MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 23 he does not even take the trouble to Mde his hatred .¦from me." " He is far from hating any one to that degree that lie would cause him to be assassinated." " There you see—when Choiseul is mentioned, you .-are on his side immediately." "Now, my dear Countess, politics again!" "Oh, Monsieur de Sartines!" cried she, "is it not dreadful to be treated thus?" " No, no—if it be as you think-----" " I know what I think," she interrupted, passionately, "and what I am sure of—the alfair will be given up!" "Now, do not get angry, Countess," said the king, " it shall not be given up—you shall be defended, and so well------" " So well what?" "So well that he who attacked poor Jean shall pay dearly for it." " Yes, the instrument wili be broken, but the hand that directed it will be taken and kindly pressed!" "Well, but is it not right to punish this Monsieur Taverney, who actually committed the assault?" " Oh, certainly, but it is not right, that what you do for me is no more than would be done to a soldier who should give a blow to a shopkeeper at the theatre. I will not be treated like every common person. If you do not do more for those whom you love than for those who are indifferent to you, I had rather remain alone in obscurity like these latter—their relations, at least, . are not assassinated!" " Oh, Countess!" said the king, imploringly, " I got up tor once in such good spirits, disposed to be gay, iiappy, and pleased with every one, and now you are spoiling my morning completely." "Very fine, indeed! It is a delightful morning for -me. of course, when my relations are being massacred !" Tlie king, in spite of his internal fears of the terrible storm i has was gathering, could not help smiling at tlie word "massacred." The countess started up in a tow- .ering passion. " All, is that the way you pity me?" said she. " Now, now—do not get angry." " Yes—I will get angry. " "You are very wrong—you look lovely when you - smile—but really ugly in a passion." " What matters it to me how I look, when my beauty Joes not prevent me from being sacrificed to state in- trigues." "Now, my dearCountess-—" " No, no. Choose between me and Choiseul!" "Dear creature, it is impossible to choose—you are . ttoth necessary to me." "Well, then, I shall retire and leave the field to my enemies; I shall die of grief, but the Duke de Choiseul wdl be satisfied, and that will console you." " I swear to you, Countess, that he has not any dis- like to you; on the contrary, he admires you. He is excellent man, after all," added the king, in a louder tone, that the minister of police might hear him. " An excellent man! Sire, you wish to drive me to desperation. An excellent man who causes people to be assassinated?" "Mere suspicion." said the king. "And, besides," Sartines ventured to say, "aquarrel, a duel between military men is so commoh—so natural !" "Ha ! Monsieur de Sartines, and are you also against me?" cried the countess. The minister of police understood this tu quoque, aud retreated before her anger. There -was a moment of deep and ominous silence. "Ah! Chon," said tho king, in the midst of the gen- ¦ eral consternation, "you see your handiwork!" "Your Majesty will pardon me," said she, "if the grief of the sister has made me forget for a moment my duty as a subject." "Kind creature!" murmured tlie king. "Come, Countess, forget and forgive!" " Yes, Sire, I shall forgive—only I shall set out for Luciennes, and thence for Boulogne." " Boulogne-sur-mer?" asked the king. " Yes. Sire, 1 shall quit a kingdom where the king is afraid of his minister." " Madame!" exclaimed Louis, with an offended air. " Sire, that I may not any longer be wanting in re- spect to vou, permit me to retire," and the countess rose, observing with the corner of her eye what effect her movement had produced. The king gave his usual heavy sigh of weariness, which said plainly. "I am getting rather tired of this." Chon understood what the sigh meant, and saw that it would be dangerous to push matters to extremity. She caught her sister by the gown, and approaching the king: " Sire," said she, " my sister's affection for the poor viscount has carried her too far. It is I who have com- mitted the fault—it is I who must repair it. As the humblest of your Majesty's subjects, I beg from your Majesty justice for my brother. I accuse nobody— your wisdom will discover the guilty." " Why, that is precisely what I wish myself," sa'd the king; " that justice should be done. If a man have not committed a certain crime, let him not be re- proached with it; but if he have, let him be punished." And Louis looked towards the countess as he spoke, with the hope of once more catching the hopes he had entertained of an amusing morning—a morning which seemed turning out? so dismally. The good-natured countess could not help pitying the king, whose want of occupation and emptiness of mind made him feel tired and dispirited except when with her. She turned half rouned, for she had already made a step, towards the door, and said, 'with the sweetest submission: " Do I wish for anything but justice? Only let not my well-grounded suspicions be cruelly repulsed." "Your suspicions are sacred to me, Countess," ' cried the king; "and if they be changed into certainty, you shall see. But now I think of it—how easy to know the truth!—let the Duke de Choiseul be sent for." "Oh, your Majesty knows that he never comes into these apartments. "He would scorn to do so His sis- ter, however, is not of his mind—she wishes for nothing better than to be here." The king laughed. The countess, encouraged by this, wenton: "The Duke de Choiseul apes the dauphin —he will not compromise his dignity." "Th- dauphin is religious. Countess." " And the duke a hvpocrite. Sire. "I promise you.' mv dear Countess, you shall see him here, for I shall summon him. He must come, as iti'soi usiness, and we shall have all explained in Chon's presence, who saw all—we shall confront them, as the lawyers say. Eh, Sartines? Let some ¦ one go for the Duke de Choiseul." "And let some one bring me my monkey. Doree, my monkey!" cried the countess. These words, which were addressed to the waiting- maid, who was arranging a dressing-box, could be heard in the anteroom when the door was opened to dispatch the usher for the prime minister, and they were responded to by a broken, lisping voice. "The countess' monkey ! that must be me—I hasten to present myself." And with these words entered a little hunchback, dressed with the utmost splendor. "The Duke de Tresmes!" said the countess, annoyed by his appearance; "I did not summon y uu, duke." "You asked for your monkey, Madame," said the duke, bowing to the king, the countess, and the min- ister, " and seeing among the courtiers no ape half so ugly as myself, I hastened to obey your call;" and the duke laughed, showing his great teeth so oddly that the'countess could not help laughing also. "Shall I stay?" asked the duke, as if the whole life could not repay the favor. " Ask his majesty, Duke—he is master here." The duke turned to the king, with the air of a sup- pliant. " Yes, stay, duke, stay!" said the king, glad to find any additional means of amusement. At this moment the usher threw open the doors. " Oh," said the king, with a slight expression of dis- satisfaction on his face, " is it the Duke de Choiseul already?" " No, sire." replied the usher, " it is monseigneur the dauphin, who desires to speak to you." Tlie countess almost started from her chair with joy, for she imagined the dauphin was going to become her friend; but Chon, who was more clear-sighted, frowned. "Well, where is the dauphin?" asked the king, im- patiently. . "In your majesty's apartments—his royal highness awaits your return." "It is fated I shall never have a minute's repose," grumbled the king. Then, all at once remembering that the audience demanded by the dauphin might spare him the scene with M. de Choiseul, he thought better of it. "I am coming," said he, " I am coming. Good-bye, countess. See how I am dragged in all directions!" But will your majesty go just when the Duke de Choiseul is coming?" " What can I do? the first slave is the king. Oh, if those rogues of philosophers knew what it is to be a king! but above all a king of France." "But, Sire, you can stay." " Oh,J must not keep the dauphin waiting. People say already that I have no affection except for my daughters." " But what shall I say to the duke ?" " Oh, tell him to come to my apartments, countess." And, to put an end to any further remonstrance, he kissed her hand, and disappeared running, as was his habit whenever he feared to lose a victory gained by his temporizing policy and his petty cunning. The countess trembled with passion, and clasping her hands she exclaimed, "So, he has escaped once more!" But the king did not hear those words: the door was already closed behind him, and he passed through tho ante-room, saying to the courtiers, " Go in, gentlemen, go in, the countess will see you ; but you will find her very dull on account of the accident which has be- fallen poor Viscount Jean." The courtiers looked at one another in amazement, for they had not heard of the accident. Many hoped that the viscount was dead, but all put on countenan- ances suitable to the occasion. Those who were best pleased looked the most sympathetic, and they en- tered. Chapter XXVI.—The SaloonofTimepiec.es. In that large hall of the palace of Versailles which was called the Saloon of Timepieces, a young man walked slowly up and down, with his arms hanging and his head bent forward. He appeared to be about seventeen years of age, was of a fair complexion, and his eyes were mild in their expression; but it must be acknowledged that there was a slight degree of vulgarity in his demeanor. On his breast sparkled a diamond star, rendered more brilliant by the dark violet-colored velvet of his coat; and his white satin waistcoat, em- broidered with silver, was crossed by the blue ribbon supporting the cross of St. Louis. None could mistake in this young man the profile so expressive of dignity and kindliness which formed tlie characteristic tyoe of the elder branch of the house of Boui bon, of which he was at once the most striking and most exaggerated image. In fact, Louis Auguste, Duke de Berry, dauphin of France (afterwards Louis XVI.), had the Bourbon nose even longer and more aquiline than in his predecessors. His forehead was lower and more retreating than Louis XV.'s, and the double chin of his grandfather was so remarkable in him, that, although he was at the time we speak of young and thin, his chin formed nearly one-third of the length of his face. Although well made, there was something embar- rassed in the movement of his legs and shoulders, and his walk was slow and rather awkward. Suppleness, activity, and strength, seemed centered only in his arms, and more particularly in his fingers, which dis- played, as it were, that character which in other per- sons is expressed on the forehead, in the mouth, and m the eyes. The dauphin continued to pace in silence the Saloon of Timepieces—the same in which, eight years before, Louis XV. had given to Madame de Pompadour the decree of the Parliament exiling the Jesuits from the kingdom—and as he walked he seemed plunged in reverie. At last, however, he seemed to become impatient of waiting there alone, and to amuse himself Ik; began to look at the timepieces, remarking, as Charles V. haa done, the differences which are found in the most reg- ular clocks. These differences are a singular but ae- cided manifestation of the inequality existing in all material things, whether regulated or not regulated by the hand of man. He stopped before the large clock at the lower end of the saloon -tlie same place it occu- pies at present—which, by a clever arrangement ot machinery, marks the days, the months, the years, the phases of the moon, the course of the planets—in short, exhibiting, to the still more curions machine called man, all that is most interesting in his progressive movement through life to death. The prince examined this clock with the eye of an amateur, and leaned now to the right, now to the left, to examine the movement of such or such a wheel. Then he returned to his place in front, watching hew the second hand glided rapidly on, like those flies which, with their long slender legs, skim over the sur- face of a pond, without disturbing the liquid crystal of its waters. This contemplation naturally led him to think that a very great number of seconds had paseed since he had been waiting there. It is true, also, that many had passed before he had ventured to send to inform the king that he was waiting for him. All at once the hand on which the young prince's eyes were fixed, stopped as if by enchantment, the wheels ceased their measured rotation, the springs be- came still, and deep silence took possession of the ma- chine, but a moment before so full of noise and mo- tion No more ticking, no more oscillations, no more movement of the wheels or of the hands. The time- piece had died. Had some grain of sand, some atom, penetrated into one of the wheels and stopped its movements ? Or, was the genius of the machine resting, wearied with its eternal agitation? Surprised by this sudden death, this stroke of apoplexy occurring before his eyes, the dauphin forgot why he had come thither, and how long he had waited. Above all, he forgot that hours are not counted in eternity by the beating of metal upon metal, nor arrested even for a moment in their course by the hindrance of any wheel, but thatthey are recorded on the dial of eternity, established even before the birth of worlds, by the unchangeable hand of the Almighty. He therefore opened the glass door of the crystal pa- goda, the genius of which had ceased to act, and put nis head inside to examine the timepiece more closely. But the large pendulum was in his way ; he slipped in his supple fingers and took it off. This was not enough. The dauphin still found the cause of the lethargy of the machine hidden from him. He then supposed that the person who had the care of the clocks of the palace had forgotten to wind up this timepiece, and he took down the key from a hook and began to wind it up, like a man quite accustomed to the business. But he could only turn it three times—a proof that something was astray in the mechanism. He drew" from his pocket a little file, and, with the end of it, pushed one of the wheels: they all creaked for half a second, then stopped again. . The malady of the clock was becoming serious. The dauphin, therefore, began carefully to unscrew several parts of it, laying them all in order on a console beside him. Then, drawn on by his ardor, he began to take to pieces still more and more of the complicated ma- chine, and to search minutely into its hidden and mys- terious recesses. Suddenly he uttered a cry of joy—he discovered that a screw which acted on one of the springs had become loose, and had thus impeded the movement of the motive wheel. He immediately began to screw it; and then, with a wheel in his left hand, and his little file in his right, he plunged his head again into the interior of the clock. He was busy at his work, absorbed in contemplation of the mechanism of the timepiece, when a door opened, and a voice announced—" The king!" But the dauphin heard nothing but the melodious sound of that ticking, which his hand had again awakened, as if it were the beating of a heart which a clever physician had restored to life. The king looked around on all sides, and it was some minutes before he discovered the dauphin, whose head was hidden in the opening, and whose legs alone were visible. He approached, smiling, and tapped his grand- son on the shoulder. " What the devil are you doing there?" said he. The dauphin drew out his head quickly, but at the same time with all the care necessary to avoid doing any harm to the beautiful object which he had under- taken to mend. ¦' Sire—your Majesty sees," replied the young man, blushing at being surprised in the midst of his occupa- tions, "I was amusing myself until you came." "Yes, in destroying my clock—a very pretty amuse- ment 1" . . , , , " Oh no, Sire !—I was mending it: the principal wheel would not move—it was prevented by this screw. I have tightened the screw, and now it goes." " But you will blind yourself with looking into that thing. I would not put my head into such a trap for all the gold in the world. ' "Oh. it will do me no harm, Sire—I understand all about it, . I always take to pieces, clean, and put together again, that beautiful watch which your Maj- esty gave me on my fourteenth birthday." "Very well; but stop now, if you please, and leave your mechanics. You wish to speak to me?" "I, sire?" said the young man,"coloring again. " Of course, since you sent to say you were waiting forme." , ....., "It is true, Sire," replied the dauphin, with down- cast eyes. . . "Well, what is it? Answer me—if it is of no im- portance I must go. for I am just setting off for Marly. ' ' Louis XV., as was his custom, already sought to escape. The dauphin placed his wheel and his file on the chair which indicated that he had really something important to say, since he interrupted his important work for it. ... , , ... " Do you want money?" asked the king, sharply; " if so, I shall send you some," and he made a step towards the door. " Oh, no, Sire, I have still a thousand crowns remain- ing of the sum I received last month." "What economy!" said the king, and how well Monsieur de la VauguyOn has educated him. I think he has precisely all the virtues I have not," The young prince made a violent effort over himselt. "Sire," said he, "Is the dauphiness yet very far " Do you not know as well as I, how far off she is?" replied'the king. . "I?" stammered out the dauphin. "Of course—you heard the account of herjournej react yesterday. Last Monday she was at IS ancy and she ought to be now about forty-five leagues from '"sire, does not your Majesty think her Royal High- ness travels rather slowly?" "By no means," replied the king, "I think she travels very fast for a woman; and then you know there are receptions and rejoicings on the road. Sne travels at least ten leagues every two days, one witn another." , , . ,. .,, " I think very little, Sire," said the dauphin, timidly. Louis XV. was more and more astonished at the ap- pearance of impatience which he had been far from suspecting.