Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas, Alexandre part one

“Except also,” Aramis went on, “the lady in the black dress; and, finally, excepting-”

“Excepting yourself, is it not,- you, who come and relate all this,- you, who come to rouse in my soul curiosity, hatred, ambition, and perhaps even the thirst of vengeance;- except you, Monsieur, who, if you are the man whom I expect, to whom the note I have received applies, whom, in short, Heaven ought to send me, must possess about you-”

“What?” asked Aramis.

“A portrait of the King, Louis XIV, who at this moment reigns upon the throne of France.”

“Here is the portrait,” replied the bishop, handing the prisoner a miniature in enamel, on which Louis was depicted life-like, with a handsome, lofty mien. The prisoner eagerly seized the portrait, and gazed at it with devouring eyes. “And now, Monseigneur,” said Aramis, “here is a mirror.”

Aramis left the prisoner time to recover his ideas.

“So high, so high!” murmured the young man, eagerly comparing the likeness of Louis with his own countenance reflected in the glass.

“What do you think of it?” at length said Aramis.

“I think that I am lost,” replied the captive; “the King will never set me free.”

“And I- I demand,” added the bishop, fixing his piercing eyes significantly upon the prisoner,- “I demand which of the two is the King,- the one whom this miniature portrays, or the one whom the glass reflects?”

“The King, Monsieur,” sadly replied the young man, “is he who is on the throne, who is not in prison, and who, on the other hand, can cause others to be entombed there. Royalty is power; and you see well how powerless I am.”

“Monseigneur,” answered Aramis, with a respect he had not yet manifested, “the King, mark me, will, if you desire it, be he who quitting his dungeon shall maintain himself upon the throne on which his friends will place him.”

“Tempt me not, Monsieur!” broke in the prisoner, bitterly.

“Be not weak, Monseigneur,” persisted Aramis, “I have brought all the proofs of your birth: consult them; satisfy yourself that you are a king’s son; and then let us act.”

“No, no; it is impossible.”

“Unless, indeed,” resumed the bishop, ironically, “it be the destiny of your race that the brothers excluded from the throne shall be always princes without valor and without honor, as was your uncle M. Gaston d’Orleans, who ten times conspired against his brother Louis XIII.”

“What!” cried the Prince, astonished; “my uncle Gaston ‘conspired against his brother,’- conspired to dethrone him?”

“Exactly, Monseigneur; for no other reason.”

“What are you telling me, Monsieur?”

“I tell you the truth.”

“And he had friends,- devoted ones?”

“As much so as I am to you.”

“And, after all, what did he do?- Failed!”

“He failed, I admit, but always through his own fault; and for the sake of purchasing, not his life (for the life of the King’s brother is sacred and inviolable), but his liberty, he sacrificed the lives of all his friends, one after another; and so at this day he is the very shame of history, and the detestation of a hundred noble families in this kingdom.”

“I understand, Monsieur; either by weakness or treachery, my uncle slew his friends.”

“By weakness; which in princes is always treachery.”

“And cannot a man fail, then, from incapacity and ignorance? Do you really believe it possible that a poor captive such as I, brought up not only at a distance from the court, but even from the world,- do you believe it possible that such a one could assist those of his friends who should attempt to serve him?” And as Aramis was about to reply, the young man suddenly cried out, with a violence which betrayed the temper of his blood: “We are speaking of friends; but how can I have any friends,- I, whom no one knows, and who have neither liberty, money, nor influence to gain any?”

“I fancy I had the honor to offer myself to your royal Highness.”

“Oh, do not style me so, Monsieur; ‘t is either irony or cruelty! Do not lead me to think of aught else than these prison walls which confine me; let me again love, or at least submit to, my slavery and my obscurity.”

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