第161章 KING LOUIS THE SEVENTEENTH.(7)

Without waiting for Simon's answer, the physician walked up to the bed, sat down on the chair in front of it, and began at once to investigate the condition of the woman, who reached him her feverish hand, and, with an almost inaudible voice, answered his professional questions.

The cobbler stood at the foot of the bed, and directed his little cunning eyes to the physician in amazement and admiration. Behind him, in the corner, sat the son of Marie Antoinette, humiliated, still, and motionless. Yet, in spite of the injunction of Jeanne Marie, he had turned around, and was looking toward the bed; but not to the knitter of the guillotine were his looks directed, but to this venerable old gentleman with his powdered peruke, his satin coat, silk stockings, breeches, shoe-buckles, gold embroidered waistcoat and lace ruffles. This costume reminded him of the past; the halls of Versailles came back to him, and he saw before him the shadowy figures of the cavaliers of that time, all clothed like the dear old gentleman who was sitting before the bed there.

"Why do you look at me in such a wondering way, Citizen Simon?" asked Naudin, who was now through with his examination.

"I really wonder--I really do wonder immensely," said Simon, "and that is saying much, for, in these times, when there are so many changes, a man can hardly wonder at any thing. Still I do wonder, Citizen Naudin, that you can venture to go around in this costume.

That is the style of clothing worn by traitorous ci-devants and aristocrats. Anybody else who dare put it on would have only one more walk to take, that to the guillotine, and yet you venture to come here!"

"Venture?" repeated Naudin, with a shrug. "I venture nothing, citizen. I wear my clothes in conformity with a habit of years' standing: they fitted well under the monarchy, they fit just as well under the republic, and I am not going to be such a fool as to put by my soft and comfortable silk clothes, and put on your hateful, uncomfortable thick ones, and strut about in them. I am altogether too old to take up the new fashions, and altogether too well satisfied with my own suit to learn how to wear your cloth coats with swallow-tails, and your leather hose and top-boots. Defend me from crowding my old limbs into such stuffs!"

"Citizen doctor," cried Simon, with a laugh, "you are a jolly, good old fellow, and I like you well. I do not blame you for preferring your comfortable silk clothes to the new style that our revolutionary heroes have brought into mode, that nothing might remind us of the cursed, God-forsaken monarchy. I wonder merely that they allow it, and do not make you a head shorter!"

"But how would they go on with matters in the Hotel Dieu? Without a head nothing could be done with the sick and the suffering, for without a head there is no thinking. Now, as I am the head of the hospital, and as they have no head to take my place, and as, in spite of my old-fashioned clothes, my sick are cured, and have confidence in me, the great revolutionary heroes wink at me, and let me do as I please, for they know that under the silk dress of an aristocrat beats the heart of a true democrat. But that is not the question before us now, citizen. We want to talk about the health of your wife here. She is sick, she has a fever, and it will be worse yet with her, unless we take prompt measures and provide a cooling drink for her."

"Do it, citizen doctor," said Simon; "make my Jeanne Marie well and bright again, or I shall go crazy here in this accursed house.

Jeanne Marie is sick just with this, that she is not accustomed to be idle, and to sit still and fold her hands in her lap, and run around like a wild beast in its cage. But here in the Temple it is no better than in a cage; and I tell you, citizen, it is enough to make one crazy here, and it has made Jeanne sick to have no fresh air, no exercise and work."

"But why has she no exercise and no work? Why does she not go out into the street and take the air?"

"Because she cannot," cried Simon, passionately. "Because the cursed little viper there embitters our whole life and makes us prisoners to this miserable, wretched prisoner, Look at him there, the infernal little wolf! he is the one to blame that I cannot go into the street, cannot visit the clubs, the Convention, or any meeting, but must lire here like a Trappist, or like an imprisoned criminal.

He is the one to blame that my wife can no longer take her place at the guillotine, and knit and go on with her work there."

"Yes," cried Jeanne Marie, with a groan, raising her head painfully from the pillow, "he is to blame for it all, the shameless rascal.

He has made me melancholy and sad; he has worried, and vexed, and changed me! Oh! oh! he is looking at me again, and his eyes burn into my heart!"

"Miserable viper," cried Simon, dashing toward the boy with clinched fists, "how dare you turn your hateful eyes toward her, after her expressly forbidding it? Wait, I will teach you to disobey, and give you a lesson that you will not forget."

His heavy hand fell on the back of the boy, and was raised again for a second stroke, when it was held as in an iron vice.

"You good-for-nothing, what are you doing?" cried a thundering voice, and two blazing eyes flashed on him from the reddened face of Doctor Naudin.

Simon's eyes fell before the angry look of the physician, then he broke out into a loud laugh.

"Citizen doctor, I say, what a jolly fellow you are," he said, merrily. "You did that just as if you were in a theatre, and you called out to me just as they call out to the murderers in a tragedy. What do you make such a halloo about when I chastise the wolf's cub a bit, as he has richly deserved?"

"It is true," said Naudin, "I was a little hasty. But that comes from the fact, citizen, that I not only held you to be a good republican, but a good man as well, and therefore it pained me to see you do a thing which becomes neither a republican nor a good man."

"Why, what have I done that is not proper?" asked Simon, in amazement.