The Last Hope Part 19

And before the story of Loo Barebone was half told, John Turner laid aside his knife and fork and turned his attention to the dissection of this ill-told tale. As the story neared its end, he glanced round the room, to make sure that none was listening to their conversation.

"Dormer Colville," he repeated. "Does he come into it?"

"He came to Farlingford with the Marquis de Gemosac, out of pure good-nature--because the Marquis could speak but little English. He is a charming man. So unselfish and disinterested."

"Who? The Marquis?"

"No; Dormer Colville."

"Oh yes!" said John Turner, returning to the cold tongue. "Yes; a charming fellow."

And he glanced again at his friend, with a queer smile. When luncheon was finished, Turner led the way to a small smoking-room, where they would be alone, and sent a messenger to fetch Septimus Marvin's bag from downstairs.

"We will have a look at your precious engraving," he said, "while we smoke a cigar. It is, I suppose, a relic of the Great Monarchy, and I may tell you that there is rather a small demand just now for relics of that period. It would be wiser not to take it into the open market. I think my client would give you as good a price as any; and I suppose you want to get as much as you can for it now that you have made up your mind to the sacrifice?"

Marvin suppressed a sigh, and rubbed his hands together with that forced jocularity which had made his companion turn grave once before.

"Oh, I mean to drive a hard bargain, I can tell you!" was the reply, with an a.s.sumption of worldly wisdom on a countenance little calculated to wear that expression naturally.

"What did your friend in the print-shop on the Quai Voltaire mention as a probable price?" asked Turner, carelessly.

"Well, he said he might be able to sell it for me at four thousand francs. I would not hear of his running any risk in the matter, however.

Such a good fellow, he is. So honest."

"Yes, he is likely to be that," said Turner, with his broad smile. He was a little sleepy after a heavy luncheon, and sipped his coffee with a feeling of charity toward his fellow-men. "You would find lots of honest men in the Quai Voltaire, Sep. I will tell you what I will do. Give me the print, and I will do my best for you. Would ten thousand francs help you out of your difficulties?"

"I do not remember saying that I was in difficulties," objected the Reverend Septimus, with heightened colour.

"Don't you? Memory _is_ bad, is it not? Would ten thousand francs paint the rectory, then?"

"It would ease my mind and sweeten my sleep at night to have half that sum, my friend. With two hundred pounds I could face the world _aequo animo_."

"I will see what I can do. This is the print, is it? I don't know much about such things myself, but I should put the price down at ten thousand francs."

"But the man in the Quai Voltaire?"

"Precisely. I know little about prints, but a lot about the Quai Voltaire. Who is the lady? I presume it is a portrait?"

"It is a portrait, but I cannot identify the original. To an expert of that period it should not be impossible, however." Septimus Marvin was all awake now, with flushed cheeks and eyes brightened by enthusiasm. "Do you know why? Because her hair is dressed in a peculiar way--_poufs de sentiment_, these curls are called. They were only worn for a brief period. In those days the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau had a certain vogue among the idle cla.s.ses. The women showed their sentiments in the dressing of their hair. Very curious--very curious. And here, in the hair, half-concealed, is an imitation dove's nest."

"The deuce there is!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Turner, pulling at his cigar.

"A fas.h.i.+on which ruled for a still briefer period."

"I should hope so. Well, roll the thing up, and I will do my best for you. I'm less likely to be taken in than you are, perhaps. If I sell it, I will send you a cheque this evening. It is a beautiful face."

"Yes," agreed Septimus Marvin, with, a sharp sigh. "It is a beautiful face."

And he slowly rolled up his most treasured possession, which John Turner tucked under his arm. On the Pont Royal they parted company.

"By the way," said John Turner, after they had shaken hands, "You never told me what sort of a man this young fellow is--this Loo Barebone?"

"The dearest fellow in the world," answered Marvin, with eyes aglow behind his spectacles. "To me he has been as a son--an elder brother, as it were, to little Sep. I was already an elderly man, you know, when Sep was born. Too old, perhaps. Who knows? Heaven's way is not always marked very clearly."

He nodded vaguely and went away a few paces. Then he remembered something and came back.

"I don't know if I ought to speak of such a thing. But I quite hoped, at one time, that Miriam might one day recognise his goodness of heart."

"What?" interrupted Turner. "The mate of a coasting schooner!"

"He is more than that, my friend," answered Septimus Marvin, nodding his head slowly, so that the sun flashed on his spectacles in such a manner as to make Turner blink. Then he turned away again and crossed the bridge, leaving the English banker at the corner of it, still blinking.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CITY THAT SOON FORGETS

There are in humble life some families which settle their domestic differences on the doorstep, while the neighbours, gathered hastily by the commotion, tiptoe behind each other to watch the fun. In the European congerie France represents this loud-voiced household, and Paris--Paris, the city that soon forgets--is the doorstep whereon they wrangle.

The bones of contention may be pitched far and wide by the chances and changes of exile, but the contending dogs bark and yap in Paris. At this time there lived, sometimes in Italy, sometimes at Frohsdorf, a jovial young gentleman, fond of sport and society, cultivating the tastes and enjoying the easy existence of a country-gentleman of princely rank--the Comte de Chambord. Son of that d.u.c.h.esse de Berri who tried to play a great part and failed, he was married to an Italian princess and had no children. He was, therefore, the last of the Bourbons, and pa.s.sed in Europe as such. But he did not care. Perhaps his was the philosophy of the indolent which saith that some one must be last and why not I?

Nevertheless, there ran in his veins some energetic blood. On his father's side he was descended from sixty-six kings of France. From his mother he inherited a relations.h.i.+p to many makers of history. For the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri's grandmother was the sister of Marie Antoinette. Her mother was aunt to that Empress of the French, Marie Louise, who was a notable exception to the rule that "Bon sang ne peut mentir." Her father was a king of Sicily and Naples. She was a Bourbon married to a Bourbon.

When she was nineteen she gave birth to a daughter, who died next day. In a year she had a son who died in twenty hours. Two years later her husband died in her arms, a.s.sa.s.sinated, in a back room of the Opera House in Paris.

Seven months after her husband's death she gave birth to the Comte de Chambord, the last of the old Bourbons. She was active, energetic and of boundless courage. She made a famous journey through La Vendee on horseback to rally the Royalists. She urged her father-in-law, Charles X, to resist the revolution. She was the best Royalist of them all. And her son was the Comte de Chambord, who could have been a king if he had not been a philosopher, or a coward.

He was waiting till France called him with one voice. As if France had ever called for anything with one voice!

Amid the babel there rang out not a few voices for the younger branch of the Royal line--the Orleans. Louis Philippe--king for eighteen years--was still alive, living in exile at Claremont. Two years earlier, in the rush of the revolution of 1848, he had effected his escape to Newhaven. The Orleans always seek a refuge in England, and always turn and abuse that country when they can go elsewhere in safety. And England is not one penny the worse for their abuse, and no man or country was ever yet one penny the better for their friends.h.i.+p.

Louis Philippe had been called to the throne by the people of France. His reign of eighteen years was marked by one great deed. He threw open the Palace of Versailles--which was not his--to the public. And then the people who called him in, hooted him out. His life had been attempted many times. All the other kings hated him and refused to let their daughters marry his sons. He and his sons were waiting at Claremont while the talkers in Paris talked their loudest.

There was a third bone of contention--the Imperial line. At this time the champions of this morsel were at the summit; for a Bonaparte was riding on the top of the revolutionary scrimmage.

By the death of the great Napoleon's only child, the second son of his third brother became the recognised claimant to the Imperial crown.

For France has long ceased to look to the eldest son as the rightful heir. There is, in fact, a curse on the first-born of France. Napoleon's son, the King of Rome, died in exile, an Austrian. The Duc de Bordeaux, born eight years after him, never wore the crown, and died in exile, childless. The Comte de Paris, born also at the Tuileries, was exiled when he was ten years old, and died in England. All these, of one generation. And of the next, the Prince Imperial, hurried out of France in 1870, perished on the Veldt. The King of Rome lies in his tomb at Vienna, the Duc de Bordeaux at Goritz, the Comte de Paris at Weybridge, the Prince Imperial at Farnborough. These are the heirs of France, born in the palace of the Tuileries. How are they cast upon the waters of the world! And where the palace of the Tuileries once stood the pigeons now call to each other beneath the trees, while, near at hand, lolls on the public seat he whom France has always with her, the _vaurien_--the worth-nothing.

So pa.s.ses the glory of the world. It is not a good thing to be born in a palace, nor to live in one.

It was in the Rue Lafayette that John Turner had his office, and when he emerged from it into that long street on the evening of the 25th of August, 1850, he ran against, or he was rather run against by, the newsboy who shrieked as he pattered along in lamentable boots and waved a sheet in the face of the pa.s.ser: "The King is dead! The King is dead!"

And Paris--the city that soon forgets--smiled and asked what King?

Louis Philippe was dead in England, at the age of seventy-seven, the bad son of a bad father, another of those adventurers whose happy hunting-ground always has been, always will be, France.