Page:Peterson Magazine 1869B.pdf/129

 MARIE

ANTOINETTE'S

TALISMAN.

BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS. [ Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York.]

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 66.

CHAPTER XIII.

The governor of the Bastile had retired to his own apartments within that grim old fortress. All the duties of the day had been performed. The allowance of black bread and impure water had been doled out to the prisoners, and the doors closed, leaving them in utter darkness. All these horrible duties being settled to his satisfaction, the governor was ready for his own luxurious supper, and sat waiting for it with some impatience. Originally this man was neither hard-hearted or cruel; but holding a position where these qualities were exacted from him, they had gradually become a part of his nature. Unlimited power of the worst kind had made him a tyrant, and hardened his heart to iron.

As this man sat, calm and indifferent, in an atmosphere of misery, which rose around him like a miasma, o grim, stalwart man, in the dress of a keeper, knocked at the door and came in, removing the cap from his head in token of respect for the presence he was in.

The governor turned in his chair and recognized the man.

“Well, Christopher,” he said, “what news from the city? A little more quiet, I hope.”

“Not a bit,” answered the keeper, promptly. “I have been among the clubs, as you bade me, and have made my observations. The feeling of discontent grows stronger and stronger.”

“Well, what do they expect to accomplish by grumbling, the varlets? I wish we had them here, Christopher; a week or two of such lodgings and fare as we could give them, would bring down their courage. We have that whole lower range of cells. unoccupied now, for our Louis is chicken-hearted about sending his subjects here, merely to oblige his friends; and he has no favorites, Marie Antoinette looks well to that.”

“Yes; and she it is who prevents the prison being full, as it was in the good old time, when we registered a lettre-de-cachet every day. It is this clemency that emboldens the people, and sets them clamoring for the thing they call ‘liberty!’ Liberty, indeed, we would give them enough to quarrel about if we had them all here for a single month."

"Ah!" said the governor, who seemed on excellent terms with his man. "But how are we to get them here, when we never see the king's signature, except it be to empty our cells of their prisoner? He seems to forgive all men before they are sentenced, especially his own enemies. I tell you, Christopher, this king, in his leniency, has brought this fortress of the Bastile down to the level of a common jail; and his conduct fills me with such disgust, that I am at times half resolved to throw up my commission.”

The keeper looked through one of the narrow windows, and took a survey of the ponderous walls; then, turning with a grim smile, he said,

“If the walls were less thick, a resignation might be prudent just now; but I think they will defy all the clubs in Paris.”

“Or in all France,” answered the governor, laughing. “My drawbridge once up, and no monarch in Europe sits as firmly on his throne as I do. Would to heaven his majesty was half as safe in Versailles!”

“Nay, I think the people hate the man they call their tyrant of the Bastile worse than they do the monarch at Versailles,” said the keeper, a little maliciously—for cruel men are very seldom kind to each other.

“Let them hate,” laughed the governor. “It will be a long time before their malice can reach him.”

“Yes, as I said, the walls are thick.”

“And here comes my supper, Christopher, which your news from the city shall not spoil,” cried the governor, interrupting his subordinate, as a door was opened, and a daintily- arranged table revealed in the next. room. “Step in, though, and let me hear all the news you have gathered.”

The man stepped into the supper-room, and stood leaning against the door-frame, while his superior placed himself at the table.

“It is the Bastile against which the people hurl hatred, and launch their curses most