The Mesmerist's Victim

“Such an offensive letter holds good against a devoted servitor?”

“Against the servitor – you who received a letter in your house here, from Lady Grammont, by courier – ”

“Surely brother and sister may correspond?”

“Not with such letters – ” And the monarch held out a copy of the letter dictated by Balsamo’s Voice – this time made by the King’s own hand. “Deny not – you have the original locked up in the iron safe in your bedroom.”

Pale as a spectre the duke listened to the sovereign continuing pitilessly.

“This is not all. You have an answer for Lady Grammont in your pocketbook only waiting for its postscript to be added when you leave my presence. You see I am well informed.”

The duke bowed without saying a word and staggered out of the room as though he were struck by apoplexy. But for the open air coming on his face he would have dropped backwards; but he was a man of powerful will and recovering composure, he passed through the courtiers to enter his rooms where he burnt certain papers. A quarter of an hour following he left the palace in his coach.

The disgrace of Choiseul was a thunderbolt which set fire to France.

The Parliament which his tolerance had upheld, proclaimed that the State had lost its strongest prop. The nobility sustained him as one of their order. The clergy felt fostered by a man whose severe style made his post almost sacerdotal. The philosophical party, very numerous by this time and potent, because the most active, intelligent and learned formed it, shouted aloud when “their” Government escaped from the hands of the protector of Voltaire, the pensioner of the Encyclopedist writers and the preserver of the traditions of Lady Pompadour playing the Maccenas-in-petticoats for the newspaper writers and pamphleteers.

The masses also complained and with more reason than the others. Without deep insight they knew where the shoe pinched.

From the general point of view Choiseul was a bad minister and a bad citizen, but he was a paragon of patriotism and morality compared with the sycophants, mistresses and their parasites – particularly Lady Dubarry whom a lampoonist qualified as less to be respected than a charcoal-man’s wife. To see the reins pass into the hands of the pet of a favorite made the future blacker than before.

Hence nearly everybody flocked on the road to cheer the Minister as he went away in exile.

There was a block to the traffic at the Enfer Tollbar, on the Touraine Road. A hundred carriages escorted the duke after he had got through here.

Cheers and sighs followed him, but he was too sharp not to know that there was less regret over his going than fear about those who would replace him.

On the crowded highway a postchaise came tearing and would have run down the minister but for a violent swerving of the postboy.

A head was stuck out of the chaise window at the same time as the Duke of Choiseul looked out of his.

It was the Duke of Aiguillon, nephew of Richelieu, who would probably have a place in the cabinet which the marshal duke, as the new minister, would form. No doubt he had received the cue and was hurrying to take the berth. He saluted the fallen one very lowly. The latter drew back in the coach, for in this second the sight had withered all the laurels.

At the same time, as compensation up came a carriage with the royal colors, drawn by eight horses on the Sevres branch-road, and crossing with Choiseul’s equipage by chance or the block.

On the back seat was the Dauphiness with her mistress of the Household, Lady Noailles; on the front one was Andrea de Taverney.

Red with glory and delight, Choiseul leaned out and bowed lowly.

“Farewell, princess,” he said in a choking voice.

“Farewell, my lord, till soon we meet again!” was the reply. The Archduchess gave an imperial smile and showed majestic disdain for court etiquet, by replying.

“Choiseul forever!” shouted an enthusiastic voice close upon these words.

Andrea turned rapidly towards the speaker, for she knew the voice.

“Room, make room there,” roared the royal squires, forcing Gilbert, pale and hot with getting to the front to see into the line along the roadside ditch.

It was indeed our hero, who had in a fit of philosophical fervor, shouted for Choiseul.

CHAPTER XII

ANDREA IN FAVOR

AT three in the afternoon Mdlle. de Taverney came out of her rooms dressed to perform her duty as reader to the princess.

On reaching the Trianon Summerhouse she was told that her mistress was in the grounds with her architect and head-gardener. In the upper story could be heard the whizz of the turning-lathe with which the Dauphin was busy making a safety lock for a chest which he thought a great deal of.

To join the Dauphiness, Andrea crossed the garden where, although the season had come on the pale flowers were lifting their heads to catch the fleeting rays of a still paler sun. Dark came at six, and the gardeners were covering the plants from the frost with glass bells.

On the lawn at the end of a walk hedged with trimmed trees and Bengal roses, Andrea suddenly perceived one of these men who, on seeing her, rose from stooping over his spade and saluted her with more grace and politeness than a common man could do. Looking she recognized Gilbert, whom she had seen from a child on her father’s estate. She blushed in spite of herself, for the presence of this ex-retainer seemed a very curious kindness of destiny.

He repeated the salute and she had to return it as she passed on. But she was too courageous and straight-forward a creature to resist a movement of the spirit and leave a question unanswered of her disturbed soul.

She retraced her steps, and Gilbert, who had lost color and was eyeing her ominously, returned to life and made a spring to arrive before her.

“How do you happen to be here, Gilbert?” she began.

“A man must live, and honestly.”

“Well, you ought to be happy in such a position!”

“I am very happy indeed to be here.”

“Who helped you to the place?”

“Dr. Jussieu, a patron of mine. He is a friend of another patron, the great Rousseau.”

“Good luck, Gilbert,” said Andrea, preparing to go.

“I hope you are better – after your accident?” ventured the young man in so quivering a voice that one could see that it came from a vibrating heart.

“Yes, thanks,” she coldly answered. “It did not amount to anything.”

“Why, you came near dying – the danger was dreadful,” said Gilbert, at the hight of emotion.

Andrea perceived by this that it was high time that she cut short this chat in the open with a royal gardener.

“Will you not have a rose?” questioned he, shivering.

“Why, how can you offer what is not yours?” she demanded.

He looked at her surprised and overcome, but as she smiled with superciliousness, he broke off a branch of the finest rose-tree and began to pluck the flowers and cast them down with a noble coolness which impressed even this haughty Patrician girl.

She was too good and fair-dealing not to see that she had wantonly wounded the feelings of an inferior who had only been polite to her. Like all proud ones feeling guilty of a fault, she resumed her stroll without a word, although the excuse was on her lips.

“Gilbert did not speak either; he tossed aside the rose-twig and took up the spade again, bending to work but also to see Andrea go away. At the turning of the walk she could not help looking back – for she was a woman.