The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 29

Ferdinand is right. Why fight an unworthy battle? There are proofs before which we must recede. You say I am the only man of the family.

'Tis that I am the only member of the family who looks the situation in the face. Tell the King that there is but one way of demonstrating his courage; to deliver up his ill gotten goods and make rest.i.tution."

The Duke unable to find his voice, mutely rose. Saluting his wife with the same reverential air he had employed on entering, he pa.s.sed out of the door.

Chapter III

REASONS OF STATE

The interior of the King's cabinet contrasted strikingly with the apartment we have just left. Here we find a veritable museum arranged by an intelligent hand which has collected something of the most beautiful in each esthetic epoch.

The Monarch stretched upon his invalid's couch, surrounded by cushions, his limbs bandaged, converses with his Minister of Police. A fire glows on the hearth, notwithstanding the warmth of the apartment, all the windows and doors being closed. 'Tis the loving heart of the young Countess Cayla that has designed the arrangement of furniture, etc., with the effect of securing the greatest comfort.

Disease makes noticeable ravages in the royal countenance, which, though still expressing a keen intellectual and reflective penetration, even a repressed enthusiasm, begins to become bloated by an insidious edema.

The eyes, back of their swollen lids, betray blood decomposition. When the King changes his position, a medicinal odor floats through the elegant apartment, notwithstanding the profusion of rare flowers in alabaster Pompeian vases,--prodigies of antique art,--flowers, brought by the Countess to her invalid friend.

The King economized his conversational forces, replying only when necessity compelled: his words were always affluent and opportune. He listened attentively to the Minister, who was saying:

"Greater danger has never threatened the monarchy. I have long foreseen the evil. 'Tis of many years' standing. My predecessors--I must do them justice--took every precaution to obviate the result. Le Coq in Berlin endeavored to prevent what today seems imminent."

Lecazes took a pinch of snuff, and resumed:

"Your Majesty cannot doubt my zeal and activity. My devotion to the cause has been demonstrated. I have never vacillated in critical moments, never weakly yielded to circ.u.mstances. But in spite of my efforts and circ.u.mspection, a catastrophe stares us in the face."

The King listened attentively and the Minister went on.

"I have endeavored to spare your Majesty the annoyance of listening to these alarms. I come now to appeal for your help, for only you may avert the danger.

"One of my deputies, the most resourceful of all, my right hand, indeed, by name Volpetti, who for a time was in the service of Caroline, Queen of Sicily;--this Volpetti has for years tracked that--that dangerous creature. So far he has subjected him to living in a position in which mischief was impossible of accomplishment. He has been incapacitated for the attaining of any real advantage--This Volpetti was bequeathed me by Fouche. He was employed in the surveillance of the individual in question when I became Minister. During Napoleon's ascendancy, Volpetti kept this individual well concealed in a Vincennes dungeon; but the Empress Josephine, with the end of employing him as a weapon in view of the contingent divorce, adopted the policy of befriending and, finally of liberating him. After leaving Vincennes, our individual turns up in Prussia. As he had no civil status, he could give no trouble. He was n.o.body. At that time, Volpetti conceived a brilliant idea, that of playing the friend. He lent him a pa.s.sport bearing a fict.i.tious name and authorizing him to reside in Spandau. The individual has never been able to shuffle off his name. O there is no prison so secure as a name."

"Nevertheless," interposed the King, "when one possesses doc.u.ments proving one's ident.i.ty--"

"I am coming to that," said the Minister, waving his hand in order to dispel apprehension.

"The preservation of those doc.u.ments, thro all these years of vicissitudes is the knot which I cannot unravel. Whence come they? I conjecture they procede from Barras (with his mania for collections), and that he gave them to Josephine. She in turn placed them with Montmorin, who planned his escape and who was subsequently killed in a skirmish. Those papers const.i.tuted an infernal magazine which threatened to explode at any moment. Volpetti rested not in his search for them, but they were skilfully concealed. As a last resort, he insinuated into the life of the individual a woman, excellent hearted and who was persuaded that she rendered a veritable service by advising him to deliver the papers to Le Coq."

"And did he?" inquired the King in graceful irony. "I wager that the woman attained her ends."

"Yes, your Majesty, he delivered certain papers, but the most important ones he kept--the devil knows where. He preserves them to this day in a casket."

"Next to woman, the gravest perils to man are doc.u.ments," murmured the King in persistent irony.

"Realizing the impossibility of recovering the papers from Le Coq, the individual subsided. He is of a pacific temperament, tending to inaction and retirement. He married and devoted himself to his trade of watch-making--"

"'Tis a family proclivity," observed the King.

"I was saying he is devoted to watch-making and the care of his several children, among whom there is a daughter, who as a contrast to her father's impa.s.sivity, is action and energy incarnate. It was his ill fortune to be indicted as an incendiary and counterfeiter and to serve sentence at hard labor in Silesia--"

"Did this ill fortune come to him in consequence of the cautious policy of my astute friend and Minister, Lecazes? Let us have no figures of rhetoric here."

"Your Majesty, when matters arrange themselves in favorable combinations, a wise man loses no time in hesitation. The sentence pa.s.sed was so favorable to our cause, was so strong a card to reserve, should the individual carry his claims before a tribunal. Think of it!

Counterfeiter, incendiary!--sufficient, I should think, to deter members of the n.o.bility from advocating his cause, should they be inclined to do so. Should we complain if hams be rained into our mouths? Shall we bewail the great number of impostors and dupes who have appeared from all quarters, finally occasioning so much skepticism among the people that one more or less makes no difference to them?"

Again the King smiled.

"Come," said he, delighting to pierce the diplomatic artifices of his minister, "I agree that we have no reason to complain; above all when it appears that among the horde of spurious Dauphins there is one bearing marks not unknown to us. Let us talk as men who have learned to vanquish their conscience; surely we shall not display such bad taste as to become pedantic moralists."

Lecazes smiled in his turn.

"I do not think," continued the royal invalid in whimsical banter, "that you cla.s.s me among the abettors of my nephew; Ferdinand's ardent wish is to embrace his recovered cousin. Lecazes, prepare to hand in your resignation on the day of my death."

"Happily for us, your Majesty is much stronger than you yourself believe. Long life and long reign have you in prospect."

Having delivered himself of this flattery, he resumed:

"It is stated in the court records that the chief cause of the individual's condemnation was the indignation produced by his absurd pretensions. He was not proved guilty. He stated that he had been born a prince and this lost him the respect of the court. My complaint of the proceedings is that the sentence was for so brief a term. To imprison a man for a season is only to make him more set in his convictions. When liberated he is more dangerous than ever. If your Majesty were to ask my opinion of this man, I should say he was less knave than visionary.

Owing to the stupidity of the Prussian police, it has been impossible to discover a trace of his ancestry or place of birth. He claims that this failure to produce confuting evidence proves his claim, and he speaks logically there."

"He does indeed."

"Well, our--maniac left prison more than ever determined to sustain his pretensions. To the children that were successively born to him he gave such names as Amelie (in memory of the flight); Marie Antoinette, Charles, Edward. This may seem inoffensive, but 'tis far from being so.

Persistency in this fixed idea has continued to envelop him more and more in a tattered purple mantle. His sceptre is a reed in truth, but it gives him, nevertheless, the appearance of a persecuted martyr. Your Majesty will agree that our individual is not to be placed in the same category as the mult.i.tude whom, after disproving, we have endeavored to construct into a parapet serving as a blockade to effectually shut out possible pretenders bearing credentials having the appearance of genuiness."

"I agree with you that this is a grave matter."

"That aureole of martyrdom elicits faith and devotion. For example, when the individual on leaving prison established himself in Crossen, with not a sou in his purse, he found there a magistrate who gave him a large sum of money and became a champion of his cause. His enthusiasm became so p.r.o.nounced that the prince of Coralath's secretary was obliged to observe to the fellow that Prussia contained dungeons for the reception of those who meddle in what does not concern them. The remark having no effect, the magistrate soon received in heaven the reward for his devotion to the cause."

"Did he die?" inquired the King.

"He did, your Majesty, from a sudden illness. We have reason to believe that he and no other was the guardian of the cursed doc.u.ments, those explosives. When dying, he spoke incoherently of the prince's papers."

"Why was the opportunity not improved?"

"Unfortunately I was not on hand. The police got wind of the death and confiscated what papers they could lay their hands on, but those desired were evidently well concealed. The German police have leaden feet and heads of straw. Was it not childish to search for evidences in the house of the suspected man? A fool indeed would he have been to hide them there. Not less than ten times has the impostor's house been raided, under pretext of fire or burglary or what not, but to no purpose. They have not been near him. But lately since his residence in England he has kept them, for in England we have not so free a field--"

"He has lived in England?"

"Yes, your Majesty, he moved there from Prussia, realizing that a country whose cabinet was not on friendly terms with ours and in which respect for the home is carried to great lengths, was a more appropriate habitat for him than Prussia. In England our individual, ceasing to write letters to influential personages of Europe and failing to receive the desired recognition, devoted himself to watch-making and chemistry. He is said to have invented a new explosive."

"Why then has he been molested? When a man lives inoffensively--"

"Your Majesty, he was not disturbed, tho we continued to watch him. Our suspicions were aroused when we learned that he had sent his eldest daughter to France. This girl is an able strategist, a second edition of La Mothe. She caught in her net no less a n.o.bleman than the Marquis de Breze."

"Eve enters the garden," piquantly observed the King.

"Matters became complicated indeed. The girl sought nothing less than the undermining of the throne. I tried to sever the cords by making the d.u.c.h.ess of Rousillon--"