of the heavy atmosphere produced by the breath of many persons in a
closed hall. His senses, accustomed to the pure and wholesome air from

the sea, were shocked with a rapidity that proved the super-
sensitiveness of his organs. A horrible palpitation, due no doubt to

some defect in the organization of his heart, shook him with
reiterated blows when his father, showing himself to the assemblage

like some majestic old lion, pronounced in a solemn voice the
following brief address:--

"My friends, this is my son Etienne, my first-born son, my heir
presumptive, the Duc de Nivron, to whom the king will no doubt grant

the honors of his deceased brother. I present him to you that you may
acknowledge him and obey him as myself. I warn you that if you, or any

one in this province, over which I am governor, does aught to
displease the young duke, or thwart him in any way whatever">whatsoever, it

would be better, should it come to my knowledge, that that man had
never been born. You hear me. Return now to your duties, and God guide

you. The obsequies of my son Maximilien will take place here when his
body arrives. The household will go into mourning eight days hence.

Later, we shall celebrate the accession of my son Etienne here
present."

"Vive monseigneur! Long live the race of Herouville!" cried the people
in a roar that shook the castle.

The valets brought in torches to illuminate the hall. That hurrah, the
sudden lights, the sensations caused by his father's speech, joined to

those he was already feeling, overcame the young man, who fainted
completely and fell into a chair, leaving his slender womanly hand in

the broad palm of his father. As the duke, who had signed to the
lieutenant of his company to come nearer, saying to him, "I am

fortunate, Baron d'Artagnon, in being able to repair my loss; behold
my son!" he felt an icy hand in his. Turning round, he looked at the

new Duc de Nivron, and, thinking him dead, he uttered a cry of horror
which appalled the assemblage.

Beauvouloir rushed to the platform, took the young man in his arms,
and carried him away, saying to his master, "You have killed him by

not preparing him for this ceremony."
"He can never have a child if he is like that!" cried the duke,

following Beauvouloir into the seignorial chamber, where the doctor
laid the young heir upon the bed.

"Well, what think you?" asked the duke presently.
"It is not serious," replied the old physician, showing Etienne, who

was now revived by a cordial, a few drops of which he had given him on
a bit of sugar, a new and precious substance which the apothecaries

were selling for its weight in gold.
"Take this, old rascal!" said the duke, offering his purse to

Beauvouloir, "and treat him like the son of a king! If he dies by your
fault, I'll burn you myself on a gridiron."

"If you continue to be so violent, the Duc de Nivron will die by your
own act," said the doctor, roughly. "Leave him now; he will go to

sleep."
"Good-night, my love," said the old man, kissing his son upon the

forehead.
"Good-night, father," replied the youth, whose voice made the father--

thus named by Etienne for the first time--quiver.
The duke took Beauvouloir by the arm and led him to the next room,

where, having pushed him into the recess of a window, he said:--
"Ah ca! old rascal, now we will understand each other."

That term, a favorite sign of graciousness with the duke, made the
doctor, no longer a mere bonesetter, smile.

"You know," said the duke, continuing, "that I wish you no harm. You
have twice delivered my poor Jeanne, you cured my son Maximilien of an

illness, in short, you are a part of my household. Poor Maximilien! I
will avenge him; I take upon myself to kill the man who killed him.

The whole future of the house of Herouville is now in your hands. You
alone can know if there is in that poor abortion the stuff that can

breed a Herouville. You hear me. What think you?"
"His life on the seashore has been so chaste and so pure that nature

is sounder in him than it would have been had he lived in your world.
But so delicate a body is the very humble servant of the soul.

Monseigneur Etienne must himself choose his wife; all things in him
must be the work of nature and not of your will. He will love

artlessly, and will accomplish by his heart's desire that which you
wish him to do for the sake of your name. But if you give your son a

proud, ungainly woman of the world, a great lady, he will flee to his
rocks. More than that; though sudden terror would surely kill him, I

believe that any sudden emotion would be equally fatal. My advice
therefore is to leave Etienne to choose for himself, at his own

pleasure, the path of love. Listen to me, monseigneur; you are a great
and powerful prince, but you understand nothing of such matters. Give

me your entire confidence, your unlimited confidence, and you shall
have a grandson."

"If I obtain a grandson by any sorcery whatever, I shall have you
ennobled. Yes, difficult as it may be, I'll make an old rascal into a

man of honor; you shall be Baron de Forcalier. Employ your magic,
white or black, appeal to your witches' sabbath or the novenas of the

Church; what care I how 'tis done, provided my line male continues?"
"I know," said Beauvouloir, "a whole chapter of sorcerers capable of

destroying your hopes; they are none other than YOURSELF, monseigneur.
I know you. To-day you want male lineage at any price; to-morrow you

will seek to have it on your own conditions; you will torment your
son."

"God preserve me from it!"
"Well, then, go away from here; go to court, where the death of the

marechal and the emancipation of the king must have turned everything
topsy turvy, and where you certainly have business, if only to obtain

the marshal's baton which was promised to you. Leave Monseigneur
Etienne to me. But give me your word of honor as a gentleman to

approvewhatever I may do for him."
The duke struck his hand into that of his physician as a sign of

complete acceptance, and retired to his own apartments.
When the days of a high and mighty seigneur are numbered, the

physician becomes a personage of importance in the household. It is,
therefore, not surprising to see a former bonesetter so familiar with

the Duc d'Herouville. Apart from the illegitimate ties which connected
him, by marriage, to this great family and certainly militated in his

favor, his sound good sense had so often been proved by the duke that
the old man had now become his master's most valued counsellor.

Beauvouloir was the Coyctier of this Louis XI. Nevertheless, and no
matter how valuable his knowledge might be, he never obtained over the

government of Normandy, in whom was the ferocity of religious warfare,
as much influence as feudality exercised over that rugged nature. For

this reason the physician was confident that the prejudices of the
noble would thwart the desires and the vows of the father.

CHAPTER V
GABRIELLE

Great physician that he was, Beauvouloir saw plainly that to a being
so delicately organized as Etienne marriage must come as a slow and

gentle inspiration, communicating new powers to his being and
vivifying it with the fires of love. As he had said to the father, to

impose a wife on Etienne would be to kill him. Above all it was
important that the young recluse should not be alarmed at the thought

of marriage, of which he knew nothing, or be made aware of the object
of his father's wishes. This unknown poet conceived as yet only the

beautiful and noble passion of Petrarch for Laura, of Dante for
Beatrice. Like his mother he was all pure love and soul; the

opportunity to love must be given to him, and then the event should be
awaited, not compelled. A command to love would have dried within him

the very sources of his life.
Maitre Antoine Beauvouloir was a father; he had a daughter brought up

under conditions which made her the wife for Etienne. It was so
difficult to foresee the events which would make a son, disowned by

his father and destined to the priesthood, the presumptive heir of the
house of Herouville that Beauvouloir had never until now noticed the

resemblance between the fate of Etienne and that of Gabrielle. A
sudden idea which now came to him was inspired more by his devotion to

those two beings than by ambition.
His wife, in spite of his great skill, had died in child-bed leaving

him a daughter whose health was so frail that it seemed as if the
mother had bequeathed to her fruit the germs of death. Beauvouloir