A strange sound attracted the young man’s attention. He looked round him, and saw on the mantel-shelf, just below an enormous crucifix coarsely painted in fresco on the wall, a rat of enormous size engaged in nibbling a piece of dry bread, but fixing all the time an intelligent and inquiring look upon the new occupant of the cell. The King could not resist a sudden impulse of fear and disgust. He moved back towards the door, uttering a loud cry; and as if he but needed this cry, which escaped from his breast almost unconsciously, to recognize himself, Louis knew that he was alive and in full possession of his natural senses. “A prisoner!” he cried. “I- a prisoner!” He looked round him for a bell to summon some one to him. “There are no bells in the Bastille,” he said, “and it is in the Bastille I am imprisoned. In what way can I have been made a prisoner? It is, of course, a conspiracy of M. Fouquet. I have been drawn into a snare at Vaux. M. Fouquet cannot be acting alone in this affair. His agent,- that voice I but just now heard was M. d’Herblay’s; I recognized it. Colbert was right, then. But what is Fouquet’s object? To reign in my place and stead? Impossible! Yet, who knows?” thought the King, relapsing into gloom. “Perhaps my brother the Duc d’Orleans is doing against me what my uncle, all through his life, wished to do against my father. But the Queen?- My mother too? And La Valliere? Oh! La Valliere,- she will have been abandoned to Madame. Dear child!- yes, it is so; they have shut her up, as they have me. We are separated forever!” and at this idea of separation the lover burst into tears, with sobs and groans.
“There is a governor in this place,” the King continued, in a fury of passion. “I will speak to him; I will summon him.”
He called; but no voice replied to his. He seized his chair, and hurled it against the massive oaken door. The wood resounded against the door, and awakened many a mournful echo in the profound depths of the staircase; but no one responded.
This was for the King a fresh proof of the slight regard in which he was held in the Bastille. Therefore, when his first fit of anger had passed away, having noticed a barred window, through which there passed a stream of light, lozenge-shaped, which must be the luminous dawn, Louis began to call out, at first gently, then louder and louder still; but no one replied to him. Twenty other attempts which he made, one after another, obtained no better success. His blood began to boil within him, and mount to his head. His nature was such that, accustomed to command, he trembled at the idea of disobedience. By degrees his anger increased. The prisoner broke the chair, which was too heavy for him to lift, and made use of it as a battering-ram to strike against the door. He struck with such force and rapidity that the perspiration soon began to pour down his face. The sound became tremendous and continuous; stifled cries replied in different directions.
This sound produced a strange effect upon the King; he paused to listen to it. It was the voices of the prisoners,- formerly his victims, now his companions. The voices ascended like vapors through the thick ceilings and the massive walls; they complained against the author of this noise, as doubtless their sighs and tears accused, in whispered tones, the author of their captivity. After having deprived so many persons of their liberty, the King had come among them to rob them of their sleep. This idea almost drove him mad; it redoubled his strength, or rather his will, bent upon obtaining some information or some result. With a portion of the broken chair he recommenced the noise. At the end of an hour Louis heard something in the corridor behind the door of his cell; and a violent blow which was returned upon the door itself made him cease his own.
“Ah, there! are you mad?” said a rude, brutal voice. “What is the matter with you this morning?”