CHAPTER LXIV.
DOWN IN THE LEAFY SHADOWS.
The old man who had so terrified Marie Antoinette, followed her with piteous entreaties, until she reached the private door, which had been carefully left open for her. He even tried to enter by the same passage, but she had drawn the bolt inside; and he turned from it in meek despair, muttering to himself and smoothing his silvery beard in the moonlight. Another man would have gone home, perhaps, spending the whole of that beautiful night on his way to Paris; this weary pilgrim had lost all ideas of home that were not connected with his cell in the Bastille, which now lay a heap of ruins in the heart of the city. During the days in which he had been at liberty, this broken being had refused to take up his old habits of civilization; his limbs had never pressed a bed; and his food was always the same, a crust of black bread and a cup of water. The free air of a bright day oppressed him; but when the clouds lowered, and the rain fell, a sense of enjoyment awoke in his bosom, and he was sure to wander into the streets, and search with mournful fascination for the ruins of his old prison.
A bright sunshine, and even moonlight, clear and broad as that which lay around him, oppressed and bewildered this poor wanderer, who had spent nearly half his life in utter darkness. Below the palace was a thickly-wooded path, filled with shadows, through which he could, from time to time, see the sparkle of waters leaping up to meet the moonlight. As I have said, imprisonment had made darkness a second nature to this man; so he stole away from the soft radiance that fell around him, and went into the deep shadows. Here the moist atmosphere, to which all his frame had become habituated, cooled the fever in his veins, and the soft tinkle of falling waters lulled him back into the dull monotony of his prison days. He sat down at the foot of a tree, where the earth was cushioned all over with emerald-green moss, and leaning his head against it, grew tranquil under the languid sense of solitude that crept over him. To be alone was now the great luxury of his life, as it had formerly been its punishment.
As the old man rested against his pillow of rugged bark, a shadow broke the moonlight that quivered on the edge of the path, and the footsteps of a man coming down the broad avenue leading that way startled him. With a thrill of fear he drew closer to the tree that sheltered him, and waited for the man to pass; but the path that led close to him was darkened, and after a minute or two a gentleman stood within three paces of his retreat. The old man could see enough of the face to read it clearly, for a break in the tangled boughs overhead let in a stream of radiance, which the surrounding darkness increased, and this lay full upon the intruder.
The stranger took off his three-cornered hat, and sighed gently as the moist air swept across his forehead. Then he moved a step forward, and seemed about to rest himself on a seat opposite the elm, against which Gosner was leaning.
The old prisoner, seeing this, arose to his feet and stood before this man like a ghost; his soft, white beard sweeping to the wind, and his frightened face etherealized by the light that struggled down to it.
“Forgive me; I was but resting,” he said, in the low quivering voice with which he had been accustomed to address his keeper. “The air down here was so cool; and I love the sound of dripping water—it is such company!”
“Who are you, old man, and how came you here? Have you not been told that no person is permitted to enter these grounds but the household of the king?”
“No one told me; but I felt that it was wrong to be so near the palace, so I came down into this dark path, quite out of the way. Is there any harm in that?”
“I cannot think that harm of any kind need be apprehended from a person who speaks with such gentle humility,” answered the stranger. “But tell me, what brought you here?”
“I was sent! I was sent! But for that I had not come.”
“But how did you gain an entrance?”
“God opened the gate for me!”
“What? I do not understand.”
“I was waiting on the highway, thinking that our Lady, to whom I had never ceased to pray, might, by a miracle, open some gate, through which I might pass to the palace. Well, at last the blessed Virgin answered me. A man came through a little gate which led to the gardens, and left it ajar. I crept after him holding my breath, and went in among the flowers, which covered me with perfume, which I do not like—that which comes from sleeping water, green at the top, is best—the breath of flowers is so subtle it makes me dizzy!”
“But you have not given his name?”
“Why should I? That is—I know—”
“Well, speak out. I wish to know who it is that I find at night in the private grounds of Versailles.”
“Are you a friend to the king?”
A sad smile came over the stranger’s face, and he answered with feeling,
“If the king has a friend, I am one!”
“Then caution him—there is some harm intended him by the people of Paris.”
The stranger drew a deep breath.
“Ah! I understand; you speak wisely and kindly; the king shall hear of it.”
“No, no! Why should he, after all? They are right, I ought not to warn this king, whose grandfather slew my youth, and turned my manhood into this!”
Here the old man grasped the end of his white beard, and held it up in the moonlight.
The stranger stepped back, and stood for a moment gazing with astonishment on the old man’s face.
“Who is it that has wronged you so? What is your name? once more I ask it.”
“The man who wronged me was Louis the Fifteenth. Once people knew me as Dr. Gosner.”
“Gosner—Gosner! You were a prisoner in the Bastille?”
“Oh, yes! A prisoner of the Bastille!”
“Whom the present king pardoned?”
“And then cast into a deeper dungeon, while his minions gave forth that I was dead!”
“Was the king guilty of treachery like this?”
“There was treachery somewhere; but what matters it now that you and I should ask where it rested? The peoples’ hate has fallen with awful heaviness on one man—that one who so oppressed the sufferers placed under his despotism. When they led me forth from my dungeon into that carnival of blood, the head of Delaunay went before me on the point of a pike. If vengeance had not died out of my soul years before, it would have sickened and perished then.”
“How, you a prisoner of the Bastille, and do not hate the king?”
“Hate him? No! Come closer, and I will tell you. An evil thing fell upon him and the fair girl he married on the day I was cast into prison.”
“What was that evil thing?”
“A blessing and a curse; the blessing was taken from me and turned into a curse for the daughter of Maria Theresa. Ah! If I could see her—if I only could!”
“You speak of the queen?”
“Yes, of the woman who was wronged and wounded worse than myself, when they buried my youth in the Bastille.”
“But how?”
“Ah! that is my secret. I will tell it to no human soul—not even to her.”
The stranger looked earnestly at the singular old man whom he began to recognize as mildly insane;—a poor wanderer, who had strayed into the Park through some carelessly closed gate;—possibly a victim of the Bastille, whose mind had gone astray in his dungeon; but, in any case, worthy of infinite compassion.
“Would you like me to show you the way out from the Park?” he said, gently, as if he had been addressing a child. “In a few minutes the gates will be closed, and the guards doubled.”
The old man shook his head.
“No. I will rest here till daylight comes; then, perhaps, I can see her again.”
“Whom would you see? Tell me, perhaps I can aid you.”
“The woman who was out yonder to-night.”
“The woman—did you know who she was?”
“No.”
“Did you see her face?”
“No. She gathered her veil over it and fled. Oh! if she had but waited! I would have wrenched it from her hand, if she had not given it up; but only to save her—only to save her. Fate has done its work with me.”
There was something mournfully pathetic in the old man’s words; his thin, white hand trembled visibly as he clenched it in his beard; his eyes shone in the moonlight, which now and then came down fitfully through the branches, and seemed to cover him with alternate smiles and frowns.