But the guardian knew only that name and the date.
"Why does she attract you?" La Foscarina asked. "I know nothing of her history."
"Her end, the last years of her life of exile, after so much struggle and passion, are extraordinarily full of poetry."
And he described that violent and tenacious character, the weak, credulous King, the handsome adventurer who had enjoyed the smiles of the Queen, and had been dragged through the streets by the infuriated mob; the agitations of the three lives bound together by Fate, and swept before Napoleon's will like leaves in a whirlwind; the tumult at Aranjuez, the abdication, the exile.
"And Godoï—the Prince of Peace, as the King called him—faithfully followed the sovereigns into exile; he remained faithful to his royal mistress, and she to him. They all lived together under the same roof thenceforth, and Charles never doubted the virtue of Maria Luisa. Even to the day of his death, he lavished all manner of kindness on the two lovers. Imagine their life in this place; imagine here such a love coming safely through a storm so terrible. All was broken down, overthrown, reduced to powder by the destroyer. Bonaparte had passed that way, but had not smothered that love, already old, beneath the ruins. The faithfulness of those two violent natures moves my heart not less than the credulity of the kindly King. Thus they grew old. Imagine it! The Queen died first, then the King; and the favorite, who was younger than they, lived a wandering life a few years more."
"This is the Emperor's room," said the guardian solemnly, flinging open a door.
The great shade seemed omnipresent in the villa of the Doge Alvise. The imperial eagle, symbol of his power, dominated all the faded relics. But in the yellow room, the shade seemed to occupy the vast bed, to rest under the canopy, surrounded by the four bedposts ornamented at the top with golden flames. The formidable sigla inscribed within the laurel crown shone upon the polished side of the bed. And this species of funereal couch seemed to be prolonged in the dim mirror hanging between the two figures of Victory that supported the candelabra.
"Did the Emperor sleep in this bed?" inquired the young man of the custodian, who pointed out to him on the wall the portrait of the great condottiere mantled in ermine, wearing a crown of laurel and holding a scepter, as he appeared at the coronation blessed by Pius VII. "Is it certain?"
He was surprised at himself at not feeling the emotion experienced by ambitious spirits at the sight of the traces of heroes—that strong throb he knew so well.
He lifted the edge of the yellow counterpane, and let it fall as suddenly as if the pillow under it had been full of vermin.