"I—I understand."
"That is a good thing."
"Your majesty is good enough to excuse me——"
"I suppose I shall have to, but you were making this end prettily for my family!"
From the window the king could see the candle which passed from the hands of Vauguyon into that of his guileless pupil, go the way up the new gallery, and flicker out.
"I gave him twenty minutes—I myself found five long enough," muttered the king, "Alas, will they say of the dauphin as of the second Racine: 'He is the nephew of his grandfather.'"
Chapter XLVI.
A Terrible Wedding-Night.
The dauphin opened the door of the anteroom before the wedding chamber.
The archduchess was waiting, in a long white wrapper, with the strange anticipation on her brow, along with the sweet expectation of the bride, of some disaster. She seemed menaced with one of those terrors which nervous dispositions foresee and support sometimes with more bravery than if not awaited.
Lady Noailles was seated by the gilded couch, which easily held the princess' frail and dainty body.
The maids of honor stood at the back, waiting for the mistress of the attendants to make them the sign to withdraw. These were all ignorant that the dauphin was coming by a new way in. As the corridor was empty and the door at the end ajar, he could see and hear what went on in the room.
"In what direction does my lord the dauphin come?" inquired the Austrian's pure and harmonious voice though slightly tremulous.
"Yonder," replied Lady Noailles, pointing just the wrong way.
"What is that noise outside—not unlike the roaring of angry waters?"
"It is the tumult of the innumerable sight-seers walking about under the illumination and waiting for the fireworks display."
"The illuminations?" said the princess with a sad smile. "They must have been timely this evening, for did you not notice it was very black weather?"
At this moment the dauphin, who was tired of waiting, thrust his head in at the door, and asked if he might enter. Lady Noailles screamed, for she did not recognize the intruder at first. The dauphiness, worked up into a nervous state by the incidents of the day, seized the duchess' arm in her fright.
"It is I, madame; have no fear," called out the prince.
"But why by that way?" said Lady Noailles.
"Because," explained Louis the King, showing his head at the half-open door, "because the Duke of Vauguyon knows so much Latin, mathematics and geography as to leave room for nothing else."
In presence of the king so untimely arrived, the dauphiness slipped off the couch and stood up in the wrapper, clothed from head to foot like a vestal virgin in her stole.
"Any one can see that she is thin," muttered the king; "what the deuse made Choiseul pick out the skinny chicken among all the pullets of European courts?"
"Your majesty will please to observe that I acted according to the strict etiquette," said the Duchess of Noailles, "the infraction was on my lord the dauphin's part."
"I take it on myself. So, let us leave the children to themselves," said the monarch.
The princess seized the lady's arm with more terror than before.
"Oh, don't go away!" she faltered; "I shall die of shame."
"Sire, the dauphiness begs to be allowed to go to rest without any state," said Lady Noailles.
"The deuce—and does 'Lady Etiquette' herself crave that?"
"Look at the archduchess——"
In fact, Marie Antoinette, standing up, pale and with her rigid arm sustaining her by a chair, resembled a statue of fright, but for the slight chattering of her teeth, and the cold perspiration bedewing her forehead.
"Oh, I should not think of causing the young lady any pain," said Louis XV., as little strict about forms as his father was the other thing. "Let us retire, duchess; besides, the doors have locks."
The dauphin blushed to hear these words of his grandfather, but the lady, though hearing, had not understood.
King Louis XV. embraced his grand-daughter-in-law, and went forth, with Lady Noailles, laughing mockingly and sadly, for those who did not share his merriment.
The other persons had gone out by the other door.
The wedded pair were left alone in silence.
At last the young husband approached his bride with bosom beating rapidly; to his temples, breast and wrist he felt all his repressed blood rushing hotly. But he guessed that his grandfather was behind the door, and the cynical glance still chilled the dauphin, very timid and awkward by nature.
"You are not well, madame," he stammered. "You are very pale, and I think you are trembling."
"I cannot conceal that I am under a spell of agitation; there must be some terrible storm overhead, for I am peculiarly affected by thunderstorms."
Indeed, she shook by spasms as though affected by electrical shocks.
At this time, as though to justify her assertion, a furious gust of wind, such as shear the tops off mountains and heap up half the sea against the other—the first whoop of the coming tempest filled the palace with tumult, anguish and many a creaking. Leaves were swept off the branches, branches off the boughs and from the trees. A long and immense clamor was drawn from the hundred thousand spectators in the gardens. A lugubrious and endless bellowing ran through the corridors and galleries, composing the most awful notes that had ever vibrated in human ears.
Then an ominous rattling and jingling succeeded the roar; it was the fall of countless shivers of glass out of the window panes on the marble slabs and cornices.
At the same time the gale had opened one of the shutters and banged it to and fro like a wings of a bird of night. Wherever the window had been open and where the glass was shivered the lights were put out.
The prince went over to the window to fasten the broken shutter, but his wife held him back.
"Oh, pray, do not open that window, for the lights will be blown out, and I should die of fright."
He stopped. Through the casement beyond the curtain which he had drawn the tree tops of the park were visible, swayed from side to side as if some unseen giant were waving them by the stems. All the illuminations were extinguished.
Then could be seen on the dark sky still blacker clouds, coming on with a rolling motion like troops of cavalry wrapped in dust.
The pallid prince stood with one hand on the sash-handle.
