Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 64

"And yet it is gnawing into you with iron teeth, which have been heated blood-red in the fires of h.e.l.l," said the doctor, with a compa.s.sionate look at the pale, quivering face of the woman. "Do not raise any quarrel, but quietly listen to me. We have an hour's time to talk together, and we want to use it. But let us speak softly, softly, together; for what we have to say to each other the deaf walls themselves ought not to hear."

Simon had not returned from the platform with the boy, when Doctor Naudin ended his long and earnest conversation, and prepared to leave his patient, who was now quietly lying in her bed.

"You know every thing now that you have to do," he said, extending his hand to her. "You can reckon on me as I reckon on you, and we will both go bravely and cheerfully on. It is a n.o.ble work that we have undertaken, and if it succeeds your heart will be light again, and G.o.d will forgive you your sins, for two martyrs will stand and plead in your behalf at the throne of G.o.d! Now, do every thing exactly as I have told you, and speak with your husband to-night, but not sooner, that you may be safe, and for fear that in his first panic his face would betray him."

"I shall do every thing just as you wish," said Jeanne Marie, who had suddenly become humble and bashful, apparently entirely forgetful of the republican "thou." "It seems to me, now that I have disburdened my heart to you, that I have become well and strong again, and certainly I shall owe it to you if I do live and get my health once more. But shall you come again to-morrow, doctor?"

"No," he replied, "I will send a man to-morrow who understands better than I do how to continue this matter, and to whom you can give unconditional confidence. He will announce himself to you as my a.s.sistant, and you can talk over at length every thing that we have been speaking of. Hus.h.!.+ I hear Simon coming! Farewell!"

He nodded to Jeanne Marie, and hastily left the room. Outside, in the corridor, he met Simon and his silent young ward.

"Well, citizen doctor," asked Simon, "how is it with our sick one?

She has intrusted all her secrets to you, and they must have made a long story, for you have been a whole hour together. It is fortunate that you are an old man, or else I should have been jealous of your long tete-a-tete with my wife."

"Then you would be a great fool, and I have always held you to be a prudent and good man. But, as concerns your wife, I must tell you something very serious, and I beg you, Citizen Simon, to mark my words well. I tell you this: unless your wife Jeanne Marie is out of this Temple in less than a week, and enjoys her freedom, she will either lose her senses or take her life. I will say to you this, besides: if Citizen Simon does not, as soon as possible, leave this cursed place and give up his hateful business, it will be the same with him as with his wife. He will not become insane, but he will lapse into melancholy, and if he does not take his own life consumption will take it for him, the result of his idle, listless life, the many vexations here, and the wretched atmosphere of the Temple."

"Consumption!" cried Simon, horrified. "Do you suppose I am exposed to that?"

"You have it already," said the doctor, solemnly. "Those red spots on your cheeks, and the pain which you have so often in the breast, announce its approach. I tell you that if you do not take measures to leave the Temple in a week, in three months you will be a dead man, without giving the guillotine a chance at you. Good-by!

Consider well what I say, citizen, and then do as you like!"

"He is right," muttered Simon, as he looked after the doctor with a horrified look, as Naudin descended the staircase; "yes, I see, he is right. If I have to stay here any longer, I shall die. The vexations and the loneliness, and--something still more dreadful, frightful, that I can tell no one of-have made me sick, and the st.i.tch in my side will grow worse and worse every day, and--I must and will get away from here," he said aloud, and with a decided air.

"I will not die yet, neither shall Jeanne Marie. To-morrow I will hand in my resignation, and then be away!"

While Simon was walking slowly and thoughtfully toward his wife, Doctor Naudin left the dark building, went with a light heart out into the street, and returned with a quick step to the Hotel Dieu.

The porter who opened the door for him, reported to him that during his absence the same old gentleman who had come the day before to consult him, had returned and was waiting for him in the anteroom.

Doctor Naudin nodded, and then walked, quickly toward his own apartments. Before the door he found his servant.

"Old Doctor Saunier is here again," he said, taking off his master's cloak. "He insisted on waiting for you. He said that he must consult you about a patient, and would not cease begging till you should consent to accompany him to the sick person's house. For, if a case seemed desperate, the great Naudin might still save it."

"You are an a.s.s for letting him talk such nonsense, and for believing it yourself, Citizen Joly," cried Naudin with a laugh, and then entering the anteroom.

An old gentleman, clad in the same old-fas.h.i.+oned costume with Doctor Naudin, came forward. Citizen Joly, as he closed the door somewhat slowly, heard him say:

"Thank G.o.d that you have come at last, citizen! I have waited for you impatiently, and now I conjure you to accompany me as quickly as possible to my patient."

Naudin, opening the door of his study, said in reply, "Come in, Citizen Saunier, and tell me first how it is with your sick one."

Nothing more could Joly, Naudin's servant, understand, for the two doctors had gone into the study, and the door was closed behind them. After a short time, however, it was opened. Naudin ordered the valet to order a tiacre at once, and a few minutes later Director Naudin rode away at the side of Doctor Saunier.

At a house in the Rue Montmartre the carriage stopped, and the two physicians entered. The porter, opening the little, dusty window of his lodge, nodded confidentially to Saunier.

"That is probably the celebrated Doctor Naudin of the Hotel Dieu, whom you have with you?" he asked.

"Yes, it is he," answered Saunier, "and if anybody can help our patient, it is he. Citizen Crage is probably at home?"

"Certainly he is at home, for you know he never leaves his sick boy.

You will find him above. You know the way, citizen doctor!"

The two physicians pa.s.sed on, ascended the staircase, and entered the suit of rooms whose door was only partially closed--left ajar, as it seemed, for them. n.o.body came to meet them, but they carefully closed the door behind them, drew the bolt, and then walked silently and quickly across the anteroom to the opposite door.

Doctor Saunier knocked softly three times with a slight interval between, and cried three times with a loud voice,

"The two physicians are come to see the patient."

A bolt was withdrawn on the inside, the door opened, and a tall man's figure appeared and motioned to the gentlemen to come in.

"Are we alone?" whispered Doctor Saunier, as they entered the inner room.

"Yes, entirely alone," answered the other. "There in the chamber lies my poor sick boy, and you know well that he can betray no one, and that he knows nothing of what is going on around him."

"Yes, unfortunately, I know that," answered Doctor Saunier sadly. "I promised you that I would bring you the most celebrated and skilful physician in Paris, and you see I keep my word, for I have brought you Doctor Naudin, the director of the Hotel Dieu and--the friend and devoted servant of the royal family, to whom we have both sworn allegiance until death. Doctor Naudin, I have not given you the name of the gentleman to whom I was taking you. It is a secret which only the possessor is able to divulge to you."

"I divulge it," said the other, smiling, "Doctor Naudin, I am the Marquis Jarjayes."

"Jarjayes, who made the plan for the escape of the royal family in the Temple?" asked Naudin eagerly.

"Marquis Jarjayes, who lost his property in the service of the queen, risked his life in her deliverance, and perhaps escaped the guillotine merely by emigrating and putting himself beyond the reach of Robespierre. Are you that loyal, courageous Marquis de Jarjayes?"

"I am Jarjayes, and I thank you for the praises you have given me, but I cannot accept them in the presence of him who merits them all much more than I do, and who is more worthy of praise than any one else. No, I can receive no commendation in the presence of Toulan, the most loyal, the bravest, the most prudent of us all; for Toulan is the soul of every thing, and our martyr queen confessed it in giving him the highest of all t.i.tles of honor, in calling him Fidele, a t.i.tle which will remain for centuries."

"Yes, you are right," said Dr. Naudin, laying his hand on the shoulder of Dr. Saunier. "He is the n.o.blest, most loyal, and bravest of us all. On that account, when he came to me a few days ago and showed me the golden salt* bottle of the queen in confirmation of his statement that he was Toulan, I was ready to do every thing that he might desire of me and to enter into all his plans, for Toulan's magnanimity and fidelity are contagious, and excite every one to emulate him."

"I beg you, gentlemen," said Toulan softly, "do not praise me nor think that to be heroism which is merely natural. I have devoted to Queen Marie Antoinette my life, my thought, my heart. I swore upon her hand that so long as I lived I would be true to her and her family, and to keep my vow is simple enough. Queen Marie Antoinette is no more. I was not able to save her, but perhaps she looks down from the heavenly heights upon us, and is satisfied with us, if she sees that we are now trying to do for her son what, unfortunately, we were not able to accomplish for her. This is my hope, and this spurs rue on to attempt every thing, in order to bring about the last wish of my queen--the freeing of her son. G.o.d in His grace has willed that I should not be alone in this effort, and that I should have the cooperation of n.o.ble men. He visibly blesses our plans, for is it not a manifest sign of His blessing that, exactly in those days when we are trying to find a means of approaching the unhappy, imprisoned son of the queen, accident affords us this means? Exactly at the hour when I went to Dr. Naudin and disclosed myself to him, the porter of the Temple came and desired in behalf of Simon's wife that Dr. Naudin should go to the Temple."

"Yes, indeed, it was a wonderful occurrence," said Naudin, thoughtfully. "I am not over-blessed with sensibility, but when I saw the son of the queen in his sorrow and humiliation, I sank on my knee before the poor little king, and in my heart I swore that Toulan should find in me a faithful coadjutor in his plan, and that I would do every thing to set him free."

"And so have I too sworn," cried Jarjayes, with enthusiasm. "The queen is dead, but our fidelity to her lives and shall renew itself to her son, King Louis XVII. I know well that the police are watching me, that they know who is secreting himself here under the name of Citizen Orage, that they follow every one of my steps and perhaps suffer me to be free only for the purpose of seeing with whom I have relations, in order to arrest and destroy me at one fell swoop, with all my friends at the same time. But we must use the time. I have come here with the firm determination of delivering the unhappy young king from the hands of his tormentors, and I will now confess every thing to you, my friends. I have gained for our undertaking the a.s.sistance and protection of a rich and n.o.ble patron, a true servant of the deceased king. The Prince de Conde, with whom I have lived in Vendee for the past few months, has furnished me with ample means, and is prepared to support us to any extent in our undertaking. If we succeed in saving the young king, the latter will find in Vendee a safe asylum with the prince, and will live there securely, surrounded by his faithful subjects. The immense difficulty, or, as I should have said a few days ago, the impossibility, is the release of the young prince from the Temple.

But now that I have succeeded in discovering Toulan and uniting myself with him, I no longer say it is impossible, but only it is difficult."

"And," cried Toulan, "since I am sure of the a.s.sistance of the n.o.ble Doctor Naudin, I say, we will free him, the son of our Queen Marie Antoinette, the young King Louis XVII. The plan is entirely ready in my head, and in order to make its execution possible, I went a few days ago to see Doctor Naudin at the Hotel Dieu, in order to beg him to visit the sick boy that the marquis has here, and just at that moment Simon's messenger came to the Temple. Doctor Naudin is now here, and first of all it is necessary that he give us his last, decisive judgment on the patient. So take us to him, marquis, for upon Naudin's decision depends the fate of the young King of France."

The marquis nodded silently, and conducted the gentlemen into the next room. There, carefully propped up by mattresses and pillows, lay a child of perhaps ten years--a poor, unfortunate boy, with pale, sunken cheeks, fixed blue eyes, short fair hair, and a stupid, idiotic expression on his features. As the three gentlemen came to him he fixed his eyes upon them in a cold, indifferent way, and not a quiver in his face disclosed any interest in them. Motionless and pale as death the boy lay upon his bed, and only the breath that came hot and in gasps from his breast disclosed that there was still life in this poor shattered frame.

Doctor Naudin stooped down to the boy and looked at him a long time with the utmost attention.

"This boy is perfectly deaf!" he then said, raising himself up and looking at the marquis inquiringly.

"Yes, doctor, your sharp eye has correctly discerned it; he is perfectly deaf."

"Is it your son?"

"No, doctor, he is the son of my sister, the Baroness of Tardif, who was guillotined together with her husband. I undertook the care of this unfortunate child, and at my removal from Paris gave him to some faithful servants of my family to be cared for. On my return I learned that the good people had both been guillotined, and find the poor boy, who before had been at least sound in body, utterly neglected, and living on the sympathy of the people who had taken him on the death of his foster-parents. I brought the child at once to this house, which I had hired for myself under the name of Citizen Orage, and Toulan undertook to procure the help of a physician. It has now come in the person of the celebrated Doctor Naudin, and I beg you to have pity on the poor unfortunate child, and to receive him into the Hotel Dieu."

"Let me first examine the child, in order to tell you what is the nature of his disorder."

And Doctor Naudin stooped down again to the boy, examined his eyes, his chest, his whole form, listened to his breathing, the action of his heart, and felt his pulse. The patient was entirely apathetic during all this, now and then merely whining and groaning, when a movement of the doctor's hand caused him pain.