The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 7

"That man--"

"Yes, Your Majesty, what of that man?" answered Lecazes, with a frown.

"That beggar? Does Your Majesty wish alms given him?"

"No, Baron. How does it happen that you, from whom nothing is hidden, do not know who that man is and what he wants?"

The superintendent's shoulders shrugged indifferently.

"Your Majesty, I _do_ know. That man has been watched from the moment he set foot in Paris. It has been found that he is inoffensive and probably idiotic. He prays much and aloud. In times past he was a partisan of the good cause and he now prophecies strangely concerning Your Majesty. Such visionaries are plentiful during this tumultuous time. Are we to heed them all? He doubtless has some favor to ask."

"No, Baron, your sagacity is not up to the mark in this case. That man is not to be despised. I must see and hear him. Perhaps my fears are groundless, but they are so persistent that only reality can dissipate them. How persevering he is! Daily, almost hourly, he fixes his greenish eyes upon the palace. I see him from whatever window I look. He mesmerizes me. Call it caprice if you will, but I wish you to send for this man. I _must_ see him. He has stood there for a fortnight. Perhaps he is a poor unfortunate wishing to have a word with the king."

"Does Your Majesty ask my advice in the matter or am I receiving a command?"

"A command."

"Then I leave Your Majesty, in order to execute the command."

"No, remain. I shall send for him myself. You are to listen to our interview and give me your opinion. If he be really daft, 'twill amuse us. He is sure to be interesting."

"He will no doubt wish to be left alone with Your Majesty."

"Perhaps so. Well, place yourself back of that screen. The dear Countess de Cayla often listens from there to fatuities which greatly amuse her.

Do not reveal yourself, unless I call or foul play be attempted."

Chapter VIII

THE SEER

A few minutes later, the door opened to admit the imposing figure of the octogenarian, Martin. The king graciously motioned him to advance. He approached diffidently, a pale ray from the setting sun shining upon his face and lighting up a flaming mark across his breast. This was the red flannel scapula of the Heart of Jesus stamped with the words: "I shall reign."

"Come forward, my friend. Ask what you wish. We have seen you so often opposite the palace that we decided to attend to your request. Take a seat and do not be timid."

The monarch pointed to a tabouret, but the peasant did not heed the invitation. Glancing around the apartment, he suddenly noticed the voluptuous Pompeian lamp and then turned indignantly, almost threateningly, upon the king who, somewhat disconcerted--though he scarcely knew why--repeated:

"Ask what you wish."

"I ask for nothing," said the old man with emphasis. "I come not to implore from the king either honors or riches. I am sent by G.o.d to speak to your Royal Highness certain truths, to remind you of the past and to reveal to you the future. I come not of myself. I am the obscurest laborer in France, by name Martin. I live in a village of but twelve cottages. I am a Christian. I believe in our holy religion and our holy monarchy. When evil men rebelled against G.o.d and His earthly agent, my sword remained sheathed because to shed blood is forbidden. But I placed on my breast this Heart, that men might know that with my life I would maintain my faith."

"Good man, be seated," insisted the monarch.

"I have too great a reverence for your person to remain otherwise than standing. I should be kneeling, for so should I choose to honor the uncle and heir of my king."

"What do you mean? Am I not the king, himself?" And Louis XVIII smiled indulgently.

"Your Royal Highness well knows that I am of no importance," Martin calmly replied. "My custom has been to hold my tongue, work my team and pay my rent. My life has been pa.s.sed in hard and constant labor, and I have wronged no man. My arms are still strong and my head steady, so I plow my own fields. But a month since I stopped working and left home and family to expose myself to the raillery of the foolish and the contempt of the powerful. The people jest at me in the streets and your Royal Highness probably considers me demented."

"My good fellow," said the king, "we always overlook much in the aged--"

"Your Royal Highness, if I offend, it is because I know not the usages of courts. Consign me to punishment if I deserve it, but let me first deliver my message."

"Say what you will, Martin. We listen."

"'Tis not Martin who speaks. Of himself, Martin would not dare. My words are from heaven."

"From heaven!" mockingly echoed, in refined irony, the admirer of Voltaire. "Perchance from G.o.d himself."

"Praised ever be his name!" reverently exclaimed the peasant, upon whom the sarcasm was lost. "Let me now begin. Be it known to your Royal Highness that on the sixteenth of January while ploughing in my field, I noted that the oxen were seized with fright. I marveled and asked myself the reason of it. Turning, I beheld at my side a beautiful boy in court-dress, with long curls falling upon his shoulders. A chill seized me while I was wondering how he came there. The boy laid his hand upon me, saying: 'Martin, go to him who sits upon the throne' and, without further words, he vanished. All this occurred so rapidly that I regarded the apparition as due to my advanced age. 'Bah!' said I to myself, "tis because of the fog. One sees all sorts of strange things in a fog.' Two days later, in the twilight, while returning home, I saw the boy again at the cross-roads. He said: 'Martin, go to him' and again he vanished.

I then fell kneeling. On the following day I saw him amid the willows, near the edge of the river. Finally, on the twenty-first of January I saw him on the border of the woods, leaning upon the trunk of an oak which we call the witch's tree. He said many things that I could not understand, some of which I have forgotten. Others are in my mind now but just as though they were shut in a box. When I open the lid and speak them, they will fly away like released birds and I shall no longer remember them. But until I speak them, they are in here as though red branded," and he motioned toward his forehead.

The date _January twenty-first_ made the monarch shudder.

"Describe the boy's appearance and do not be afraid to tell me all."

"I do not fear," declared the peasant. "What could be done to me? Might my life be taken? I am over eighty-five, a dry trunk awaiting the ax. An open grave already yawns for me. The apparition, your Royal Highness, was a beautiful creature and, excepting the dress, like the figure of the archangel Raphael in the parish church. For this reason and in order to set my conscience at rest, I consulted our priest, but he, not daring to give advice, sent me to the bishop, by whom I was told that I related only delusions. I then resolved to keep silent, but the spectre came again, pale, terrible, saying, 'Martin! Martin!' 'Twas night and I in my cot, but, in spite of the late hour, I seized my pouch and staff and, begging my bread along the roadside, journeyed to Paris."

"Go on, go on--The king awaits Martin's revelations."

"Martin's revelations? Here is one, your Royal Highness: _The throne is usurped_."

"I do not follow your line of reason. Do you mean that there are two kings?" inquired the Bourbon, laughing and remembering Lecazes back of the screen. "Did not my brother die and his son also? Am I not, therefore, the heir to the throne?"

"Your Royal Highness, the apparition giving warning that you should say these words to me, bade me reply: '_All the dead are not in their tombs_.'"

The effect of these words upon the king was like a blow from an invisible power and he would have started from his chair had his bandaged legs permitted. But disabled as he was, he half raised himself, his hands cleaved the air and his pupils dilated while his face grew crimson.

"Does your Royal Highness require proofs of what I say?" exclaimed the old man, his green eyes darting fire. "Well, then, listen. I will reveal to you a secret thought which you have never imparted to man. Does your Royal Highness remember the morning when you accompanied his late Majesty to the chase and the fearful temptation which a.s.sailed you in the woods of Saint Humbert? The king was a dozen steps ahead of you.

Your finger was already on the trigger. A branch impeded your arm--"

The alarmed monarch held his throbbing head in his hands while the merciless indictment grew more and more ominous.

"From your earliest years you coveted the throne. The ill-fated king was the obstacle and you sought to remove him. Unremitting were your fratricidal schemes. You scrupled not to encourage the discontented and to instigate the seditious. What obloquy to have made pacts with the violators of the crown and compromises with the destroyers of churches!

Providence permitting, the monarchy would perish. It _shall_ perish! I am chosen to announce its fall. Not through the sword of an enemy but by its own hand shall it come to its end."

The screen seemed to move and a rushing was audible, but the king remained silent, terrified and incapable of speech or motion.

"Your cousin, the Duke of Orleans, interposed between your Royal Highness and your partisans. Another crime,--was it? You continued to plot the destruction of your brother and the dishonor of the queen. Does your Royal Highness remember who wrote those scurrilous verses and the words dropped at the baptism of the king's daughter? What ferocious joy the first Dauphin's death caused you! Who notified the Convention that the royal family might be detained on the frontier--the mission of Valory? To what end was Favras sacrificed? Who burned the doc.u.ments?

Those ashes appeal! Blood, blood has been spilled! but only the first blood. More is to follow!"

As Martin paused, the only sound to be heard in the apartment was the chattering of the king's teeth. The screen creaked repeatedly as though to suggest and to warn, but the king remained speechless and the implacable peasant resumed:

"Your Royal Highness was not brave enough to head the Revolution which you had incited. You fled, notwithstanding your offer to your august brother to share his fate. While abroad, you disregarded his orders and intrigued for the foreign invasion of your country and for the erection of your brother's scaffold. Have you forgotten the king's letter to the Prince of Conde? He disclaimed all responsibility for the invasion. 'Let there be no war!' he entreated 'Behead me rather.' But there _was_ war and his head fell besides. Oh the blood!--in pools, in puddles, in the air, on the guillotine! a deluge of blood,--reeking, sickening, revolting! Do you not see it now? Look! It trickles from the ceiling and stains these walls!"

With frenzied indignation the old man continued to gaze at a vision that no other eyes beheld. His arm was thrust forward and his forefinger almost touched the king's forehead.