438

THE MYSTERIOUS CRY.

were supping with me,-among them, the Intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs, whose professional aid I constantly required, that excellent fellow Pipelet, and Rosely, a comrade of mine and a young man of good family, witty and talented. The supper was gay. I had just been singing to them, and they applauding me, when, as eleven o'clock struck, a piercing cry was heard. Its heart-rending tone and the length of time it continued struck every one with astonishment. I fainted, and remained for a quarter of an hour totally unconscious."

"When I recovered, I begged them to remain with me part of the night. We reasoned much in regard to this strange cry; and it was agreed to have spies set in the street, so that, in case of its repetition, we might detect its cause and its author.

"Every succeeding night, always at the same hour, the same cry was repeated, sounding immediately beneath my windows, and appearing to issue from the vacant air. My people, my guests, my neighbors, the police, all heard it alike. I could not doubt that it was intended for me. I seldom supped from home, but when I did, nothing was heard there; and several times, when I returned later than eleven, and inquired of my mother, or the servants, if any thing had been heard of it, suddenly it burst forth in the midst of us.

"One evening the President de B, with whom I had been supping, escorted me home, and, at the moment he bade me good-night at the door of my apartment, the cry exploded between him and myself. He was quite familiar with the story, for all Paris knew it; yet he was carried to his carriage more dead than alive.

"Another day, I begged my comrade, Rosely, to accompany me, first to the Rue Saint-Honoré, to make some purchases, afterward to visit my friend Mademoiselle de Saint-P, who resided near the Porte Saint-Denis. Our sole topic of conversation all the way

THE TERROR OF MADAME GRANDVAL.

439

was my ghost, as I used to call it. The young man, witty and unbelieving, begged me to evoke the phantom, promising to believe in it if it replied. Whether from weakness or audacity, I acceded to his request. Thrice, on the instant, the cry sounded, rapid and terrible in ts repetition. When we arrived at my friend's house, Rosely and I had to be carried in. We were both found lying senseless in the carriage.

"After this scene, I remained several months without hearing any thing more; and I began to hope that the disturbance had ceased. I was mistaken.

"The theater had been ordered to Versailles, on occasion of the marriage of the Dauphin. We were to remain there three days. We were insufficiently provided with apartments. Madame Grandval had none. We waited half the night in hopes that one would be assigned to her. At three o'clock in the morning I offered her one of the two beds in my room, which was in the Avenue de Saint-Cloud. She accepted it. I occupied the other bed; and as my maid was undressing, to sleep beside me, I said to her, 'Here we are at the end of the world, and with such frightful weather! I think it would puzzle the ghost to find us out here.' The same cry, on the instant! Madame Grandval thought that hell itself was let loose in the room. In her night-dress she rushed down-stairs, from the top to the bottom. Not a soul in the house slept another wink that night. This was, however, the last time I ever heard it.

"Seven or eight days afterward, while chatting with my ordinary circle of friends, the stroke of eleven o'clock was followed by a musket-shot, as if fired at one of my windows. Every one of us heard the report; every one of us saw the flash; but the window had received no injury. We concluded that it was an attempt on my life, that for this time it had failed, but that precautions must be taken for the future. The Intendant hastened

440

A GRADUAL CHANGE OF PHASE

to M. de Marville, then Lieutenant of Police, and a personal friend of his. Officers were instantly sent to examine the houses opposite mine. Throughout the following days they were guarded from top to bottom. My own house, also, was thoroughly examined. The street was filled with spies. But, in spite of all these precautions, for three entire months, every evening, at the same hour, the same musket-shot, directed against the same pane of glass, was heard to explode, was seen; and yet no one was ever able to discover whence it proceeded. This fact is attested by its official record on the registers of the police.

"I gradually became in a measure accustomed to my ghost, whom I began to consider a good sort of fellow, since he was content with tricks that produced no serious injury; and, one warm evening, not noticing the hour, the Intendant and myself, having opened the haunted window, were leaning over the balcony. Eleven o'clock struck; the detonation instantly succeeded; and it threw both of us, half-dead, into the middle of the room. When we recovered, and found that neither of us was hurt, we began to compare notes; and each admitted to the other the having received, he on the left cheek and I on the right, a box on the ear, right sharply laid on. We both burst out laughing.

"Next day nothing happened. The day after, having received an invitation from Mademoiselle Dumesnil to attend a nocturnal fête at her house, near the Barrière Blanche, I got into a hackney-coach, with my maid, at eleven o'clock. It was bright moonlight; and our road was along the Boulevards, which were then beginning to be built up. We were looking out at the houses they were building, when my maid said to me, 'Was it not somewhere near here that Monsieur de S- died?' 'From what they told me,' I replied, 'it must have been in one of these two houses in front of us,'-pointing to them

IN THE PHENOMENA.

411

at the same time. At that moment the same musketshot that had been pursuing me was fired from one of the houses, and passed through our carriage.* The coachman set off at full gallop, thinking he was attacked by robbers; and we, when we arrived at our destination, had scarcely recovered our senses. For my own part, I confess to a degree of terror which it was long before I could shake off. But this exploit was the last of its kind. I never again heard any discharge of fire

arms.

"To these shots succeeded a clapping of hands, given in measured time and repeated at intervals. These sounds, to which the favor of the public had accustomed me, gave me but trifling annoyance, and I took little trouble to trace their origin. My friends did, however. 'We have watched in the most careful manner,' they would say to me: 'it is under your very door that the sounds occur. We hear them; but we see nobody. It is another phase of the same annoyances that have followed you so long.' As these noises had nothing alarming in them, I did not preserve a record of the period of their continuance.

"Nor did I take special note of the melodious sounds by which, after a time, they were succeeded. It seemed as if a celestial voice warbled the prelude to some noble air which it was about to execute. Once the voice commenced at the Carrefour de Bussy, and continued all the way until I reached my own door. In this case, as in all the preceding, my friends watched, followed the sounds, heard them as I did, but could never see any thing.

"Finally all the sounds ceased, after having continued,

*Whether a ball passed through the carriage does not clearly appear. The expression is, "D'une des maisons partit ce même coup de fusil qui me poursuivait; il traversa notre voiture."

442

SEQUEL TO THE ANNOYANCES

with intermissions, a little more than two years and a half."

Whether the sequel may be regarded as supplying a sufficient explanation or not, it is proper to give it, as furnished by Mademoiselle Clairon.

That lady desiring to change her residence, and the apartments she occupied being advertised to rent, several persons called to see them. Among the rest there was announced a lady advanced in years. She exhibited much emotion, which communicated itself to Mademoiselle Clairon. At last she confessed that it was not to look at the apartments she came, but to converse with their occupant. She had thought of writing, she said, but had feared that her motives might be misinterpreted. Mademoiselle Clairon begged for an explanation; and the conversation which ensued is thus reported by herself.

"I was, mademoiselle,' said the lady, 'the best friend of Monsieur de S- -; indeed, the only one he was willing to see during the last year of his life. The hours, the days, of that year were spent by us in talking of you, sometimes setting you down as an angel, sometimes as a devil. As for me, I urged him constantly to endeavor to forget you, while he protested that he would continue to love you even beyond the tomb. You weep,' she continued, after a pause; and perhaps you will allow me to ask you why you made him so unhappy, and why, with your upright and affectionate character, you refused him, in his last moments, the consolation of seeing you once more.'

"Our affections,' I replied, 'are not within our own control. Monsieur de S had many meritorious and estimable qualities; but his character was somber, misanthropic, despotic, so that he caused me to fear alike. his society, his friendship, and his love. To make him happy, I should have had to renounce all human inter