“The eldest brother of the king of France is called Monsieur.  The Count de Provence will be called Monsieur until he succeeds Louis XVII and is crowned Louis XVIII—­if that time ever comes.  He cannot be called Louis XVII”—­the man who told me to call him Louis Philippe took my arm, and I found myself walking back and forth with him as in a dream while he carefully formed sentence after sentence.  “Because the dauphin who died in the Temple prison was Louis XVII.  But there are a few who say he did not die:  that a dying child was substituted for him:  that he was smuggled out and carried to America, Bellenger was the agent employed.  The dauphin’s sister is married to her cousin, the nephew of Monsieur.  She herself believes these things; and it is certain a sum of money is sent out to America every year for his maintenance.  He was reduced to imbecility when removed from the Temple.  It is not known whether he will ever be fit to reign if the kingdom returns to him.  No communication has been held with him.  He was nine years old when removed from the Temple:  he would now be in his nineteenth year.  When I last saw him he was a smiling little prince with waving hair and hazel eyes, holding to his mother’s hand”—­

“Stop!”

The frenzy of half recollection came on me, and that which I had put away from my mind and sworn to let alone, seized and convulsed me.  Dreams, and sensations, and instincts massed and fell upon me in an avalanche of conviction.

I was that uncrowned outcast, the king of France!

BOOK II

WANDERING

I

A primrose dawn of spring touched the mountains as Madame de Ferrier and I stepped into the tunnel’s mouth.  The wind that goes like a besom before sunrise, swept off the fog to corners of the sky, except a few spirals which still unwound from the lake.  The underground path to De Chaumont’s manor descended by terraces of steps and entered blackness.

A rank odor of earth filled it; and I never passed that way without hearkening for the insect-like song of the rattlesnake.  The ground was slippery, and thick darkness seemed to press the soul out of the body.  Yet I liked it; for when we reached the staircase of rock that entered the house, she would vanish.

And so it was.

She did say—­“Good-night—­and good-morning.”

And I answered, “Good-morning and good-night.”

We were both physically exhausted.  My head swarmed as with sparkles, and a thousand emotions tore me, for I was at the age when we risk all on chances.  I sat alone on the steps, unmindful of that penetrating chill of stone which increases rather than decreases, the longer you sit upon it, and thought of all that had been said by my new friend at the camp-fire, while the moon went lower and lower, the potter turned his wheel, and the idiot slept.