"Still it was you foretold my coming to Taverney?" said the mighty lady, to which Balsamo silently bowed. "How was the trick done, my lord baron?"
"Simply by looking into a glass of water, my liege lady," was the old noble's answer.
"If that be truly your magic mirror, it is guileless at any rate; may your words be as clear!"
The cardinal smiled, and the master of the place said:
"Your highness will not have to take lessons in punning."
"Nay, my dear host, do not flatter me, or flatter me better. It seems to me it was a mild quip; but, my lord," she resumed, turning toward Balsamo by that irresistible attraction drawing us to a danger, "if you can read the future in a glass for a gentleman, may you not read it for a lady in a decanter?"
"Perfectly; but the future is uncertain, and I should shrink from saddening your royal highness if a cloud veiled it, as I have already had the honor to say."
"Do you know me beforetimes? Where did you first see me?"
"I saw you as a child beside your august mother, that mighty queen."
"Empress, my lord."
"Queen by heart and mind, but such have weaknesses when they think they act for their daughters' happiness."
"I hope history will not record one single weakness in Maria Theresa," retorted the other.
"Because it does not know what is known solely to your highness, her mother and myself."
"Is there a secret among us three?" sneered the lady. "I must hear it."
"In Schoenbrunn Palace is the Saxony Cabinet, where the empress sits in private. One morning, about seven, the empress not being up, your highness entered this study, and perceived a letter of hers, open, on the writing-table."
The hearer blushed.
"Reading it, your highness took up a pen and struck out the three words beginning it."
"Speak them aloud!"
"'My dear Friend.'"
Marie Antoinette bit her lips as she turned pale.
"Am I to tell to whom the letter was addressed?" inquired the seer.
"No, no, but you may write it."
The soothsayer took out his memorandum book fastening with a gilt clasp, and with a kind of pencil from which flowed ink, wrote on a leaf. Detaching this page, he presented it to the princess, who read:
"The letter was addressed to the marchioness of Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV."
The dauphiness' astounded look rose upon this clearly speaking man, with pure and steady voice, who appeared to tower over her although he bowed lowly.
"All this is quite true," she admitted, "and though I am unaware how you could learn this secret, I am bound to allow, before all, that you speak true."
"Then I may retire upon this innocent proof of my science."
"Not so, my lord baron," said the princess, nettled; "the wiser you are, the more I long for your forecast. You have only spoken of the past, and I demand the future."
Her feverish agitation could not escape the bystanders.
"Let me at least consult the oracle, to learn whether the prediction may be revealed."
"Good or bad, I must hear it!" cried Marie Antoinette with growing irritation. "I shall not believe it if good, taking it for flattery; but bad, I shall regard it as a warning, and I promise any way not to bear you ill will. Begin your witchcraft."
Balsamo took up the decanter with a broad mouth and stood it in a golden saucer. He raised it thus high up, and, after looking at it shook his head.
"I cannot speak. Some things must not be told to princes," he said.
"Because you have nothing to say?" and she smiled scornfully.
Balsamo appeared embarrassed, so that the cardinal began to laugh in his face and the baron grumbled.
"My wizard is worn out," he said. "Nothing is to follow but the gold turning into dry leaves, as in the Arabian tale."
"I would have preferred the leaves to all this show; for there is no shame in drinking from a nobleman's pewter goblet, while a dauphiness of France ought not to have to use the thimble-rigging cup of a charlatan."
Balsamo started erect as if a viper had bitten him.
"Your highness shall know your fate, since your blindness drives you to it."
These words were uttered in a voice so steady but so threatening that the hearers felt icy chills in their veins. The lady turned pale visibly.
"Do not listen to him, my daughter," whispered the old governess in German to her ward.
"Let her hear, for since she wanted to know, know she shall!" said Balsamo in the same language, which doubled the mystery over the incident. "But to you alone, lady."
"Be it so," said the latter. "Stand back!"
"I suppose this is just an artifice to get a private audience?" sneered she, turning again to the magician.
"Do not try to irritate me," said he; "I am but the instrument of a higher Power, used to enlighten you. Insult fate and it will revenge itself, well knowing how. I merely interpret its moves. Do not fling at me the wrath which will recoil on yourself, for you can not visit on me the woes of which I am the sinister herald."
"Then there are woes?" said the princess, softened by his respectfulness and disarmed by his apparent resignation.
"Very great ones."
"Tell me all. First, will my family live happy?"
"Your misfortunes will not reach those you leave at home. They are personal to you and your new family. This royal family has three members, the Duke of Berry, the Count of Provence, and the Count of Artois. They will all three reign."
"Am I to have no son?"
"Sons will be among your offspring, but you will deplore that one should live and the other die."
"Will not my husband love me?"
"Too well. But his love and your family's support will fail you."
"Those of the people will yet be mine."
"Popular love and support—the ocean in a calm. Have you seen it in a storm?"
"I will prevent it rising, or ride upon the billows."
"The higher its crest, the deeper the abyss."
"Heaven remains to me."
"Heaven does not save the heads it dooms."
"My head in danger? Shall I not reign a queen?"
"Yes—but would to God you never did."
The princess smiled disdainfully.
"Hearken, and remember," proceeded Balsamo. "Did you remark the subject on the tapestry of the first room you entered on French ground? The Massacre of the Innocents; the ominous figures must have remained in your mind. During that storm, did you see that the lightning felled a tree on your left, almost to crush your coach? Such presages are not to be interpreted but as fatal ones."
Letting her head fall upon her bosom, the princess reflected for a space before asking:
"How will those three die?"
"Your husband the king will die headless; Count Provence, legless; and Artois heartless."
"But myself? I command you to speak, or I shall hold all this as a paltry trick. Take care, my lord, for the daughter of Maria Theresa is not to be sported with—a woman who holds in hand the destinies of thirty millions of souls. You know no more, or your imagination is exhausted."
Balsamo