THE MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN (Complete Edition: Volumes 1-5) - Alexandre Dumas

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but he saw that she was not pretending.

      "And wounded?" he went on, in a heartbroken tone.

      "But what was the scuffle about?" asked the police lieutenant, trying to see into the affair.

      "Most frivolous; about posthorses, disputed for with the viscount, who was in a hurry to help me home to my sister, whom I had promised to join this morning."

      "This requires retaliation, eh, Sartines?" said the king.

      "It looks so, but I will inquire into it. The aggressor's name and rank?"

      "I believe he is a military officer, in the dauphiness' dragoon guards, and named something like Baverne, or Faver—stop—it is Taverney."

      "To-morrow he will sleep in prison," said the chief of police.

      "Oh, dear, no," interrupted the countess out of deep silence; "that is not likely, for he is but an instrument and you will not punish the real instigators of the outrage. It is the work of the Duke of Choiseul. I shall leave the field free for my foes, and quit a realm where the ruler is daunted by his ministers."

      "How dare you?" cried Louis, offended.

      Chon understood that her sister was going too far, and she struck in.

      She plucked her sister by the dress and said:

      "Sire, my sister's love for our poor brother carries her away. I committed the fault and I must repair it. As the most humble subject of your majesty, I merely apply for justice."

      "That is good; I only ask to deal justice. If the man has done wrong, let him be chastised."

      "Am I asking anything else?" said the countess, glancing pityingly at the monarch, who was so worried elsewhere and seldom tormented in her rooms. "But I do not like my suspicions snubbed."

      "Your suspicions shall be changed to certainty by a very simple course. We will have the Duke of Choiseul here. We will confront the parties at odds, as the lawyers say."

      At this moment the usher opened the door and announced that the prince royal was waiting in the king's apartments to see him.

      "It is written I shall have no peace," grumbled Louis. But he was not sorry to avoid the wrangle with Choiseul, and he brightened up. "I am going, countess. Farewell! you see how miserable I am with everybody pulling me about. Ah, if the philosophers only knew what a dog's life a king has—especially when he is king of France."

      "But what am I say to the Duke of Choiseul?"

      "Send him to me, countess."

      Kissing her hand, trembling with fury, he hastened away as usual, fearing every time to lose the fruit of a battle won by palliatives and common cunning.

      "Alas! he escapes us again!" wailed the courtesan, clenching her plump hands in vexation.

      Chapter XVII.

       A Royal Clock-repairer.

       Table of Contents

      In the Hall of the Clocks, in Versailles Palace, a pink-cheeked and meek-eyed young gentleman was walking about with a somewhat vulgar step. His arms were pendent and his head sunk forward. He was in his seventeenth year. He was recognizable as the king's heir by being the living image of the Bourbon race, most exaggerated. Louis Auguste, Duke of Berry and heir to the throne as the dauphin, soon wearied of his lounge and stopped to gaze with the air of one who understood horology, on the great clock in the back of the hall. It was a universal machine, which told of time to the century, with the lunar phases and the courses of the planets, and was always the prince's admiration.

      Suddenly the hands on which his eyes were fastened came to a standstill. A grain of sand had checked the mechanism, and the master-piece was dead.

      On seeing this misfortune, the royal one forgot what he had come to do. He opened the clock-case glazed door, and put his head inside to see what was the matter. All at once he uttered a cry of joy, for he had spied a screw loose, of which the head had worked up and caught another part of the machinery. With a tortoise shell pick in one hand, and holding the wheel with the other, he began to fix the screw, with his head in the box. Thus absorbed he never heard the usher at the door, cry out: "The king!"

      Louis was some time glancing about before he spied the prince's legs as he stood half eclipsed before the clock.

      "What the deuse are you doing there?" he asked, as he tapped his son on the shoulder.

      The amateur clockmaker drew himself out with the proper precautions for so noble a timepiece.

      "Oh, your majesty, I was just killing time while you were not present."

      "By murdering my clock! Pretty amusement!"

      "Oh, no, only setting it to rights. A screw was loose and——"

      "Never mind mechanics! What do you want of me? I am eager to be off to Marly."

      He started for the door, always trying to avoid awkward situations.

      "Is it money you are after? I will send you some."

      "Nay, I have savings out of my last quarter's money."

      "What a miser, and yet a spendthrift was his tutor! I believe he has all the virtues missing in me."

      "Sire, is not the bride near at hand yet?"

      "Your bride? I should say fifty leagues off. Are you in a hurry."

      The prince royal blushed.

      "I am not eager for the motive you think."

      "No? So much the worse. Hang it all! You are sixteen and the princess very pretty. You are warranted in being impatient."

      "Cannot the ceremonies be curtailed, for at this rate she will be an age coming. I don't think the traveling arrangements are well made."

      "The mischief! thirty thousand horses placed along the route, with men and carts and coaches—how can you believe there is bad management when I have made all these arrangements?"

      "Sire, in spite of these, I am bound to say that I think, as in the case of your clock, there is a screw loose. The progress has been right royally arranged, but did your majesty make it fully understood that all the horses, men and vehicles were to be employed by the dauphiness?"

      A vague suspicion annoyed the monarch, who looked hard at his heir; this suggestion agreed with another idea fretting him.

      "Certainly," he replied. "Of course you are satisfied, then? The bride will arrive on time, and she is properly attended to. You are rich with your savings, and you can wind up my clock and set it going again. I have a good mind to appoint you Clockmaker Extraordinary to the Royal Household, do you hear?" and, laughing, he was going to snatch the opportunity to slip away, when, as he opened the door, he faced a man on the sill.

      Louis drew back a step.

      "Choiseul!" he exclaimed. "I had forgotten she was to send him to me. Never mind, he shall pay for my son irritating me. So you have come, my lord? You heard I wanted you?"

      "Yes, sire," replied the prime minister, coldly. "I was dressing to come, any way."

      "Good; I have serious matters to discuss," said the sovereign, frowning to intimidate the minister, who was, unfortunately, the hardest man to browbeat in the kingdom.

      "Very serious matters I have to discuss, too," he replied, with a glance for the dauphin, who was skulking behind the clock.

      "Oho!" thought the king; "my son is my foe, too. I am in a triangle with woman, minister and son, and cannot escape."

      "I come to say that the Viscount Jean——"

      "Was nearly murdered in an ambush?"

      "Nay, that he was wounded in the forearm in a duel. I know it perfectly."

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