"Oh, no, master! It is only," sighed the boy with his eyes full of tears—" it is only because her hand has rested on them, and because she kissed them when I saw her the last time."
"Who is she?" asked Simon, roughly.
"My mamma queen," replied Louis with such a tone of tenderness as to bring tears into the eyes of Jeanne Marie, and even to move the cobbler himself.
"Hush!" he said, softly. "Hush! you must never call your mother by such a name. After to-morrow morning you are to be the son of a washerwoman. Remember that, and now be still! There, your hair is done now. Pick up the locks from the floor and lay them on the table, Jeanne Marie. We must leave them here, that the officer may find them in the morning, and not wonder if he does not recognize the urchin. Now we will bring the wash-basket, and see whether young Capet will go into it. "
He brought out of the chamber a high, covered basket, grasped the boy, thrust him in, and ordered him to lie down on the bottom of the basket.
"He exactly fits!" said Simon to his wife. "We will now throw some dirty clothes over him, and he can spend the night in the basket. We must be ready for any thing; for there are many distrustful officials, and it would not be the first time that they have made examinations in the night. Little Capet must remain in the basket, and now we will take his substitute out of the horse."
He went to the hobby-horse, took out some screws which ran along the edges of the upholstery, and then carefully removed the upper part of the animal from the lower. In the hollow thus brought to light, lay a pale, sick boy, with closed eyes—the nephew of the Marquis de Jarjayes, the last descendant of the Baroness de Tarclif, now, as all his ancestors had done, to give his life for his king.
Jeanne Marie rose from her knees, took a light from the table, and approached the child, which was lying in its confined space as in a coffin.
The little prince had raised himself up in his basket, and his pale face was visible as he looked, out of his large blue eyes, with curiosity and amazement at the sick child.
"He does not look like the king's son," whispered Jeanne Marie, after a long, searching study of the pale, bloated face of the idiot.