“DEARSISTER: be of good heart. The crisis has passed. I await the morrow with impatience for I am going to take the offensive with all presaging decisive success. All well about the Rouen Parliament, Lord X., and the squibs. To-morrow, after business with the King, I will append a postscript to this letter and despatch by this courier.”
“DEARSISTER: be of good heart. The crisis has passed. I await the morrow with impatience for I am going to take the offensive with all presaging decisive success. All well about the Rouen Parliament, Lord X., and the squibs. To-morrow, after business with the King, I will append a postscript to this letter and despatch by this courier.”
While with his left hand Balsamo seemed to wrest out each word with difficulty, with his right he wrote the lines which Duke Choiseul was writing in Versailles.
“What is the duke doing?”
“He folds up the paper and puts it in a small pocketbook taken from the left side of his coat. He dismisses the courier, saying: ‘Be at one o’clock at the Trianon gateway.’ The courier bows and comes forth.”
“That is so,” said Richelieu: “he is making an appointment for the man to get the answer.”
Balsamo silenced him with a gesture.
“What is the duke doing?”
“He rises, holding the letter he received. He goes to his couch, passes between its edge and the wall, pushes a spring which opens an iron safe in the wall, throws in the letter and shuts the safe.”
“Oh, pure magic!” ejaculated the countess and the marshal, both pallid.
“Do you know all you wished?” Balsamo asked La Dubarry.
“My lord,” said she, going to him, but in terror, “you have done me a service for which I would pay with five years of my life, or indeed I can never repay. Ask me anything you like.”
“Oh, you know we are already in account. The time is not come to settle.”
“You shall have it, were it a million—— ”
“Pshaw, countess!” exclaimed the old nobleman, “you had better look to the count for a million. One who knows—who can see what he sees, might discover gold and diamonds in the bowels of the earth as he does thoughts in the mind of man.”
“Nay, countess, I will give you the chance some day of acquitting yourself as regards me.”
“Count,” said the duke, “I am subjugated, vanquished, crushed—I believe!”
“You know you saw but that is not belief.”
“Call it what you please; I know what I shall say if magicians are spoken of before me.”
“My Spirit is fatigued,” said Balsamo smiling: “let me release it by a magical spell. Lorenza,” he pursued, but in Arabic, “I thank you, and I love you. Return to your room as you came and wait for me. Go, my darling!”
“I am most tired—make haste, Acharat!” replied the Voice, in Italian, sweeter than during the invocation. And the faint sound as of a winged creature flying was heard diminishing.
Convinced of his medium’s departure in a few minutes, themesmerist bowed profoundly but with majestic dignity to his two frightened visitors, absorbed in the flood of thoughts tumultuously overwhelming them. They got back to their carriage more like intoxicated persons than reasonable ones.
THEgreat clock of Versailles Palace was striking eleven when King Louis XV., coming out of his private apartments, crossed the gallery nearest and called out for the Master of Ceremonies, Duke Vrilliere. He was pale and seemed agitated, though he tried to conceal his emotion. An icy silence spread among the courtiers, among whom were included Duke Richelieu and Chevalier Jean Dubarry, a burly coarse bully, but tolerated as brother of the favorite. They were calm, affecting indifference and ignorance of what was going on.
The duke approaching was given a sealed letter for Duke Choiseul which would find him in the palace. The courtiers hung their heads while muttering, like ears of wheat when the squall whistles over them. They surrounded Richelieu while Vrilliere went on his errand, but the old marshal pretended to know no more than they, while smiling to show he was not a dupe.
When the royal messenger returned he was besieged by the inquisitive.
“Well, it was an order of exile,” said he, “for I have read it. Thus it ran,” and he repeated what he had retained by the implacable memory of old courtiers:
COUSIN: My discontent with your services obliges me to exile your grace to Chanteloup, where you should be in twenty-four hours. I should send you farther but for consideration of the duchess’s state of health. Have a care that your conduct does not drive me to a severer measure.
COUSIN: My discontent with your services obliges me to exile your grace to Chanteloup, where you should be in twenty-four hours. I should send you farther but for consideration of the duchess’s state of health. Have a care that your conduct does not drive me to a severer measure.
The group murmured for some time.
“What did he say,” queried Richelieu.
“That he was sure I found pleasure in bearing such a message.”
“Rather rough,” remarked Dubarry.
“But a man cannot get such a chimney-brick on his head Without crying out something,” added the marshal-duke. “I wonder if he will obey?”
“Bless us, here he comes, with his official portfolio under his arm!” exclaimed the Master of Ceremonies aghast, while Jean Dubarry had the cold shivers.
Lord Choiseul indeed was crossing the courtyard, with a calm, assured look blasting with his clear glance his enemies and those who had declared against him after his disgrace. Such a step was not foreseen and his entrance into the royal privy chambers was not opposed.
“Hang it! will he coax the King over, again?” muttered Richelieu.
Choiseul presented himself to the King with the letter of exile in his hand.
“Sire, as it was understood that I was to hold no communication from your Majesty as valid without verbal confirmation, I come for that.”
“This time it holds good,” rejoined the King.
“Such an offensive letter holds good against a devoted servitor?”
“Against the servitor—you who received a letter in your house here, from Lady Grammont, by courier—— ”
“Surely brother and sister may correspond?”
“Not with such letters—” And the monarch held out a copy of the letter dictated by Balsamo’s Voice—this time made by the King’s own hand. “Deny not—you have the original locked up in the iron safe in your bedroom.”
Pale as a spectre the duke listened to the sovereign continuing pitilessly.
“This is not all. You have an answer for Lady Grammont in your pocketbook only waiting for its postscript to be added when you leave my presence. You see I am well informed.”
The duke bowed without saying a word and staggered out of the room as though he were struck by apoplexy. But forthe open air coming on his face he would have dropped backwards; but he was a man of powerful will and recovering composure, he passed through the courtiers to enter his rooms where he burnt certain papers. A quarter of an hour following he left the palace in his coach.
The disgrace of Choiseul was a thunderbolt which set fire to France.
The Parliament which his tolerance had upheld, proclaimed that the State had lost its strongest prop. The nobility sustained him as one of their order. The clergy felt fostered by a man whose severe style made his post almost sacerdotal. The philosophical party, very numerous by this time and potent, because the most active, intelligent and learned formed it, shouted aloud when “their” Government escaped from the hands of the protector of Voltaire, the pensioner of the Encyclopedist writers and the preserver of the traditions of Lady Pompadour playing the Maccenas-in-petticoats for the newspaper writers and pamphleteers.
The masses also complained and with more reason than the others. Without deep insight they knew where the shoe pinched.
From the general point of view Choiseul was a bad minister and a bad citizen, but he was a paragon of patriotism and morality compared with the sycophants, mistresses and their parasites—particularly Lady Dubarry whom a lampoonist qualified as less to be respected than a charcoal-man’s wife. To see the reins pass into the hands of the pet of a favorite made the future blacker than before.
Hence nearly everybody flocked on the road to cheer the Minister as he went away in exile.
There was a block to the traffic at the Enfer Tollbar, on the Touraine Road. A hundred carriages escorted the duke after he had got through here.
Cheers and sighs followed him, but he was too sharp not to know that there was less regret over his going than fear about those who would replace him.
On the crowded highway a postchaise came tearing and would have run down the minister but for a violent swerving of the postboy.
A head was stuck out of the chaise window at the same time as the Duke of Choiseul looked out of his.
It was the Duke of Aiguillon, nephew of Richelieu, who would probably have a place in the cabinet which the marshal duke, as the new minister, would form. No doubt he had received the cue and was hurrying to take the berth. He saluted the fallen one very lowly. The latter drew back in the coach, for in this second the sight had withered all the laurels.
At the same time, as compensation up came a carriage with the royal colors, drawn by eight horses on the Sevres branch-road, and crossing with Choiseul’s equipage by chance or the block.
On the back seat was the Dauphiness with her mistress of the Household, Lady Noailles; on the front one was Andrea de Taverney.
Red with glory and delight, Choiseul leaned out and bowed lowly.
“Farewell, princess,” he said in a choking voice.
“Farewell, my lord, till soon we meet again!” was the reply. The Archduchess gave an imperial smile and showed majestic disdain for court etiquet, by replying.
“Choiseul forever!” shouted an enthusiastic voice close upon these words.
Andrea turned rapidly towards the speaker, for she knew the voice.
“Room, make room there,” roared the royal squires, forcing Gilbert, pale and hot with getting to the front to see into the line along the roadside ditch.
It was indeed our hero, who had in a fit of philosophical fervor, shouted for Choiseul.
ATthree in the afternoon Mdlle. de Taverney came out of her rooms dressed to perform her duty as reader to the princess.
On reaching the Trianon Summerhouse she was told that her mistress was in the grounds with her architect and head-gardener. In the upper story could be heard the whizz of the turning-lathe with which the Dauphin was busy making a safety lock for a chest which he thought a great deal of.
To join the Dauphiness, Andrea crossed the garden where, although the season had come on the pale flowers were lifting their heads to catch the fleeting rays of a still paler sun. Dark came at six, and the gardeners were covering the plants from the frost with glass bells.
On the lawn at the end of a walk hedged with trimmed trees and Bengal roses, Andrea suddenly perceived one of these men who, on seeing her, rose from stooping over his spade and saluted her with more grace and politeness than a common man could do. Looking she recognized Gilbert, whom she had seen from a child on her father’s estate. She blushed in spite of herself, for the presence of this ex-retainer seemed a very curious kindness of destiny.
He repeated the salute and she had to return it as she passed on. But she was too courageous and straight-forward a creature to resist a movement of the spirit and leave a question unanswered of her disturbed soul.
She retraced her steps, and Gilbert, who had lost color and was eyeing her ominously, returned to life and made a spring to arrive before her.
“How do you happen to be here, Gilbert?” she began.
“A man must live, and honestly.”
“Well, you ought to be happy in such a position!”
“I am very happy indeed to be here.”
“Who helped you to the place?”
“Dr. Jussieu, a patron of mine. He is a friend of another patron, the great Rousseau.”
“Good luck, Gilbert,” said Andrea, preparing to go.
“I hope you are better—after your accident?” ventured the young man in so quivering a voice that one could see that it came from a vibrating heart.
“Yes, thanks,” she coldly answered. “It did not amount to anything.”
“Why, you came near dying—the danger was dreadful,” said Gilbert, at the hight of emotion.
Andrea perceived by this that it was high time that she cut short this chat in the open with a royal gardener.
“Will you not have a rose?” questioned he, shivering.
“Why, how can you offer what is not yours?” she demanded.
He looked at her surprised and overcome, but as she smiled with superciliousness, he broke off a branch of the finest rose-tree and began to pluck the flowers and cast them down with a noble coolness which impressed even this haughty Patrician girl.
She was too good and fair-dealing not to see that she had wantonly wounded the feelings of an inferior who had only been polite to her. Like all proud ones feeling guilty of a fault, she resumed her stroll without a word, although the excuse was on her lips.
“Gilbert did not speak either; he tossed aside the rose-twig and took up the spade again, bending to work but also to see Andrea go away. At the turning of the walk she could not help looking back—for she was a woman.
“Hurrah!” he said to himself; “she is not so strong as me and I shall master her yet. Overbearing with her beauty, title and fortune now rising, insolent to me because she divines that I love her, she only becomes the more desirable to the poor workingman who still trembles as he looks upon her. Confound this trembling, unworthy of a man! but she shall pay some day for the cowardice she makes me feel. I have done enough this day in making her give in,” he added. “I should have been the weaker as I love her, but I was ten times the stronger.”
He repeated these words with savage delight, struck his spade deep into the ground and started to cut across the lawn to intercept the young lady at another path when he caught sight of a gentleman in the alley up which Andrea was proceeding in hopes to meet her royal mistress.
This gentleman wore a velvet suit under a cloak trimmed deeply with sable; he carried his head high; his hat was under his arm, and his left hand was on his sword. He stuck out his leg, which was well made, and threw up his ankle which was high, like a man of the finest training. On seeinghim, Gilbert uttered involuntarily a low exclamation and fled through the sumach bushes like a frightened blackbird.
The nobleman spied Andrea and without quickening his measured gait he manœuvred so as to meet her at the end of a cross-path.
Hearing the steps, she turned a little aside to let the promenader pass her and she glanced at him when he had done so.
He looked at her, and with all his eyes; he stopped to get a better view and turning round, said:
“May I ask why you are running so fast, young lady?”
At this, Andrea saw, thirty paces behind, two royal lifeguards officers, she spied the blue ribbon under the speaker’s mantle, and she faltered, pale and alarmed by this encounter and accosting:
“The King!”
“I have such poor sight that I am obliged to inquire your name?” returned the monarch, approaching as she courtseyed lowly.
“I am Mdlle. de Taverney,” she murmured, so confused and trembling that she hardly made herself understood.
“Oh, yes; are you making a voyage of discovery in the place?”
“I am going to join her Royal Highness, the Dauphiness, whom I am in attendance,” replied Andrea more and more agitated.
“I will see you to her,” said the King, “for I am going to my grand-daughter-in-law to pay her a call like a country neighbor. So, kindly accept my arm.”
Andrea felt her sight dimmed and her blood boiling up in her heart. Like a dream appeared this honor to the impoverished nobleman’s daughter, to be on the arm of the lord overall—a glory despaired of, an incredible favor which the whole court would covet. She made a profound courtesy so religiously shrinking that the King was obliged to return it with a bow. When Louis XV. remembered his sire, he did so in ceremonious matters: it is true that French royal attentions to the fair sex dated back to King Harry Fourth of gallant memory.
Though the King was not fond of walking, he took thelongest way round to the Trianon: the two guards officers in attendance saw this as they were not any too warmly clad.
They arrived late as the Dauphiness had started, not to keep her lord and master waiting. They, too, were at the table, with Lady Noailles, nicknamed, “Lady Stickler,” so rigid about etiquet was she, and the Duke of Richelieu in attendance, when the servant’ voices echoed through the house:
“The King!”
At this magic word, Lady Noailles jumped up as if worked by a spring; Richelieu rose leisurely as usual; the Dauphin wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood up in his place, with his face turned to the door.
The Dauphiness moved towards the door to meet the visitor the sooner and do him the honors of the house.
Louis was still holding Andrea by the hand and only at the landing did he release her, saluting her with so long and courteous a bow that Richelieu had time to notice the grace of it, and wonder to what happy mortal it was addressed.
The Dauphiness had seen and recognized Andrea.
“Daughter,” said Louis taking the Austrian’s arm, “I come without ceremony to ask supper. I crossed the park and meeting Mdlle. de Taverney on the road I entreated her to keep me company.”
“The Taverney girl?” muttered Richelieu, almost stunned. “By my faith, this is very lucky, for she is daughter of an old friend of mine.”
“The consequence is that, instead of scolding the young lady for being late, I shall thank her for having brought your Majesty,” said the Dauphiness pleasantly.
Red as the cherries garnishing a dish on the table, Andrea bowed without replying.
“Deuce take me but she is very lovely,” thought Richelieu, “and that old rogue Taverney never sang her up highly enough.”
After receiving the bow of the Dauphin, Louis sat at table, where a place was always reserved for him. Endowed with a good appetite like his ancestors, he did honor to the spread which the steward had ready as if by magic. But while eating,the King, whose back was to the door, fidgetted as though he was looking for somebody or something.
The fact was Mdlle. de Taverney, having no fixed position in the household, had not entered the dining-room but after bowing to the Dauphin and his lady, went into the sitting-room where she was wont to read to her mistress.
The Dauphiness guessed whom her royal relative was looking for.
“Lieut. Coigny,” she said to a young officer behind the King: “Will you please request Mdlle. de Taverney to come here. With the leave of Lady Noailles we will derogate from the regulations to-night.”
In another instant, Andrea came in, trembling as she could not understand this accumulation of favors.
“Find a place there, by the Dauphiness,” said the Dauphin.
She went upon the raised platform for the Royalties, and had what seemed the audacity to sit within one step of Lady Noailles. She received such a withering glance from the latter that the poor girl recoiled at least four feet as though she had been shocked by an electrical discharge.
Louis the King smiled as he saw this.
“Why, here are things running along so smoothly,” thought old Richelieu, “that there will hardly be any need of my helping them.”
The King turned on the marshal who was prepared to meet his look.
“How do you do, duke?” he said; “are you still chiming in with Lady Noailles?”
“Sire, the duchess is good enough still to treat me like a whipping-post.”
“I suppose you have been on the road to Chanteloup?”
“I, Sire? I have all thecheeringnews I desire from your Majesty to my house.”
“What have I done for you?” asked the King, who had not expected this retort and did not like to be jested with when he had wanted to have his fun.
“Sire, your Majesty has given my nephew Aiguillon the command of the Royal Light-horse. To do that for a nobleman who has many foes, all your Majesty’s energy and statecraft were required—it is almost a movement of Royalty itself against all comers.”
This was at the end of the repast; the King just waited an instant before he rose. Conversation might have embarrassed him: but Richelieu did not want to release his prey. While the King was chatting with the others he worked round so dextrously as to have an opening to say:
“Sire, it is well-known that success emboldens a man.”
“Are you bold, then, duke?”
“I make so bold as to ask for another boon after the many I am thanking your Majesty for: it is for an old comrade of mine, a good old friend, and one of your Majesty’s best servitors. He has a son in the army. He is a young man of merit but wants the purse. An august princess has gratified him with the brevet rank of captain but he has no company to command.”
“Is the princess my daughter?” asked the King.
“Yes, Sire, and the young gentleman is the son and heir of Baron Taverney.”
“My father!” Andrea could not help exclaiming, “Philip? do you beg a company for my brother, Philip?”
Ashamed of her breach of etiquet in speaking without the Royals putting a question, she fell back a step, blushing and wringing her hands. The King turned to admire her blushes and emotion; then he gave the wily courtier a glance teaching him how agreeable the request was by reason of its timeliness.
“Really, the young chevalier is charming and I promised to make his fortune,” struck in the Dauphiness; “How unhappy we princes are! When we have the willingness to oblige, heaven bereaves us of memory or reason. Ought I not have thought that the young gentleman might lack lucre and that the rank was a snare without the soldiers to back it?”
“Why, lady, how could your Highness have known?”
“But I did know,” interrupted the Austrian, recalling the glimpse she had at the poverty-stricken abode of the Taverneys on her passing through Touraine; “and I ought to have thought of that when I gave the rank.”
The King looked at the speaker’s noble and open countenances:then his eyes fell on Richelieu’s, also illumined by a ray of their generosity reflected.
“Duke,” he whispered, “I shall be embroiled with La Dubarry. But,” he proceeded aloud, turning to Andrea, “do you tell me that this will afford you pleasure?”
“I entreat it,” she said, clasping her hands.
“It is granted then,” said Louis. “Duke, select a good company for the young hero. I will provide the expenses if it is not fully raised and all paid for.”
This good action rejoiced all the attendants. It earned the donor a heavenly smile from Andrea, and a grateful one from the same to Richelieu.
Some visitors dropped in, among them the Cardinal Prince Rohan who paid assiduous court to the Dauphiness. But the King had attention and sugary words solely for Richelieu that evening. He took the joyous old marshal with him when he left to go home. Andrea was relieved by the Dauphiness who said:
“You will want to send this good piece of news to your parent in town. You can retire.”
Preceded by a lackey carrying a lantern, the young lady crossed the grounds to her part of the palace. Before her, from bush to bush, bounded what seemed a shadow in the foliage; it was Gilbert whose sparkling eyes watched her every movement. When Andrea was left at the doorway, the footman returned. Thereupon Gilbert went up to his room in the stable lofts, where his window overlooked the girl’s at the corner.
He saw her call a strange waiting-woman who let the curtains fall like an impenetrable veil betwixt the beloved object and the young lover’s burning gaze.
THEonly guest left in the palace was Cardinal Rohan redoubting his gallantry towards the princess, who received him but cooly. As the Dauphin retired he feared it wouldlook bad to remain, so he took leave with all the tokens of the most profound but affectionate respect.
As he was stepping into his coach, a waiting woman slipped up and all but entering the vehicle, she whispered:
“I have got it.”
She put a small packet in the prince’s hand, wrapped in tissue paper, and it made him start.
“Here’s for you, an honorable salary,” he replied, giving her a heavy purse.
Without losing time, the cardinal ordered his coachman to go on to Paris where, at the toll-bar he gave him fresh orders to drive to St. Claude Street. On the way, he had in the darkness felt the paper, and kissed it as a lover would a keepsake.
Soon after he was treading the parlor carpet of the mysterious house where La Dubarry and Duke Richelieu had been appalled by Balsamo’s power. It was he who appeared to welcome the cardinal but after some delay, for which he excused himself as he had not expected visitors so late. It was nearly eleven.
“It is so, and I ask pardon, baron,” said the other; “but you may remember that you told me that you could reveal certain secrets if you had a tress of the hair of the person—— ”
“Of whom we spoke,” interrupted the magician guardedly, as he had already caught sight of the little parcel in the simple prelate’s hand. “It is very good if you have brought it.”
“Shall I be able to have it again after the experiment?”
“Unless we have to test it with fire—— ”
“Never mind, then, for I can get some more. Can I have the answer to-night—I am so impatient.”
“I will try, my lord. At all events, midnight is the spirit’ hour.”
He took the packet which was a lock of hair and ran up to Lorenza’s room.
“I am going to learn the secret about this dynasty,” he said on the way. “The hidden design of the Supreme Architect.”
Before he opened the secret door he put the medium into the magnetic sleep. Hence she who hated him when in hersenses greeted him with a tender embrace. With difficulty he tore himself from her arms but it was imperative—only a child or a virgin can be used to the utmost extent for clairvoyance. It was hard to tell which was more painful to the poor mesmeriser, the abuse of the Italian wife when awake or her caresses when asleep.
Putting the paper in her hand, he asked:
“Can you tell me whose hair this is?”
She laid it on her breast and on her forehead, for it was there she saw though her eyes were open.
“It comes from an illustrious head.”
“Is she going to be happy?”
“So far, no cloud hovers over her.”
“Though she is married?”
“Yes, she is married, but, like me, she is still a virgin—purer than I, for I love my husband.”
“Fatality!” muttered the wizard. “Thank you, Lorenza, I know all I wanted.”
He kissed her, put the hair carefully in his pocket, and cutting a small tress from the Italian’s head, he burnt it in a candle. The ashes, wrapped in the paper, he gave to the cardinal when with him once more. On the way down stairs he awakened Lorenza.
“The oracle says that you may hope, prince,” said Balsamo.
“It said that?” cried the ravished prince.
“Your highness may conclude so, as it said that she does not love her husband.”
“Joy!” said Rohan.
“I had to burn the lock to obtain the verdict by the essence,” explained the necromancer, “but here are the ashes which I scrupulously preserved for each grain is worth a thousand.”
“Thank you, my lord; I shall never be able to repay you.”
“Do not let us speak of that. One piece of advice, though: Do not wash the ashes down with wine as some lovers do; it is a mistaken course for it might make your love incurable and turn the object cold.”
“I shall take care not to do that,” said the prelate; “Farewell, count!”
Twenty minutes after, his carriage crossed that of Duke Richelieu, which it almost upset into one of the pits where they were excavating for a house, much building going on.
“Why, prince!” cried the older peer, with a smile.
“Hush, duke!” replied Rohan, laying a finger on his lips.
And away they were carried in opposite directions.
Richelieu was going to Baron Taverney’s residence in Coq-Heron Street.
The baron was seated before a dying fire, lecturing Nicole, or rather, chucking her under her pretty chin.
“But I am dying of weariness here, master,” she protested with wanton swinging of her hips in protest, “it was promised me that I should go to the palace with my mistress.”
It was at this point that the old rake fondled her, no doubt to cheer her up.
“Here I am between four ugly walls,” she went on wailing her fate: “no society—not enough air to breathe. But at Trianon, I should have people around me, and see luxury—stare and be stared at.”
“Fie, little Nicole!”
“Oh, I am only a woman like the rest of us.”
“No, you are more tempting than the rest,” said the old reprobate. “I only wish I were younger and rich again for your sake.”
At this juncture the door-bell rang and startled the master and maid.
“Run and see who can come at half-past eleven, girl.”
Nicole went out and through the passage by the house on the other street, and through the door which she left open. Richelieu saw a shadow of military aspect flit. This shadow and the face of Nicole, lighted up by her candle, enabled the old noble to read her character at a glance.
“Our old scamp of a Taverney spoke about his daughter, but he never breathed a word about the pretty maid,” he muttered.
“The Duke of Richelieu!” Nicole announced, not without a flutter of the heart, for the lady-killer was notorious.
It produced such a sensation on the baron that he got up and went to the door without believing his ears.
“Do you know what has brought me,” said the duke, giving hat and cane to Nicole to be more at ease in a chair. “Or rather what I have brought my old brother-officer? why, the company you asked the other day for your son. The King has just given it. I refused to act then for I was likely to be the Prime Minister but now that I have declined the post I can ask a favor. Here it is.”
“Such bounty on your part—— ”
“Pooh! it is the natural outcome of my duty as a friend. But mark that the King does this more to spite Lady Dubarry than to oblige me. He knows that your son offended the Lady by quarreling with her bully of a brother on the highway. That is why she takes me in off-dudgeon at present.”
“You want me to believe that you serve me to spite the Dubarry woman?”
“Have it so. By the way, you have a daughter as well as a son.”
“Yes.”
“She is sixteen, fair as Venus, and—— ”
“You have seen her?”
“At Trianon, where I passed the evening with her—— and the King and I talked about her by the hour together. Are you vexed at this?”
“Certainly not; but the King is accused of having—— ”
“Bad morals? is that what you were about to say?”
“Lord forbid! I would not speak ill of his Majesty, who has the right to have any kind of morality he likes.”
“What is the meaning of your astonishment, then? do you intend to assert that Mdlle. de Taverney is not an accomplished beauty and that consequently the King has not the right to look at her with an admiring eye?”
Taverney simply shrugged his shoulders and fell into a brown study, watched by Richelieu’s pitilessly prying eye.
“All right! I guess what you would say if you spoke aloud,” continued the marshal, “to wit that the King is habituated to bad company. That he likes the mud, as they say; but would be all the better if he turned from salacious talk, libertine glances, and the common woman’s jests to remark this treasure of grace and charm of every kind—the nobly-bornyoung lady with chaste affections and modest bearing—— ”
“You are truly a great man, duke, for you have guessed aright,” answered Taverney.
“It is tantamount to saying that it is high time for our master no longer to force us, nobles, peers and companions of the King of France, to kiss the base and harpy hand of a courtesan of the Dubarry type. Time that he danced to our piping, and that after falling from the Marchioness of Chateauroux, who was fit to be a duchess, to the Pompadour, who was the daughter and wife of a cook, then from her to Dubarry, and from her again to some kitchen wench or dairymaid. It is humiliating to us, baron, who wear coronets round our helmets, to bend our heads to such jades.”
“Ah, here be truths well spoken,” said Taverney, “and it is clear that a void is made at court by these low fashions.”
“With no queen, no ladies; with no ladies, no courtiers; and the commoners are on the throne in Jeanne Vaubernier, now Dubarry, a seamstress at Paris.”
“Granting things stand so, yet—— ”
“There is a fine position at present. I tell you, my lord, for a woman of wit to rule France—— ”
“Not a doubt of it, but the post is held,” said Taverney with a throbbing heart.
“A woman,” pursued the marshal, “who, without vice, would have the far-reaching views, calculation and boldness of these vixens; one who would so adorn her fortune that she would be spoken of after the monarchy ceased to exist. Has your daughter brightness and sense?”
“Yes.”
“And she is lovely, of the charming and voluptuous turn so pleasing men; with that virginal flower of candor which imposes respect on women themselves. You must take care of your treasure, my old friend.”
“You speak of her with an animation which—— ”
“Why, I am madly in love with her and would marry her to-morrow if I could get rid of my seventy-four years. But is she well off? has she the luxury round her which so fair a blossom deserves? Nay, my dear baron, this evening shewent to her lodgings, without a maid, or footman, and one of the Dauphin’s henchmen carried a lantern before her—it looked like some girls of middleclass life.”
“How can one help it when not rich?”
“Rich or not, Taverney, you must have a waiting-maid for her.”
“I know she ought to have one,” sighed the old noble.
“Why, what is this sprightly Abigail who opened the door to me,” said Richelieu, “cunning and pretty, on my word!”
“She is her maid but I dared not send her to the palace.”
“I wonder why, when she seems cut out for the part?”
“Have you looked on her face and not noticed the resemblance to—come here, Nicole!”
Nicole came quickly for she was listening at the door. The duke took her by both hands and held her between his knees; but she was not daunted by the great lord’s impertinent gaze and was not put out for an instant.
“By Jove, you are right, there is a resemblance,” he said.
“You know to whom, and how impossible it is to risk the rise of my house on some ugly trick of chance. Is it the thing that this little down-at-the-heel hussy Nicole should look like the highest head in France?”
“Pish!” exclaimed Nicole, tartly, as she disengaged herself to reply more easily to her master, “is it a fact that the hussy does so closely resemble the illustrious lady? Has she the low shoulder, quick eye, round leg and dimpled arm of the hussy? In any case, my lord, if you run me down, it is not because you can have any hope to catch me!” She finished in anger which made her red and consequently splendid in beauty.
The duke caught her again and said as he gave her a look full of caresses and promises:
“Baron, to my idea, Nicole has not her like at court. As for the touch of likeness, we will manage about that. Pretty Nicole has admirable light hair and nose and eyebrows quite imperial—but in a quarter of an hour before a toilet glass these blemishes will disappear, as the baron reckons them such. Nicole, my dear, do you want to go to the palace?”
“Oh, don’t I though!” cried the girl with all her greedy soul in the words.
“You shall go, my pet: and make a fortune there, without doing any harm to the advancement of others. Trot away, little one; the rest does not concern you. A word with you, my lord.”
“I venture to urge you to send some one to wait upon your daughter,” said the duke when alone with his friend, “because she must make a brave show and the King is not afraid of beauty-guards with knowing phizzes. Besides, I know how the wind blows.”
“Let Nicole go to the Trianon, since you think it will please the King,” replied Taverney with his pimp’s smile.
“Write to your daughter that a maid named Nicole is coming. Another than Nicole would not fill the place so well. On my honor, I believe so.”
The baron wrote a note which he handed to Richelieu.
“I will give the instructions to Nicole, who is intelligent.”
The baron smiled.
“So you will trust her with me?”
“Do what you can.”
“You are to come with me, miss, and quick,” said the duke.
Without waiting for the baron’s consent, Nicole got her clothes together in five minutes and as light as if she flew, she darted upon the box beside the ducal driver. The tempter took leave of his friend, who reiterated his thanks for the service rendered Philip of Redcastle. Neither said a word about Andrea; there was no need between them.
ATten in the morning, Andrea was writing to her father to inform him of the happy news which Richelieu had already communicated to him.
Her room, in the corridor of the chapel, was not grand fora rival princess’s lady of attendance but it was a delightful abode for one who liked repose and solitude.
Andrea had obtained permission to breakfast in her rooms whenever she liked; this was a precious boon as it gave her the mornings to herself. She could read or go out for a saunter in the park, and come home without being annoyed by lord or lackey.
Suddenly a tapping at the door, discreetly given, aroused her attention. She raised her head as the door opened, and uttered a slight cry of astonishment as the radiant face of Nicole appeared from the little antechamber.
“Good morning, mistress! yes, it is I,” said the girl, with a merry courtsey which was not free from apprehension, knowing her lady’s character.
“You—what wind brings you?” replied Andrea, laying down her pen to talk.
“I was forgotten, but I have come. The baron said I was to do so,” said Nicole, bending the black eyebrows which Richelieu’s hair-dye had made; “you would not turn me back, when I only wanted to please my mistress. This is what one gets for loving her betters!” sighed the girl, with an attempt to squeeze a tear out of her fine eyes.
The reproach had enough feeling in it to touch Andrea.
“My child, I am waited on here, and I cannot think of charging the Dauphiness with an additional mouth.”
“Not when it is not so large a one?” questioned the maid, pouting the rosebud mouth in argument, with a winsome smile.
“No matter, your presence here is impossible on account of your likeness—— ”
“Why, have you not looked on my face? it has been altered by a fine old nobleman who came to see master and tell him of Master Philip’s getting a company of soldiers from the King. As he saw master was sorrowing about you being alone, he heard the reason and said that nothing was easier than to change light to dark. He took me to his house where his valet turned me out as you behold me.”
“You must love me,” said Andrea smiling, “to come and be a prisoner shut up with me in this palace.”
“The rooms are not lively,” said Mdlle. Legay, after a swift glance round them, “but you will not be always mewed up here.”
“I may not, but you will not go out for the promenade with the princess, the parties, cardplay, and social gatherings; your place would be here to die of weariness.”
“Oh, there must be a peep at something through the windows. If one can see out, others can see me. That is good enough for Nicole—do not fret about me.”
“Nicole, I cannot do it without express order.”
The maid drew a letter from the baron from her tucker which settled the dispute. It was thus conceived: