come back and sign the will, and he has kept his promise; God have pity on his soul!"
So saying, the Intendant put back the will in the envelope, and taking up his candle, gestured to his companions to follow him out of the room.
Then aloud:
"We have nothing more to do here," he added; "let us go back to the widow and orphans,"
"You are surely not going to give that paper to the Marquise," protested the Abbé. " In Heaven's name! in God's name! never do such a thing."
"Calm yourself," replied the Intendant; this packet shall not leave my hands till I pass it on to the Notary; my master has chosen me executor, inasmuch as he has suffered me to see what I have seen, and hear what I have heard. I shall not rest till his last wishes are carried out; that done, I shall go to join him in the other world. Eyes that have witnessed such things should be closed without delay."
With these solemn words on his lips Bonbonne left the Marquis's study, the other two preceding him, and locked the door. The three then descended the stairs, cast a trembling look in passing at the clock which had stopped at seven o'clock, and issuing by the main entrance, made for the Orangery, where the Marquise and her two children were waiting for them.
The three were still at prayer,—the mother kneeling, her two sons standing by her,
"Well?" she cried, rising hastily at sight of the three men, "well?"
"Continue your prayers, Madame," it was Père Delar who spoke; "you were not deceived. By special grace, accorded doubtless to your peculiar piety, God has permitted that Monsieur de Chauvelin's soul should come back to bid you farewell.
"Oh! my Father," cried the Marquise, raising her clasped hands to heaven, "you see now I was not mistaken,"—and falling to her knees once more, she resumed her interrupted prayers, signing the two boys to copy her example.
Two hours later the tinkling of a horse's bells in the Courtyard made Madame de Chauvelin lift her head, where she sat watching between the two beds of her sleeping children.
A voice rang out on the stairs, crying; "A King's messenger! a King's messenger!"
Next moment a footman entered and handed the Marquise a great letter sealed with black.
It contained the official intimation that the Marquis had died at seven o'clock in the evening of an apoplectic stroke while at cards with the King.
CHAPTER XII
DEATH OF LOUIS XV
FROM the day that Monsieur de Chauvelin died the King was seldom seen to smile. Every step he took, it seemed as though the Marquis's phantom walked beside him. Only travelling did something towards relieving his gloom, and consequently he was continually on the move, — from Rambouillet to Compiegne, from Compiegne to Fontainebleau, from Fontainebleau to Versailles. Paris Louis XV. never visited; he had a horror of his capital, ever since it had risen in revolt against the supposed baths of children's blood.
But all these noble residences, instead of distracting him from his grief, only recalled the past and its associations and turned his thoughts to sorrowful themes. These dismal reflections only Madame du Barry could chase away, and it was really pitiful to watch the efforts the young and charming favourite made to rekindle the warmth not only of the body, but of the heart of the aged Monarch.
All the time Society was falling to pieces no less surely than Monarchy. Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot had undermined the edifice with the waters of philosophic scepticism, and now came the torrents of Beaumarchais' scandal and scurrility to complete the ruin. Beaumarchais issued his notorious Mémoire against the Councillor Goezmann, and that magistrate, a member of the powerful Maupeou junta, was compelled to give up his office. The same author was rehearsing his 'Barber de Séville, and the public was already excited over the
