THE MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN (Complete Edition: Volumes 1-5). Alexandre Dumas
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. The bride sank on a chair, with a sigh.
"You are very much alarmed, madame?"
"Yes, though your presence supports me. Oh, what a storm! all the pretty lights are put out."
"Yes, it is a southwest wind, always the worst for storms. If it holds out, I do not know how they will be able to set off the fireworks."
"What would be the use of them? Everybody will be out of the gardens in such weather."
"You do not know what our French are when there is a show. They cry for the pyrotechnics, and this is to be superb; the pyrotechnist showed me the sketches. There! look at the first rockets!"
Indeed, brilliant as long fiery serpents, the trial rockets rushed up into the clouds, but at the same time, as if the storm had taken the flash as a challenge, one stroke of lightning, seeming to split the sky, snaked among the rockets ascending and eclipsed their red glare with its bluish flaring.
"Verily, it is impiety for man to contest with God," said the archduchess.
The trial rockets had preceded the general display by but a few minutes as the pyrotechnist felt the need of hastening, and the first set pieces were fired and were hailed with a cheer of delight.
But as though there were really a war between man and heaven, the storm, irritated by the impiety, drowned with its thunder the cheers of the mobs, and all the cataracts on high opened at once. Torrents of rain were precipitated from the cloudy heights.
In like manner to the wind putting out the illuminations, the rain put out the fireworks.
"What a misfortune, the fireworks are spoilt," said the dauphin.
"Alas, everything goes wrong since I entered France," said Marie Antoinette. "This storm suits the feast that was given me. It was wanted to hide from the people the miseries of this dilapidated palace of Versailles. So, blow, you southwest wind! spout, rain! pile yourselves together, tempestuous clouds, to hide from my eyes the paltry, tawdry reception given to the daughter of the kaisers, when she laid her hand in that of the future king!"
The visibly embarrassed dauphin did not know what answer to make to this, these reproaches, and particularly this exalted melancholy, so far from his character; he only sighed.
"I afflict you," continued she; "but do not believe that my pride is speaking. No, no, it is nowise in it. Would that they had only shown me the pretty little Trianon, with its flower gardens, and smiling shades—the rain will but refresh it, the wind but open the blossoms. That charming nest would content me; but these ruins frighten me, so repugnant to my youth, and yet how many more ruins will be created by this frightful storm."
A fresh gust, worse than the first, shook the palace. The princess started up aghast.
"Oh, heavens, tell me that there is no danger!" she moaned; "I shall die of fright."
"There is no fear, madame. Versailles is built on terraces so as to defy the storm. If lightning fell it would only strike yonder chapel with its sharp roof, or the little tower which has turrets. You know that peaks attract the electric fluid and flat surfaces repel them."
He took her frozen yet palpitating hand.
Just then a vivid flash inundated the room with its violet and livid glare. She uttered a scream and repulsed her husband.
"Oh, you looked in the lurid gleam like a phantom, pale, headless and bleeding!"
"It is the mirage caused by the sulphur," said the prince. "I will explain——"
But a deafening peal of thunder cut short the sentence of the phlegmatic prince lecturing the royal spouse.
"Come, come, madame, let us leave such fears to the common people. Physical agitation is one of the conditions of nature. A storm, and this is no more, is one of the most frequent and natural phenomena. I do not know why people are surprised at them."
"I should not quail so much at another time; but for a storm to burst on our wedding-night, another awful forwarning joined to those heralding my entry into France! My mother has told me that this century is fraught with horrors, as the heavens above are charged with fire and destruction."
"Madame, no dangers can menace the throne to which we shall ascend, for we royalties dwell above the common plane. The thunder is at our feet and we wield the bolts."
"Alas, something dreadful was predicted me, or rather, shown to me in a dish of water. It is hard to describe what was utterly novel to me; a machine reared on high like a scaffold, two upright beams between which glided an axe of odd shape. I saw my head beneath this blade. It descended and my head, severed from the body, leaped to the earth. This is what I was shown."
"Pure hallucination," said the scoffer; "there is no such an instrument in existence, so be encouraged."
"Alas! I cannot drive away the odious thought."
"You will succeed, Marie," said the dauphin, drawing nearer.
"Beside you will be an affectionate and assiduously protective husband."
At the instant when the husband's lips nearly touched the wife's cheek, the picture gallery door opened again, and the curious, covetous look of King Louis XV. penetrated the place. But simultaneously a crash, of which no words can give an idea, resounded through the palace. A spout of white flame, streaked with green, dashed past the widow but shivered a statue on the balcony; then after a prodigious ripping and splitting sound, it bounded upward and vanished like a meteor.
Out went the candles! the dauphin staggered back, dazed and frightened to the very wall. The dauphiness fell, half swooned, on the step of her praying-desk and dwelt in deadly torpor.
Believing the earth was quaking under him, Louis XV. regained his rooms, followed by his faithful valet.
In the morning Versailles was not recognizable. The ground had drunk up the deluge, and the trees absorbed the sulphur.
Everywhere was mud and the broken boughs dragging their blackened lengths like scotched serpents.
Louis XV. went to the bridal chamber for the third time, and looked in. He shuddered to see at the praying-stand the bride, pale and prone, with the aurora tinging her spotless robe, like a Magdalen of Rubens.
On a chair, with his velvet slippers in a puddle of water, the dauphin of France sat as pale as his wife and with the same air of having faced a nightmare.
The nuptial bed was untouched.
Louis XV. frowned; a never-before-experienced pain ran through his brow, cooled by egotism even when debauchery tried to heat it.
He shook his head, sighed and returned to his apartments full of grim forebodings over the future which this tragic event had marked on its brow.
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