The Queen's Necklace by Alexandre Dumas père

Page 1 of 261

The Works of Alexandre Dumas in Thirty Volumes

THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE

Illustrated with Drawings on Wood by Eminent French and American Artists

[Illustration: CAGLIOSTRO AND OLIVA _Dumas, Vol. Eight_]

[Illustration]

New York P.F. Collier and Son MCMIV

THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE.

PROLOGUE.--THE PREDICTIONS.

AN OLD NOBLEMAN AND AN OLD MAITRE-D'HOTEL.

It was the beginning of April, 1784, between twelve and one o'clock. Our old acquaintance, the Marshal de Richelieu, having with his own hands colored his eyebrows with a perfumed dye, pushed away the mirror which was held to him by his valet, the successor of his faithful Raffe and shaking his head in the manner peculiar to himself, "Ah!" said he, "now I look myself;" and rising from his seat with juvenile vivacity, he commenced shaking off the powder which had fallen from his wig over his blue velvet coat, then, after taking a turn or two up and down his room, called for his maitre-d'hotel.

In five minutes this personage made his appearance, elaborately dressed.

The marshal turned towards him, and with a gravity befitting the occasion, said, "Sir, I suppose you have prepared me a good dinner?"

"Certainly, your grace."

"You have the list of my guests?"

"I remember them perfectly, your grace; I have prepared a dinner for nine."

"There are two sorts of dinners, sir," said the marshal.

"True, your grace, but----"

The marshal interrupted him with a slightly impatient movement, although still dignified.

"Do you know, sir, that whenever I have heard the word 'but,' and I have heard it many times in the course of eighty-eight years, it has been each time, I am sorry to say, the harbinger of some folly."

"Your grace----"

"In the first place, at what time do we dine?"

"Your grace, the citizens dine at two, the bar at three, the nobility at four----"

"And I, sir?"

"Your grace will dine to-day at five."

"Oh, at five!"

"Yes, your grace, like the king----"

"And why like the king?"

"Because, on the list of your guests, is the name of a king."

"Not so, sir, you mistake; all my guests to-day are simply noblemen."

"Your grace is surely jesting; the Count Haga,[A] who is among the guests----"

[A] The name of Count Haga was well known as one assumed by the King of Sweden when traveling in France.

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