Chapter 20 - Page 2

criminal abandonment of me, stood in my way; and this handkerchief, embroidered with the arms of France, would, in right and justice, belong to me alone, if, as M. d’Herblay observes, I had been left in my place in the royal cradle! Philippe, son of France, take your place on that bed; Philippe, sole King of France, resume the blazonry which is yours! Philippe, sole heir presumptive to Louis XIII, your father, show yourself without pity or mercy for the usurper who at this moment has no remorse for all that you have suffered!”

With these words, Philippe, notwithstanding an instinctive repugnance of feeling, and in spite of the shudder of terror which mastered his will, threw himself on the royal bed, and forced his muscles to press the still warm place where Louis XIV had lain, while he buried his burning face in the handkerchief still moistened by his brother’s tears. With his head thrown back and buried in the soft down of his pillow, Philippe perceived above him the crown of France, held, as we have stated, by the angel with the golden wings.

Imagine, then, the royal intruder, his eyes gloomy, his body trembling. He is like a tiger led out of his way by a night of storm, who comes through the reeds by way of a ravine unknown to him, to lie down in the cave of an absent lion. The feline odor has attracted him,- that warm, moist atmosphere of his ordinary habitation. He has found a bed of dry herbs, and bones pulverized and pasty like marrow. He arrives; he turns about his flaming eyes, piercing the gloom; he shakes his streaming limbs and his body, covered with mire, and lies down heavily, his large nose resting on his enormous paws,- ready to sleep, but ready also to fight. From time to time the lightning blazing in the recesses of the cave, the noise of clashing branches, the sound of falling stones, the vague apprehension of danger, draw him from the lethargy occasioned by fatigue.

A man may be ambitious of lying in a lion’s den, but can hardly hope to sleep there quietly. Philippe listened attentively to every sound, his heart almost stifled by all his fears; but confident in his own strength, which was increased by the force of an overpowering resolute determination, he waited until some decisive circumstance should permit him to judge for himself. He hoped that some great danger would show him the way, like those phosphoric lights of the tempest which show the sailors the height of the waves against which they have to struggle. But nothing happened. Silence, the mortal enemy of restless hearts, the mortal enemy of ambitious minds, shrouded in the thickness of its gloom during the remainder of the night the future King of France, who lay there sheltered beneath his stolen crown. Towards the morning a shadow, rather than a body, glided into the royal chamber; Philippe expected his approach, and neither expressed nor exhibited any surprise.

“Well, M.