<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</SPAN></h2>
<p class="f110"><b>THE COUNTESS OF CHARNY.</b></p>
<p class="indent">Gilbert had retired into a window recess, while the
King paced the Bulls-eye Hall, called on account of a round window
in the wall, thinking now of public matters, then of his visitor's
persistence though nothing but news from Paris ought
to have enchained him.</p>
<p class="indent">Suddenly the door opened and the lady entered, dressed
in the extreme of the showy and fantastic fashion of Marie Antoinette
and her court.</p>
<p class="indent">She was lovely, this Countess Charny, with a peerless
figure and her hand was aristocratic to the utmost with which
she played with a small cane.</p>
<p class="indent">"She, Andrea Taverney!" muttered Gilbert,
involuntarily shrinking behind the curtains.</p>
<p class="indent">"My lady, I ask your presence for a little information,"
began the monarch, seeing nothing of Gilbert's emotion.</p>
<p class="indent">"I am ready to satisfy your Majesty." The voice
attracted the doctor who came a little forward.</p>
<p class="indent">"A week ago, or so, a blank letter under the royal seal was
delivered to Minister Necker," went on the King, "for the arrest——"</p>
<p class="indent">Gilbert had his eye on the lady, who was pale,
feverish and fretful as if bent under the weight of a secret.</p>
<p class="indent">"This warrant was applied for by your ladyship
and countersigned by the Queen. I say this to refresh your memory.
Why do you not say something, countess?"
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</SPAN></span></p>
<p class="indent">"It is true, your Majesty," she faltered, in a feverish
abstraction, "I wrote for the letter, filled up the blanks, and the
Queen backed it."</p>
<p class="indent">"Will you please tell me what crime the person
committed for whom the measure was taken?" demanded Louis.</p>
<p class="indent">"Sire, I may not do that,
but I shall say the crime was great."</p>
<p class="indent">"Then you should do so to the object," continued the
King; "what you refuse the King Louis XVI., you cannot Doctor Gilbert."</p>
<p class="indent">He stepped aside to discover the doctor, who opened
the curtains and appeared as pale as the staggering lady. She
tossed her head backwards as if going to swoon, and only
kept her footing by aid of a table. She leaned on it in dull
despair, like one whom a snake bite was filling with poison.</p>
<p class="indent">"My lady, let me put the question to you which
the King addressed," said Gilbert.</p>
<p class="indent">Andrea's lips moved but no sound struggled forth.</p>
<p class="indent">"What did I do to you, lady, that your order threw
me into a hideous dungeon?"</p>
<p class="indent">The voice made her leap as if it tore
the very soul in her.</p>
<p class="indent">Suddenly lowering her cold gaze on him,
she replied:</p>
<p class="indent">"Sir, I do not know you."</p>
<p class="indent">But while she was speaking the mesmerist stared
at her with so much fixedness and his glance was so charged with
invincible boldness that her own lost lustre under his.</p>
<p class="indent">"Countess, you see what this abuse of the royal signature
leads to," gently reproved the monarch; "you confess you do
not know this gentleman, who is a renowned physician, a
learned man, whom you can blame in no way,——"</p>
<p class="indent">Andrea darted a withering glance at Gilbert,
who bore it calmly and proudly.</p>
<p class="indent">"I am saying that it is wicked to visit on the innocent
the faults of another. I know you have not a bad heart," he hastened
to add, for he was trembling lest he offended his wife's
favorite, "and that you would not pursue anybody in your
hatred unless he merited it: but you will understand that such
mistakes must not be made in the future. Doctor," he went on,
turning to the other hearer, "these things are the fault of our
period rather than of persons. We are born in corruption
and we shall die in it. But we are going to try to make matters
better, in which work I expect you to join us, dear doctor."
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</SPAN></span></p>
<p class="indent">He stopped, thinking he had said enough to please
both parties. If he had spoken thus at a Parliamentary session, he
would have been applauded; but his audience of two personal
enemies little heeded his conciliatory philosophy.</p>
<p class="indent">"But," recommenced Gilbert, "while not knowing me,
you knew another Gilbert, whose crime weighs upon his Namesake.
It is not my place to question the lady; will your Majesty
deign to inquire of her ladyship what this infamous man did?"</p>
<p class="indent">"Countess, you cannot refuse so just a request."</p>
<p class="indent">"The Queen must know, since she authorized
the arrest," said Andrea evasively.</p>
<p class="indent">"But it is not enough that the Queen should be convinced,"
said the sovereign, "it is necessary that the King also should
know. The Queen is what she is, but I am the King."</p>
<p class="indent">"Sire, the Gilbert for whom the warrant was
intended committed a horrible crime sixteen years ago."</p>
<p class="indent">"Will your Majesty please inquire what age
this Gilbert is to-day?"</p>
<p class="indent">"He may be thirty-two," replied Andrea.</p>
<p class="indent">"Sire, then the crime was done by a boy, not a
man, and does he not deserve some indulgence who has for sixteen
years deplored his boyish crime?"</p>
<p class="indent">"You seem to know him? has he committed no
other crime than this sin of youth?" demanded the King.</p>
<p class="indent">"I am less indulgent to him than others,
but I can say that he reproaches himself with none other."</p>
<p class="indent">"Only with having dipped his pen in poison
and written odious libels!"</p>
<p class="indent">"Sire, please ask my lady if the real cause of the arrest and
committal of this Gilbert was not to enable his enemies—particularly
one enemy—to get possession of a certain casket
containing papers possibly compromising a great lady of the court?"</p>
<p class="indent">Andrea shuddered from head to foot.</p>
<p class="indent">"Countess, what casket is this?" inquired the
King, who noticed the plain pallor and agitation of the lady.
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</SPAN></span></p>
<p class="indent">"No more shifting and subterfuges," cried Gilbert,
feeling that he was master of the situation. "Enough falsehoods on
both sides. I am Gilbert of the crime, the libels, the casket,
and you the real great lady of the court. I take the King as the
judge. Accept him and we will tell our judge, under heaven
and the King will decide."</p>
<p class="indent">"Tell his Majesty what you please, but I shall say nothing
more—for I do not know you," responded the haughty lady.</p>
<p class="indent">"And the casket? you do not know about that?"</p>
<p class="indent">"No more than of you."</p>
<p class="indent">But she shook with the effort to make this denial,
like a statue rocking at the base.</p>
<p class="indent">"Beware," said the doctor, "you cannot have forgotten
that I am the pupil of Balsamo-Cagliostro the Magician, who has
transmitted to me the power he had over you. Once only,
will you answer the question? My casket?" then, lifting his
hand, full of threatening, he thundered: "Nature of steel, heart
of adamant, bend, melt, shatter under the irresistible pressure
of my will! You shall speak, Andrea, and none, King
or any powers less than heaven's, shall subtract you from my
sway. You shall unfold your mind to the august witness and
he shall read what you hid in the black recesses of your soul.
Sire, you shall know all through her who refuses to speak.
Sleep, Andrea Taverney, Countess of Charny, sleep and speak,
for I will it."</p>
<p class="indent">Hardly were the words uttered before the woman,
stopped short in beginning a scream, held out her arms for support
as if struck by blindness. Finding none, she fell into the King's
arms and he placed her in a chair.</p>
<p class="indent">"Ha!" exclaimed he, trembling like herself, "I have
heard about hypnotism but never saw an exhibition. Is not this
magnetic sleep to which you oblige her to succumb, doctor?"</p>
<p class="indent">"Yes, my lord. Take her hand, and ask her
why she had me arrested."</p>
<p class="indent">Astounded by the scene, Louis receded but,
interested, he did as directed. As Andrea resisted, the magnetizer
touched the crown of her head with his palm, saying;</p>
<p class="indent">"Speak, I will it."
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</SPAN></span></p>
<p class="indent">She sighed and her arms fell; her head
sank back and she wept.</p>
<p class="indent">"Ugh, I hate you," she hissed.</p>
<p class="indent">"Hate away, but speak."</p>
<p class="indent">"So, countess," said the King,
"you wanted to arrest and imprison the doctor?"</p>
<p class="indent">"Yes."</p>
<p class="indent">"And the casket?"</p>
<p class="indent">"How could I leave that in his hands?"
muttered the lady, in a hollow voice.</p>
<p class="indent">"Tell me about that," said the King forgetting
etiquette and kneeling beside the countess.</p>
<p class="indent">"I learnt that Gilbert, who had in sixteen years
been twice back in France, purposed another voyage, to settle here.
Chief of Police Crosne informed me that he had on a previous
return bought an estate at Villers Cotterets: that his
farmer enjoyed his trust, and I suspected that the casket
with his papers was at his house."</p>
<p class="indent">"How could you suspect that?"</p>
<p class="indent">"I—I went to Mesmer's and had myself put into
a trance, when, my own medium, I wrote down the revelations I wanted."</p>
<p class="indent">"Wonderful," exclaimed the Sovereign.</p>
<p class="indent">"I went to Chief Crosne and he lent me his
best man, one Wolfstep, who brought me the casket."</p>
<p class="indent">"Where is it?" cried Gilbert.
"No lying—where is my casket?"</p>
<p class="indent">"In my rooms at Versailles," said Andrea,
trembling nervously and bursting into tears. "Wolfstep is
waiting for me here by appointment since eleven."</p>
<p class="indent">Twelve was striking.</p>
<p class="indent">"Where is he?"</p>
<p class="indent">"Standing in the waiting room, leaning on the
mantleshelf. The casket is on the table before him. Oh, haste! Count
Charny, who was not to return before to-morrow, will be back
to-night on account of the events. He is at Sevres now.
Get Wolfstep away for fear my lord will see him."</p>
<p class="indent">"Your Majesty hears? This casket belongs to me.
Will the King please order it to be returned to me?"</p>
<p class="indent">"Instantly."
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</SPAN></span></p>
<p class="indent">Placing a screen before the countess,
Louis called the officer on duty and gave him orders what to do.</p>
<p class="indent">This curiosity of a monarch whose throne was
being undermined to a purely physical problem, would make those
smile who expected him to be engrossed with politics.</p>
<p class="indent">But he concentrated himself on this private
speculation and returned to see the mesmerizer and the medium.</p>
<p class="indent">In the mesmeric slumber Andrea's wondrous beauty
was displayed in its entire splendor. She who had in her youth
enthralled Louis XV. now enchanted his successor.</p>
<p class="indent">Gilbert turned his head away, sighing: he could
not resist the prompting to give his adored this degree of supernal
beauty; and now more unhappy than Pygmalion, for he knew how insensible
was the lovely statue, he was frightened by his own work.</p>
<p class="indent">Gilbert knew how to own his ignorance, like all
superior men. He knew what he could do, but not the wherefore.</p>
<p class="indent">"Where did you study the art? under Mesmer?"
asked the King.</p>
<p class="indent">"I saw the most astonishing phenomena ten years
before that German came into France. My master was a more amazing
man, superior to any you can name, for I have seen him
execute surgical operations of incredible daring. No science
was unknown to him. But I ought not to utter his name
before your Majesty."</p>
<p class="indent">"I should like to hear it, though it was
Satan's itself."</p>
<p class="indent">"My lord, you honor me almost with a friend's
confidence in speaking thus. My master was Baron Balsamo,
afterwards Count Cagliostro."</p>
<p class="indent">"That charlatan!" exclaimed Louis, blushing, for
he could not help remembering the plot of the Diamond's Necklace,
in which Cagliostro had figured as friend of Cardinal Rohan and
consequently enemy of Marie Antoinette. The King believed
his wife but the world thought that she had participated in
the fraud on the court jewelers. We have related the story
according to our lights in the volume of this series entitled
"The Queen's Necklace."</p>
<p class="indent">"Charlatan?" repeated Gilbert warmly. "You are
right. The name comes from the Italian word meaning to patter, to
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</SPAN></span>
talk freely—and no one was more ready than Cagliostro to
talk instructively where the seed would fall on fruitful ground."</p>
<p class="indent">"This Cagliostro whom you praise was a
great enemy of kings," observed Louis.</p>
<p class="indent">"Rather say of queen's," retorted Gilbert.</p>
<p class="indent">"In the trial of Prince Rohan, his conduct was equivocal."</p>
<p class="indent">"Sire, then as ever he fulfilled his mission to
mankind. He may have acted mistakenly then. But I studied under
the physician and philosopher, not under the politician."</p>
<p class="indent">"Well, well," said the King, suffering under the wound to
his person and his pride; "we are forgetting the countess who is in pain."</p>
<p class="indent">"I will awaken her presently, for here is
the casket coming."</p>
<p class="indent">In fact the messenger was arriving with the small
box which he handed to the King. He nodded his satisfaction and the
officer went out.</p>
<p class="indent">"Sire, it is my casket: but I would remark that
it contains papers damning to the countess and——"</p>
<p class="indent">"Carry it away unopened, sir," said the monarch coldly.
"Do not awaken the lady here, I detest shrieks, groans, noise."</p>
<p class="indent">"She will awaken wherever you suggest her removal."</p>
<p class="indent">"In the Queen's apartments will be best."</p>
<p class="indent">"How long will it take?"</p>
<p class="indent">"Ten minutes."</p>
<p class="indent">"Awaken in fifteen minutes,"
ordered the mesmerizer to the lady.</p>
<p class="indent">Two guardsmen entered and carried out the
countess, seated on the chair.</p>
<p class="indent">"My lady fainted here," said the King to the
officer, "bear her to the Queen."</p>
<p class="indent">"What can I do for you, Dr. Gilbert?"
he asked when they were alone.</p>
<p class="indent">"I wish to be honorary house physician to your
Majesty. It is a position which will do nobody umbrage and is
more of trust than emolument and lustre."</p>
<p class="indent">"Granted! Good-by, Dr. Gilbert. Remind me
affectionately to Necker. Bring me supper," he added, for
nothing could make the King forget a meal.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</SPAN></span></p>
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