the crucifix was a thick broad sheet of
parchment, covered with a big and tremulous writing. It was the
death-warrant of royalty, wanting nothing but the signature, one stroke
of the pen, and a strong and violent effort of will to give this; and
that was the reason why this weak King hesitated, sitting motionless,
his elbows resting on the table, by the lighted candles prepared for the
royal seal.

Near him, anxious, prying, yet soft and smooth, like a night-moth or the
black bat that haunts ruins, Lebeau, the confidential valet, watched him
and silently encouraged him; for they had arrived at the decisive moment
that the gang had for months expected, with alternate hopes and fears,
with all the trepidation, all the uncertainty attending a business
dependent upon such a puppet as this King. Notwithstanding the magnetism
of this overpowering desire, Christian, pen in hand, could not bring
himself to sign. Sunk down in his arm-chair, he gazed at the parchment,
and was lost in thought. It was not that he cared for that crown, which
he had neither wished for nor loved, which as a child he had found too
heavy, and that later in life had bowed him down and crushed him by its
terrible responsibilities. He had felt no scruple in laying it aside,
leaving it in the corner of a room which he never entered, forgetting it
as much as possible when he was out; but he was scared at the sudden
determination, the irrevocable step he was about to take. However, there
was no other way of procuring money for his new existence, no other
means of meeting the hundred and twenty thousand pounds' worth of bills
he had signed, on which payment would soon be due, and which the usurer,
a certain Pichery, picture-dealer, refused to renew. Could he allow an
execution to be put in at Saint-Mande? And the Queen, the royal child;
what would become of them in that case? If he must have a scene--for he
foresaw the terrible clamor his cowardice must rouse--was it not better
to have it now, and brave once for all anger and recriminations? And
then--all this was not really the determining reason.

He had promised the Comtesse to sign this renunciation; and on the faith
of this promise, Sephora had consented to let her husband start alone
for London, and had accepted the mansion Avenue de Messine, and the
title and name that published her to the world as the king's mistress,
reserving, however, anything further till the day when Christian himself
would brin