THE EPICUREAN
Were the superintendent's office compared with the monarch's sanctum, the former would appear to be more ostentatious, but on deliberately examining the latter, much that was admirable, indicating the cultured tastes of the occupant, would be found. The windows opened toward the royal gardens which spread before the eye, like a rich tapestry, its beds of rare flowers and shrubbery, among which could be seen alabaster statues of Grecian deities glistening in the sunlight. Within, the walls were covered with paintings both modern and antique, and splendid armorial trophies from the East. Among the paintings were a nude in pearly tints by Titian, a Bacchante by Rubens, an Odalisque by Delacroix, and a Jupiter and Ganymede by Prudhon. There were fancy china-pieces of Saxon ware encased in glass, Grecian statuettes, bas reliefs in which consummate skill triumphed over crudity of subject, silver-plate ornately engraved, medallions, coins, pottery and jewels, many of these rarities being the treasures of an antiquarian connoisseur.
Back of the armchair and desk, which were superb specimens of Louis Quinze furniture, stood a book-case richly paneled and containing among its choicest volumes, editions of Plantin and Manuce, bound in morocco and Spanish-American calf. On the right, back of the screen, which concealed it was a costly piano awaiting the touch of fingers that were wont to interpret its enchanting secrets.
Before the desk and at the feet of the armchair was spread—a present from the Countess Cayla—a white bearskin, upon which lay a diminutive dog with black mouth and silken hair, one of those cunning miniatures which today are a fad in France, but at that time were rarely seen.
It was near five o'clock when a side door opened and the king entered, supported, almost carried, by two attendants. The dog leaped for joy and covered the monarch's feet with caresses. Sighing deeply, his Majesty dropped into an easy-chair near a window. He suffered from a life-long malady, in spite of which an active spirit stirred within him. To look upon him made one quickly see the force of Marquis de Semonville's remark: "How could one expect his Majesty to forgive his brother for walking?"
Having settled himself in the easy-chair, his bandaged legs and swollen feet propped with cushions, he took a pinch of snuff from a jeweled case and said: "Summon Baron Lecazes."
Awaiting the execution of his order, the king cast his eyes over the enchanting view from the open window. The western sky was like molten gold and, against this brilliant background the sombre trees took on the look of bronze bas reliefs. The spraying fountains tossed up in dazzling glee myriads of fantastic aquiform flower-petals, charming the eye and cooling the atmosphere. A sweet, voluptuous peace pervaded the apartment, the garden perfume mingling with that of unfolding narcissuses and springtide hyacinths in jardinieres. It was with unfeigned delight that the royal personage sated his esthetic nature amidst these rich and varied offerings to the senses, and on such occasions he was given to saying to himself, as though he might never enjoy its like again:
"'Tis an elysian hour. Let us lose none of its nectar."
Always lurking behind this sentiment was the conviction: "Life is brief, whatever the number of its days. A breathing, a striving, a sighing, and then—who can tell? Eternal mystery."
Giving himself up to the play of his imagination, the king seemed to hear the onrushing and receding of the tides of human destiny through the centuries, now holding high, then sweeping to their fall, the splendors of earth's thrones and dynasties. Was he also to be soon submerged in those merciless tides and dashed about like a straw? O, before sinking into the deeps, how he wished to live and feel the complete man!—to have health and a day—and laugh to scorn all the fears of frail humanity.
"Were I but strong!" he at times exclaimed in rage. "Might I but love, suffer, weave into my life the thread of a romantic adventure. But this despicable body!—this diseased and impotent flesh!—"
His eyes wandered from the garden view to the objects of art around him. He enjoyed in them the fruition of artistic beauty rescued from voracious Time. They seemed to smile to him like the choicest friends. In these and such as these he found more real contentment than in aught else.
"I am very like an Athenian, or a Roman contemporary of Horace," he assured himself complacently. Correct lines and classic symmetry transported him so much that the vision was at times inspired within him of his own person restored to health, with rich and virile blood coursing through his veins.
Suddenly his face grew haggard and his head fell on the back of the chair, a shadow obscuring his Bourbonic countenance, so like that of his decapitated brother, though it lacked the placid benevolence of that unfortunate monarch's face encircled in curls which terminated in a cue. In the reigning Louis's face that benevolent look was replaced by an expression of sordid indifference or of caustic irony.
The king's collapse had been caused by the sight of a man standing in the garden opposite the window, near the statue: "A wrestler preparing for the Combat." The man's keen eye was fixed upon the monarch. He was of a weazened type and might be of any age between eighty and ninety, for there is a limit beyond which the passage of time is not apparent in the human form. His head shone like burnished silver, his bristly eye-brows surmounted prophetic eyes and his knotty hands, upon which his chin was leaning, rested on a rough staff. His garb was that of the provinces—where tradition and superstition held sway and druids still sharpened the ax beneath the trees—loose gaskins, wooden shoes, woolen scarf and embroidered jacket over a white vest. As a whole the attire was picturesque and the passers-by turned to gaze attentively at the old man, an ideal model for a painter wishing to personify the past.
The king, attracted by the strange figure, prolonged his stare, then suddenly turned his eyes upon the pompous usher and the Superintendent of Police, who advanced making a profound salutation.
After taking the seat designated by the monarch, Lecazes inquired solicitously:
"Does your Majesty improve in health?"
"The vulture does not tire of preying upon me. Believe me, Baron, the lives of all men make up equal totals. To reign, having disabled limbs, or to break stone, having nimble ones—'tis a balance. No, I am in error. To break stone, under such conditions, is preferable. After all, the breakers of stone can make love and be merry, while an invalid like me—Poor Zoe! poor Countess! 'Tis true that she and I adore genius and beauty. Who can deprive us of those joys?"
The baron's facial muscles assented.
"What of the English doctor?" he asked.
"Bah! the English doctor? Another instance of the Anglomania enslaving us! Have you ever witnessed inanity so grotesque as this servile imitation? And the claim that 'tis the English who have imparted to the world the ideas of cleanliness and hygiene! The reign of the water, indeed! Have we forgotten the ablutions of the Greeks and Romans, their cult of health, their purifying hot baths? And the fad of eating meat raw bloody! I tell you it was the eating of beefsteak that set my gout rampant. The only commendable thing about the English is that they kicked the Corsican off the throne. But what is the news, Monsieur Superintendent?"
"The news is good, your Majesty. We have succeeded in collecting the rest of the dispersed documents pertaining to the creole. All of these we have burned, in compliance with your Majesty's instructions. And a wise precaution it was, for they contained much that should be suppressed, such as letters from the Russian emperor and from Barras relating to the impostor—noxious papers, all of them."
"And what writing, except good poetry, is not noxious?" disdainfully inquired the king. "A perpetual conflagration should exist for the consuming of all private letters and documents. Continue the destruction. My desire is well known to you, namely, that only purely official documents remain after me. Spare not a page of confidences, intrigues or anything calculated to embroil historians or encourage romanticists. To ashes with the whole! While the verses of the great poets, the Latins especially, exist, what matters it about other writing? Here is a Petrarch in antique vignettes which I secured yesterday. Crude, is it? Why, the devil, Excellency! There was no mock modesty in those days."
Lecazes smiled, remembering Talleyrand's epigram: "The King reads Horace in public and yellow-backs when alone."
"Your Majesty," said he, "ever discourses on the intellectual and the artistic—"
"Ever, ever," rejoined the flattered monarch. "It is this diversion alone that buoys me up in supporting the weight of the crown, for 'tis heavy, so heavy! Lecazes, I do not lie on roses. If 'twere not for madrigals—eh? The prettiest madrigal ever written to my sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette, was from my pen. Do you remember it? 'Twas of the zephyr and love. Not even Voltaire surpassed it. I ought to have devoted my life to the art of verse and not been obliged to desert the Muse in order to treat with those devilish emigrants who return from exile as they left, having learned nothing, forgotten nothing. The importunate creatures wish to obliterate the Red Terror with the White. They would return to '86, and the guillotine, hang, drown, seeking only a fierce revenge. Such imbecility! One may take vengeance on an individual, but never on a nation. Do you follow me, Lecazes? The fools! They would be better royalists than the King himself."
The Superintendent was pleased at this apt epigram, heard then for the first time.
"They must be restrained," he said. "Between them and the Carbonari the throne totters."
The King turned his face with a look half quizzical, half contemptuous.
"Lecazes, you talk inanities. Do you think we are to last long enough for that? Do you believe in a future for us? Better that I repeat with my great-grandfather and Pompadour, 'After us, the deluge.' Had I ambition—You well know how foreign 'tis to my nature—"
Again Lecazes assumed the mellow expression, and again came to his mind words of Talleyrand, uttered many years earlier before Revolutions were dreamed of: "A king loves his crown."
"Were I ambitious," resumed the monarch, "I should now be contented. But ambition is puerile. I was not born for the throne but for art—highest art! Beauty sways my soul. Poetic art rather than the prerogatives of supreme rank should have filled my life. You, who are also an artist, can understand how I am starved in my exalted station, not filled. Happiness is found in the refined pleasures of the imagination rather than in state-craft and pomp. What memory is my reign to perpetuate? I have been despoiled of the nation's conquests. I have acquired the crown by giving up thirty-six strong-holds and ten thousand cannon. Glory has turned her face and fled from me. Is the fault my own?"
The baron failed to reply and the King resumed:
"I do not know—not even you know—how great is my joy in discovering an antique cameo, a rare edition or an Italo-Grecian vase to add to my Iliad collection. But the exercise of power does not permit me to enjoy such pleasures tranquilly. Perhaps some day I shall enjoy reigning, but at the present time I long to seclude myself in the country, surrounded by my art collections and a few witty, erudite friends—above all, writers of verse. Those melodious youths adoring the moon from Our Lady's tower would be most entertaining if they were more deferential to the classics. I should indeed be happy in such a retreat. O how the pastoral life, eclogues and idyls allure me! I was born for the society of pagan philosophers beneath a Grecian sky and mine is a plain case of the error of Destiny. Baron, commiserate me. I am most unfortunate."
"Is Your Majesty greatly tormented by your ailments?" inquired Lecazes with aptly simulated solicitude.
"Greatly so. I suffer the pains of one condemned to torture. How I am racked! As I said before, Baron, to break stone is preferable."
Lowering his voice, he added:
"You know that one of the calumnies floating here and there for my discomfiture is that I am satirical and given to discharging arrows of cynicism, quite indiscriminately, too. They say this because I am an appreciator of Voltaire and his expose of the hypocrites of his day. I a cynic!—an unbeliever! Would that they could know what depths of faith and of tenderness are in my heart! It is not easy to be a pagan. Modern life stultifies the attempt. Behold in me an instance—"
The King suddenly ceased talking and motioned to the aged peasant outside who had not averted his piercing gaze.
"That man—"
"Yes, Your Majesty, what of that man?" answered Lecazes, with a frown. "That beggar? Does Your Majesty wish alms given him?"
"No, Baron. How does it happen that you, from whom nothing is hidden, do not know who that man is and what he wants?"
The superintendent's shoulders shrugged indifferently.
"Your Majesty, I do know. That man has been watched from the moment he set foot in Paris. It has been found that he is inoffensive and probably idiotic. He prays much and aloud. In times past he was a partisan of the good cause and he now prophecies strangely concerning Your Majesty. Such visionaries are plentiful during this tumultuous time. Are we to heed them all? He doubtless has some favor to ask."
"No, Baron, your sagacity is not up to the mark in this case. That man is not to be despised. I must see and hear him. Perhaps my fears are groundless, but they are so persistent that only reality can dissipate them. How persevering he is! Daily, almost hourly, he fixes his greenish eyes upon the palace. I see him from whatever window I look. He mesmerizes me. Call it caprice if you will, but I wish you to send for this man. I must see him. He has stood there for a fortnight. Perhaps he is a poor unfortunate wishing to have a word with the king."
"Does Your Majesty ask my advice in the matter or am I receiving a command?"
"A command."
"Then I leave Your Majesty, in order to execute the command."
"No, remain. I shall send for him myself. You are to listen to our interview and give me your opinion. If he be really daft, 'twill amuse us. He is sure to be interesting."
"He will no doubt wish to be left alone with Your Majesty."
"Perhaps so. Well, place yourself back of that screen. The dear Countess de Cayla often listens from there to fatuities which greatly amuse her. Do not reveal yourself, unless I call or foul play be attempted."