THE STRANGER was able to hide himself easily in the crowd, especially as it was large.
It was the advance guard of the escort of the king, queen, and dauphin.
It was composed of miserable and ragged beggars half drunk, the floating foam of the population, like the froth which rises from water or lava.
All at once there was a great tumult. The bayonets of the National Guard and the white horse of Lafayette were seen.
The crowd shouted loudly, “Long live Lafayette!” who from time to time took off his hat, and saluted with his sword. “Vive Mirabeau!” too was heard, as the latter from time to time put his head through the carriage window, in which he, with five other members of the National Assembly, sat, to get fresh air.
Thus the unfortunate king, for whom all was silence, heard the popularity he had lost applauded. He also heard the quality in which he was deficient praised. Dr. Gilbert, us he accompanied the king, without any immediate companion, walked on the right side of the royal carriage, that is, close to the queen.
On the two sides of the carriage of the king and queen, beyond the kind of file of footmen, who had taken that position so as to be able to aid him in case of necessity, walked, pattering in the mud, six inches deep, the men and women of the market, who seemed every moment to make a more compact array of their ribbons and gaudy coloured dresses.
The king looked on with his sad heartbroken air. He had not slept on the night before, and had eaten a bad breakfast. He had not been allowed time to readjust and to powder his hair; his beard was long, his linen rumpled, and he looked wretched. Alas, the poor king was not a man for dangerous conjunctures—at all crises he hung down his head in dejection. Once only he looked up, and then it was when his head was about to fall on the scaffold.
At about a hundred paces from the cabaret, the crowd halted, and the cries down the whole line were increased.
The queen looked out of the window, and the motion, which seemed like a salute, increased the murmur.
“Gilbert,” said she. “what is it my people are singing? What are they crying?”
Gilbert uttered a sigh, which meant—She is unchanged. Then, with an expression of deep sadness, he said, “Madame, the people you call yours was once really so, when twenty years ago an elegant gentleman, whom I now look for in vain, introduced you to them on the balcony, and shouted, 'Long live our dauphiness!' adding, madame, 'There you have two hundred thousand lovers.'”
The queen bit her lips, for she could find no fault with his answer.
“True,” said she, “but it only proves that people change.”
Gilbert bowed, and was silent.
“I asked you a question, M. Gilbert,” with an obstinacy she persisted in, even when aware that the answer would be unpleasant.
“Yes, madame, and as your majesty insists, I will reply. The people sing:
You know who the people call the baker's wife.”
“Yes, sir, I know they do me that honour. I am, however, used to nicknames. They once called me Madame Deficit. Is there any connection between the first and the last name?”
“Yes, madame, and to be assured, you have only to think of one of the two verses I have repeated to you.”
The queen repeated them, and said:
“M. Gilbert, I do not understand.”
Gilbert was silent. The queen continued, “Well, did you bear rue? I do nut understand.”
“Does your majesty insist on an explanation?”
“They mean your majesty's ministers, especially of finance, have been too complaisant—M. de Calonne for instance. The people knew that your majesty had only to ask that it ought to be given you, and as queens ask without much difficulty, for on asking they command, the people sing:
That is to say, which scarcely cost the trouble of asking.”
The queen grasped convulsively with her white hand the velvet of the carriage door.
“Well,” said she. “that is what it sings. Now. M. Gilbert, please, for you explain its thoughts well, tell me what it says.”
“It says, madame, 'We will not want bread in Paris, for we have the baker, his wife, and the shop-boy.'”
“You can explain this second insolence distinctly as the first, can you not? I hope so.”
“Madame,” said Gilbert, with the same kind melancholy, “if you would reflect, not on the words, but on the intention of this people, you would see that you have not so much to complain of as you think.”
“Let us see,” said the queen. “You know, doctor, I wish for nothing so much as for information.”
“Whether correctly or not, madame, I cannot say, but it is said that a heavy trade in corn is carried on at Versailles, and that, therefore, none is brought to Paris. Who feed the poor? The baker and his wife. To whom, as father, mother, and son, turn their hands, when for want of money they die? To the baker and his wife. Whom does he beg, after that God who provides the harvests? Those who distribute bread. Are not you, madame, the king, this august child, all distributors of bread? Do not find fault then with the name, but thank. God for the hope entertained, that when once king, queen, and dauphin are amid 1,200,000 starving people, they will cease to want.”
“And should we thank the people while it shouts out but nicknames before, around, behind us, for such songs and insults?”
“Yes, madame, and the more sincerely that this is an expression of good-humour, for the nicknames are manifestations of hope, as its cries are an expression of desire.”
“Ah, ah! The people wish prosperity to Messieurs de Lafayette and de Mirabeau?”
“Yes, madame, for if they have it, being, as you see, separated from the abyss over which you hang, they may serve and preserve the monarchy.”
“Is then the monarchy so fallen that it may be preserved by two men?”
Gilbert was about to reply, when cries of terror, mingled with bursts of laughter, were heard, and a motion of the crowd was made, which, far from separating Gilbert from the carriage, drove him close to it. He clung to the door-string, thinking it might be necessary for him to defend and aid the queen.
They were two heads which, after having made Leonard dress the hair, they had come to present to the queen.
At the cries, and the sight of the heads, the crowd opened to let them pass.
“For mercy's sake,” said Gilbert, “do not look to the right.”
The queen was not u woman to obey, she knew not why, such an injunction.
She consequently looked in the direction Gilbert had told her not. She uttered a terrible cry.
All at once her eyes became detached from the horrible spectacle, as if there were something yet more awful, and became riveted, as it were, to a Medusa's head.
The queen took her hand from the door of the carriage, and placing it on Gilbert's shoulders, drove her finger-nails almost into the flesh.
The Medusa's head was that of the stranger whom we saw drinking in the inn with Gamain, who leaned with his arms folded against a tree.
Gilbert turned, and when he saw the pale quivering lips of the queen, and her fixed eyes, he attributed her excitement to the appearance of the two heads, but he saw she was looking in a horizontal direction.
Gilbert looked in the same direction, and at the same moment, uttering a cry of surprise, as the queen had of terror, both exclaimed, “Cagliostro.”
The man who leaned against the tree saw the queen perfectly well.
He made a sign to Gilbert, as if to say, “Hither!”
And then the carriages prepared to set out; mechanically, instinctively, and naturally, the queen pushed Gilbert to prevent his being hurt by the wheel.
He thought she meant him to go to the stranger.
If, too, the queen had not pushed him, he could not but have gone, for he was no longer master of himself.
Consequently he stood still, while the cortege defiled, and following the false workman, who from time to time looked back to see if he was followed, entered a narrow street, hurried at a rapid pace towards Bellevue, and disappeared behind a wall just at the moment when the cortege was hidden from sight in the direction of Paris, being completely hidden by the mountain behind which it was.
Gilbert followed the guide, who preceded him some twenty paces, until he was halfway up the ascent. Being then in front of a large and handsome house, the stranger took a key from his pocket and opened a little door, which enabled the master to leave the house when he pleased unseen by his servants. He left the door half open, a direct invitation for his companion to follow him.
Gilbert did so, and carefully closed the door, which turned quietly on its hinges, and closed without any noise.
When once in, Gilbert saw himself in a corridor, the walls on which were laid as high as a man, in the most marvellous manner, with bronze plates like those with which Ghiberti enriched the door of the baptistery of Florence.
His feet sank in a soft Turkey carpet.
Gilbert thought this room, too, was intentionally kept open, and entered a room hung with India satin, and furniture covered with the same material—one of those fantastic birds, painted or embroidered in the fashion the Chinese are so fond of, was hung to the wall, and sustained in its beak a mirror, which, like the candelabra, was of most exquisite workmanship, and represented bunches of lilies.
There was but one single picture to ornament the room—Raphael's Virgin. Gilbert was admiring this picture, when he heard, or rather discerned, that a door opened behind him. He turned, and saw Cagliostro coining from a kind of dressing-room. One moment had enabled him to efface the stains from his hands and arms, to give his dark hair the most aristocratic change, and to effect a perfect transformation.
His costume was covered with embroidery, his hands sparkled with diamonds, strangely contrasting with the black dress and simple gold ring which Gilbert had received from Washington.
Cagliostro, with an open and smiling face, advanced, and reached forth his hand.
“Wait a moment, dear Gilbert. Since we parted you have made such progress, especially in philosophy, that you are the master, and I scarcely worthy of being a scholar.”
“Thank you for the compliment,” said Gilbert, “but if I have made such progress, how do you know it? We have not met for eight years.”
“Think you, dear doctor, that you are one of those men unknown because you are unseen? I have not seen you for eight years, but I can nevertheless tell you every day what you have been about.”
“Will you still doubt my double sight?”
“You know that I am a mathematician!”
“And therefore incredulous. Let us see. You came first to France on account of family affairs. They did not concern me, and—”
“No!” said Gilbert, who thought to annoy Cagliostro. “Tell me.”
“Well, you wished to attend to the education of your son, Sebastian, and to place him at a little city eighteen or twenty leagues from Paris, and to settle matters with your agent, a good fellow, whom, contrary to his inclinations, you keep in Paris, and who for many reasons should be with his wife.”
“Listen: you came the second time in consequence of political affairs, which brought you to France, as they have brought many others. Then you wrote various pamphlets, and sent them to Louis XVI., and as you have a little of the old man in you, you are prouder of the royal approbation than you would be of that of the master who preceded me in your education—Jean Jacques Rousseau, who, were he now alive, would be far greater than any king. You were desirous to know what the descendant of Louis XIV. and Henry IV. thought of Dr. Gilbert. Unfortunately, there existed a little matter of which you had not thought, yet which caused me one day to find you all bloody, with a ball in your breast, at the Azores, where my vessel chanced to touch. This little affair had relation to a certain Mademoiselle Andree de Taverney, who became Countess de Charny, and who esteems herself happy in being able to serve the queen. Now as the queen could refuse nothing to Charny's wife, she asked and obtained a lettre-de-cachet; you were arrested at Havre, and taken thence to the Bastille, where, dear doctor, you would be yet, if the people one day had not torn it down. Then, like a good royalist as you are, you took sides with the king, the physician of whom you are. Yesterday, or rather this morning, you contributed greatly to the safety of the royal family, by hurrying to awaken Lafayette, who slept like an honest man, and just now, when you saw me, thinking that the queen, who by-the-bye detests you, was in danger, you were willing to make your body a defence for your sovereign. Is not this the case? But I forgot a thing of some importance, a magnetic exhibition in the presence of the king, the withdrawal of a certain casket seized by one Ras de Loup. Have I either forgotten or mistaken aught?”
“True, you are still the magician, sorcerer, and enchanter, Cagliostro.”
Cagliostro smiled with satisfaction. He was rejoiced at having, contrary to Gilbert's wishes, produced the effects which the countenance of the latter exhibited.
“Now,” said he, “as I love you certainly as much as you love me, as my desire to know what has become of you since our separation is very great, and equal to that which impelled you to find out where I was, tell me in what part of the world your genius and power has been employed?”
“Six months ago I was in the castle of San Angelo, while you three months ago were in the Bastille.”
“But I thought there was no escape from San Angelo?”
“Hah! remember Benvenuto Cellini.”
“Did you too then make a pair of wings, as he did, and like a new Icarus fly over the Tiber?”
“I could not, by evangelical precaution. I was placed in a deep, dark dungeon.”
“You did get out, though?”—” Yes; for here I am.”
“Not so; I unfortunately had an incorruptible, but fortunately not immortal jailor: chance, or one less infidel than I would say Providence, contrived that he died one day after he had thrice refused to release me.”
“Yes. His successor was not incorruptible; the first time he brought me supper he said, 'Eat and get strong, for before to-morrow we have a journey to take.' He did not lie, for that night each of us used up three horses, and travelled a hundred miles.”
“What said the government to your flight?”
“Nothing. They dressed the body of the dead jailor in my old clothes; fired a pistol ball in his face; laid the weapon beside him, and said that having procured arms, I had killed myself. An account of my death was published, and the poor devil was buried in ray place.
“You see, Gilbert, at last I am dead. If I say I am not dead, they will reply by producing the magistrate's certificate to prove my burial at least. There was no need of that, however, for it became necessary for me for the time to disappear. I then, as Abbe Dutille said, made a plunge, and have appeared under another name.”
“And what is your name now, if I commit no indiscretion?”
“My name is Zanoni; I am a Genoese banker, and do a little discount business with princes. You know my heart and purse, as ever, are at your service. If you are ever in need of money, there is a private chest in my secretary, the other is at Saint Cloud, in Paris, and if you need money, and I am not at home, come hither, and I will show you the way to open the little door. Push the spring; this is the way, and you will always find about a million there.”
“You are indeed a wonderful man,” said Gilbert, with a smile, “but, you know, with my twenty thousand livres a year, I am richer than the king. And what are you about in Paris?”
“Who knows! establishing what you contributed to in the United States—a Republic!”
“France has no tendency to Republicanism.”
“The king will resist.”—” Possibly.”
“The nobles will appeal to arms.”—“Probably.”
“We will not make a Republic then, but a Revolution.”
Gilbert let his head fall on his breast.
“Know you who destroyed the Bastille, my friend?”
“You do not understand, but take cause for effect. For five hundred years, counts, lords, princes, had been locked up in the Bastille, yet still it stood. One day, the king, in his folly, sought to imprison thought, which needs space and extent, in that place. Thought burst through the Bastille, and the people entered by the breach.”
“True,” murmured Gilbert. “You remember what Voltaire wrote to M. de Chauvelin, March 2, 1764, about twenty-six years since.”
“Voltaire wrote: 'All I see announces the seeds of a revolution, which certainly will come, and which I will not be happy enough to see. The French are slow, but they always succeed. Light has been gradually diffused, and one day there will be an outbreak. There will be a fearful clatter. The young are very happy; they will see sights.' What think you of things yesterday and to-day?”—” Terrible!”
“What think you of what you saw?”—“Awful!”
“Well, Gilbert, we are only at the beginning. All things in this old world march to the tomb—nobility, royalty, all will find a tomb in an abyss.”
“I guess the nobility may, for it has given itself to gain ever since the famous night of August 4. Let us save our royalty, which is the palladium of the nation.”
“Those are fine words, dear Gilbert. Tell me if the palladium saved Troy, though. Save royalty! Do you think royalty can be saved with ease when we have such a king?” “He is sprung from a great race.” “Yes, a race of eagles transformed into paroquets. Before Utopians like you, Gilbert, save royalty, kings must make an effort for themselves. Is the king a representation of your ideal of the sceptre-bearer? Think you Charlemagne, Saint Louis, Philippe-Augustus, Henry IV., Francis I., or Louis XIV. had those flabby cheeks, hanging lips, inexpressive eyes, and hesitating step? They had not, but were men with nerve, blood, life, beneath their royal robes, and were not bastardised by constant transmission in one strain. That is a good radical idea, which these short-sighted people have forgotten.
“To preserve animal and even vegetable life in vigour, Nature herself has prescribed the fusion of races—as the graft in the vegetable kingdom is the preserver of beauty and grace, marriage in man, between parents too closely connected, causes individuals to decay. Nature suffers, languishes, and degenerates, when several generations of the same blood succeed each other; but, on the contrary, becomes revived and invigorated by the infusion of a new element. Look at the heroes who found dynasties and the sluggards who end. Henry III., the last Valois, and Gaston, the last Medici, the Cardinal of York, the last Stuart, and Charles VI., the last Hapsbourg. Going back, Louis XV. and Marie de Medici; Henry IV. is four times his ancestor, and Mary de Medici five times his ancestress. Passing to Philip III. of Spain, and Margaret of Parma, the former is three times his ancestor and the latter his ancestress. I, who had nothing better to do, have counted all this, and have come to this conclusion: out of thirty-two ancestors, there are, in Louis XV.'s case, six Bourbons, fire Medici, eleven Hapsbourgs, three Savois, three Stuarts, and a Danish princess. Subject the best horse or dog on earth to such treatment, and in the fourth generation you will have either a pony or a cur. How the devil can it be otherwise with us men? You are a mathematician, doctor, and how do you like my calculation?”
“I tell you, my dear wizard,” said Gilbert, rising and taking his hat, “that your calculation reminds me that my place is with the king.”
Gilbert advanced towards the door.
Cagliostro asked him to stop, and said, “Hear me, Gilbert; you know I lore you, and to spare you trouble, would expose myself to intense agony. Let me advise you.”
“Let the king escape and leave France, now, while he can. In three months, perhaps, in six, in a year, it will be too late.”
“Count,” said Gilbert, “would you advise a soldier to leave his post because it is dangerous?”
“Were the soldier so situated, hemmed in, surrounded, if his life, especially, compromised that of half a million of men, I would. You, even you, Gilbert, will tell the king so, when, alas, it will be too late. Wait not until to-morrow, but tell him to-day. Do not wait until evening, but tell him now.”
“Count, you know that I am a fatalist. What will be, will be; as long as I have influence the king will remain in France. We will meet in the contest, and, perhaps, rest side by side on the battle-field. Well, then the world will say, no man, intelligent soever as he may be, can escape from his destiny.”
“I sought you for the purpose of telling you this, and you have heard me. Like Cassandra's prediction, mine is vain. Adieu.”
“Listen, count! Do you tell me here, as you did in America, that you are able to read the human fate in the face?” He stood at the threshold.
“Gilbert, certainly, as you read the course of the stars, while common men fancy they stray at hazard.”
“Listen! some one knocks at the door.”
“Tell me who knocks at that door? When and what death he will die?”
Gilbert went towards the end of the corridor, and his heart beat in a way he could not express, though he said'“ it was absurd for him to have faith in this charlatanism.”
The door opened. A man of distinguished bearing, tall, and with his face impressed with an expression of great kindness, entered the room, and looked at Gilbert with an expression not devoid of anxiety.
“Good morning, marquis,” said Cagliostro.
“Good morning, baron,” said the stranger.
As Cagliostro saw the latter looked anxiously at Gilbert, he said, “Marquis, this is a friend of mine. My dear Gilbert, this is one of my clients, the Marquis de Favras.”
They bowed—then, speaking to the stranger, he said, “Marquis, be pleased to await me a few moments only in that room.”
The marquis bowed again, and left.
“You wish to know how he will die?”
“Did you not promise to tell me?”
Cagliostro gave a strange look, and glanced around to see that no one was listening.
“Have you ever seen a nobleman hung?”
“Well, it is a curious spectacle, and you will be on the Place de Greve on the day of De Favras' execution.”
Then, taking Gilbert to the gate, he said: “Listen! when you wish to see me without being seen or seeing, push this knob thus,” and he showed the secret. “Excuse me! those who have not long to live should not be kept waiting.”
He left, leaving Gilbert amazed at the statement which had excited his surprise but not conquered his incredulity.
