Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 24

  This advice appeared good to the future chancellor. He conjured the evil spirit with abundance of prayers offered up by the monks. But the devil does not suffer himself to be easily dispossessed from a place in which he has fixed his garrison. In proportion as they redoubled the exorcisms he redoubled the temptations; so that day and night the bell was ringing full swing, announcing the extreme desire for mortification which the penitent experienced.

  The monks had no longer an instant of repose. By day they did nothing but ascend and descend the steps which led to the chapel; at night, in addition to complines and matins, they were further obliged to leap twenty times out of their beds and prostrate themselves on the floor of their cells.

  It is not known whether it was the devil who gave way, or the monks who grew tired; but within three months the penitent reappeared in the world with the reputation of being the most terrible possessed that ever existed.

  On leaving the convent he entered into the magistracy, became president in the place of his uncle, embraced the cardinal’s party, which did not prove want of sagacity, became chancellor, served his Eminence with zeal in his hatred against the queen-mother and his vengeance against Anne of Austria, stimulated the judges in the affair of Chalais, encouraged the attempts of M. de Laffemas, chief gamekeeper of France; then, at length, invested with the entire confidence of the cardinal—a confidence which he had so well earned—he received the singular commission for the execution of which he presented himself in the queen’s apartments.

  The queen was still standing when he entered; but scarcely had she perceived him than she reseated herself in her armchair, and made a sign to her women to resume their cushions and stools, and with an air of supreme hauteur, said, “What do you desire, monsieur, and with what object do you present yourself here?”

  “To make, madame, in the name of the king, and without prejudice to the respect which I have the honor to owe to your Majesty, a close examination into all your papers.”

  “How, monsieur, an investigation of my papers—mine! Truly, this is an indignity!”

  “Be kind enough to pardon me, madame; but in this circumstance I am but the instrument which the king employs. Has not his Majesty just left you, and has he not himself asked you to prepare for this visit?”

  “Search, then, monsieur! I am a criminal, as it appears. Estafania, give up the keys of my drawers and my desks.”

  For form’s sake the chancellor paid a visit to the pieces of furniture named; but he well knew that it was not in a piece of furniture that the queen would place the important letter she had written that day.

  When the chancellor had opened and shut twenty times the drawers of the secretaries, it became necessary, whatever hesitation he might experience—it became necessary, I say, to come to the conclusion of the affair; that is to say, to search the queen herself. The chancellor advanced, therefore, toward Anne of Austria, and said with a very perplexed and embarrassed air, “And now it remains for me to make the principal examination.”

  “What is that?” asked the queen, who did not understand, or rather was not willing to understand.

  “His Majesty is certain that a letter has been written by you during the day; he knows that it has not yet been sent to its address. This letter is not in your table nor in your secretary; and yet this letter must be somewhere.”

  “Would you dare to lift your hand to your queen?” said Anne of Austria, drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing her eyes upon the chancellor with an expression almost threatening.

  “I am a faithful subject of the king, madame, and all that his Majesty commands I shall do.”

  “Well, it is true!” said Anne of Austria; “and the spies of the cardinal have served him faithfully. I have written a letter today; that letter is not yet gone. The letter is here.” And the queen laid her beautiful hand on her bosom.

  “Then give me that letter, madame,” said the chancellor.

  “I will give it to none but the king, monsieur,” said Anne.

  “If the king had desired that the letter should be given to him, madame, he would have demanded it of you himself. But I repeat to you, I am charged with reclaiming it; and if you do not give it up—”

  “Well?”

  “He has, then, charged me to take it from you.”

  “How! what do you say?”

  “That my orders go far, madame; and that I am authorized to seek for the suspected paper, even on the person of your Majesty.”

  “What horror!” cried the queen.

  “Be kind enough, then, madame, to act more compliantly.”

  “This conduct is infamously violent! Do you know that, monsieur?”

  “The king commands it, madame; excuse me.”

  “I will not suffer it! No, no, I would rather die!” cried the queen, in whom the imperious blood of Spain and Austria began rise.

  The chancellor made a profound reverence. Then, with the intention quite patent of not drawing back a foot from the accomplishment of the commission with which he was charged, and as the attendant of an executioner might have done in the chamber of torture, he approached Anne of Austria, from whose eyes at the same instant sprang tears of rage.

  The queen was, as we have said, of great beauty. The commission might well be called delicate; and the king had reached, in his jealousy of Buckingham, the point of not being jealous of anyone else.

  Without doubt the chancellor Séguier looked about at that moment for the rope of the famous bell; but not finding it he summoned his resolution, and stretched forth his hands toward the place where the queen had acknowledged the paper was to be found.

  Anne of Austria took one step backward, became so pale that it might be said she was dying, and leaning with her left hand upon a table behind her to keep herself from falling, she with her right hand drew the paper from her bosom and held it out to the keeper of the seals.

  “There, monsieur, there is that letter!” cried the queen, with a broken and trembling voice; “take it, and deliver me from your odious presence.”

  The chancellor, who, on his part, trembled with an emotion easily to be conceived, took the letter, bowed to the ground, and retired. The door was scarcely closed upon him, when the queen sank, half fainting, into the arms of her women.

  The chancellor carried the letter to the king without having read a single word of it. The king took it with a trembling hand, looked for the address, which was wanting, became very pale, opened it slowly, then seeing by the first words that it was addressed to the King of Spain, he read it rapidly.

  It was nothing but a plan of an attack against the cardinal. The queen pressed her brother and the Emperor of Austria to appear to be wounded, as they really were, by the policy of Richelieu—the eternal object of which was the abasement of the house of Austria—to declare war against France, and as a condition of peace, to insist upon the dismissal of the cardinal; but as to love, there was not a single word about it in all the letter.

  The king, quite delighted, inquired if the cardinal was still at the Louvre; he was told that his Eminence awaited the orders of his Majesty in the business cabinet.

  The king went straight to him.

  “There, Duke,” said he, “you were right, and I was wrong. The whole intrigue is political, and there is not the least question of love in this letter; but, on the other hand, there is abundant question of you.”

  The cardinal took the letter, and read it with the greatest attention; then, when he had arrived at the end of it, he read it a second time. “Well, your Majesty,” said he, “you see how far my enemies go; they menace you with two wars if you do not dismiss me. In your place, in truth, sire, I should yield to such powerful instances; and on my part, it would be a real happiness to withdraw from public affairs.”

  “What say you, Duke?”

  “I say, sire, that my health is sinking under these excessive struggles and these never-ending labors. I say that according to all probability I shall not be able to undergo the
fatigues of the siege of La Rochelle, and that it would be far better that you should appoint there either Monsieur de Condé, Monsieur de Bassompierre, or some valiant gentleman whose business is war, and not me, who am a churchman, and who am constantly turned aside from my real vocation to look after matters for which I have no aptitude. You would be the happier for it at home, sire, and I do not doubt you would be the greater for it abroad.”

  “Monsieur Duke,” said the king, “I understand you. Be satisfied, all who are named in that letter shall be punished as they deserve, even the queen herself.”

  “What do you say, sire? God forbid that the queen should suffer the least inconvenience or uneasiness on my account! She has always believed me, sire, to be her enemy; although your Majesty can bear witness that I have always taken her part warmly, even against you. Oh, if she betrayed your Majesty on the side of your honor, it would be quite another thing, and I should be the first to say, ‘No grace, sire—no grace for the guilty!’ Happily, there is nothing of the kind, and your Majesty has just acquired a new proof of it.”

  “That is true, Monsieur Cardinal,” said the king, “and you were right, as you always are; but the queen, not the less, deserves all my anger.”

  “It is you, sire, who have now incurred hers. And even if she were to be seriously offended, I could well understand it; your Majesty has treated her with a severity—”

  “It is thus I will always treat my enemies and yours, Duke, however high they may be placed, and whatever peril I may incur in acting severely toward them.”

  “The queen is my enemy, but is not yours, sire; on the contrary, she is a devoted, submissive, and irreproachable wife. Allow me, then, sire, to intercede for her with your Majesty.”

  “Let her humble herself, then, and come to me first.”

  “On the contrary, sire, set the example. You have committed the first wrong, since it was you who suspected the queen.”

  “What! I make the first advances?” said the king. “Never!”

  “Sire, I entreat you to do so.”

  “Besides, in what manner can I make advances first?”

  “By doing a thing which you know will be agreeable to her.”

  “What is that?”

  “Give a ball; you know how much the queen loves dancing. I will answer for it, her resentment will not hold out against such an attention.”

  “Monsieur Cardinal, you know that I do not like worldly pleasures.”

  “The queen will only be the more grateful to you, as she knows your antipathy for that amusement; besides, it will be an opportunity for her to wear those beautiful diamonds which you gave her recently on her birthday and with which she has since had no occasion to adorn herself.”

  “We shall see, Monsieur Cardinal, we shall see,” said the king, who, in his joy at finding the queen guilty of a crime which he cared little about, and innocent of a fault of which he had great dread, was ready to make up all differences with her, “we shall see, but upon my honor, you are too indulgent toward her.”

  “Sire,” said the cardinal, “leave severity to your ministers. Clemency is a royal virtue; employ it, and you will find that you derive advantage therein.”

  Thereupon the cardinal, hearing the clock strike eleven, bowed low, asking permission of the king to retire, and supplicating him to come to a good understanding with the queen.

  Anne of Austria, who, in consequence of the seizure of her letter, expected reproaches, was much astonished the next day to see the king make some attempts at reconciliation with her. Her first movement was repellent. Her womanly pride and her queenly dignity had both been so cruelly offended that she could not come round at the first advance; but, overpersuaded by the advice of her women, she at last had the appearance of beginning to forget. The king took advantage of this favorable moment to tell her that he had the intention of shortly giving a fête.

  A fête was so rare a thing for poor Anne of Austria that at this announcement, as the cardinal had predicted, the last trace of her resentment disappeared, if not from her heart at least from her countenance. She asked upon what day this fête would take place, but the king replied that he must consult the cardinal upon that head.

  Indeed, every day the king asked the cardinal when this fête should take place; and every day the cardinal, under some pretext, deferred fixing it. Ten days passed away thus.

  On the eighth day after the scene we have described, the cardinal received a letter with the London stamp which only contained these lines: “I have them; but I am unable to leave London for want of money. Send me five hundred pistoles, and four or five days after I have received them I shall be in Paris.”

  On the same day the cardinal received this letter the king put his customary question to him.

  Richelieu counted on his fingers, and said to himself, “She will arrive, she says, four or five days after having received the money. It will require four or five days for the transmission of the money, four or five days for her to return; that makes ten days. Now, allowing for contrary winds, accidents, and a woman’s weakness, there are twelve days.”

  “Well, Monsieur Duke,” said the king, “have you made your calculations?”

  “Yes, sire. Today is the twentieth of September. The aldermen of the city give a fête on the third of October. That will fall in wonderfully well; you will not appear to have gone out of your way to please the queen.”

  Then the cardinal added, “A propos, sire, do not forget to tell her Majesty the evening before the fête that you should like to see how her diamond studs become her.”

  17

  BONACIEUX AT HOME

  It was the second time the cardinal had mentioned these diamond studs to the king. Louis XIII was struck with this insistence, and began to fancy that this recommendation concealed some mystery.

  More than once the king had been humiliated by the cardinal, whose police, without having yet attained the perfection of the modern police, were excellent, being better informed than himself, even, upon what was going on in his own household. He hoped, then, in a conversation with Anne of Austria, to obtain some information from that conversation, and afterward to come upon his Eminence with some secret which the cardinal either knew or did not know, but which, in either case, would raise him infinitely in the eyes of his minister.

  He went then to the queen, and according to custom accosted her with fresh menaces against those who surrounded her. Anne of Austria lowered her head, allowed the torrent to flow on without replying, hoping that it would cease of itself; but this was not what Louis XIII meant. Louis XIII wanted a discussion from which some light or other might break, convinced as he was that the cardinal had some afterthought and was preparing for him one of those terrible surprises which his Eminence was so skillful in getting up. He arrived at this end by his persistence in accusation.

  “But,” cried Anne of Austria, tired of these vague attacks, “but, sire, you do not tell me all that you have in your heart. What have I done, then? Let me know what crime I have committed. It is impossible that your Majesty can make all this ado about a letter written to my brother.”

  The king, attacked in a manner so direct, did not know what to answer; and he thought that this was the moment for expressing the desire which he was not to have made until the evening before the fête.

  “Madame,” said he, with dignity, “there will shortly be a ball at the Hotel de Ville. I wish, in order to honor our worthy aldermen, you should appear in ceremonial costume, and above all, ornamented with the diamond studs which I gave you on your birthday. That is my answer.”

  The answer was terrible. Anne of Austria believed that Louis XIII knew all, and that the cardinal had persuaded him to employ this long dissimulation of seven or eight days, which, likewise, was characteristic. She became excessively pale, leaned her beautiful hand upon a console, which hand appeared then like one of wax, and looking at the king with terror in her eyes, she was unable to reply by a single syllable.

  “You
hear, madame,” said the king, who enjoyed this embarrassment to its full extent, but without guessing the cause. “You hear, madame?”

  “Yes, sire, I hear,” stammered the queen.

  “You will appear at this ball?”

  “Yes.”

  “With those studs?”

  “Yes.”

  The queen’s paleness, if possible, increased; the king perceived it, and enjoyed it with that cold cruelty which was one of the worst sides of his character.

  “Then that is agreed,” said the king, “and that is all I had to say to you.”

  “But on what day will this ball take place?” asked Anne of Austria.

  Louis XIII felt instinctively that he ought not to reply to this question, the queen having put it in an almost dying voice.

  “Oh, very shortly, madame,” said he; “but I do not precisely recollect the date of the day. I will ask the cardinal.”

  “It was the cardinal, then, who informed you of this fête?”

  “Yes, madame,” replied the astonished king; “but why do you ask that?”

  “It was he who told you to invite me to appear there with these studs?”

  “That is to say, madame—”

  “It was he, sire, it was he!”

  “Well, and what does it signify whether it was he or I? Is there any crime in this request?”

  “No, sire.”

  “Then you will appear?”

  “Yes, sire.”

  “That is well,” said the king, retiring, “that is well; I count upon it.”

  The queen made a curtsy, less from etiquette than because her knees were sinking under her. The king went away enchanted.

  “I am lost,” murmured the queen, “lost!—for the cardinal knows all, and it is he who urges on the king, who as yet knows nothing but will soon know everything. I am lost! My God, my God, my God!”

  She knelt upon a cushion and prayed, with her head buried between her palpitating arms.

  In fact, her position was terrible. Buckingham had returned to London; Mme. de Chevreuse was at Tours. More closely watched than ever, the queen felt certain, without knowing how to tell which, that one of her women betrayed her. Laporte could not leave the Louvre; she had not a soul in the world in whom she could confide. Thus, while contemplating the misfortune which threatened her and the abandonment in which she was left, she broke out into sobs and tears.