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Then M. Dauphin, the Notary, who had joined the crowd, held out a hand coaxingly, and with insinuating rhetoric drew a little nearer than the landlord had done; but he retreated precipitously as the hound crouched back for a spring. Some one called for a gun, and Filion Lacasse ran into his shop. The animal had now settled down on his master's body, his bloodshot eyes watching in menace.
Perhaps collections of them will be found in future museums under different headings, such as: "Needles of Consolation," under which might come those which Mary Stuart and her maids wrought their dismal hours into pathetic bits of embroidery during the long days of captivity, or the daughter of the sorrowful Marie Antoinette mended the dilapidations of the pitiful and ragged Dauphin; or: "Needles of Devotion," wielded by canonized and uncanonized saints in and out of nunneries; or: "Needles of History," like those with which Matilda stitched the prowess of William the Conqueror into breadths of woven flax.
The garrison at Saint Marc was thinning, Therese sent word; and the country people conveyed to Pongaudin the news that funerals were becoming daily more frequent at Limbe, Le Dauphin, and other posts along the northern shore. Not for this, however, was there any relaxation of the vigilance with which L'Ouverture was watched by the foe.
For the weak and frivolous Conde began to prattle publicly of his deep projects of revenge. Aided by Spanish money and Spanish troops he would show one day who was the real heir to the throne of France the illegitimately born Dauphin or himself.
So this fling of the Dauphin's cut deep. But before the young Otto could return an angry answer, Jacqueline had interfered. "Nay, nay, my lord," she said to her husband, the Dauphin; "'t is not a knightly act thus to impeach the honor of a noble guest." But now the Lord of Arkell had found his tongue.
Such was the political education of this queen, who saw in the cabinet of the king of France the same errors committed as in the house of the Medici. The dauphin opposed his father in everything; he was a bad son.
Not only did she do all this as wisely as the most astute general who ever lived, but she succeeded in liberating France from the hands of the English, where we have very good reason to think it might have otherwise remained to this day; for the English were gaining ground steadily, and the French dauphin was utterly discouraged, and had ceased to make an effort to maintain his rights, when Joan of Arc came to his rescue.
The Dauphin became ill with fever, and it was long before his mother, who watched by him night and day, could obtain medicine or advice for him. When Thierry was at last allowed to see him his treatment relieved the most violent symptoms, but, says Madame Royale, "his health was never reestablished.
The depth of sadness in his utterance with which he spoke the last parting word, doubled the tears and sobs of the weeping family. The daughter fell in a swoon at the feet of her father, and Clery, assisted by the Princess Elizabeth, raised her up. "Papa, my dear papa," cried the dauphin, nestling up closely to his father, "let us stay with you." The queen said not a word.
Nay, had not Louis XV. died at the moment he did, there is scarcely a doubt, from the number and the quality of the hostile influences working on the credulity of the young Dauphin, that Marie Antoinette would have been very harshly dealt with, even the more so from the partiality of the dotard who believed himself to be reigning.
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