Once more the Duke d'Aiguillon called out for the king's friends; and, trembling from apprehension of results that might follow this latter contingency, they entered the chamber of death. The atmosphere was fearful. Not all the fumes of the incense which was sending its vapory wreaths to the pictured ceilings could overpower the odor of approaching dissolution. In vain the acolytes swung their golden censers—death was there, and the scent of the grave.
Breathless and with compressed lips the king's friends listened to his indistinct mutterings, and looked upon his swollen, livid, blackened face. Each one had hurried by, and now they all were free again, and were preparing to fly as far as possible from the infected spot. But the clear, solemn voice of the archbishop—that voice which so often had stricken terror to their worldly hearts—was heard again, and he bade them stay.
"The king asks pardon of his subjects for the wicked and scandalous life which he has led on earth," said the archbishop. "Although as a man he is responsible to God alone for his deeds, as a sovereign he acknowledges to his subjects that he heartily repents of his wickedness, and desires to live only that he may do penance for the past and make amends for the future."
A piteous groan escaped from the lips of the dying monarch, but his "friends" did not stay to hear it; they fled precipitately from the frightful scene.
While here a trembling soul was being driven from its earthly dwelling, in another wing of the palace the other members of the royal family were in the chapel at prayer. The evening services were over, and the chaplain was reading the "forty hours' prayer," when the sky became suddenly obscured, peal upon peal of thunder resounded along the heavens, and night enveloped the chapel in its dismal pall of black. Livid flashes of lightning lit up the pale faces of the royal supplicants, while to every faltering prayer that fell from their lips the answer came from above in the roar of the angry thunder-clap.
There, before the altar, knelt the doomed pair, the innocent heirs of a selfish and luxurious race of kings; whose sins were to be visited upon their unconscious heads. No wonder they wept—no wonder they shuddered on the dark and stormy night which heralded their reign.
The rites were ended, and the dauphin and dauphiness went silently together to their apartments. The few trusty attendants who were gathered in the anteroom greeted them with faint smiles, and uttered silent orisons in their behalf; for who could help compassionating these two young creatures, upon whose inexperienced heads the thorny crown of royalty was so soon to be placed?
As they entered the door, a flash of lightning; that seemed like the fire which smote the guilty cities of Israel, flashed athwart their paths, and the thunder cracked and rattled above the roof as though it had been riving that palace-dome asunder. The dauphiness cried out, and clung to her husband's arm. He, scarcely less appalled, stood motionless on the threshold.
The violence of the wind at that moment had burst open some outer door. The lights in the chandeliers were almost extinguished, and one solitary wax-light, that had been burning in the recess of a window, went entirely out. Regardless of etiquette, and of the presence of the royal pair, Monsieur de Campan sprang to the chandelier, and, relighting the candle, quickly replaced it in the window.
The dauphin beheld the act with astonishment, for no one at that court was more observant of decorum than Monsieur de Campan.