from this world. “Carry out this lady with care,” he commanded to the two valets; “and leave her in the next room. Try to bring her to, but mind, no roughness. Go!” Left alone, Sartines examined the box like a man who could value fully the discovery. He tried the keys until convinced that the lock was only a sham. Thereupon with a cold chisel he cut it off bodily. Instead of the fulminating powder or the poison which he perhaps expected, to deprive France of her most important magistrate, a packet of papers bounded up. The first words which started up before his eyes were the following, traced in a disguised hand: “It is time for the Grand Master to drop the name of Baron Balsamo.” There was no signature other than the three letters “L. P. D.” “Aha,” said the head of police, “though I do not know this writing I believe I know this name. Balsamo—let us look among the B’s.” Opening one of the twenty-four drawers of the famous desk, he took out a little register on which was written in fine writing three or four hundred names, preceded, accompanied or followed by flourishes of the pen. “Whew! we have a lot about this busy B,” he muttered. He read several pages with non-equivocal tokens of discontent. He replaced the register in the drawer to go on with inventorying the contents of the packet. He did not go far without being deeply impressed. Soon he came to a note full of names with the text in cipher. This appeared important to him; the edges were worn with fingering and pencil marks were made on the margin. Sartines rang a bell for a servant to whom he said: “Bring me the Chancellor’s cryptographist at once, going through the offices to gain time.” Two minutes subsequently, a clerk presented himself, with pen in hand, his hat under one arm, and a large book under the other. Seeing him in the mirror, Sartines held out the paper to him over his shoulders, saying: “Decipher that.” This unriddler of secret writing was a little thin man, with puckered up lips, brows bent by searching study; his pale face was pointed up and down, and the chin quite sharp, while the deep moony eyes became bright at times. Sartines called him his Ferret. Ferret sat down modestly on a stool, drew his knees close together to be a table to write upon, and wrote, consulting his memory and his lexicon with an impassible face. In five minutes time he had written: “Order to gather 3000 Brothers in Paris. “Order to compose three circles and six lodges. “Order to select a guard for the Grand Copt, and to provide four residences for him, one to be in a royal domicile. “Order to set aside five hundred thousand francs for his police department. “Order to enroll in the first Parisian lodge all the cream of literature and philosophy. “Order to bribe or in some way get a hold on the magistracy, and particularly make sure of the Chief of Police, by bribery, violence or trickery.” Ferret stopped at this passage, not because the poor man reflected but because he had to wait for the page to dry before he could turn over. Sartines, being impatient, snatched the sheet from his knees and read it. Such an expression of terror spread over his features at the final paragraph, that it made him turn pale to see himself in the glass. He did not hand this sheet back to the clerk but passed him a clean one. The man went on with his work, accomplishing it with the amazing rapidity of decipherers when once they hold the key. Sartines now read over his shoulder. “Drop the name of Balsamo beginning to be too well known, to take that of Count Fe—— ” A blot of ink eclipsed the rest of the name. At the very time when the Police Chief was seeking the absent letters, the out-door bell rang and a servant came in to announce: “His Lordship, Count Fenix!” Sartines uttered an outcry, and clasped his hands above his wig at risk of demolishing that wonderful structure. He hastened to dismiss the writer by a side door, while, taking his place at his desk, he bade the usher show in the visitor. In his mirror, a few seconds after, Sartines saw the stern profile of the count as he had seen him on the day when Lady Dubarry was presented at court. Balsamo-Fenix entered without any hesitation whatever. Sartines rose, made a cold bow, and sat himself ceremoniously down again, crossing his legs. At the first glance he had seen what was the object of this interview. At a glance also Balsamo had seen the opened casket on the desk. His glance, however fleeting, had not escaped the magistrate. “To what chance do I owe this visit, my lord?” inquired the Chief of Police. “My Lord,” returned Balsamo with a smile full of amenity, “I have found introducers to all the sovereigns of Europe, all their ministers and ambassadors: but none to present me to your lordship; so I have presented myself.” “You arrive most timely, my lord,” replied Sartines: “For I am inclined to think that if you had not called I should have had to send for you.” “Indeed—how nicely this chimes in.” Sartines bowed with a satirical smile. “Am I happy enough to be useful to your lordship?” queried Balsamo. These words were pronounced without a shade of emotion or disquiet clouding the smiling brow. “You have travelled a good deal, count,” said the Police Chief. “A great deal! I suppose you want for some geographical items. A man of your capacity is not cramped up in France but must embrace Europe and the world—— ” “Not geographical, my lord, but personal—— ” “Do not restrict yourself; in both, I am at your orders.” “Well, count, just imagine that I am looking after a very dangerous man, in faith, who seems to be an atheist, conspirator, forger, adulterer, coiner, charlatan, and chief of a secret league; whose history I have on my records and in this casket, which your lordship sees.” “I understand,” said Balsamo; “you have the story but not the man. Hang it, that seems to me the more important matter.” “No doubt: but you will see presently how near he is to our hand. Certainly, Proct Proteon Proteus had not more shapes, Jupiter more names: Acharat in Egypt, Balsamo in Italy, Somini in Sardinia, the Marquis of Anna in Malta, Marquis Pellegrini in Corsica, and lastly, Count Fe—this last name I have not been able to make out; but I am almost sure that you will help me to it for you must have met this man in the course of your travels in the countries I have mentioned. I suppose, though, you would want some kind of description?” “If your lordship pleases?” “Well,” continued Sartines, fixing on the other an eye which he endeavored to make like an inquisitor’s, “he is a man of your age and stature, and bearing; sometimes a mighty nobleman distributing gold, or a charlatan seeking natural secrets, or a dark conspirator allied to the mysterious brotherhood which has vowed in darkness the death of kings and the downfall of thrones.” “This is vague,” replied Balsamo, “and you cannot guess how many men I have met who would answer to this description! You will have to be more precise if you want my help. In the first place, which is his country by preference?” “He lives everywhere at home.” “But at present?” “In France, where he directs a vast conspiracy.” “This is a good piece of intelligence. If you know what conspiracy he directs you have one end of a clew in your hands which will lead you up to the man.” “I am of your opinion.” “If you believe so, why do you ask my advice? It is useless.” “It is because I am debating whether or not to arrest him.” “I do not understand the Not, my lord, for if he conspires—— ” “But he is in a measure protected by his title—— ” “Ah, now I follow you. But by what title? Needless to say that I shall be glad to aid you in your searches, my lord.” “Why, sir, I told you that I knew the names he hides under but I do not know that under which he shows himself, or else—— ” “You would arrest him? Well, Lord Sartines, it is a blessed thing that I happened in as I did, for I can do you the very service you want. I will tell you the title he figures under.” “Pray say it,” said Sartines who expected to hear a falsehood. “The Count of Fenix.” “What, the name under which you were announced?” “My own.” “Then you would be this Acharat, Balsamo, and Company?” “It is I,” answered the other simply. It took Sartines a minute to recover from the amazement which this impudence had caused him. “You see I guessed,” he said; “I knew that Fenix and Balsamo were one and the same.” “I confess it. You are a great minister.” “And you are a great fool,” said the magistrate, stretching out his hand towards his bell. “How so?” “Because I am going to have you arrested.” “Nonsense, a man like me is never arrested,” said Balsamo, stepping between the magistrate and the bell. “Death of my life, who will prevent it? I want to know.” “As you want to know, my dear Lieutenant of Police, I will tell you—I shall blow out your brains—and with the more facility and the less injury to myself as this weapon is charged with a noiseless explosive which, for its quality of silence, is not the less deadly.” Whipping out of his pocket, a pistol, with a barrel of steel as exquisitely carved as though Cellini had chiselled it, he tranquilly leveled it at the eye of Sartines, who lost color and his footing, falling back into his armchair. “There,” said the other, drawing another chair up to the first and sitting down in it; “now that we are comfortably seated, let us have a chat.” It was an instant before Lord Sartines was master of himself after so sharp an alarm. He almost looked into the muzzle of the firearm, and felt the ring of its cold iron on his forehead. “My lord,” he said at last. “I have the advantage over you of knowing the kind of man I coped with and I did not take the cautionary measures I should with an ordinary malefactor.” “You are irritated and you use harsh words,” replied Balsamo. “But you do not see how unjust you are to one who comes to do you a service. And yet you mistake my intentions. You speak of conspirators, just when I come to speak to you about a conspiracy.” But the round phrase was all to no purpose as Sartines was not paying great attention to his words: so that the word Conspiracy, which would have made him jump at another time, scarcely caused him to pick up his ears. “Since you know so well who I am,” he proceeded, “you must know my mission in France. Sent by the Great Frederick—that is as an ambassador, more or less secret of his Prussian Majesty. Who says ambassador, says ‘inquisitor;’ and as I inquire, I am not ignorant of what is going on; and one of the things I have learnt most about is the forestalling of grain.” Simply as Balsamo uttered the last words they had more power over the Chief of Police than all the others for they made him attentive. He slowly raised his head. “What is this forestalling of the grain?” he said, affecting as much ease as Balsamo had shown at the opening of the interview. “Will you kindly enlighten me?” “Willingly, my lord. Skillful speculators have persuaded his Majesty, the King of France, that he ought to build grainaries to save up the grain for the people in case of dearth. So the stores were built. While they were about it they made them on a large scale, sparing no stone or timber. The next thing was to fill them, as empty grainarers are useless. So they filled them. You will reckon on a large quantity of corn being wanted to fill them? Much breadstuffs drawn out of the markets is a means of making the people hungry. For, mark this well, any goods withdrawn from circulation are equivalent to a lack of production. A thousand sacks of corn in the store are the same as a thousand less in the market. Multiply these thousands by a ten only and up goes the price of grain.” Sartines coughed with irritation. Balsamo stopped quietly till he was done. “Hence, you see the speculator in the storehouses enriched by the increase in value. Is this clear?” “Perfectly clear,” replied the other. “But it seems to me that you are bold enough to promise to denounce a crime or a plot of which his Majesty is the author.” “You understand it plainly,” said Balsamo. “This is bold, indeed, and I should be curious to know how the King will take the charge. I am afraid that the result will be precisely the same as that I conceived when I looked through your papers; take care, my lord, you will get into the Bastile all the same.” “How poorly you judge me and how wrong you are in still taking me for a fool. Do you imagine that I, an ambassador, a mere curious investigator, would attack the King in person? That would be the act of a blockhead. Pray hear me out.” Sartines nodded to the man with the pistol. “Those who discovered this plot against the French people—pardon the precious time I am consuming, but you will see presently that it is not lost time—they are economists, who, very minute and painstaking, by applying their microscopic lenses to this rigging of the market, have remarked that the King is not working the game alone. They know that his Majesty keeps an exact register of the market rate of grain in the different markets: that he rubs his hands when the rise wins him eight or ten thousand crowns; but they also know that another man is filling his own alongside of his Majesty’s—an official, you will guess—who uses the royal figures for his own behalf. The economists, therefore, not being idiots, will not attack the King, but the man, the public officer, the agent who gambles for his sovereign.” Sartines tried to shake his wig into the upright but it was no use. “I am coming to the point, now,” said Balsamo. “In the same way as you know I am the Count of Fenix through your police, I know you are Lord Sartines through mine.” “What follows?” said the embarrassed magistrate; “a fine discovery that I am Lord Sartines!” “And that he is the man of the market-notebooks, the gambling, the ring, who, with or without the knowledge of the King, traffics on the appetites of the thirty millions of French whom his functions prescribe him to feed on the lowest possible terms. Now, just imagine the effect in a slight degree of this discovery! You are little loved by the people; the King is not an affectionate man. As soon as the cries of the hungry are heard, yelling for your head, the King, to avoid all suspicion of connivance with you, if any there be, or to do justice if there is no complicity, will hasten to have you strung upon a gibbet like that on which dangled Enguerrand de Marigny, which you may remember?” “Imperfectly,” stammered Sartines, very pale, “and you show very poor taste to talk of the gibbet to a nobleman of my degree!” “I could not help bringing him in,” replied Balsamo, “as I seemed to see him again—poor Enguerrand! I swear to you he was a perfect gentleman out of Normandy, of very ancient family and most noble house. He was Lord High Chamberlain and Captain of the Louvre Palace, and eke Count of Longueville, a much more important county than yours of Alby. But still I saw him hooked up on the very gibbet at Montfaucon which was built under his orders, although it was not for the lack of my telling him: “Enguerrand, my dear friend, have a care! you take a bigger slice out of the cake of finance than Charles of Valois will like. Alas, if you only knew how many chiefs of police, from Pontius Pilate down to your predecessor, who have come to grief!” Sartines rose, trying in vain to dissimulate the agitation to which he was a prey. “Well, accuse me if you like,” he said: “what does the testimony of a man like you amount to?” “Take care, my lord,” Balsamo said: “men of no account were very often the very ones who bring others to account. When I write the particulars of the Great Grain Speculation to my correspondent, or Frederick who is a philosopher, as you are aware, he will be eager to transcribe it with comments for his friend, Voltaire, who knows how to swing his pen: to Alembert, that admirable geometrician, who will calculate how far these stolen grains, laid in a line side by side, will extend; in short when all the lampoon writers, pamphleteers and caricaturists get wind of this subject, you, my lord of Alby, will be a great deal worse off than my poor Marigny,—for he was innocent, or said so, and I would hardly believe that of your lordship.” With no longer respect for decorum, Sartines took off his wig and wiped his skull. “Have it so,” he said, “ruin me if you will. But I have your casket as you have your proofs.” “Another profound error into which you have fallen, my lord,” said Balsamo: “You are not going to keep this casket.” “True,” sneered the other; “I forgot that Count Fenix is a knight of the road who robs men by armed force. I did not see your pistol which you have put away. Excuse me, my lord the ambassador.” “The pistol is no longer wanted, my lord. You surely do not think that I would fight for the casket over your body here where a shout would rouse the house full of servants and police agents?—— No, when I say that you will not keep my casket, I mean that you will restore it to me of your own free will.” “I?” said the magistrate, laying his fist on the box with so much force that he almost shattered it. “You may laugh, but you shall not take this box but at the cost of my life. Have I not risked it a thousand times—ought I not pour out the last drop of my blood in his Majesty’s service? Kill me, as you are the master; but I shall have enough voice left to denounce you for your crimes. Restore you this,” he repeated, with a bitter laugh, “hell itself might claim it and not make me surrender.” “I am not going to require the intervention of subterranean powers; merely that of the person who is even now knocking at your street door.” Three loud knocks thundered at the door. “And whose carriage is even now entering the yard,” added the mesmerist. “Some friend of yours who does me the honor to call?” “Just as you say, a friend of mine.” “The Right Honorable the Countess Dubarry!” announced a valet at the study door, as the lady, who had not believed she wanted the permission to enter, rushed in. It was the lovely countess, whose perfumed and hooped skirts rustled in the doorway. “Your ladyship!” exclaimed Sartines, hugging the casket to his bosom in his terror. “How do you do, Sartines?” she said, with her gay smile. “And how are you, count?” she added to Fenix, holding out her hand. He bowed familiarly over it and pressed his lips where the King had so often laid his. In this movement he had time to speak four words to her which the Chief of Police did not hear. “Oh, here is my casket,” she said. “Your casket,” stammered the Lieutenant of Police. “Mine, of course. Oh, you have opened it—do not be nice about what does not belong to you! How delightful this is. This box was stolen from me, and I had the idea of going to Sartines to get it back. You found it, did you, oh, thank you.” “With all respect to your ladyship,” said Sartines, “I am afraid you are letting yourself be imposed upon.” “Impose? do you use such a word to me, my lord?” cried Balsamo. “This casket was confided to me by her ladyship a few days ago with all its contents.” “I know what I know,” persisted the magistrate. “And I know nothing,” whispered La Dubarry to the mesmerist. “But you have claimed the promise I made you to do anything you asked at the first request.” “But this box may contain the matter of a dozen conspiracies,” said Sartines. “My lord, you know that that is not a word to bring you good luck. Do not say it again. The lady asks for her box—are you going to give it to her or not?” “But at least know, my lady—— ” “I do not want to know more than I do know,” said the lady: “Restore me my casket—for I have not put myself out for nothing, I would have you to understand!” “As you please, my lady,” said Sartines humbly and he handed the countess the box, into which Balsamo replaced the papers strewn over the desk. “Count,” said the lady with her most winning smile, “will you kindly carry my box and escort me to my carriage as I do not like to go back alone through those ugly faces. Thank you, Sartines.” “My lady,” said Balsamo, “you might tell the count who bears me much ill will from my insisting on having the box, that you would be grieved if anything unpleasant befel me through the act of the police and how badly you would feel.” She smiled on the speaker. “You hear what my Lord says, Sartines,” she said; “it is the pure truth: the count is an excellent friend of mine and I should mortally hate you if you were to vex him in any way. Adieu, Sartines.” He saw them march forth without showing the rage Balsamo expected. “Well, they have taken the casket but I have the woman,” he chuckled. To make up for his defeat he began to ring his bell as though to break it. “How is the lady getting on whom you took into the next room?” “Very well indeed, my lord: for she got up and went out.” “Got up? why, she could not stand.” “That is so, my lord,” said the usher: “but five minutes or so after the Count of Fenix arrived, she awoke from her swoon, from which no scent would arouse her, and walked out. We had no orders to detain her.” “The villain is a magician,” thought the magistrate. “I have the royal police and he Satan’s.” That evening he was bled and put to bed: the shock was too great for him to bear, and the doctor said that if he had not been called in he would have died of apoplexy. In the meantime the count had conducted the lady to her coach. She asked him to step in, and a groom led the Arab horse. “Lady,” he said, “you have amply paid the slight service I did you. Do not believe what Sartines said about plots and conspiracies. This casket contains my chemical recipes written in the language of Alchemy which his ignorant clerks interpreted according to their lights. Our craft is not yet enfranchised from prejudices and only the young and bright like your ladyship are favorable to it.” “What would have happened if I had not come to your help?” “I should have been sent into some prison, but I can melt stone with my breath so that your Bastile would not long have retained me. I should have regretted the loss of the formula for the chemical secrets by which I hope to preserve your marvelous beauty and splendid youthfulness.” “You set me at ease and you delight me, count. Do you promise me a philter to keep me young?” “Yes: but ask me for it in another twenty years. You cannot now want to be a child forever!” “Really, you are a capital fellow! But I would rather have that draft in ten, nay five years—one never knows what may happen.” “When you like.” “Oh, a last question. They say that the King is smitten with the Taverney girl. You must tell me; do not spare me if it is true; treat me as a friend and tell me the truth.” “Andrea Taverney will never be the mistress of the King. I warrant it, as I do not so will it.” “Oh!” cried Lady Dubarry. “You doubt? never doubt science.” “Still, as you have the means, if you would block the King’s fancies—— ” “I can create sympathies and so I can antipathies. Be at ease, countess, I am on the watch.” He spoke at random as he was all impatience to get away and rejoin Lorenza. “Surely, count,” said the lady, “you are not only my prophet of good but my guardian angel. Mind, I will defend you if you help me. Alliance!” “It is sealed,” he said, kissing her hand. He alighted and whistling for his horse, mounted and gallopped away. “To Luciennes,” ordered Lady Dubarry, comforted. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.