第163章 KING LOUIS THE SEVENTEENTH.(9)

These were the sweet, transporting fancies which made the child close his eyes so as not to lose them. Immovably he sat there, until gradually thoughts and dreams flowed into each other, and not only his will, but sleep as well, kept his eyes closed. But the dreams remained, and were sweet and refreshing, and displayed to the sleeping child, so harshly treated in his waking hours, only scenes of love and tenderness. And it was not his mother alone who embraced him in his happy slumbers; no, there were his aunt and his sister as well, and at last even--oh how strange dreams are!--at last he even saw Simon's wife advancing toward him with kindly and tender mien.

She stooped down to him, took him up in her arms, kissed his eyes, and begged him in a low, trembling voice to forgive her for being so cruel and bad. And while she was speaking the tears streamed from her eyes and flowed over his face. She kissed them away with her hot lips, and whispered, "Forgive me, poor, unhappy angel, and do not bring me to judgment. I will treat you well after this, I will rescue you from this hell, or I will die for you. Oh, how the bad man has beaten your dear angel face! But believe me, I have felt every blow in my own heart, and when he treated you so abusively I felt the pain of hell. Oh, forgive me, dear boy, forgive me!" and again the tears started from her eyes and flowed hot over his locks and forehead. All at once Jeanne Marie quivered convulsively, laid the boy gently down, and ran hastily away. A door was furiously opened now, and Simon's loud and angry voice was heard.

The tones awakened the little Louis. He opened his eyes and looked around. Yes, it had really all been only a dream--he had heard neither his mother nor Simon's wife, and yet it had been as natural as if it had all really transpired. He had felt arms tenderly embracing him and tears hot upon his forehead.

Entirely unconscious he raised his hand to his brow and drew it back affrighted, for his hair and his temples were wet, as if the tears of which he dreamed had really fallen there.

"What does this mean, Jeanne Marie?" asked Simon, angrily, "Why have you got out of bed while I was away, and what have you had to do in the room of the little viper?"

"If you leave me alone with him I have to watch him, sick as I am," moaned she. "I had to see whether he was still there, whether he had not run away, and gone to report to the Convention that we have left him alone and have no care for him."

"Oh, bah! he will not complain of us," laughed Simon; "but keep quiet, Jeanne Marie, I promise you that I will not leave you alone again with the wolf's cub. Besides, here is the medicine that the doctor has sent, and to-morrow he will come himself again to see how you get on. So keep up a good heart, Jeanne Marie, and all will come right again."

The next morning, Dr. Naudin came again to look after the sick woman. Simon had just gone up-stairs to announce something to the two princesses in the name of the Convention, and had ordered the little Capet to remain in the anteroom, and, if the doctor should come, to open the door to him.

Nobody else was in the anteroom when Dr. Naudin entered, and the door leading into the next room was closed, so that the sick person who was there could see and hear nothing of what took place.

"Sir," whispered the boy, softly and quickly, "you were yesterday so good to me, you protected me from blows, and I should like to thank you for it."

The doctor made no reply, but he looked at the boy with such an expression of sympathy that he felt emboldened to go on.

"My dear sir," continued the child, softly, and with a blush, "I have nothing with which to show my gratitude to you but these two pears that were given me for my supper last night. And just because I am so poor, you would do me a great pleasure if you would accept my two pears." [Footnote: The boy's own words.--See Beauchesne, vol. ii., p. 180.]

He had raised his eyes to the doctor with a gentle, supplicatory expression, and taking the pears from the pocket of his worn, mended jacket, he gave them to the physician.

Then happened something which, had Simon entered the room just then, would probably have filled him with exasperation. It happened that the proud and celebrated Dr. Naudin, the director and first physician of the Hotel Dieu, sank on his knee before this poor boy in the patched jacket, who had nothing to give but two pears, and that he was so overcome, either by inward pain or by reverence, that while taking the pears he could only whisper, with a faint voice: "I thank your majesty. I have never received a nobler or more precious gift than this fruit, which my unfortunate king gives me, and I swear to you that I will be your devoted and faithful servant."

It happened further that Dr. Naudin pressed to his lips the hand that reached him the precious gift, and that upon this hand two tears fell from the eyes of the physician, long accustomed to look upon human misery and pain, and which had not for years been suffused with moisture.

Just then, approaching steps being heard in the corridor, the doctor rose quickly, concealed the pears in his pocket, and entered the chamber of the sick woman at the same instant when Simon returned from his visit above-stairs.

Tne boy slipped, with the doctor, into the sick-room, and as no one paid any attention to him, he stole softly into his room, crouched down upon his straw bed, with fluttering heart, to think over all he had experienced or dreamed of that day.

"And how is it with our sick one to-day?" asked Doctor Naudin, sitting down near the bed, and giving a friendly nod to Simon to do the same.

"It goes badly with me," moaned Mistress Simon. "My heart seems to be on fire, and I have no rest day or night. I believe that it is all over with me, and that I shall die, and that is the best thing for me, for then I shall be free again, and not have to endure the torments that I have had to undergo in this dreadful dungeon."

"What kind of pains are they?" asked the doctor. "Where do you suffer?"