Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 81

"Murat," said Bonaparte, in the tones in which he issued his commands on the battle-field, "give orders at once that the gates of Paris be closed, and that no stranger be allowed to go out of the city till you have further orders. You will come to me in an hour, and receive a proclamation to your soldiers, which you will sign; have it printed and posted at the street-corners of Paris. Make all these preparations! Go!"

Murat withdrew from the room with a salutation of deference, and now the commanding voice of Bonaparte summoned his chief adjutant from the reception-room.

"Duroc," said the First Consul, with calm, almost solemn voice, "you will go with twelve soldiers in pursuit of General Moreau, and arrest him wherever you find him."

The n.o.ble, open face of Duroc grew pale, and put on an expression of horror and amazement. "General," he whispered, "I beg that-"

But this time Bonaparte would not listen to the soothing words of his favorite.

"No replies!" he thundered. "You have only to obey! Nothing more!"

Duroc, pale and agitated, withdrew, and Bonaparte closed the door of the cabinet. "Real," he said, "return to the prison of the condemned man; take him his pardon, and bring him to me, that I may hear him myself. Hasten!"

Real withdrew, and Bonaparte and Fouche remained alone.

"You have given your proofs, Fouche, and now I believe you. When wolves are to be hunted down you are a good bloodhound, and we will begin the chase. I make you from this moment chief of the secret police; your first duty will be to bring this matter to an end, and help me to tear to pieces the whole murderous web, your reward being that I will nominate you again minister of police. [Footnote: The appointment of Fouche as the chief of police took place in June of the year 1804.] I will fulfil my promise so soon as you shall have made good yours, and put me in possession of the chief conspirators."

"You have just arrested Moreau, general," replied Fouche, deferentially. "I give you my word that in a few hours Pichegru and Georges will be apprehended."

"You forget the chief person," cried Bonaparte, over whose brazen forehead a thunder-cloud seemed to pa.s.s. "You forget the caricature of buried royalty, the so-called King Louis XVII. Hush! I tell you I will have this man. I will draw out the fangs of this royal adder, so that he cannot bite any more! Bring the man before me. The republic is an angry G.o.ddess, and demands a royal offering. Give this impostor into my hands, or something worse will happen! Go, and I advise you to bring me, before the sun goes down, the tidings that this fabled King Louis is arrested, or the sun of your good fortune is set forever! Now away! Go out through the little corridor, and then through the secret gate-you know the way. Go!"

Fouche did not dare to contradict the imperative order, but softly and hastily moved toward the curtain which led to the gloomy anteroom, and thence through a door, which only those initiated knew how to open, and which led to the little corridor.

But scarcely had Fouche entered this little dismal room, when a hand was laid upon his arm, and a woman's voice whispered to him:

"I must speak to you--at once! Come! this way!"

The hand drew him forward to the wall, a door sprang open without sound, and the voice whispered: "Four stairs down. Be careful!"

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

JOSEPHINE.

Fouche did not hesitate; he followed his guide down the little staircase, along the dark corridor, and up another short staircase.

He had recognized the voice, and knew that his leader was no other than Josephine, the wife of the First Consul.

Through the secret door at the end of the corridor they entered a small and gloomy antechamber, exactly like the one which adjoined the cabinet of the consul, and from it Josephine ushered Fouche into her cabinet.

"You will say nothing to Bonaparte about this secret way, Fouche,"

said Josephine, with a gentle, supplicatory tone. "He does not know of it. I have had it made without his knowledge while he was in Boulogne last year. Will you swear to me that you will not reveal it?"

"I do swear, madame."

"G.o.d knows that I have not had it made out of curiosity to overhear Bonaparte," continued Josephine. "But it is necessary sometimes for me to know what is going on, and that when the general is angry I should hasten to him to calm him and turn aside his wrath. I have warded off many a calamity since this private way was opened, and I have been able to overhear Bonaparte. But what have I been compelled to listen to to-day! Oh, Fouche, it was G.o.d Himself who impelled me to listen! I was with him when you were announced, and I suspected that your visit purported something unusual, something dreadful. I have heard all, Fouche--all, I tell you! I know that his life is threatened, that fifty daggers are directed toward him. 0 G.o.d! this perpetual fear and excitement will kill me! I have no peace of mind, no rest more! Since the unhappy day when we left our dear little house to live in the Tuileries, since that day there has been an end to all joy! Why did we do it? why did we not remain in our little Luxembourg? why have we been persuaded to live in the palace of the kings?"

"It is proper for the greatest man in France to live in the house where the departed race of kings once had their home," replied Fouche.

"Oh, yes," sighed Josephine. "I know these tricks of speech, with which you have turned the head of my poor Bonaparte. Oh! you, you, his flatterer, you who urged him on, will bear the blame if misfortune breaks in upon us! You have intoxicated him with the incense of adulation; you pour into his veins daily and hourly the sweet poison which is to destroy our happiness and our peace! He was so good, so cheerful, so happy, my Bonaparte! He was contented with the laurels which victory laid upon his brow, but you continued to whisper in his ear that a crown would add new grace to his laurels.

You flattered his ambition; and what was quietly sleeping at the bottom of his heart, and what I hushed with my kisses and with my hand, that you took all efforts to bring out into the light: his vanity--his love of power! Oh, Fouche! you are wicked, cruel, and pitiless! I hate, I abhor you all, for you are the murderers of my Bonaparte!"

She spoke all this softly, with quick breath, while the tears were streaming over her beautiful face, and her whole frame trembled with emotion. She then sank, wholly overcome, upon a lounge, and pressed her small hands, sparkling with jewels, over her eyes.

"Madame, you are unjust," replied Fouche, softly. "If you have overheard my conversation with the First Consul, you are aware that the direct object of my coming was to save him from murderers, and to insure his precious life."

"And, moreover, to pour into his ear the poison of a future imperial crown!" said Josephine, indignantly. "Oh, I know it! With talk of conspiracies and of daggers you urged him on. You want him to be an emperor, that you may be a prince or duke! I see it all, and I cannot prevent it, for he no longer listens to me, he no longer heeds the voice of his Josephine, only that of his ambitious flatterers, and he will put on the imperial crown and complete our misfortune! Oh! I knew it! This imperial crown will ruin us. It was prophesied to me in my youth that I should be an empress, but it was added that it would be for no long time. And yet I should like to live, and I should like to be happy still!"

"You will be so, madame," said Fouche, with a smile. "It is always good fortune to wear an imperial crown, and your beautiful head is worthy to bear one."

"No, no," she cried, angrily. "Do not try me with your flatteries! I am contented with being a beloved and happy wife; I desire no crown.

The crowned heads that have dwelt in the Tuileries have become the prey of destruction, and the pearls of their diadems have been changed to tears! But what advantage is it that I should say all this to you? It is all in vain, in vain! I did not bring you to talk of this. It was something entirely different. Listen, Fouche, I cannot prevent Bonaparte's becoming an emperor, but you shall not make him a regicide! I will not suffer it! By Heaven, and all the holy angels, I will not suffer it!"

"I do not understand you, madame. I do not know what you mean."

"Oh, you understand me very well, Fouche. You know that I am speaking of King Louis XVII."

"Ah, madame, you are speaking of the impostor, who gives himself out to be the 'orphan of the Temple.' "

"He is it, Fouche. I know it, I am acquainted with the history of his flight. I was a prisoner in the Conciergerie at the same time with Toulan, the queen's loyal servant. He knew my devotion to the unhappy Marie Antoinette; he intrusted to me his secret of the dauphin's escape. Later, when I was released, Tallien and Barras confirmed the story of his flight, and informed me that he was secreted by the Prince de Conde. I have known it all, and I tell you I knew who Kleber's adjutant was; I inquired for him after he disappeared at the battle of Marengo, and when my agents told me that the young king died there, I wore mourning and prayed for him.

And, now that I learn that the son of my beautiful queen is still alive, shall I suffer him to die like a traitor? No, never! Fouche, I tell you I will never suffer it; I will not have this unfortunate young man sacrificed! You must save him--I will have it so!"

"I!" cried Fouche, in amazement. "But you know that it is impossible, for you have heard my conversation with the consul. He himself said, 'The republic demands a royal victim. If it is not this so-called King Louis, let it be the Duke d'Enghien, for a victim must fall, in order to intimidate the royalists, and bring peace at last."

"But I will not have you bring human victims," cried Josephine; "the republic shall no longer be a cruel Moloch, as it was in the days of the guillotine. You shall, and you must, save the son of Queen Marie Antoinette. I desire to have peace in my conscience, that I may live without reproach, and be happier perhaps than now."

"But it is impossible," insisted Fouche. "You have heard yourself that if, before the sun goes down, Louis be not imprisoned, the sun of my good fortune will have set."

"And I told you, Fouche, that if you do this--if you become a regicide a second time--I will be your unappeasable enemy your whole life long; I will undertake to avenge on you the death of the queen and her son; I will follow your every step with my hate, and will not rest till I have overthrown you. And you know well that Bonaparte loves me, that I have influence with him, and that what I mean to do, I accomplish at last by prayers, tears, and frowns. So do not exasperate me, Fouche; do not make me your irreconcilable enemy. Save the son of the king whom you killed, conciliate the shades of his unhappy parents. Fouche, we are in the cabinet of the queen! Here she often tarried, here she often pressed her son to her heart, and asked G.o.d's blessing on him. Fouche, the spirit of Marie Antoinette is with us, and she will know it if you in pity spare the life of her son. Marie Antoinette will accuse you at the throne of G.o.d, and plead with G.o.d to show you no compa.s.sion, if you refuse to be merciful to her son. Fouche, in the name of the queen--on my knees--I implore you, save her son!"

And Josephine, her face bathed in tears, sank before him and raised her folded hands suppliantly to Fouche. The minister, deeply moved, pale with the recollections which Josephine awakened within him, stooped down to her, and bade her arise; and when she refused, and begged and threatened, and wept, his obstinacy was at last touched, or perhaps his prudence, which counselled him to make a friend, rather than an enemy, out of the all-powerful wife of the future emperor.

"Rise, madame," he said. "What mortal is able to resist your requests, since Bonaparte himself cannot? I will save your protege, whatever shall come to me afterward from it."

She sprang up, and in the wildness of her joy threw her beautiful arms around Fouche's neck, and kissed him.

"Fouche," she said, "I give you this kiss in the name of Queen Marie Antoinette. It is a kiss of forgiveness, and of blessing. You swear to me that you will save him?"

"I swear it, madame!"

"And I swear to you that as soon as he is saved, and Bonaparte's anger can no longer reach him, I will confess all to my husband, and put it in such a Light that Bonaparte shall thank and reward you.

Now tell me, how you will save him."

"I shall only be able if you will help me, madame."