Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/27

Rh on a funeral pyre, this Sardanapalus of yours?"

"Yes, Sire; it was the sole sort of pleasure he had not yet essayed; he kept it for the last."

"And doubtless it was to make this pleasure as keen as might be that he burned himself along with his Palace, his treasures, his favourite Queen."

"It was so, Sire."

"Would you by any chance advise me then, my dear Lamartinière, to burn down Versailles, and with it to burn myself, together with Madame du Barry? "

"No, no, Sire. You have fought battles, you have witnessed conflagrations, you were yourself within the range of the guns of Fontenoy. Fire and flame therefore would be no new diversion for you. Come, let us go through your resources of defence against ennui."

"Oh! Lamartinière, I am very, very ill armed."

"Y'ou have, to begin with. Monsieur de Chauvelin, your friend ... a man of wit, . . . a . . ."

"Chauvelin has no wit now, dear sir."

"Since when has that been so?"

"Why, since I have felt this weight of boredom, egad!"

"Pooh!" cried Lamartinière, "'tis as though you were to say Madame du Barry is no longer a fine woman since . . ."

"Since what?" . . . asked the King, reddening somewhat.

"Oh! I am no fool!" retorted the Surgeon roughly.

"So," said the King with a deep sigh, "it is finally decided I am going to be ill."

"I am afraid so. Sire."

"A remedy, then, Lamartinière, suggest a remedy; let us anticipate the evil."

"Rest, Sire; I know no better."

"Good!"

"Diet."

"Good!"

"Amusement."

"Stop, stop, Lamartinière."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"You prescribe amusement, but you never tell me how I am to amuse myself. Well, I call you an ignoramus, a thick-headed ignoramus! do you hear me, sir?"

"And you are wrong, Sire. 'Tis your fault and not mine."

"How do you mean?"

"No one can amuse people who are bored when they have Monsieur de Chauvelin for their friend and Madame du Barry for their mistress."

A silence followed, seeming to show that the King admitted there was some sense in Lamartinière's last observation."

Presently the King resumed:

"Well, well, Lamartiniėre, my friend, since we are on the subject of illness, let us discuss the thing thoroughly anyway. You say I have enjoyed every amusement there is in the world, do you not? "

"I do, and I speak the truth."

"War for instance?"

"War! when you have won the battle of Fontenoy?"

"Yes, truly an amusing spectacle, men torn to tatters, four leagues long and a league broad reeking with blood, a stench of carnage to turn a man's stomach."

"In a word, glory."

"Then, besides, was it I who won the battle? was it not rather the Maréchal de Saxe? or the Duc de Richelieu? or better still Pecquigny with his four guns? "

"No matter; who but you was given the triumph of it all, nevertheless? "

"I grant that; so that you think a sufficient reason for my loving glory. Ah! my good Lamartinière," added the King with a groan, " if you only knew how uncomfortable my bed was the night before Fontenoy!"

"W'ell, so be it; we will say no more of personal glory; but surely, without caring to gain it yourself, you can have it given you, be glorified, by painters and poets and historians."

"Lamartinière, I have a perfect horror of all those fellows, who are either boobies as dull and commonplace as my own lackeys or else such monsters of selfconceit that my grandfather's triumphal arches would be too low for them. That Voltaire beats them all; did not the fellow clap me on the shoulder one evening, calling me Trajan, if you please? They tell him he is king of my kingdom, and the noodle believes it. I will have nothing to do, I tell you, with immortality such as these folk could give me; one musjt pay too dear for it in this perishable world, and perhaps even in the next."

"In that case, what do you wish. Sire? tell me that."

"I wish to make my life last as long as ever I can. I wish that life to contain