The Queens Necklace

The Queen's Necklace, by
Alexandre Dumas père

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Queen's Necklace, by Alexandre
Dumas père
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Queen's Necklace
Author: Alexandre Dumas père

Release Date: December 16, 2006 [eBook #20122]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
QUEEN'S NECKLACE***
E-text prepared by Juergen Lohnert, Wilelmina Maillière, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net/)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which
includes the original illustrations. See 20122-h.htm or 20122-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/1/2/20122/20122-h/20122-h.htm) or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/0/1/2/20122/20122-h.zip)

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 MAÎTRE-D'HÔTEL.
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
Raffè 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 maître-d'hôtel.

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.
"Well, sir!"
"The Count Haga is a king."
"I know no king so called."
"Your grace must pardon me then," said the maître-d'hôtel, bowing,
"but, I believed, supposed----"
"Your business, sir, is neither to believe nor suppose; your business is
to read, without comment, the orders I give you. When I wish a thing to
be known, I tell it; when I do not tell it, I wish it unknown."
The maître-d'hôtel bowed again, more respectfully, perhaps, than he
would have done to a reigning monarch.
"Therefore, sir," continued the old marshal, "you will, as I have none
but noblemen to dinner, let us dine at my usual hour, four o'clock."
At this order, the countenance of the maître-d'hôtel became clouded as
if he had heard his sentence of death; he grew deadly pale; then,
recovering himself, with the courage of despair he said, "In any event,
your grace cannot dine before five o'clock."
"Why so, sir?" cried the marshal.
"Because it is utterly impossible."

"Sir," said the marshal, with a haughty air, "it is now, I believe, twenty
years since you entered my service?"
"Twenty-one years, a month, and two weeks."
"Well, sir, to these twenty-one years, a month, and two weeks, you will
not add a day, nor an hour. You understand me, sir," he continued,
biting his thin lips and depressing his eyebrows; "this evening you seek
a new master. I do not choose that the word impossible shall be
pronounced in my house; I am too old now to begin to learn its
meaning."
The maître-d'hôtel bowed a third time.
"This evening," said he, "I shall have taken leave of your grace, but, at