THE TWO DREAMS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 197, 19 June 1847, Page 4

THE TWO DREAMS.

Bodard de St. James, treasurer of the navy in 1786, was the best known, and most talked of, of all the financiers in Paris. He had built his celebrated Folly at Neuilly, and his wife had brought ah ornament of feathers for the canopy of her bed, the enormous price of which had put it beyond the power of the Queen. Bodard possessed the magnificent hotel in the Place Vend6me which the collector of taxes, Dang 6, had been forced to leave. Madame de St. James was ambitious, and would only have people of rank about her — a weakness almost universal in persons of her class. The humble members of the lower house had no charms for her. She wished to see in her saloons the nobles and dignitaries of the land who had, at least, the grand entries at Versailles. To say that many cordons bleus visited the fair financier would be absurd ; but it is certain she had managed to gain the notice of several of the Rohan family, as came out very clearly in the celebrated process of the necklace. One evening, I think it was the 2d of August, 1786, I was surprised to encounter in her drawing-room two individuals, whose appearance did not entitle them to the acquaintance of a person so exclusive as the Treasurer's wife. She came to me in an embrasure of the window where I had taken my seat. " Tell me," I said, with a look towards one of the strangers, " who in the world is that ? How does such a being find his way here ?" " He is a charming person, I assure you." " Oh — you see him through the spectacles of love !" I said, and smiled. " You are not mistaken," she replied, smiling also. "He is horribly ugly, no | doubt, but he has rendered me the greatest ; service a man can do to woman." I laughed, and I suppose looked maliciously, for she hastily added — " He has entirely cured me of those horrid eruptions in the face, that made my complexion like a peasant's." I shrugged my shoulders. " Oh — he's a quack!" I said. " No, no," she answered, "he is a surgeon of good reputation. He is very clever, I assure you ; and, moreover, he is an author. He is an excellent doctor." " And the other V I enquired. " Who ? What other ?" " The little fellow with the starched, stiff face — looking as sour as if he bad drunk verjuice." " Oh ! he is a man of good family. I

don't know where he comes from. He is engaged in some business of the Cardinal's, and it was his Eminence himself who presented him to St. James. Both parties have chosen St. James for umpire ; in that, you will say, the provincial has not shown much wisdom ; but who can the peop'e be who confide their interests to such a creature? He is quiet as a lamb, and timid as a girl ; hut his Eminence coutts him — for the matter is of importance — three hundred thousand francs, I believe." " He's an attorney, then ?" 11 Yes," she replied ; and, after the humiliating confession, took her seat at the Farotable." I went and threw myself in an easy chair at the fireplace ;- and if ever a man was astonished it was I, when I saw seated opposite me the Controller-General ! M. de Calonne looked siupified and half-asleep. I nodded to Beaumarchais, and looked as if I wished an explanation ; and the author of Figaro, or rather Figaro himself, made clear the mystery in a manner not very complimentary to Madame de St. James's character, whatever it might be to her beauty. " Oho ! the minister is caught," I thought ; "no wonder the Collector lives in such style." It was half-past twelve before the cardtables were removed, and we sat down to jsupper. We were a party of ten — Bodard and his wife, the Controller-General, Beaumarchais, the two strangers, two handsome women, whose names 1 will not mention, and a collector of taxes, I think a M. Lavoisier. Of thirty who had been in the drawing-room when I entered, these were all who remained. The supper was stupid beyond belief. The two strangers and the Collector were intolerable bores. I made signs to Beaumarchais to make the surgeon tipsy, while I undertook the same kind office with the Attorney, who sat on my left. As we had no other means of amusing ourselves, and the plan promised some fun by bringing out the two interlopers, and making them more ridiculous than we had found them already, M. de Calonne entered into the plot. In a moment the three ladies saw our design, and joined in it with all their power. The surgeon seemed very well inclined to yield ; but when I had filled my neighbour's glass for the third time, he thanked me with cold politeness, and would drink no more. The conversation, I don't know from what cause, had turned on the magic suppers of the Count Cagliostro. I took little interest in it ; for, from the moment of my neighbour's refusal to drink, I had done nothing but study his pale and small featured countenance. His nose was flat and sharp-pointed at the same time, and occasionally an expression came to his eyes that gave him the appearance of a weasel. All at once the blood rushed to his cheeks when he heard Madame St. James say to M. de Calonne — " But I assure you, sir, I have actually seen Queen Cleopatra." "I believe it, madame," exclaimed my neighbour ; " for I have spoken to Catharine de Medicis." " Oh ! oh!" laughed M. de Calonne. The words uttered by the little provincial had an indefinable sonorousness. The sudden clearness of intonation, from a man who, up to this time, had scarcely spoken above his breath, startled us all. " And how was her late Majesty ?" said M, de Calonne. " I can't positively declare lhat the person with whom I supped last night was Catharine de Medicis herself, for a miracle like that must be incredible to a Christian as well as to a philosopher," replied the attorney, resting the points of his fingers on the table, and setting himself up in his chair, as if he intended to speak for some time ; " but 1 can swear that tho person, whoever she was, resemble! Catharine de Medicis as if they had been sisters. She wore a black velvet robe, exactly like the dress of that queen given in her portrait in the B<oyal Gallery ; and the rapidity of her ex&cation was most surprising, as M. de Cagltt&tt&had no idea of the person I should desiieshkn to call up. I was confounded. The % sjghir.of a supper at which the illustrious women- of past ages were present, took away my self-commands I listened without daring to ask a question. On getting away at midnight from the power of his enchantments, I almost doubted of my own existence. But what is the most wonderful thing about it is, that all those marvels appear to me quite natural and commonplace compared to the extraordinary hallucination I was subjected to afterwards. I don't know how to explain the state of~rny feelings to you in words ; I will only say that, from henceforth, I am not surprised that there are spirits — strong enough or weak enough, I know not which — to believe in the mysteries of magic and the power of demons." These words were pronounced with an incredible eloquence of tone. They were calculated to arrest our attention, and all eyes were fixed on the speaker. In that man, so cold and self-possessed, there burned a bidden fire which began to act upon us all.

11 I know not," he continued, " whether the figore followed me iv a state of invisibility ; but the moment I got into bed, I saw the great shade of Catharine rise before roe : all of a sudden she bent her head towards rae-^-but I don't know whether I ought to go on/ said the narrator, interrupting himself ; " for though I must believe it was only a dream, what I have to tell is of the utmost weight." " Is it about religion?" enquired Beaumarchai?. ( " Or, perhaps, something not fit far ladies' ears ?" added M. de Calonne. "It is about Government," replied the stranger. "Go on, then," said the Minister ; " Voltaire, Diderot and Company, have tutored our ears to good purpose." " Whether it was that certain ideas rose involuntarily to my mind, or that I was acting under some irresistible impulse, I said to her — " Ah, madame, you committed an enormous crime." " ' What crime?' she asked me in a solemn voice. " ' That of which the palace clock gave the signal on the 24th of August.' " She smiled disdainfully. * You call that a crime V she said : * ' Twas nothing but a misfortune. The enterprise failed ; and has, therefore, not produced all the good we expected from it — to France, to Europe, to Christianity itself. The orders were ill executed, and posterity makes no allowance for the want of communication which hindered us from giving all the unity to our effort which is requisite in affairs of state ; — that was the misfortune. If on the 25th August, there bad not remained the shadow of a Huguenot in France, the latest posterity would have looked upon me with awe, as a Providence among men. How often have the clear intellects of Sextus the sth, of Richelieu, and Bossuet, secretly accused me of having failed in the design, after having had the courage to conceive it : and therefore how my death was regretted! Thirty years after the St. Bartholomew the malady existed still ; and cost France ten times the quantity of noble blood that remained to be spilt on the 26th August, 1572. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in honour of which medals were struck, cost more blood, more tears, and more treasure, and has been more injurious to France, than, twenty St. Bartholomews. If on the 25th August, 1572, that enormous execution was necessary, on the 25th August, 1685, it was useless. Under the second son of Henry de Valois heresy was almost barren ; under the second son of Henry de Bourbon she had become a fruitful mother, and scattered her progeny over the globe. You accuse me of a crime, and yet you raise statues to t\ c son of Anne of Austria !' "At the.se words — slowly uttered — I felt a shudder creep over me. I seemed to inhale the smell of blood." " He dreamt that to a certainty," whispered Beaumarchais ; "he could not have invented it." " ' My reason is confounded,' I said^to the queen. ' You plume yourself on an action which three generations have condemned and cursed, and' — " * Add,' she interrupted, ' that history has been more unjust to me than my contemporaries were. Nobody has taken up my defence. I am accused of ambition — I, rich and a queen — I am accused of cruelty ; and the most impartial judges consider me a riddle. Do you think that 1 was actuated by feelings of hatred ; that I breathed nothing but vengeance and fury V She smiled. ' I was calm and cold as Reason herself. I condemned the Huguenots without pity, it is true, but without anger. If 1 bad been Queen of England, I would have done the same to the Catholics if they had been seditious. Our coua-' try required at that time one God, one faith, one master. Luckily for me, I have described my policy in a word. When Birague an-* nounced to me the defeat at Dreux — well, I said, we must go to the Conventicle. — Hate the Huguenots, indeed! I honoured them greatly, and I did not know them. How could I hate those who had never been my friends?' (To be continued.)