ed, until Bellenger, advancing behind, took
him by the arm and made him stand erect. It was this poor creature I had
heard scratching on the other side of the inn wall.

How long Bellenger had been beforehand with me in Mittau I could not
guess. But when I saw the scoundrel who had laid me in Ste. Pelagie, and
doubtless dropped me in the Seine, ready to do me more mischief, smug
and smooth shaven, and fine in the red-collared blue coat which seemed
to be the prescribed uniform of that court, all my confidence returned.
I was Louis of France. I could laugh at anything he had to say.

Behind him entered a priest, who advanced up the room, and made
obeisance to the king, as Bellenger did.

Madame d'Angouleme looked once at the idiot, and hid her eyes: the king
protecting her. I said to myself,

"It will soon be against my breast, not yours, that she hides her face,
my excellent uncle of Provence!"

Yet he was as sincere a man as ever said to witnesses,

"We shall now hear the truth."

The few courtiers, enduring with hardiness a sight which they perhaps
had seen before though Madame d'Angouleme had not, made a rustle among
themselves as if echoing,

"Yes, now we shall hear the truth!"

The king again kissed my sister's hand, and placed her in a seat beside
his arm-chair, which he resumed.

"Monsieur the Abbe Edgeworth," he said, "having stood on the scaffold
with our martyred sovereign, as priest and comforter, is eminently the
one to conduct an examination like this, which touches matters of
conscience. We leave it in his hands."

Abbe Edgeworth, fine and sweet of presence, stood by the king, facing
Bellenger and the idiot. That poor creature, astonished by his
environment, gazed at the high room corners, or smiled experimentally at
the courtiers, stretching his cracked lips over darkened fangs.

"You are admitted here, Bellenger," said the priest, "to answer his
Majesty's questions in the presence of witnesses."

"I thank his Majesty," said Bellenger.

The abbe began as if the idiot attracted his notice for the first time.

"Who is the unfortunate child you hold with your right hand?"

"The dauphin of France, monsieur the abbe," spoke out Bellenger, his
left hand on his hip.

"What! Take care what you say! How do you know that the dauphin of
France is yet among the living?"

Bellenger's countenance changed, and he took his hand off his hip and
let it hang down.

"I received the prince, monsieur, f