STRONG AS was the mind of the Princess Louise, all that she had just heard seemed so extraordinary to her, that she could not help asking herself whether the man who stood before her were not a real magician, disposing of hearts and understandings at his will.
But the Count de Fenix was not yet satisfied.
“That is not all, madame,” said he, “and your royal highness has only heard a part of our history. Some doubts might remain on your mind did you not hear the rest from her own lips.”
Then, turning toward the young woman—
“Do you remember, dear Lorenza.” said he, “the rest of our journey?—and how we visited Milan, the lake Maggiore the Oberland, the Righi, and the magnificent Rhine—the Tiber of the north?”
“Yes,” answered she, still in the same monotonous voice—“yes; Lorenza saw all that.”
“Dragged onward by that man, was it not, my child?—yielding to an irresistible power which you did not yourself comprehend?” asked the princess.
“Why should you think so, madame, after what your highness has heard? But if you wish for yet more palpable and material proofs, here is a letter written by Lorenza to me. I was obliged to leave her alone for a short time at Mayence. Well! she regretted me and longed for my return; for in my absence she wrote me these lines, which your highness may read.”
The count took out of his pocket-book a note, which he handed to the princess. She read as follows:
“Return, Acharat! When you leave me, all hope and joy depart. Ah, when shall I be yours through all eternity?
The princess rose, auger flashing in her eyes, and approached Lorenza with the note in her hand. The young woman appeared neither to see nor hear her. Her whole soul seemed to hang on the count's lips.
“I understand.” said the count, quickly, before the princess could utter a word; “your highness doubts whether this note be really written by her or not. That point can easily be settled. Lorenza, speak! Who wrote this note?”
He took the note, placed it in her hand, and she immediately pressed it to her heart.
“Does Lorenza know what it contains?”
“Then tell the princess what is in the letter, that she may believe me when I say you love me. Tell her —it is my
Lorenza appeared to make an effort; then without opening the note, or turning her eves on it, she read its contents.
“This is incredible.” said the princess; “I cannot trust the evidence of my own senses; there is something inexplicable and supernatural in all this.”
“It was this letter,” continued the Count de Fenix, as if he had not heard what the princess said, “which determined me to hasten our marriage. I loved Lorenza as much as she loved me. We were in a position which might have given rise to unfounded suspicions. Besides, in the adventurous life which I led, some accident might happen to me—I might be killed—I might die, and I wished, in case of such an event, that all my fortune should belong to Lorenza. On arriving at Strasbourg, therefore, we were married?”
“Why so, madame?” said the count, smiling. “What is there impossible in the fact that the Count de Fenix should marry Lorenza Feliciam!”
“But she told me that she is not your wife.”
The count, without replying, turned to Lorenza; “Do you remember on what day we were married?” asked he.
“Yes.” she replied; “it was the third of May.”
“In the cathedral; in the chapel of St. John.”
“Did you offer any opposition to our union.”
“Because, Lorenza,” continued the count, “the princess thinks that the marriage was forced on you—that you hate me.” As he said these words he took renza's hand; a thrill of rapture seemed to run through her whole frame.
“I hate you!” she exclaimed; “oh, no! I love you; you are good, you are generous, you are powerful!”
The count turned toward the princess, as if he had said, “You hear.”
Seized with a kind of horror, the princess had recoiled from the pair before her, and sank at the foot of an ivory crucifix which was fastened against the black velvet hangings of the room.
“Does your royal highness wish for any further information?” asked the count, as be released Lorenza's hand.
“Sir,” cried the princess, “do not approach me!—nor she either!”
At this moment the noise of wheels was heard in the courtyard, and a carriage stopped at the entrance door.
“Ah!” exclaimed the princess, “here comes the cardinal, and we shall now know the truth.”
The Count de Fenix bowed, said a few words to Lorenza in a low voice, and waited with the patience of a man perfectly secure of his position. A moment afterward the door opened, and his eminence the Cardinal de Rohan was announced.
The princess, reassured by the presence of a third person, resumed her seat, and desired him to be admitted. The cardinal entered; but scarcely had he made his salutation to the princess, when, perceiving the count, he exclaimed with surprise, “You here, sir!”
“Do you know this person?” asked the princess, more and more astonished.
“Yes, madame,” said the cardinal.
“Then,” cried she, “you will tell me what he is.”
“Nothing is more easy.” replied the cardinal; “the gentleman is a sorcerer.”
“A sorcerer!” murmured the princess.
“Pardon me, madame,” said the count; “but I trust that his highness will explain his words to your satisfaction.”
“Has the gentleman been making any predictions to your royal highness, that I see you with a countenance of so much alarm?” asked M, de Rohan.
“The register of the marriage! The register, immediately!” exclaimed the princess.
The cardinal stared with the utmost surprise, not comprehending what this exclamation meant.
“Here it is,” said the count, presenting it to the cardinal.
“I wish to know,” said the princess, “whether the signature to that document be genuine or not.”
The cardinal took the paper and read it.
“Yes,” said he, “it is a perfectly legal register of a marriage, and the signature is that of Monsieur Remy, vicar of St. John's, in Strasbourg. But in what way does that concern your royal highness?”
“Oh, it concerns me deeply, sir!—So the signature is correct?”
“ Certainly; but I will not guarantee that it may not have been extorted—“ “Extorted!” cried the princess. “Yes, that is possible.”
“And the consent of Lorenza, also?” said the count, with a tone of irony which was aimed directly at the princess.
“But by what means, cardinal —by what means could this signature have been extorted? Do you know?”
“By means which this gentleman has at his disposal—by means of magic!
“Magic? Is it you, cardinal, who speak to me of magic?”
“Yes, I have said that this gentleman is a sorcerer; and I shall not unsay it.”
“Your eminence must be jesting!”
“By no means; and the proof is, that I am going, in the presence of your highness, to have a very serious explanation with him.”
“I was myself going to request it from your highness,” said the count.
“Excellent! But pray, do not forget,” said the cardinal, haughtily, “that it is I who am the questioner.”
“And do not forget, also,” said the count, “that I will answer all your questions before her royal highness, if you insist upon it; but I feel certain that you will not insist.”
The cardinal smiled contemptuously.
“Sir,” said he, “to play the magician well is, in our times, rather a difficult task. I have seen you at work, and, to do you justice, you were very successful; but every one will not show the patience, and, above all, the generosity, of her royal highness the dauphiness.”
“The dauphiness!” exclaimed the princess.
“Yes, madame,” said the count; “I have had the honor of being presented to her royal highness.”
“And how did you repay that honor, sir? Come! Speak.”
“Alas! much worse than I could have wished; for I have no personal hatred against men, and above all none against women.”
“But what did he really do before my august niece?” asked the princess.
“I had the misfortune, madame, to tell her the truth, which she demanded of me.”
“Yes,” said the cardinal, “a truth which made her swoon!”
“Was it my fault,” cried the count, in that commanding tone which he could at times assume, “was it my fault that the truth was so terrible that it produced such effects? Was it I who sought the princess? Did I request to be presented to her? On the contrary, I avoided her; I was brought before her almost by force, and she positively commanded me to reply to her questions.”
“But what, then, sir, was that truth which you declare to have been so terrible?” asked the princess.
“The truth which was hidden by the veil of futurity. I raised the veil, and then she beheld that future which appeared so alarming to your royal highness, that you fled for shelter from it to a cloister to offer up tears and prayers before the altar—”
“Sir! sir!” cried the princess.
“Is it my fault, if the future, which was revealed to her as one of the sainted, was shadowed forth to me as a prophet, and if the dauphiness, whom it threatens personally, terrified at the sight, fainted when I declared it to her?”
“You hear him acknowledge it!” said the cardinal.
“For her reign is doomed.” continued the count, “as the most fatal and disastrous to the monarchy of any on record.”
“Oh, sir!” exclaimed the princess.
“For yourself, madame,” continued the count, “your prayers have perhaps obtained favor, for you will not see those events which I foretell; you will be in the bosom of the Lord when they come to pass. But pray! Pray always!”
The princess, overcome by his prophetical words, which agreed too well with the terrors of her own soul, sank again on her knees at the foot of the crucifix, and commenced to pray fervently.
The count turned to the cardinal, and, preceding him toward the embrasure of a window, “Now that we are alone,” said he, “what does your eminence wish with me?”
The cardinal hastened to join him. The princess seemed wholly absorbed in her prayers, and Lorenza remained silent and motionless in the middle of the room. Her eyes were wide open, but she seemed to see nothing. The two men stood apart in the embrasure of the window, half concealed by the curtains.
“What are your highness's wishes?” repeated the count.
“First, I wish to know who you are,” replied the cardinal.
“Yet you seem to know. Did you not say that I was a sorcerer?”
“Yes; but when I met you formerly you were called Joseph Balsamo, and now you are called the Count de Fenix.”
“Well, that only proves that I have changed my name, nothing more.”
“Very true; but are you aware that such changes may make M. de Sartines, the minister of police, rather inquisitive about you?”
“Oh, sir,” said he, “this is a petty warfare for a Rohan! What! your eminence quibbles about names? Verba et voces, as the Latin has it. Is there nothing worse with which I can be reproached?”
“You seem to have become satirical,” said the cardinal.
“I have not become so; it is my character.”
“In that case I shall do myself the pleasure of lowering your tone a little.”
“I am certain I shall please the dauphiness by so doing.”
“Which may be not altogether useless to you, considering the terms on which you stand at present with her,” answered Balsamo, with the greatest coolness.
“And, suppose, most learned dealer in horoscopes, that I should cause you to be arrested?” said the cardinal.
“I should say that your eminence would commit a very grave mistake in doing so.”
“Indeed?” said the prince-cardinal, with withering contempt, “And, pray, who will suffer from my mistake?”
“Then I shall give the order for your arrest this moment, sir; and we shall soon know who this Baron Balsamo, Count de Fenix, is, this illustrious branch of a genealogical tree not to be discovered in any field of heraldry in Europe!”
“But why has your highness not asked for information respecting me from your friend the Count de Breteuil?”
“M, de Breteuil is no friend of mine.”
“That is to say, he is no longer so. Yet he must have been one of your best friends when you wrote him a certain letter—
“What letter?” asked the cardinal, drawing nearer to the count.
“A little closer, M, le Cardinal. I do not wish to speak loud, for fear of compromising you—that letter which you wrote from Vienna to Paris, to endeavor to prevent the marriage of the dauphin.”
The prelate could not repress a gesture of alarm.
“I know that letter by heart,” continued the count, coldly.
“Then Breteuil has turned traitor?”
“Because when the marriage was decided on, I demanded back my letter, and he told me he had burned it.”
“Ah! he dared not tell you he had lost it!”
“Yes, and you know that a lost letter may be found by some one.”
“Was found by me. Oh! by the merest chance, I assure you, one day, when crossing the marble court at Versailles.”
“And did you not return it to the Count de Breteuil?”
“I took good care not to do so.”
“Because, being a sorcerer, I knew that although I wished to be of all the service I could to your highness, you wished to do me all the harm you could. So, you understand—? A disarmed man who journeys through a wood, where he knows he will be attacked, would be a fool not to pick up a loaded pistol which he found at his foot.”
The cardinal's head swam, and he was obliged to lean against the window-frame for a few minutes; but after an instant's hesitation, during which the count eagerly watched every variation of his countenance:
“So be it,” said he. “It shall never be said that a prince of my house gave way before the threats of a charlatan. Though that letter should be shown to the dauphiness herself—though, in a political point of view, it ruin me. I shall maintain my character as a loyal subject and faithful ambassador. I shall say what is the truth, that I thought the alliance hurtful to the interests of my country, and my country will defend me, and weep for my fate.”
“But if some one should happen to relate how the young, handsome, gallant ambassador, confident in the name of Rohan and the title of prince, and being most graciously received by the Archduchesse Marie Antoinette, said so, not because he saw anything in the marriage hurtful to France, but because in his vanity he imagined he saw something more than affability in her manner toward him? What would the loyal subject and faithful ambassador reply then?”
“He would deny, sir, that there ever had existed the sentiment that your words imply; there is no proof that it did exist.”
“Yes, sir, you mistake. There is the strongest proof, in the coldness of the dauphiness toward you.”
“My lord,” said the count, “trust me it is better for us to remain good friends than to quarrel—which we should have done before this, had I not been more prudent than you.”
“Why not? Our friends are those who render us good offices.”
“Have I ever asked you for any?”
“No, and that is where you have been wrong; for during the two days you were in Paris—”
“Yes, you. Why attempt to hide that from me, who am a sorcerer? You left the dauphiness at Soissons, you came post to Paris by Villers-Cotterets, and Dammartin—that is to say, the shortest road—and you hastened to request your kind friends there for assistance, which they all refused. After their refusals you once more set out post for Compiegne in despair.”
The cardinal seemed overwhelmed. “And what sort of assistance might I have expected from you,” he asked, “had I addressed myself to you?”
“That assistance which a man who makes gold can grant.”
“And what matters it to me that you can make gold?”
“Peste! when your highness has to pay five hundred thousand francs within forty-eight hours! Am I not right?—Is not that the sum?”
“Yes; that is indeed the sum.”
“And yet you ask what matters it to have a friend who can make gold? It matters just this, that the hundred thousand francs which you cannot procure elsewhere, you may procure from him.”
“And where?” asked the cardinal.
“How shall I know your house?”
“By a griffin's head in bronze, which serves as knocker to the gate.”
“The day after to-morrow, my lord, and afterward you may come as often and whenever you please. But stay; we have just finished our conversation in time, for the princess, I see, has ended her prayers.”
The cardinal was conquered, and, no longer attempting to resist, he approached the princess; “Madame,” said he, “I am obliged to confess that the Count de Fenix is perfectly correct; his register of marriage is authentic and valid, and he has explained all the circumstances to my perfect satisfaction.”
The count bowed. “Has your royal highness any further commands for me?” he asked.
“I wish to speak once more to the young woman,” she replied. Then, turning to Lorenza, “Is it of your own free and unrestrained will that you leave this convent, in which you sought refuge?”
“Her highness asks you,” said Balsamo, quickly, “whether it is of your own free and unfettered choice that you leave this convent. Answer, Lorenza.”
“Yes,” said the young woman, “it is of my own free and unfettered will.”
“And to accompany your husband, the Count de Fenix?”
“And to accompany me?” repeated the count.
“In that case,” said the princess, “I wish to retain neither one nor other; for it would be doing violence to your feelings. But if there is in all this anything out of the common order of events, may the vengeance of Heaven fall on him who, for his own advantage or profit, troubles the harmony, the proper course of nature! Go, Count de Fenix! Go, Lorenza Feliciani!—only take with you your jewels.”
“They are for the use of the poor, madame,” said the count, “and distributed by your hands, the alms will be doubly acceptable to God. I only demand back my horse, Djerid.”
“You can claim him as you pass, sir. Go.”
The count bowed low, and gave his arm to Lorenza, who took it and left the room without uttering a word.
“Ah, my lord cardinal,” said the princess, shaking her head sorrowfully, “there are incomprehensible and fatal omens in the very air which we breathe!”
