The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1904-05-12
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE GRAND MOZAMBIQUE.


THE GRAND MOZAMBIQUE.
On a great bed of state, satin draped,
flanked with ancient tapestries, piled
sickeningly soft with heaps Of pillows,
there lay thin, wthered little man
old, old and very feeble, His face was
shrunken and drawn with pain; his
eyes, once bright, were dulled; his
brow, formerly imperious, had lost its
arrogance. Under the coverings which,
in the unrest of Illness, he now pulled
high about his face, now tossed rest
lessly aside his figure lay, an elongated,
shapeless blot, scarce showing beneath
the silks. One limb. twitched and
drawn up convulsively, told of defin-
lite seat of pain. The hands, thin and
wasted, lay out upon the coverlets: and
the thumbs were creeping, creeping
ever more mistakenly, under the cover
Of the fingers, telling that the battle
for life was lost, that the surrender
had been made.
II was a death-bed, this great bed
of state; a death-bed situated in the
heart Of the greatest temple of desire
ever built in all the world. He who
had been master there, who had set
in order these miles Of stately col
umns. those seas of glittering gilt and
crystal he who had been magician,
builder, creator, perverter, debaser-
he, 10 lis of France, the Grand Mon
argue. now lay suffering like any or
binary human being, like any common
man.
At length even the last energies of
the once stubborn will gave way. The
last gasp of the failing breath was
drawn. The herald at the window an
nounced to the waiting multitude that
Louis the Fourteenth was no more.
Long live the king" exclaimed the
multitude. They hailed the new mon
arch with mockery; but laughter and
sincere Joy and feast.ng were the tes-
timonials of their emotions at the
death of the king but now departed.
On the next day cheap tawdry and
unimpOsing procession wendell its way
through the back streets of Paris, it's
leader seeking to escape even the
edges of the mob, lest the people
should fall upon the somber little
pageant and rend 1t tito fragments
This was the funeral Of Louis, the
Grand Monarque, Louis the lustful,
Louis the bigot, Louis the ignorant
Louis the unhappy. They hurried him
to his resting place, these last serv-
itors, and then fastened back TO the
palaces to join their hearts and voices
to the rising wave of joy which swept
across all France at the death of this
beloved ruler
Now it happened that, as the funeral
procession of the king was hurryine
through the side streets near the con-
fines of the old city of Paris, there en-
countered it, entering from the great
highway which led from the east up
to the city gates, the carriage OF a
gentleman who might. apparently with
justice, have laid some claim to con-
sequence. 1t had its guards and coach
men, and was attended by two riders
in livery, who kept it company along
the narrow streets. This equipage met
the head of the hurrying funeral cor
tege, and found occasion for a moment
to pause Thus there passed, the one
going TO his grave, the other to his
goal, the two men with whom the
France Of that day was most intimately
concerned.
There came from the window of the
coach the voice of one inquiring the
reason of the halt, and there might
have been seen through the upper por-
ton of the vehicles door the face of