CHAPTER IV.

KING LOUIS THE FIFTEENTH.

The two spies had scarcely disappeared when Madame Du Berry observed an old man walking deliberately along the grand avenue leading to the palace.

“Ah! how fortunate! I might have been compelled to wait, but for this. He seems in good-humor, too; but I am trembling yet. Mon Dieu, how I tremble! That awful shock has shaken every nerve in my body. He will see that I am disturbed, and, perhaps, ask the cause. For the world, I would not tell him. Zamara! Zamara!”

The dwarf, who was waiting close by the door, entered instantly.

“Wine, Zamara!”

The dwarf turned, and directly came back with a salver, on which was a crystal flask, full of wine, and a tall glass, engraved with a frost-work of vine-leaves. Madame forbade him to kneel, and filled the glass herself, draining it like a bar-maid.

“Now go,” she said; “the king must not be kept waiting.”

She need not have been in so much haste, for the old man coming up the avenue, walked but slowly. He seemed to enjoy the sunshine of that pleasant day, and lingered in it as an idle old man might, to whom a degree of weariness was to be endured every day of his life. Still, if he walked slowly, it was with a jaunty affectation of youth, which his costume and singularly handsome features carried out with some appearance of truth. As the sun shone down upon his coat of plum-colored velvet, with all its rich bordering of embroidery—on the little hat, surmounting a peruke of flowing brown hair, and the soft, mist-like lace fluttering at his wrists and bosom, the picture was far more youthful than it would have appeared at a closer view, or with less elaborate appointments. As he walked daintily forward in his high-heeled shoes, on which the diamond-buckles shot out a tiny flame with each lift of the foot, the old monarch—for this man was Louis the Fifteenth—saw the flutter of a rose-colored dress at one of the palace windows, and paused long enough to kiss his hand.

“Thank heaven, he is in excellent humor!” exclaimed the countess, moving restlessly around the room, and hiding the parchment Dr. Gosner had made his calculations on beneath a cushion. “This will make my task easy.”

She was right; the old monarch was in high spirits that day. Like a school-boy, he had escaped from the etiquette of Versailles, and sought an hour of relaxation in the pretty palace which, from its very proportions, gave some idea of a home.

The countess stood near the door of her saloon, waiting to receive him, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed with the wine she had been drinking. The nervous shock she experienced, subsided into what seemed a pleasant excitement.

The king came in a little tired from his long walk, and breathing quickly. There was no ceremony in his reception. The woman knew well enough that half the charm of that place lay in an entire want of formality. She wheeled a chair near the window, placed a gilded footstool for the old man’s feet, when he sat down, and settling herself on the floor close by it, began to chat with the careless grace of a spoiled child. It was not till just as he was going away in high good-humor, that she ventured on the object that had all the time been uppermost in her mind.

“One minute—do not go quite yet, my friend; I have a little favor to ask.”

“Oh! that is why you have insisted on keeping at my feet,” laughed the old man. “One must pay for an hour like this. Well, well, if the price is not heavy, we will consider it.”

The countess went to a table, and brought back a small portfolio, which she opened upon one knee, sinking the other gently to the floor.

“Only a little signature—just one.”

She held out a paper, on which some lines had been hastily written by her own hand. The king took it with a little hesitation, and holding it a long way from his eyes, read the contents.

“What! another _lettre-de-cachet_!” he exclaimed, a good deal disconcerted. “Do you know, my friend, these things are getting far too common. The people are beginning to question them. Will nothing else content you?”

“Nothing else, sire. Why, it is three weeks since I have asked for one—and my enemies are so many.”

“Ah! I know; but this name—I have never heard of it. Who is the wretched man?”

“He is a sorcerer, sire. It is not a day since he terrified me fearfully in this very room.”

“In this room! How did an unknown man get here?”

“He bribed Zamara to give him access, under pretence of presenting a petition, and once here, said horrible things, threatening me with death.”

“Ha!”

“And saying, that to save the king’s life was rank treason.”

“Give me a pen.”

She opened the portfolio wide, spread it across his knees, and went to the table for a pen. Her hand shook as she reached it toward him, and he remarked it.

“I know! I know!” she said. “The fright has not left me yet.”

Louis signed the order, which was to bury Dr. Gosner in one of the gloomiest vaults of the Bastille, and laying it in the portfolio, handed it and the pen back to the countess.

“It will be very difficult for this bold man to frighten you hereafter,” he said, rising a little wearily. “Such audacity must be checked. You will know how to put the order in force?”

“Always gracious, always good!” exclaimed the countess. “Ah, sire! if you could read all the gratitude in my heart!”

“I am just now content to read it in those eyes. Adieu! or rather, _au revoir_, sweet friend!”

The woman permitted Louis to go. She was anxious to see him depart, that she might use the cruel order he had just signed. She watched him eagerly till he disappeared behind the trees of the Park, then rang her bell for Zamara before seating herself to write a note, which she completed without looking up, though the Indian dwarf stood by her chair within a minute after her bell sounded.

“Take this,” she said, sealing the note which inclosed the _lettre-de-cachet_, “deliver this yourself, and at once. Do not return to me until you know that this audacious man is on his way to the Bastille. Above all things, say that I want the ring from his left hand. Without that, do not dare to look on my face again.”

“Madame shall be obeyed,” said the dwarf, taking the letter and darting from the room.