The Court of King Petaud.
THE KING MADE a step backward at the sight of this new actor in the scene, come, no doubt, to prevent him from escaping as he had hoped. “Ha!” thought he, “I had forgot him; but he is welcome, and I will make him pay for what the others have made me suffer.”
“Ha! you are there!” cried he. “I sent for you — did you know that?”
“Yes, sire,” replied the minister, coldly; “I was dressing to wait on your majesty when your orders reached me.”
“I wished to speak to you on serious matters,” said the king, frowning, in order, if possible, to intimidate his minister. Unfortunately for the king. Monsieur de Choiseul was one of the men least likely to be daunted in his dominions.
“And I also, if it please your majesty,” said he, bowing, “have serious matters to speak of.” At the same time, he exchanged a look with the dauphin, who was still half hidden by the clock.
The king stopped short. “Ha! thought he, “now I am caught between two fires; there is no escape.”
“You know, I presume,” said the king, hastily, in order to have the first word, “that poor Viscount Jean has had a narrow escape from assassination, that is to say, that he has received a wound in his arm?”
“I came to speak of that affair to your majesty.”
“I understand — you wished to prevent unpleasant reports?”
“I wished, sire, to anticipate all remarks.”
“Then you know the whole particulars, sir?” inquired the king, in a significant manner.
“Perfectly.”
“Ha!” said the king, “I was told so in a place likely to be well-informed.”
The Duke of Choiseul seemed quite unmoved. The dauphin continued turning the screw in the clock, his head bent down, but he lost not a syllable of the conversation.
“I shall now tell you how the affair happened,” said the king.
“Does your majesty think that you have been well-informed?” asked Monsieur de Choiseul.
“Oh, as to that —
“We are all attention, sire.”
“We!” repeated the king.
“Yes; his royal highness the dauphin and I.”
“His royal highness the dauphin?” repeated the king, turning his eyes from the respectful Choiseul to the attentive Louis Augustus, “and pray in what does this squabble concern his royal highness?”
“It concerns his royal highness,” said the duke, bowing to the young prince, “because her royal highness the dauphiness was the cause of it.”
“The dauphiness the cause?” said the king, starting.
“Certainly; if you are ignorant of that, sire, your majesty has been very badly informed.”
“The dauphiness and Jean Dubarry!” said the king; “this is likely to be a curious tale! Come, explain this, Monsieur de Choiseul, conceal nothing, even though it were the dauphiness herself who pierced Dubarry’s arm!”
“Sire, it was not the dauphiness!” replied Choiseul, still calm and unmoved; “it was one of the gentlemen of her escort.”
“Oh,” said the king, again becoming grave, “an officer whom you know.”
“No, sire, but an officer whom your majesty ought to know, if you remember all who have served you well — an officer whose father’s name was honored at Philipsbourg, at Fontenoy, at Mahon — a Taverney — Maison-Rouge.”
The dauphin seemed to draw a deeper breath, as if to inhale the name and thus preserve it in his memory.
“A Maison Rouge,” said the king; “certainly I know the name; and why did he attack Jean, whom I like so much; Perhaps because I like him! — such absurd jealousies, such discontents, are almost seditious!”
“Sire, will your majesty deign to listen to me,” said Monsieur de Choiseul.
The king saw there was no other way for him to escape from this troublesome business but by getting in a passion, and he exclaimed, “I tell you, sir, that I see the beginning of a conspiracy against my peace, an organized persecution of my family!”
“Ah, sire,” said Monsieur de Choiseul, “is it for defending the dauphiness, your majesty’s daughter-in-law, that these reproaches are cast on a brave young man?”
The dauphin raised his head and folded his arms. “For my part,” said he, “I cannot but feel grateful to the man who exposed his life for a princess who in a fortnight will be my wife.”
“Exposed his life! — exposed his life!” stammered the king; “what about? Let me know that — what about?”
“About the horses of her royal highness, the dauphiness,” replied the duke; “Viscount Jean Dubarry, who was already traveling very fast, took upon him to insist on having some of those horses which were appropriated to the use of her royal highness — no doubt that he might get on still faster.”
The king bit his lip and changed color — the threatening phantom from which he had so lately hoped to escape now reappeared in all its horrors. “It is not possible,” murmured he, to gain time. “I know the whole affair — you have been misinformed, duke.”
“No, sire, I have not been misinformed; what I have the honor to tell your majesty is the simple truth. Viscount Jean Dubarry offered an insult to the dauphiness by insisting on taking for his use horses appointed for her service. After having ill-treated the master of the posthouse, he was going to take them by force when the Chevalier Philip de Taverney arrived, sent forward by her royal highness to have horses in readiness for her, and after he had several times summoned him in a friendly and conciliating manner—”
“Oh, oh!” grumbled the king.
“I repeat, sire, after he had several times, in a friendly and conciliating manner, summoned the viscount to desist, he was at length obliged to draw his sword.”
“Yes,” said the dauphin, “I pledge myself for the truth of what the duke asserts.”
“Then you also know of this affair;” said the king, exceedingly surprised.
“I know all the circumstances perfectly, sire.” replied the dauphin.
The minister bowed, delighted at having such a supporter. “Will your royal highness deign to proceed?” said he. “His majesty will doubtless have more confidence in the assertions of his august son than in mine.”
“Yes, sire,” continued the dauphin, without testifying for the Duke de Choiseul’s zeal in his cause all that gratitude which might have been expected, “yes, sire, I know the circumstances, and I had come to tell your majesty that Viscount Dubarry has not only insulted the dauphiness in interfering with the arrangements made for her journey, but he has also insulted me in opposing a gentleman of my regiment who was doing his duty.”
The king shook his head. “We must inquire,” said he; “we must inquire.”
“I have already inquired, sire,” said the dauphin, gently, “and have no doubt in the matter; the viscount drew his sword on my officer.”
“Did he draw first?” asked the king, happy to seize any chance of putting his adversary in fault.
The dauphin colored, and looked to the minister for assistance.
“Sire,” said the latter, “swords were crossed by two men, one of whom was insulting, the other defending, the dauphiness — that is all.”
“Yes, but which was the aggressor?” asked the king; “I know poor Jean — he is as gentle as a lamb.”
“The aggressor, in my opinion, sire,” said the dauphin, with his usual mildness, “is he who is in the wrong.”
“It is a delicate matter to decide,” replied the king; “the aggressor he who is in the wrong? — in the wrong? — but if the officer was insolent?”
“Insolent!” cried the Duke de Choiseul; “insolent toward a man who wanted to take by force horses sent there for the use of the dauphiness? Is it possible you can think so, sire?”
The dauphin turned pale, but said nothing. The king saw that he was between two fires.
“I should say warm, perhaps, not insolent,” said he.
“But your majesty knows,” said the minister, taking advantage of the king’s having yielded a step, to make a step forward; “your majesty knows that a zealous servant can never be in the wrong.”
“Oh, perhaps! But how did you become acquainted with this event, sir?” said he, turning sharply to the dauphin, without ceasing, however, to observe the duke, who endeavored vainly to hide the embarrassment which this sudden question caused him.
“By a letter, sire,” replied the dauphin.
“A letter from whom?”
“A letter from a person concerned for her royal highness, the dauphiness, and who thinks it singular that any one should dare to affront her.”
““Ha!” cried the king, “more mysteries, secret correspondences, plots! Every one is beginning again to plan annoyances for me, as in the time of the Marchioness de Pompadour!”
“No, sire,” said the minister, “this affair is no plot, and can be settled very simply. It is the crime of treason in the second degree; let the guilty person be punished, and all will be settled.”
At this word, punished, Louis XV, saw in fancy the countess furious, and Chon in a rage — he saw peace flying from his dwelling (peace, which he had been seeking all his life, but had never been able to find), and intestine war with crooked nails and eyes red with tears entering in her stead.
“Punished!” cried he, “without the accused having been heard? — without knowing which side is in the right? You make a very extraordinary proposal to me, duke — you wish to draw odium on me!”
“But, sire, who will henceforward respect her royal highness the dauphiness, if a severe example is not made of the person who first insulted her?”
“Certainly, sire,” added the dauphin, “it would be a scandal.”
“An example? — a scandal?” cried the king. “Mordieu! if I make an example of all the scandalous things that go on around me, I may pass my life in signing arrests for the Bastille! I have signed enough of them as it is, Heaven knows!”
“In this case it is necessary, sire,” said the duke.
“Sire, I entreat your majesty,” said the dauphin.
“What! do you not think him punished already, by the wound he has received?”
“No, sire; for he might have wounded the Chevalier de Taverney.”
“And in such a case, what would you have done?”
“I should have demanded his head.”
“But that was only what was done in the case of Monsieur de Montgomery, for killing King Henri II.,” said the king.
“He killed the king by accident, sir. Viscount Dubarry insulted the dauphiness intentionally.”
“And you, sir,” said the king, turning to the dauphin, “do you wish to have Jean’s head?”
“No, sire; I am not in favor of the punishment of death, as your majesty knows; I shall merely demand from you the viscount’s banishment.”
The king started up.
“Banishment for a tavern quarrel? Louis, you are severe, notwithstanding your philanthropical notions; it is true that before becoming philanthropist you were a mathematician, and —
“Will your majesty deign to proceed?”
“A mathematician would sacrifice the universe to his problem.”
“Sire,” said the dauphin, “I have no ill-will toward the Viscount Dubarry, personally.”
“With whom, then, are you angry?”
“With the insulter of her royal highness the dauphiness.”
“What a model for husbands!” cried the king, ironically; “but I am not so easy of belief. I see very well who is attacked under all this — I see to what people would lead me with their exaggerations!”
“Sire,” said M, de Choiseul, “do not be misled — nothing has been exaggerated — the public are indignant at the insolence which has been shown in this affair.”
“The public? — there is another monster with which you frighten yourself, or rather with which you would frighten me. Shall I listen to this public, which by the thousand mouths of libelists, and pamphleteers, and ballad-mongers, tells me that I am robbed, tossed in a blanket, betrayed on all hands? No, no; I let the public talk, and I laugh. Do as I do. Pardieu! close your ears — and when your great public is tired of bawling it will stop. There you are again, making your discontented bow — and Louis is putting on a sulky face! Heavens! is it not singular that what is done for the lowest individual cannot be done for me? I cannot be allowed to live quietly in my own fashion! Everybody hates what I love, and eternally loves what I hate! Am I in my senses, or am I a fool? Am I the master, or am I not?”
The dauphin took up his file, and returned to his work in the clock. The Duke de Choiseul bowed exactly as before.
“There now — no answer! Answer something, will you? Mordieu! you will kill me with vexation — first at your talk, then at your silence! — with your petty hatreds and your petty fears!”
“I do not hate the Viscount Dubarry,” said the dauphin, smiling.
“And I do not fear him, sire,” said the minister, haughtily.
“You are both very ill-natured,” cried the king, pretending to be in a great passion, when he was in reality only out of temper; “you wish to make me the laughing-stock of all Europe — to give my cousin of Prussia something to make jests on — to make me realize the court of King Petaud, which that rascal, Voltaire, has described — but, I will not be what you wish! — no! — you shall not have that satisfaction. I know what concerns my own honor, and I shall attend to it in my own way, and only as I choose myself!”
“Sire,” said the dauphin, with that immovable mildness which characterized him, but at the same time with that constant perseverance of his, “this is not a matter which concerns your honor — it is the dignity of the dauphiness which has been attacked.”
“His royal highness is right, sire.” said the duke, “let but your majesty speak the word, and no one will again dare to insult her.”
“ And who would insult her? — no one intended to insult her. Jean is a stupid fellow, but he is not malignant.”
“Well, then, sire,” continued the minister, “let it be placed to the account of stupidity, and let him ask pardon of the Chevalier de Taverney for his mistake.”
“I said before,” cried the king, “that I have nothing to do in the affair; let Jean ask pardon, he is at liberty to do so; or let him decline, he is at liberty also.”
“The affair given up in that way, sire, I must take the liberty to inform your majesty, will be talked about.”
“So much the better!” exclaimed the king, “let it be talked about until I am deafened with it, provided I don’t hear all this nonsense of yours!’
“Then,” replied the minister, with his imperturbable coolness, “I am authorized by your majesty to say that Viscount Dubarry did right?”
“Authorized by me? — authorized by me? — and in an affair of which I understand nothing! You mean, I see, to drive me to extremities; but take care, duke! — take care, and, Louis, I advise you to be more cautious how you conduct yourself toward me! I shall leave you to think of what I have said, for I am tired out — I cannot bear this any longer. Goodby, gentlemen! I am going to see my daughters, and then I shall take refuge at Marly, where I may hope for some tranquillity, if you do not follow me.”
At this moment, and as the king was going toward the door, it was opened, and an usher appeared.
“Sire,” said he, “her royal highness the Princess Louise is awaiting your majesty in the gallery to bid you farewell.”
“To bid me farewell?” exclaimed the king, in alarm, “where is she going?”
“Her royal highness says that she has had your majesty’s permission to leave the palace.”
“Ha! another scene! — this is my bigot daughter going to show off some of her follies — in truth, I am the most wretched of men!”
And he left the apartment running.
“His majesty has given us no answer,” said the Duke de Choiseul; “what has your royal highness decided on?”
“Ah, there it strikes!” said the young prince, listening with either a real or a pretended joy to the clock which he had made to go once more.
The minister frowned and retired backward from the Salon of Timepieces, leaving the dauphin alone.