Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 78

He shall not know from me that I am aware of you and your abiding- place. In order that Bonaparte shall not take me to be a bad detective, I shall show him in all other things that I am on the alert. In case of necessity, it may be that I shall have to resort to deception, and, in order to save your life, inform the consul that you are dead. There were a great many young officers who fell at Marengo, or afterward died as the result of their wounds. Why should not the adjutant of General Desaix have met this fate? Yes, I believe this will be the best. I will give you out as dead, in order to save your life. I will cause a paper to be prepared which shall testify that the adjutant of General Desaix, who lay there in the hospital, died there of his wounds and was buried."

"And so I shall disappear from life a second time?" asked Louis, sadly.

"Yes, sire, in order to enter anew upon it with greater splendor,"

replied Fouche, eagerly.

"Who knows whether this shall ever be?" sighed Louis. "How shall I be able to establish my ident.i.ty if I die and am buried twice? Who will be my pledge that I shall be able to convince men that I am not a deceiver, and that my whole existence is not an idle tale? There are only a few who know and believe that little Capet escaped from the Temple, and went to Egypt as Kleber's adjutant. If, now, these few learn that the adjutant fell in battle, if the paper that testifies to his death is laid before them, how shall I subsequently be believed if I announce that I am alive, and that I am the one for whom I give myself out? The seal of royalty is impressed on no man's brow, and we know from history that there have been false pretenders."

"You shall show with your papers that you are none such," said Fouche, eagerly, "and G.o.d will grant that I, too, shall be living when the time shall be in which you may come forward with raised voice and demand your inheritance and your throne. Hope for that time, and meanwhile preserve your papers well. Carry them always with you, part with them neither day nor night, for in these papers rest your future and your c rown. No other man besides yourself can take care of them These papers are worth more to you than a million of fras, although oven that should not be scorned. Here are the doc.u.ments that give you possession of your wealth. I have deposited your funds in the Bank of France, and you can draw out money at any time by presenting these checks that I give you, simply writing your name upon them."

"By simply writing my name upon them!" cried Louis, bitterly. "But, sir, what is my name? How shall I be called? I was formerly designated as the nephew of Kleber, Colonel Louis, the adjutant of Desaix. But Colonel Louis can no longer acknowledge that he is alive, and you propose to convince the First Consul that the nephew of Kleber is dead. Who, then, am I? What name shall I subscribe to those papers? By what name shall the nameless, the dead and buried, the resurrected, the again dead and buried one--by what name shall he draw money from the bank?"

"Very true," said Fouche. "A name, or rather the mask of a citizen's or n.o.bleman's name, must be your disguise, and it is imperatively necessary that we give you such, and provide you with papers that cannot be forged, which shall prove your existence, and secure you against every a.s.sault."

"Very good; then tell me how I shall be called," said Louis, sadly.

"Be the G.o.dfather of the solitary and nameless."

"Well, I will," cried Fouche. "In the glamour of political pa.s.sions I have raised my voice against the life of your father; full of regret I will raise my voice for the life of the son, and a.s.sist him to enter afresh upon life and into the society of men. Young man, I will give you a name and rank, till the French nation restore to you your true name and rank. You shall henceforth be called the Baron de Richemont. Will you accept it?"

"Yes, I will accept it," said Louis, gently. "To be the Baron de Richemont is better than to be a dead and buried person without any name."

"Very good, my lord baron," cried Fouche, "I will have the necessary certificates and papers made out, and enter your property in the Bank of France under the name of the Baron de Richemont. If you please, come to-morrow to me, and I will deliver to you the papers of Monsieur de Richemont."

"I shall come, be sure of that," said Louis, giving him his hand; "it seems to me my fate to go incognito through life, and G.o.d alone knows whether I shall ever abandon this incognito."

He saluted Fouche with a sad smile, and went out. The minister listened to the resounding footstep, and then broke out into loud, mocking laughter.

"Foolish boy!" he said, raising his hand threateningly, "foolish boy! You suppose that only G.o.d knows whether you will ever come out of your incognito. You mistake--besides G.o.d, Fouche knows it. Yes, Fouche knows that this incognito extends over you like a net, from which you never will escape. No, the Baron de Richemont shall never be transformed into King Louis XVII. But he shall be an instrument with which I will hold in check this ambitious Consul Bonaparte, who is striving; for the throne, and this grasping Count de Lille, who in his exile calls himself King Louis XVIII.--the instrument with which I threaten when I am threatened. Only, my little Baron de Richemont, I do not know what I can make out of you, but I know that you shall make out of me a rich, dangerous, and dreaded man. Poor, credulous fool! How easily you fall into the piti The Baron de Richemont shall never escape from it. I vouch for it--I, Fouche!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

FOUCHE.

The First Consul was walking with hasty steps up and down his cabinet. His eyes flashed, and his face, which elsewhere was impenetrable, like that of the brazen statues of the Roman emperors, disclosed the fiery impatience and stormy pa.s.sions which raged within him. His lips, which were pressed closely together, opened now and then to mutter a word of threatening or of anger, and that word he hurled like a poisoned arrow directly at the man who, in a respectful att.i.tude and with pallid cheeks, stood not far from the door, near the table covered with papers.--This man was Fouche, formerly the chief of police in Paris, and now a mere member of the senate of the republic. He had gone to the Tuileries in order to request a secret audience of Bonaparte, who had now forgotten the little prefix of "First" to his consular t.i.tle, and now reigned supreme and alone over France.

Bonaparte suddenly paused in his rapid walk, coming to a halt directly in front of Fouche, and looked at him with flaming eyes, as if they were two daggers with which he meant to pierce deep into his heart. But Fouche did not see this, for he stood with downcast eyes, and appeared not to be aware that Bonaparte was so near him.

"Fouche," cried the consul, violently, "I know you, and I am not to be deceived by your indifferent, affected air! You shall know that I do not fear you--you and all the ghosts that you can conjure up. You think that you frighten me; you wish that I should pay you dearly for your secret. But you shall know that I am not at all of a timorous nature, and that I shall pay no money for the solution of a riddle which I may perhaps be able to solve without your help. I warn you, sir, you secret-vender, be well on your guard! You have your spies, but I have my police, and they inform me about every thing out of the usual course. It is known, sir, that you are carrying on a correspondence with people out of the country-- understand me, with people out of the country!"

"Consul," replied Fouche, calmly, "I have certainly not known that the republic forbids its faithful servants to send letters abroad."

"The republic will never allow one of its servants to correspond with its enemies," cried Bonaparte, in thundering tones. "Be silent, sir! no evasions, no circ.u.mlocutions! Let us speak plainly, and to the point. You are in correspondence with the Count de Lille."

"You know that, consul, for I have had the honor to give you a letter myself, which the pretender directed to you, and sent to me to be delivered."

"A ridiculous, nonsensical letter," replied Bonaparte, with a shrug; "a letter in which this fool demands of me to bring him back to France, and to indicate the place which I wish to occupy in his government. By my word, an idiot could not write a more crazy doc.u.ment! I am to indicate the place which I wish to occupy in his government! Well, I shall do that; but there will be no place left near me for the Bourbons, whom France has spewed out, as one spews out mortal poison. These hated and weak Bourbons shall never attain to power and prestige again. Prance has turned away from them.

France abhors this degenerate race of kings; it will erect a new edifice of power and glory, but there will be no room in it for the Bourbons! Mark that, intriguer, and build no air-castles on it. I demand of you an open confession, for I shall accuse yon as a traitor and a royalist."

"Consul, I shall not avoid this charge," replied Fouche, calmly, "and I am persuaded that Prance will follow with interest the course of a trial which will unveil an important secret--which will inform it that the rightful King of France, according to the opinion of Consul Bonaparte, did not die in the Temple under the tender care of Simon the cobbler, but is still alive, and is, therefore, the true heir of the crown. That would occasion some joy to the royalists, surely!"

The consul stamped on the floor with rage, his eyes shot flames, and when he spoke again, his voice rang like peals of thunder, so angrily and so powerfully did it pour forth.

"I will change the paecans and the joy of these royalists to lamentations and wailings," he cried. "All the enemies of France shall know that I hold the sword in my hands, and mean to use it, not only against foes without, but foes within. France has given me this sword, and I shall not lay it down, even if all the kings of Europe, and all the Bourbons who lie in the vaults of St. Denis, leave their graves, to demand it from me! I am the living sword of France, and never shall this sword bow before the sceptre of a Bourbon. Fresh shoots might sooner spring from the dead stick which the wanderer carries through the desert, than a Bourbon sceptre could grow from the sword of Bonaparte; and all the same, whether this Bourbon calls himself Louis XVII. or Louis XVIII.! Mark that, Fouche, and mark also that when I once say 'I will,' I shall know how to make my will good, even if the whole world ventures to confront me."

"I know that, consul," said Fouche, with deference. "G.o.d gave you, for the weal of France, an iron will and a brain of fire, and destined you to wear not only laurels, but crowns."

A flame glared from the eyes of the consul and played over the face of Fouche, but the latter appeared not to notice it, for he cast down his eyes again, and his manner was easy and unconstrained.

"You now speak a word which is not becoming," said Bonaparte, calmly. "I am the first servant of the republic, and in a republic there are no crowns."

"Not citizens' crowns, general?" asked Fouche, with a faint smile.

"I mean, that this n.o.blest of crowns can everywhere be acceptable, and no head has merited such a crown more than the n.o.ble Consul Bonaparte, who has made the republic of France a worthy rival of its sister in North America."

Bonaparte threw his head proudly back. "I am not ambitious of the honor," he said, "of being Washington of France."

"Yet you are he, general," replied Fouche, with a smile. "Only the Washington of France does not live in the White House which a republic has built, but in the Tuileries, which he has received as the heir of the French kings. General, as the worthiest, the greatest, the most powerful, and the most signally called, you have come into the possession of the inheritance of the kings of France.

For to this inheritance belongs also the crown of France. Why do you refuse this, while accepting all the rest?"

"And what if I show you that I do not want it?" asked Bonaparte.

"And what if I should tell you that I do not feel myself worthy to a.s.sume the whole, undivided inheritance of the Bourbons? Would you be foolish and senseless enough to believe such an idle tale?"

"Consul, you have already done so many things that are wonderful, and have brought so many magic charms to reality, that I no longer hold any thing to be impossible, as soon as you have laid your hand upon it."

"And therefore you hold a concealed magician's wand, which you propose to draw forth at some decisive moment, and present to me, as the cross is presented to Beelzebub in the tale?"

"I do not understand you, consul," replied Fouche, with the most innocent air in the world.

"Well, then, I will make myself intelligible. The magician's wand, which you are keeping concealed, is called Louis XVII. Oh! do not shake your cunning head; do not deny with your smooth lips, which once uttered the death-sentence of Louis XVI., and which now are used to teach a fool and a pretender that he is the son of the murdered king. Truly, it is ridiculous. The regicide wants to atone for his offence by hatching a fable, and making a king out of a manikin."

"General, no fable, and no manikin," cried Fouche, with a threatening voice. "The son of the unfortunate king is alive, and--"

"Ah!" interrupted Bonaparte, triumphantly, "so you confess at last, you reveal your great secret at length! I have driven the sly fox out of his hole and the hunt can now begin. It will be a hot chase, I promise you, and I shall not rest till I have drawn the skin over the ears of the fox, or--"

"Until he says his pater peccavi?" asked Fouche, with a gentle smile.

"Until he delivers to me the changeling whom he wants to use as his Deus ex machina," replied Bonaparte. "My dear sir, it helps you not at all to begin again this system of lies. Your anger has betrayed you, and I have succeeded in outwitting the fox. The so-called 'son of the king is alive;' that has escaped you, and you cannot take it back."

"No, it cannot be taken back," replied Fouche, with a sigh. "I have disclosed myself, or rather I have been outwitted. You are in all things a hero and a master, in cunning as much as in bravery and discretion. I bow before you as before a genius whom G.o.d Himself has sent upon the earth, to bring the chaotic world into order again; I bow before you as before my lord and master; and instead of opposing you, I will henceforth be content with being your instrument, provided that you will accept me as such."

"That is, Fouche, provided that I will fulfil your conditions,"

cried Bonaparte, with a shrug. "Very well name your conditions!

Without circ.u.mlocution! What do you demand?"

"Consul, in order that we may understand one another, we must both be open and unreserved. Will you permit me to be free with you?"