The Mesmerist's Victim Read online

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  PRICE, 25 CENTS. No. 77.

  THE SUNSET SERIES.

  By Subscription, per Year, Nine Dollars. January 25, 1894.

  Entered at the New York Post Office as second-class matter.

  Copyright 1892, by J. S. OGILVIE.

  THEMESMERIST'S VICTIM.

  BY

  ALEX. DUMAS.

  NEW YORK:J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,57 ROSE STREET.

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  THE MESMERIST'S VICTIM;

  OR,

  ANDREA DE TAVERNEY.

  A HISTORICAL ROMANCE

  BY ALEX. DUMAS.

  Author of "Monte Cristo," "The Three Musketeers _Series_," "Chicotthe Jester _Series_," etc.

  TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST PARIS EDITION.

  BY

  HENRY LLEWELLYN WILLIAMS.

  NEW YORK:

  J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,

  57 ROSE STREET.

  _Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1892, by A. E. Smith &Co, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington._

  THE MESMERIST'S VICTIM;

  OR,

  ANDREA DE TAVERNEY.

  CHAPTER I.

  THE DESPERATE RESCUE.

  On the thirteenth of May, 1770, Paris celebrated the wedding of theDauphin or Prince Royal Louis Aguste, grandson of Louis XV. stillreigning, with Marie-Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria.

  The entire population flocked towards Louis XV. Place, where fireworkswere to be let off. A pyrotechnical display was the finish to all grandpublic ceremonies, and the Parisians were fond of them although theymight make fun.

  The ground was happily chosen, as it would hold six thousand spectators.Around the equestrian statue of the King, stands were built circularlyto give a view of the fireworks, to be set off at ten or twelve feetelevation.

  The townsfolk began to assemble long before seven o'clock when the CityGuard arrived to keep order. This duty rather belonged to the FrenchGuards, but the Municipal government had refused the extra pay theirCommander, Colonel, the Marshal Duke Biron, demanded, and these warriorsin a huff were scattered in the mob, vexed and quarrelsome. They sneeredloudly at the tumult, which they boasted they would have quelled withthe pike-stock or the musket-butt if they had the ruling of thegathering.

  The shrieks of the women, squeezed in the press, the wailing of thechildren, the swearing of the troopers, the grumbling of the fatcitizens, the protests of the cake and candy merchants whose goods werestolen, all prepared a petty uproar preceding the deafening one whichsix hundred thousand souls were sure to create when collected. At eightat evening, they produced a vast picture, like one after Teniers, butwith French faces.

  About half past eight nearly all eyes were fastened on the scaffoldwhere the famous Ruggieri and his assistants were putting the finaltouches to the matches and fuses of the old pieces. Many largecompositions were on the frames. The grand bouquet, or shower of stars,girandoles and squibs, with which such shows always conclude, was to gooff from a rampart, near the Seine River, on a raised bank.

  As the men carried their lanterns to the places where the pieces wouldbe fired, a lively sensation was raised in the throng, and some of thetimid drew back, which made the whole waver in line.

  Carriages with the better class still arrived but they could not reachthe stand to deposit their passengers. The mob hemmed them in and somepersons objected to having the horses lay their heads on their shoulder.

  Behind the horses and vehicles the crowd continued to increase, so thatthe conveyances could not move one way or another. Then were seen withthe audacity of the city-bred, the boys and the rougher men climb uponthe wheels and finally swarm upon the footman's board and the coachman'sbox.

  The illumination of the main streets threw a red glare on the sea offaces, and flashed from the bayonets of the city guardsmen, asconspicuous as a blade of wheat in a reaped field.

  About nine o'clock one of these coaches came up, but three rows ofcarriages were before the stand, all wedged in and covered with thesightseers. Hanging onto the springs was a young man, who kicked awaythose who tried to share with him the use of this locomotive to cleave apath in the concourse. When it stopped, however, he dropped down butwithout letting go of the friendly spring with one hand. Thus he wasable to hear the excited talk of the passengers.

  Out of the window was thrust the head of a young and beautiful girl,wearing white and having lace on her sunny head.

  "Come, come, Andrea," said a testy voice of an elderly man within toher, "do not lean out so, or you will have some rough fellow snatch akiss. Do you not see that our coach is stuck in this mass like a boat ina mudflat? we are in the water, and dirty water at that; do not let usbe fouled."

  "We can't see anything, father," said the girl, drawing in her head: "ifthe horse turned half round we could have a look through the window, andwould see as well as in the places reserved for us at the governor's."

  "Turn a bit, coachman," said the man.

  "Can't be did, my lord baron," said the driver; "it would crush a dozenpeople."

  "Go on and crush them, then!"

  "Oh, sir," said Andrea.

  "No, no, father," said a young gentleman beside the old baron inside.

  "Hello, what baron is this who wants to crush the poor?" cried severalthreatening voices.

  "The Baron of Taverney Redcastle--I," replied the old noble, leaning outand showing that he wore a red sash crosswise.

  Such emblems of the royal and knightly orders were still respected, andthough there was grumbling it was on a lessening tone.

  "Wait, father," said the young gentleman, "I will step out and see ifthere is some way of getting on."

  "Look out, Philip," said the girl, "you will get hurt. Only hear thehorses neighing as they lash out."

  Philip Taverney, Knight of Redcastle, was a charming cavalier and,though he did not resemble his sister, he was as handsome for a man asshe for her sex.

  "Bid those fellows get out of our way," said the baron, "so we canpass."

  Philip was a man of the time and like many of the young nobility hadle
arnt ideas which his father of the old school was incapable ofappreciating.

  "Oh, you do not know the present Paris, father," he returned. "Thesehigh-handed acts of the masters were all very well formerly; but theywill hardly go down now, and you would not like to waste your dignity,of course."

  "But since these rascals know who I am---- "

  "Were you a royal prince," replied the young man smiling, "they wouldnot budge for you, I am afraid; at this moment, too, when the fireworksare going off."

  "And we shall not see them," pouted Andrea.

  "Your fault, by Jove--you spent more than two hours over your attire,"snarled the baron.

  "Could you not take me through the mob to a good spot on your arm,brother?" asked she.

  "Yes, yes, come out, little lady," cried several voices; for the menwere struck by Mdlle. Taverney's beauty: "you are not stout, and we willmake room for you."

  Andrea sprang lightly out of the vehicle without touching the steps.

  "I think little of the crackers and rockets, and I will stay here,"growled the baron.

  "We are not going far, father," responded Philip.

  Always respectful to the queen called Beauty, the mob opened before theTaverneys, and a good citizen made his wife and daughter give way on abench where they stood, for the young lady. Philip stood by his sister,who rested a hand on his shoulder. The young man who had "cut behind"the carriage, had followed them and he looked with fond eyes on thegirl.

  "Are you comfortable, Andrea?" said the chevalier; "see what a help goodlooks are!"

  "Good looks," sighed the strange young man; "why, she is lovely, verylovely. She is lovelier here, in Parisian costume, than when I used tosee her on their country place, where I was but Gilbert the humbleretainer on my lord Baron's lands.'"

  Andrea heard the compliment; but she thought it came not from anacquaintance so far as a dependent could be the acquaintance of a younglady of title, and she believed it was a common person who spoke.

  Infinitely proud, she heeded it no more than an East Indian idoltroubles itself about the adorer who places his tribute at its feet.

  Hardly were the two young Taverneys established on and by the bench thanthe first rockets serpentined towards the clouds, and a loud "Oh!" wasroared by the multitude henceforth absorbed in the sight.

  Andrea did not try to conceal her impressions in her astonishment at theunequalled sight of a population cheering with delight before a palaceof fire. Only a yard from her, the youth who had named himself asGilbert, gazed on her rather than at the show, except because it charmedher. Every time a gush of flame shone on her beautiful countenance, hethrilled; he could fancy that the general admiration sprang from theadoration which this divine creature inspired in him who idolized her.

  Suddenly, a vivid glare burst and spread, slanting from the river: itwas a bomshell exploding fiercely, but Andrea merely admired thegorgeous play of light.

  "How splendid," she murmured.

  "Goodness," said her brother, disquieted, "that shot was badly aimed forit shoots almost on the level instead of taking an upward curve. Oh,God, it is an accident! Come away--it is a mishap which I dreaded. Astray cracker has set fire to the powder on the bastion. The people aretrampling on each other over there to get away. Do you not hear thosescreams--not cheers but shrieks of distress. Quick, quick, to the coach!Gentlemen, gentlemen, please let us through."

  He put his arms around his sister's slender waist, to drag her in thedirection of her father. Also made uneasy by the clamor, the dangerbeing evident though not distinguished yet by him, he put his head outof the window to look for his dear ones.

  It was too late!

  The final display of fifteen thousand rockets-burst, darting off in alldirections, and chasing the spectators like those squibs exploded in thebull-fighting ring to stir up the bull.

  At first surprised but soon frightened, the people drew back withoutreflection. Before this invincible retreat of a hundred thousand,another mass as numerous gave the same movement when squeezed to therear. The wooden work at the bastion took fire; children cried, womentossed their arms; the city guardsmen struck out to quiet the brawlersand re-establish order by violence.

  All these causes combined to drive the crowd like a waterspout to thecorner where Philip of Taverney stood. Instead of reaching the baron'scarriage as he reckoned, he was swept on by the resistless tide, ofwhich no description can give an idea. Individual force, already doubledby fear and pain, was increased a hundredfold by the junction of thegeneral power.

  As Philip dragged Andrea away, Gilbert was also carried off by the humancurrent: but at the corner of Madeline Street, a band of fugitiveslifted him up and tore him away from Andrea, in spite of his strugglesand yelling.

  Upon the Taverneys charged a team of runaway horses. Philip saw thecrowd part; the smoking heads of the animals appeared and they rose ontheir haunches for a leap. He leaped, too, and being a cavalry officer,captain in the Dauphiness's Dragoons, knew how to deal with them. Hecaught the bit of one and was lifted with it.

  Andrea saw him flung and fall; she screamed, threw up her arms, wasbuffeted, reeled, and in an instant was tossed hence alone, like afeather, without the strength to offer resistance.

  Deafening calmor, more dreadful than shouts of battle, the horsesneighing, the clatter of the vehicles on the pavement cumbered with thecrippled, and livid glare of the burning stands, the sinister flashingof swords which some of the soldiers had drawn, in their fury and abovethe bloody chaos, the bronze statue gleaming with the light as itpresided over the carnage--here was enough to drive the girl mad.

  She uttered a despairing cry; for a soldier in cutting a way for himselfin the crowd had waved the dripping blade over her head. She clasped herhands like a shipwrecked sailor as the last breaker swamps him, andgasping "God have mercy" fell.

  Yet to fall here was to die.

  One had heard this final, supreme appeal. It was Gilbert who had beensnaking his way up to her. Though the same rush bent him down, he rose,seized the soldier by the throat and upset him.

  Where he felled him, lay the white-robed form: he lifted it up with agiant's strength.

  When he felt this beautiful body on his heart, though it might be acorpse, a ray of pride illuminated his face.

  The sublime situation made him the sublimation of strength and courageextreme; he dashed with his burden into the torrent of men. This wouldhave broken a hole through a wall. It sustained him and carried themboth. He just touched the ground with his feet, but her weight began totell on him. Her heart beat against his.

  "She is saved," he said, "and I have saved her," he added, as the massbrought up against the Royal Wardrobe Building, and he was sheltered inthe angle of masonry.

  But looking towards the bridge over the Seine, he did not see the twentythousand wretches on his right, mutilated, welded together, havingbroken through the barrier of the carriages and mixed up with them asthe drivers and horses were seized with the same vertigo.

  Instinctively they tried to get to the wall against which the closestwere mashed.

  This new deluge threatened to grind those who had taken refuge here bythe Wardrobe building, with the belief they had escaped. Maimed bodiesand dead ones piled up by Gilbert. He had to back into the recess of thegateway, where the weight made the walls crack.

  The stifled youth felt like yielding; but collecting all his powers by amighty effort, he enclasped Andrea with his arms, applying his face toher dress as if he meant to strangle her whom he wished to protect.

  "Farewell," he gasped as he bit her robe in kissing it.

  His eyes glancing about in an ultimate call to heaven, were offered asingular vision.

  A man was standing on a horseblock, clinging by his right hand to aniron ring sealed in the wall: while with his left he seemed to beckon anarmy in flight to rally.

  He was a tall dark man of thirty, with a figure muscular but elegant.His features had the mobility of Southerners', strangely blending powerand
subtlety. His eyes were piercing and commanding.

  As the mad ocean of human beings poured beneath him he cast out a wordor a cabalistic token. On these, some individual in the throng was seento stop, fight clear and make his way towards the beckoner to fall in athis rear. Others, called likewise, seemed to recognize brothers in eachother, and all lent their hands to catch still more of the swimmers inthis tide of life. Soon this knot of men were formed into the head of abreakwater, which divided the fugitives and served to stay and stem therush.

  At every instant new recruits seemed to spring out of the earth at theseodd words and weird gestures, to form the backers of this wondrous man.

  Gilbert nerved himself. He felt that here alone was safety, for here wascalm and power.

  A last flicker of the burning staging, irradiated this man's visage andGilbert uttered an outcry of surprise.

  "I know who that is," he said, "he visited my master down at Taverney.It is Baron Balsamo. Oh, I care not if I die provided she lives. Thisman has the power to save her."

  In perfect self-sacrifice, he raised the girl up in both hands andshouted:

  "Baron Balsamo, save Andrea de Taverney!"

  Balsamo heard this voice from the depths; he saw the white figure liftedabove the matted beings; he used the phalanx he had collected to coverhis charge to the spot. Seizing the girl, still sustained by Gilbertthough his arms were weakening, he snatched her away, and let the crowdcarry them both afar.

  He had not time to turn his head.

  Gilbert had not the breath to utter a word. Perhaps, after having Andreaaided, he would have supplicated assistance for himself; but all hecould do was clutch with a hand which tore a scrap of the dress of thegirl. After this grasp, a last farewell, the young man tried no longerto struggle, as though he were willing to die. He closed his eyes andfell on a heap of the dead.