Lazarre Part 9

I said my father told me Bonaparte was a great soldier, and begged to know if he had been deceived.

"Oh!" Miss Chantry responded in a tone which slighted Thomas Williams.

"Well! I will tell you facts. Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the worst and most dangerous men that ever lived. He sets the world by the ears, and carries war into every country of Europe. That is his youngest brother yonder--that superfine gallant, in the long-tailed white silk coat down to his heels, and white small-clothes, with diamond buckles in his shoes, and grand lace stock and ruffles. Jerome Bonaparte spent last winter in Baltimore; and they say he is traveling in the north now to forget a charming American that Napoleon will not let him marry. He has got his name in the newspapers of the day, and so has the young lady.

The French consul warned her officially. For Jerome Bonaparte may be made a little king, with other relations of your great soldier."

The young man who might be made a little king was not as large as I was myself, and had a delicate and womanish cut of countenance. I said he was not fit for a king, and Miss Chantry retorted that neither was Napoleon Bonaparte fit for an emperor.

"What is an emperor?" I inquired.

"A chief over kings," Doctor Chantry put in. "Bonaparte is a conqueror and can set kings over the countries he has conquered."

I said that was the proper thing to do. Miss Chantry glared at me. She had weak hair like her brother, but her eyes were a piercing blue, and the angles of her jaws were sharply marked.

Meditating on things outside of my experience I desired to know what the white silk man had done.

"Nothing."

"Then why should the emperor give him a kingdom?"

"Because he is the emperor's brother."

"But he ought to do something himself," I insisted. "It is not enough to accept a chief's place. He cannot hold it if he is not fit."

"So the poor Bourbons found. But they were not upstarts at any rate. I hope I shall live to see them restored."

Here was another opportunity to inform myself. I asked Miss Chantry who the Bourbons were.

"They are the rightful kings of France."

"Why do they let Bonaparte and his brothers take their place?"

Doctor Chantry turned from the promenaders below and, with slow and careful speech, gave me my first lesson in history.

"There was a great civil war in France called the Revolution, when part of the people ran mad to kill the other part. They cut off the heads of the king and queen, and shut up the two royal children in prison. The dauphin died."

"What is a dauphin?"

"The heir to the throne of France was called the dauphin."

"Was he the king's son?"

"The king's eldest son."

"If he had brothers were they dauphins too?"

"No. He alone was the dauphin. The last dauphin of France had no living brothers. He had only a sister."

"You said the dauphin died."

"In a prison called the Temple, in Paris."

"Was the Temple a prison?"

"Yes."

Madame de Ferrier had said her father and some other person did not believe the dauphin died in the Temple.

"Suppose he was alive?" I hazarded.

"Suppose who was alive?" said Miss Chantry.

"The dauphin."

"He isn't."

"Did all the people believe he was dead?"

"They didn't care whether he was dead or not. They went on killing one another until this man Bonaparte put himself at the head of the army and got the upper hand of them. The French are all fire and tow, and the man who can stamp on them is their idol."

"You said you hoped you would live to see the Bourbons restored. Dead people cannot be restored."

"Oh, the Bourbons are not all dead. The king of France had brothers. The elder one of these would be king now if the Bourbons came back to the throne."

"But he would not be king if the dauphin lived?"

"No," said Miss Chantry, leaning back indifferently.

My head felt confused, throbbing with the dull ache of healing. I supported it, resting my elbow on the railing.

The music, under cover of which we had talked, made one of its pauses.

Annabel de Chaumont looked up at us, allowing the gentleman in the long-tailed silk coat to lead her toward the stairs.

V

Miss Chantry exclaimed, and her face stiffened with an expression which I have since learned to know as the fear of dignitaries; experienced even by people who profess to despise the dignitaries. Mademoiselle de Chaumont shook frizzes around her face, and lifted the scant dress from her satin shod feet as she mounted the stairs. Without approaching us she sat down on the top step of the landing with young Bonaparte, and beckoned to me.

I went at her bidding and stood by the rail.

"Prince Jerome Bonaparte wants to see you. I have told him about the bear pen, and Madame Tank, and the mysterious marks on you, and what she said about your rank."

I must have frowned, for the young gentleman made a laughing sign to me that he did not take Annabel seriously. He had an amiable face, and accepted me as one of the oddities of the country.

"What fun," said Annabel, "to introduce a prince of the empire to a prince of the woods!"

"What do you think of your brother?" I inquired.