Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 62

"Turn around, you viper!" said Simon. "Look round this way again, or I'll tear your eyes out of your head! I--"

The door leading to the corridor now opened, and an old man, leaning on a cane, entered, wearing on his head a powdered peruke, his bent form covered with a black satin coat, beneath which a satin vest was seen; on his feet, silk stockings and buckled shoes; in his lace- encircled hand, a cane with a gold head.

"Well," cried Simon, with a laugh, "what sort of an old scarecrow is that? And what does it want here?"

"The scarecrow wants nothing of you," said the old man, in a kindly way, "but you want something of it, citizen. You have sent for me."

"Ah! so you are the doctor from the Hotel Dieu."

"Yes, my friend, I am Citizen Naudin."

"Naudin, the chief physician at the Hotel Dieu?" cried Simon. "And you come yourself to see my sick wife?"

"Does that surprise you, Citizen Simon?"

"Yes, indeed, it surprises me. For I have been told so often that Citizen Naudin, the greatest and most skilful physician in all Paris, never leaves the Hotel Dieu; that the aristocrats and ci- devants have begged him in vain to attend them, and that even the Austrian woman, in the days when she was queen, sent to no purpose to the celebrated Naudin, and begged him to come to Versailles.

We heard that the answer was: 'I am the physician of the poor and the sick in the Hotel Dieu, and whoever is poor and sick may come to me in the house which bears the name of G.o.d. But whoever is too rich and too well for that, must seek another doctor, for my duties with the sick do not allow me to leave the H6tel Dieu.' And after that answer reached the palace--so the great Doctor Marat told me--the queen had her horses harnessed, and drove to Paris, to consult Doctor Naudin at the Hotel Dieu, and to receive his advice. Is the story really true, and are you Doctor Naudin?"

"The story is strictly true, and, my friend, I am Doctor Naudin."

"And you now leave the Hotel Dieu to come and visit my sick wife?"

asked Simon, with a pleasant look and a flattered manner.

"Does your wife not belong to my poor and sick?" asked the doctor.

"Is she not a woman of the people, this dear French people, to whom I have devoted my services and my life? For a queen Doctor Naudin might not leave his hospital, but for a woman of the people he does it. And now, citizen, let me see your sick wife, for I did not come here to talk."

Without waiting for Simon's answer, the physician walked up to the bed, sat down on the chair in front of it, and began at once to investigate the condition of the woman, who reached him her feverish hand, and, with an almost inaudible voice, answered his professional questions.

The cobbler stood at the foot of the bed, and directed his little cunning eyes to the physician in amazement and admiration. Behind him, in the corner, sat the son of Marie Antoinette, humiliated, still, and motionless. Yet, in spite of the injunction of Jeanne Marie, he had turned around, and was looking toward the bed; but not to the knitter of the guillotine were his looks directed, but to this venerable old gentleman with his powdered peruke, his satin coat, silk stockings, breeches, shoe-buckles, gold embroidered waistcoat and lace ruffles. This costume reminded him of the past; the halls of Versailles came back to him, and he saw before him the shadowy figures of the cavaliers of that time, all clothed like the dear old gentleman who was sitting before the bed there.

"Why do you look at me in such a wondering way, Citizen Simon?"

asked Naudin, who was now through with his examination.

"I really wonder--I really do wonder immensely," said Simon, "and that is saying much, for, in these times, when there are so many changes, a man can hardly wonder at any thing. Still I do wonder, Citizen Naudin, that you can venture to go around in this costume.

That is the style of clothing worn by traitorous ci-devants and aristocrats. Anybody else who dare put it on would have only one more walk to take, that to the guillotine, and yet you venture to come here!"

"Venture?" repeated Naudin, with a shrug. "I venture nothing, citizen. I wear my clothes in conformity with a habit of years'

standing: they fitted well under the monarchy, they fit just as well under the republic, and I am not going to be such a fool as to put by my soft and comfortable silk clothes, and put on your hateful, uncomfortable thick ones, and strut about in them. I am altogether too old to take up the new fas.h.i.+ons, and altogether too well satisfied with my own suit to learn how to wear your cloth coats with swallow-tails, and your leather hose and top-boots. Defend me from crowding my old limbs into such stuffs!"

"Citizen doctor," cried Simon, with a laugh, "you are a jolly, good old fellow, and I like you well. I do not blame you for preferring your comfortable silk clothes to the new style that our revolutionary heroes have brought into mode, that nothing might remind us of the cursed, G.o.d-forsaken monarchy. I wonder merely that they allow it, and do not make you a head shorter!"

"But how would they go on with matters in the Hotel Dieu? Without a head nothing could be done with the sick and the suffering, for without a head there is no thinking. Now, as I am the head of the hospital, and as they have no head to take my place, and as, in spite of my old-fas.h.i.+oned clothes, my sick are cured, and have confidence in me, the great revolutionary heroes wink at me, and let me do as I please, for they know that under the silk dress of an aristocrat beats the heart of a true democrat. But that is not the question before us now, citizen. We want to talk about the health of your wife here. She is sick, she has a fever, and it will be worse yet with her, unless we take prompt measures and provide a cooling drink for her."

"Do it, citizen doctor," said Simon; "make my Jeanne Marie well and bright again, or I shall go crazy here in this accursed house.

Jeanne Marie is sick just with this, that she is not accustomed to be idle, and to sit still and fold her hands in her lap, and run around like a wild beast in its cage. But here in the Temple it is no better than in a cage; and I tell you, citizen, it is enough to make one crazy here, and it has made Jeanne sick to have no fresh air, no exercise and work."

"But why has she no exercise and no work? Why does she not go out into the street and take the air?"

"Because she cannot," cried Simon, pa.s.sionately. "Because the cursed little viper there embitters our whole life and makes us prisoners to this miserable, wretched prisoner, Look at him there, the infernal little wolf! he is the one to blame that I cannot go into the street, cannot visit the clubs, the Convention, or any meeting, but must lire here like a Trappist, or like an imprisoned criminal.

He is the one to blame that my wife can no longer take her place at the guillotine, and knit and go on with her work there."

"Yes," cried Jeanne Marie, with a groan, raising her head painfully from the pillow, "he is to blame for it all, the shameless rascal.

He has made me melancholy and sad; he has worried, and vexed, and changed me! Oh! oh! he is looking at me again, and his eyes burn into my heart!"

"Miserable viper," cried Simon, das.h.i.+ng toward the boy with clinched fists, "how dare you turn your hateful eyes toward her, after her expressly forbidding it? Wait, I will teach you to disobey, and give you a lesson that you will not forget."

His heavy hand fell on the back of the boy, and was raised again for a second stroke, when it was held as in an iron vice.

"You good-for-nothing, what are you doing?" cried a thundering voice, and two blazing eyes flashed on him from the reddened face of Doctor Naudin.

Simon's eyes fell before the angry look of the physician, then he broke out into a loud laugh.

"Citizen doctor, I say, what a jolly fellow you are," he said, merrily. "You did that just as if you were in a theatre, and you called out to me just as they call out to the murderers in a tragedy. What do you make such a halloo about when I chastise the wolf's cub a bit, as he has richly deserved?"

"It is true," said Naudin, "I was a little hasty. But that comes from the fact, citizen, that I not only held you to be a good republican, but a good man as well, and therefore it pained me to see you do a thing which becomes neither a republican nor a good man."

"Why, what have I done that is not proper?" asked Simon, in amazement.

"Look at him, the poor, beaten, swollen, stupefied boy," said Naudin, solemnly, pointing to Louis, who sat on his chair, weeping and trembling in all his limbs--"look at him, citizen, and then do not ask me again what you have done that is not proper."

"Well, but he deserves nothing better," cried Simon, with a sneer.

"He is the son of the she-wolf, Madame Veto."

"He is a human being," said Doctor Naudin, solemnly, "and he is, besides, a helpless boy, whom the one, indivisible, and righteous republic deprived of his father and mother, and put under your care to be educated as if he were a son of your own. I ask you, citizen, would you have struck a son of your own as you just struck this boy?"

A loud, convulsive sob came from the bed on which Jeanne Marie lay, and entirely confused and disturbed Simon.

"No," he said, softly, "perhaps I should not have done it. But,"

continued he eagerly, and with a grim look, "a child of my own would not have tried and exasperated me as this youngster does. From morning till evening he vexes me, for he does nothing that I want him to. If I order him to sing with me, he is still and stupid, and when he ought to be still he makes a noise. Would you believe me, citizen, this son of the she-wolf leaves me no quiet for sleep.

Lately, in the night, he kneeled down in the bed and began to pray with a loud voice, so as to wake both my wife and myself."

"From that night on I have been sick and miserable," moaned Jeanne Marie; "from that night I have not been able to sleep."

"You hear, citizen doctor, my wife was so terrified with that, that it made her sick, and now you shall have a proof of the disobedience of the little viper. Capet, come here."

The boy rose slowly from his chair, and stole along with drooping head to his master.

"Capet, we will sing," said Simon. "You shall show the doctor that you are a good republican, and that you have entirely forgotten that you are the son of the Austrian, the rascally Madame Veto. Come, we will sing the song about Madame Veto. Quick, strike in, or I will beat you into pulp. The song about Madame Veto, do you hear? Sing!"

A short pause ensued. Then the boy raised his swollen face and fixed his great blue eyes with a defiant, flaming expression upon the face of the cobbler.

"Citizen," he said, with clear, decided tones, "I shall not sing the song about Madame Veto, for I have not forgotten my dear mamma, and I can sing nothing bad about her, for I love my dear mamma so much, so much, and--"

The voice of the boy was drowned in his tears; he let his head fall upon his breast, ready to receive the threatened chastis.e.m.e.nt. But, before the fist of Simon, already raised, could fall upon the poor head of the little sufferer, a thrilling cry of pain resounded from the bed.

"Simon, come to me," gasped Jeanne Marie. "Help me draw the dagger out of my breast, I am dying--oh, I am dying!"

"What kind of a dagger?" cried Simon, rus.h.i.+ng to the bed and taking the convulsed form of his wife in his arms.