as dreaming, and in this dream the crown of gold which fastened the
curtains together seemed to recede from his vision, just as the dome, to
which it remained suspended, had done, so that the winged genius which,
with both its hands, supported the crown, seemed, though vainly so, to
call upon the king, who was fast disappearing from it. The bed still
sunk. Louis, with his eyes open, could not resist the deception of this
cruel hallucination. At last, as the light of the royal chamber faded
away into darkness and gloom, something cold, gloomy, and inexplicable
in its nature seemed to infect the air. No paintings, nor gold, nor
velvet hangings, were visible any longer, nothing but walls of a dull
gray color, which the increasing gloom made darker every moment. And yet
the bed still continued to descend, and after a minute, which seemed in
its duration almost an age to the king, it reached a stratum of air,
black and still as death, and then it stopped. The king could no longer
see the light in his room, except as from the bottom of a well we can
see the light of day. "I am under the influence of a terrible dream," he
thought. "It is time to awaken from it. Come! let me wake up."

Every one has experienced what the above remark conveys; there is hardly
a person who, in the midst of a nightmare, whose influence is
suffocating, has not said to himself by the help of that light which
still burns in the brain when every human light is extinguished, "It is
nothing but a dream after all." This was precisely what Louis XIV. said
to himself; but when he said, "Come, come! wake up," he perceived that
not only was he already awake, but still more, that he had his eyes open
also; he then looked all round him. On his right hand and on his left
two armed men stood silently, each wrapped in a huge cloak, and the face
covered with a mask; one of them held a small lamp in his hand, whose
glimmering light revealed the saddest picture a king could look upon.
Louis could not help saying to himself that his dream still lasted, and
that all he had to do to cause it to disappear was to move his arms or
to say something aloud; he darted from his bed, and found himself upon
the damp moist ground. Then, addressing himself to the man who held the
lamp in his hand, he said:

"What is this, monsieur, and what is the meaning of this jest?"

"It is no jest," replied in a deep voice the masked figure that held the
lantern.

"Do you belong to M. Fouqu