Unfortunately, however, I was not permitted to go through these movements with perfect freedom of mind. The reader knows well enough what was the obstacle that prevented me. One day this obstacle, through some terrible accident, assumed proportions so large that the world contained neither needles nor tailors capable of effecting a restoration.
This is how the accident in question happened:—
I was accustomed, the reader should know, to sleep in my mandrill’s skin, for to have thrown it off, even during the hours of sleep, would have been extremely imprudent. Well, one night I had an extraordinary dream; in this dream, inspired by an instinct of ambition, for which I can in no wise account, I caused myself to be crowned King of Kouparou by the Archbishop of Goa. I to have had myself crowned! What an aberration of mind! I, above all, who reigned only in virtue of a deceit, only because creatures of weak intellect believed that they saw in me an old King of Kouparou, whereas it was merely his skin which they recognized, and which I had made use of. Mind, it was only a dream up to this point—but I will finish the narration.
Surrounded by his clergy, in their most magnificent vestments and resplendent with diamonds, Monseigneur de Goa, after performing all the ceremonies used at the coronations of kings, took a crown of gold and emeralds in his hand, and walked solemnly towards me to place it on my head. This was the moment of the catastrophe. As the archbishop, who stood on the haut pas, was raised above me, I was obliged, in order to receive the crown which he offered me, to stretch out my arms, in order to assist him in placing the crown on my head. Well, in leaning towards the archbishop I fancy I must have stretched the mandrill’s skin a trifle too much. There was a sudden rending, and this time the fatal slit extended right down from the neck to the very end of the back. The noise caused by this accident was so loud that it awoke me.
And what an awakening! That compactly-fitting garment was now nothing but a floating paletôt, open behind instead of before. I rose up alarmed, dismayed, and desperate. I wished to doubt my senses, but my misfortune was, alas! only too real, and what an irreparable misfortune it was, since instruments and means which were not at my disposal were necessary to reunite the shreds of my royal purple. My reign was at an end, and what was more, my life would soon follow the example of my reign, and all in consequence of this hateful rent. So certain did I feel of the fate which awaited me that I barricaded myself that very instant, and set to work to fortify my position behind the verandah walls just as I had done when I was once before obliged to transform this pretty dwelling of Admiral Campbell’s into a fortress.
The next day when my subjects did not see me come forth they assembled in large numbers under my windows, and I had to undergo the sorrow of witnessing their truly touching solicitude without daring to show myself so as to reassure them. The following day they again assembled in great numbers; the third day the entire population of the island thronged around the verandah.
Then the affection of my devoted subjects, which up to this point had been manifested by silent expressions of their grief, broke forth in noisy whines, deafening bursts of sympathy, and groans that were meant to be expressive of tenderness. My ears were afflicted even more than my heart. My subjects wished for me, called me, demanded me at any price.
At this moment I saw distinctly enough how animals the most deficient in moral courage are not ashamed of the feelings of gratitude which they owed their sovereign. They do not, like beings of a higher order of intelligence, forget in a single day the benefits which he has been the means of showering down upon them, the equal justice which he has dispensed to them, the order and happiness with which he has surrounded them at the expense of his own ease and pleasure, in order to throw themselves at the feet of a new master whose wisdom and virtue have not yet been tried—cowardly slaves of novelty, ready and willing to treat the august chief of their community like children treat their playthings, who always think the last the prettiest, and that the preceding one deserves only to be broken violently against the wall.
Truth wills that I should add that this love of my subjects took a somewhat strange turn after five days of patient waiting without result. Intending to come to me, as I would not come to them, they commenced a new siege of the verandah and with the same weapons of attack—namely, sticks and stones—arms which had formerly proved so successful in their hands. And this time, actuated as they were by a noble sentiment, they showed themselves incomparably more obstinate in their determination to overthrow the walls behind which I sought to escape their too demonstrative affection.