“This morning!” thought the King, surprised; but he said aloud, politely, “Monsieur, are you the governor of the Bastille?”
“My good fellow, your head is out of sorts,” replied the voice; “but that is no reason why you should make such a terrible disturbance. Be quiet, mordieu!”
“Are you the governor?” the King inquired again.
He heard a door on the corridor close; the jailer had left without condescending to reply. When the King had assured himself of his departure, his fury knew no longer any bounds. As agile as a tiger, he leaped from the table to the window, and shook the iron bars. He broke a pane of glass, the pieces of which fell clanking into the courtyard below. He shouted with increasing hoarseness, “The governor, the governor!” This excess lasted fully an hour, during which time he was in a burning fever. With his hair in disorder and matted on his forehead, his dress torn and whitened, his linen in shreds, the King never rested until his strength was utterly exhausted; and it was not until then that he clearly understood the pitiless thickness of the walls, the impenetrable nature of the cement, invincible to all other influence save that of time, and that he possessed no other weapon but despair. He leaned his forehead against the door, and let the feverish throbbings of his heart calm by degrees; an additional pulsation would have made it burst.
“A moment will come when the food which is given to the prisoners will be brought to me. I shall then see some one; I shall speak to him, and get an answer.”
Then the King tried to remember at what hour the first repast of the prisoners was served in the Bastille; he was ignorant even of this detail. The feeling of remorse at this remembrance smote him like the keen thrust of a dagger,- that he should have lived for five-and-twenty years a King, and in the enjoyment of every happiness, without having bestowed a moment’s thought on the misery of those who had been unjustly deprived of their liberty. The King blushed from shame. He felt that Heaven, in permitting this fearful humiliation, did no more than render to the man the same torture which was inflicted by that man upon so many others. Nothing could be more efficacious toward awakening religious feeling in that soul prostrated by the sense of suffering. But Louis dared not even kneel in prayer to God to entreat him to terminate his bitter trial.
“Heaven is right,” he said; “Heaven acts wisely. It would be cowardly to pray to Heaven for that which I have so often refused to my own fellow-creatures.”
He had reached this stage of his reflections,- that is, of his agony of mind,- when the same noise was again heard behind his door, followed this time by the sound of the key in the lock, and of the bolts withdrawn from their staples. The King bounded forward to be nearer to the person who was about to enter; but suddenly reflecting that it was a movement unworthy of a sovereign, he paused, assumed a noble and calm expression, which for him was easy enough, and waited with his back turned towards the window, in order to some extent to conceal his agitation from the eyes of the person who was about entering. It was only a jailer with a basket of provisions. The King looked at the man with anxiety, and waited for him to speak.
“Ah!” said the latter, “you have broken your chair, I should say! Why, you must have become quite mad.”
“Monsieur,” said the King, “be careful what you say; it will be a very serious affair for you.”
The jailer placed the basket on the table, and looked at his prisoner steadily. “What do you say?” he said with surprise.
“Desire the governor to come to me,” added the King, with dignity.
“Come, my boy,” said the turnkey, “you have always been very quiet and reasonable; but you are getting vicious, it seems, and I wish to give you warning. You have broken your chair, and made a great disturbance; that is an offence punishable by imprisonment in one of the lower dungeons. Promise me not to begin over again, and I will not say a word about it to the governor.”