CHAPTER I.
THE COUNTESS AND THE DOCTOR.
A beautiful woman—if a coarse nature ever can give beauty to faultless features—sat in one of those charming little saloons which made the Grand Trianon the gayest and most popular palace in France. She was not alone—such women usually avoid solitude; but the person who stood before her that day was so unlike any of the venal courtiers that usually surrounded her, that his presence there, in itself, was remarkable. He was a tall, spare man, a little under thirty. His hair was flaxen, soft, and of that exceeding fineness, which is seldom found except upon the head of an infant. His eyes were of a keen, variable gray, sometimes pale in their color, sometimes almost black. The face was one of remarkable refinement—exquisitely cut and perfect in the contour as the best dreams of a sculptor; the complexion pure, changeable, delicate, and fair. The least emotion brought a faint color over the forehead, which was threaded about the temples with a network of azure veins.
Never was contrast more perfect than that which existed between this man and the woman, in whose presence he was not allowed to sit. His air, his gestures, the very bend of his person, was a protest of refinement against the coarseness which, to his sensitive nature, made her wonderful beauty repulsive. This woman was questioning him imperiously. She wanted a favor, yet had not the grace to ask it gently.
“They tell me that you have this power—then why hesitate? When a subject has the ability to serve his king, it is treason to waver.”
“But, madam, I may not have the power. Our Saviour himself carried healing to the poor—never to kings; besides, it is given to man once to die. That is a law which human art cannot reach, and divine power has limited. The King of France is an old man, and, like the most humble of us, his days are numbered.”
The woman started up in sudden terror.
“Is this prophecy, or is it rank treason?” she said.
“Madame, it is the simple truth. No art that I ever heard of can make an old man young; the waters of eternal youth are fabulous. Great power lies in human knowledge, but not such as you would evoke. Were it otherwise——”
The man paused, and a faint color stained the pure whiteness of his forehead. The countess seated herself. A glow of angry impatience had succeeded to her sudden panic, and she seized upon his hesitation as a wild animal snatches at food.
“Well, were it otherwise, what then?”
“Then it would be a consideration for any wise man, whether, in continuing the king’s life beyond that period ordained of God, wrong might not be done to the people of France.”
“Wrong done to the people of France!” cried the woman, grasping the arm of her gilded chair with angry vehemence; “the people of France! What are they but hounds, born to do the bidding of the king.”
“Forgive me, Madame la Countess; but it is said——”
“Well, what is said? Some miserable absurdity, no doubt; another scandal of the people you talk of. Do not hesitate and stammer as if you were afraid—I will help you out. It is said that not long since I, myself, was one of the people—among the lowest, too. Is that it?”
The man bowed very gravely, and looked upon that beautiful face, which had long since forgotten to blush, with a sentiment of profound pity.
The woman laughed scornfully, and clenched the arm of her chair in fierce wrath.
“_You_ presume to pity _me_! I might have forgiven the rest; but this you shall have good cause to remember.”
The man bowed, and made a movement toward the door. His face was perfectly calm, his step even. She evidently had not terrified him by her violence.
This wonderful composure astonished the woman, who had become so used to adulation and assumed homage, that an assertion of self-respect took her by surprise.
“I have not yet dismissed you, monsieur,” she said, with an effort at self-control.
The man turned again, and waited while the countess took a golden tablet from her bosom, and read a memorandum from its ivory leaves.
“This power of healing is not the most marvellous of your gifts, this memorandum tells me.”
“It is the one I am most grateful for,” answered the man.
“But that of divination! Tell me if it is true that in Vienna the Empress Maria Theresa sent for you to read the horoscope of her daughter, the Dauphiness of France?”
“If her majesty had so honored my poor gifts, it would be a base return to speak of it.”
“But it has got out already, do you think the Countess Du Berry can be kept ignorant of what goes on in any court of Europe? there is no longer a mystery. It is said that the Dauphiness turns pale if your name is but mentioned in her presence.”
The man remained silent, and stood looking sadly on the floor. Some painful thought seemed to carry him out of that woman’s presence—this gave her new offence.
“You do not listen, monsieur. Must I be compelled to speak twice?”
The man started as if he had been dreaming.
“I crave your pardon, Madame la Countess. Other thoughts came across me, and I forgot your presence. As I cannot accomplish the thing you most desire, permit me to take my leave.”
“Not till you have given me a proof of the wonderful power which was sufficient to gain you admittance to the cabinet of Maria Theresa. If your prophesies could drive the blood from that proud heart, they must be worth listening to. Tell me, monsieur, of my own future. How long——”
The countess checked herself, she had not the courage to ask, in so many words, how long her evil power might last; for she knew well enough that it was limited to the life of a wicked old man, and even she shrunk from a direct question. But the man divined her reason for hesitation, and answered quietly, as if she had spoken.
“Madame la Countess forgets that to divine the king’s death is treason.”
“But you can tell me this. Not his death—not his death! Heaven forbid that it should be near enough for your gift of divination, whatever that may be, to reach it! But tell me of his life. He is strong, he is healthy; and men do, sometimes, live to be a hundred. Ah! if your witchcraft could tell me that, it would make you the richest man, and me the happiest woman in all France.”
“But, madame——”
“Do not dispute me. I have power—help me to perpetuate it. You have great skill as a physician, if nothing more. The king’s physicians are negligent, they permit him to be worried with questions of state. They allow the courtiers to disturb him with their quarrels; De Chaiseul never gave him rest, and for this he lost his portfolio. I say again, a physician who will devote himself to the health and real good of the king, who will be the friend of his friends, watchful and trustworthy, might become anything his ambition pointed out. Do not shake your head, monsieur—I ask nothing that an honest man may not perform.”
“You ask everything, madame, when you desire a student to give up his pursuit of knowledge, and confine his life to any one man, though that man be King of France.”
“Then you refuse me—refuse a position that would crown the highest ambition of most men?”
“Madame, I have no ambition.”
The countess threw herself back in her chair and laughed aloud.
“A man with no ambition? This is a novel creature. But you are looking through the window. What is it that you see there?”
The countess started up from her chair and ran across the room, forgetting all her previous efforts at dignity in vulgar haste to learn what had drawn this strange man’s attention so completely from her.