"And you kept silent, in spite of this demand?"
"Yes, my lord, I kept silent; and, notwithstanding his pain and grief, I left him in the belief that he had deceived himself, or rather, that he had been deceived."
"Oh!" cried Conde, "it is plain that you have been steeled in the school of suffering, and that the years of misfortune like yours must each be reckoned double, for, in spite of your twelve years, you have acted like a man!"
"My lord," replied the boy, proudly, "the Bourbons attain their majority at fifteen, and at that age they may, according to the law of France, become independent sovereigns. They ought, therefore, to begin to learn young. That was the opinion of Queen Marie Antoinette, who taught me to read in my fifth year. You, my lord, have, in your magnanimity, done every thing to make me able to conform to the laws of my house, if it shall please God that the son of my dear unfortunate father should one day ascend the vacant throne of the Bourbons. Daring these two years which I have spent in concealment in your palace in Vendee, you have laid a strong and firm foundation, on which the superstructure of my life may rest. I have, thanks to the excellent teachers you have given me, had an opportunity to learn much, and to recall much which I had forgotten during the years before my release from imprisonment."
"Your teachers inform me that your industry was unceasing, and that you learned more in months than some do in years. You are familiar with several languages, and, besides, have been instructed, as I desired, in the art of war and in mathematics."
"In the studies of kings and soldiers," replied the boy, with a proud smile.
"I fear that you will prove not to have prosecuted those studies with a view to their use among soldiers," said Conde, with a sigh. "Your prospects are very dark—yes, darker even than when you left the Temple. These two years have made your condition more perilous. It was fortunate that you could spend them in solitude and secrecy, and be able to finish your education, and it would be a great blessing to you to be able to go on with your quiet studies for some years longer. But your enemies had sought you without rest; they were on your track, and had I left you there any longer, you would have been found some day stabbed or shot in the park. The steward informed me that all kinds of suspicious people had gathered in the neighborhood of the palace and the garden, and I conjecture that they were the emissaries of your enemies. On this I took you away from that place, and have brought you here for your greater safety. Now allow me one question. Do you know who your enemies are?"
"I think I know them," replied Louis Charles, with a sad smile. "My enemies are the self-same men who brought my father and my mother to the scaffold, destroyed the throne, and in its place gave Prance a red cap. My enemies are the republicans, who now rule in this land, and whose great object must, of course, be to put me out of the way, for my life is their death! France will one day be tired of the red cap, and will restore the throne to him to whom it belongs, so soon as it is certain that he who is entitled to the crown, is living to wear it."
"And who do you suppose is justified in wearing the crown of
France?"
"You ask as if you did not know that I am the only son and heir of the murdered King of France."