第27章

"Marie, my beloved," said the ruler of France, taking out his watch, "'tis time that the Minister of America should be here.""Your Majesty should know the time," replied Marie Antoinette, archly, and in an Austrian accent; "is not my Royal Louis the first watchmaker in his empire?"The King cast a pleased glance at his repeater, and kissed with courtly grace the fair hand of her who had made him the compliment.

"My Lord Bishop of Autun," said he to Monsieur de Talleyrand Perigord, who followed the royal pair, in his quality of arch-chamberlain of the empire, "I pray you look through the gardens, and tell his Excellency Doctor Franklin that the King waits." The Bishop ran off, with more than youthful agility, to seek the United States' Minister. "These Republicans," he added, confidentially, and with something of a supercilious look, "are but rude courtiers, methinks.""Nay," interposed the lovely Antoinette, "rude courtiers, Sire, they may be; but the world boasts not of more accomplished gentlemen. I have seen no grandee of Versailles that has the noble bearing of this American envoy and his suite. They have the refinement of the Old World, with all the simple elegance of the New. Though they have perfect dignity of manner, they have an engaging modesty which I have never seen equalled by the best of the proud English nobles with whom they wage war. I am told they speak their very language with a grace which the haughty Islanders who oppress them never attained. They are independent, yet never insolent; elegant, yet always respectful; and brave, but not in the least boastful.""What! savages and all, Marie?" exclaimed Louis, laughing, and chucking the lovely Queen playfully under the royal chin. "But here comes Doctor Franklin, and your friend the Cacique with him."In fact, as the monarch spoke, the Minister of the United States made his appearance, followed by a gigantic warrior in the garb of his native woods.

Knowing his place as Minister of a sovereign state, (yielding even then in dignity to none, as it surpasses all now in dignity, in valor, in honesty, in strength, and civilization,) the Doctor nodded to the Queen of France, but kept his hat on as he faced the French monarch, and did not cease whittling the cane he carried in his hand.

"I was waiting for you, sir," the King said, peevishly, in spite of the alarmed pressure which the Queen gave his royal arm.

"The business of the Republic, sire, must take precedence even of your Majesty's wishes," replied Dr. Franklin. "When I was a poor printer's boy and ran errands, no lad could be more punctual than poor Ben Franklin; but all other things must yield to the service of the United States of North America. I have done. What would you, Sire?" and the intrepid republican eyed the monarch with a serene and easy dignity, which made the descendant of St. Louis feel ill at ease.

"I wished to--to say farewell to Tatua before his departure," said Louis XVI., looking rather awkward. "Approach, Tatua." And the gigantic Indian strode up, and stood undaunted before the first magistrate of the French nation: again the feeble monarch quailed before the terrible simplicity of the glance of the denizen of the primaeval forests.

The redoubted chief of the Nose-ring Indians was decorated in his war-paint, and in his top-knot was a peacock's feather, which had been given him out of the head-dress of the beautiful Princess of Lamballe. His nose, from which hung the ornament from which his ferocious tribe took its designation, was painted a light-blue, a circle of green and orange was drawn round each eye, while serpentine stripes of black, white, and vermilion alternately were smeared on his forehead, and descended over his cheek-bones to his chin. His manly chest was similarly tattooed and painted, and round his brawny neck and arms hung innumerable bracelets and necklaces of human teeth, extracted (one only from each skull) from the jaws of those who had fallen by the terrible tomahawk at his girdle. His moccasins, and his blanket, which was draped on his arm and fell in picturesque folds to his feet, were fringed with tufts of hair--the black, the gray, the auburn, the golden ringlet of beauty, the red lock from the forehead of the Scottish or the Northern soldier, the snowy tress of extreme old age, the flaxen down of infancy--all were there, dreadful reminiscences of the chief's triumphs in war. The warrior leaned on his enormous rifle, and faced the King.

"And it was with that carabine that you shot Wolfe in '57?" said Louis, eying the warrior and his weapon. "'Tis a clumsy lock, and methinks I could mend it," he added mentally.

"The chief of the French pale-faces speaks truth," Tatua said.

"Tatua was a boy when he went first on the war-path with Montcalm.""And shot a Wolfe at the first fire!" said the King.

"The English are braves, though their faces are white," replied the Indian. "Tatua shot the raging Wolfe of the English; but the other wolves caused the foxes to go to earth." A smile played round Dr.

Franklin's lips, as he whittled his cane with more vigor than ever.

"I believe, your Excellency, Tatua has done good service elsewhere than at Quebec," the King said, appealing to the American Envoy: