He did not finish his sentence, for the showman fell back panic-stricken, and stood off among the crowd, malevolence and craven fear struggling for the mastery in his countenance. The priest took the boy up gently in his arms and looked at him. His face grew strangely mild as he did so. The black brows grew smooth, the lips relaxed. "Get a little water," he said to the nearest man, a hulking, olive-skinned Southerner. "The child has swooned."
"Your pardon, father," the man answered. "He is dead."
But Father Bernard shook his head. "No, my son," he said kindly. "He who led me here to-day will keep life in him a little longer. God's ways never end in a _cul-de-sac_. Get the water. He has swooned only."
Since the poisoning of the Prince of Condé by his servant, Brillaut, at the instigation--as was alleged and commonly believed--of Madame la Princesse, no tragedy of the kind had caused a greater sensation in Paris, or been the subject of more talk, than the murder of M. de Vidoche. The remarkable circumstances which attended it--and which lost nothing in the narration--its immediate discovery, the apparent lack of motive, and the wealth, rank, and youth of the guilty wife, all helped, with the fulness of Paris at this time and the absence of any stirring political news, to make it the one topic of interest. Nothing else was talked of in chamber or tennis court, in the Grand Gallery at the Louvre, or in the cardinal's ante-room at the Palais Richelieu. Culprit and victim were alike well known. M. de Vidoche, if no favourite, had been at least a conspicuous figure in society. He had been cast for one of the parts in the royal troupe at the Christmas carnival. His flirtation with Mademoiselle de Farincourt had been sufficiently marked to cause both amusement and interest. And if madame was a less familiar figure at Court, if she had a reputation somewhat prudish, and an air of rusticity that did not belie it, and was even less of a favourite than her husband, her position as a great heiress and the last of an old family gave her a _cachet_ which did not fail to make her interesting now.
Gladly would the great ladies in their coaches have gone down to the Châtelet to stare at her after the cruel fashion of that day; and, after buzzing round her in her misery, have gone away with a hundred tales of how she looked, and what she wore, and what she said in prison. But madame was saved this--this torture worse than the question--by the physician's order that no one should be admitted to her. He laid this down so strenuously--telling the lieutenant that if she had not complete repose for twenty-four hours he would be answerable neither for her life nor her reason--that that officer, who, like the Chevalier du Guet, was an old soldier, replied "No" to the most pressing insistences; and save and except Father Bernard, who had the _entrée_ at all hours by the king's command, would let no one go in to her. "It will be bad enough by-and-bye," he said, with an oath. "If she did it, she will be punished. But she shall have a little peace to-day."