Part 22

— And is that still true?

— Inform yourself, Sire.

— And from whom?

— Oh! said d’Artagnan, like a man declining to answer.

The king started up, setting aside ambassadors, ministers, courtiers, and politics.

The queen mother rose: she had heard everything, or what she had not heard, she had guessed.

Madame, fainting with anger and fear, tried to rise like the queen mother; but she fell back into her armchair, which, by an instinctive movement, she sent rolling backward.

— Gentlemen, said the king, the audience is at an end; I shall make known my answer, or rather my will, to Spain and to Holland.

And, with an imperious gesture, he dismissed the ambassadors.

— Take care, my son, said the queen mother with indignation, take care; you are scarcely master of yourself, it seems to me.

— Ah! madame, roared the young lion with a frightful gesture, if I am not master of myself, I shall be, I pledge you my word, master of those who insult me. Come with me, Monsieur d’Artagnan, come.

And he left the hall amid the stupor and terror of all.

The king descended the staircase and made ready to cross the courtyard.

— Sire, said d’Artagnan, Your Majesty is mistaken as to the way.

— No, I am going to the stables.

— Useless, Sire; I have horses all ready for Your Majesty.

The king answered his servant only with a look; but that look promised more than the ambition of three d’Artagnans would have dared to hope.

Chapter CLXVIII — Chaillot

Although they had not been summoned, Manicamp and Malicorne had followed the king and d’Artagnan.

They were two very intelligent men; only, Malicorne often arrived too early through ambition; Manicamp often arrived too late through laziness.

This time, they arrived just in time.

Five horses were prepared.

Two were taken by the king and d’Artagnan; two by Manicamp and Malicorne. A page from the stables mounted the fifth. The whole cavalcade set off at a gallop.

D’Artagnan had indeed chosen the horses himself; true horses for lovers in distress; horses that did not run, but flew.

Ten minutes after departure, the cavalcade, in the form of a whirlwind of dust, arrived at Chaillot.

The king literally threw himself from his horse. But, swift as he was in this maneuver, he found d’Artagnan at the bridle of his mount.

The king gave the musketeer a sign of thanks, and flung the bridle into the page’s arms.

Then he dashed into the vestibule, and, pushing the door violently, entered the parlor.

Manicamp, Malicorne, and the page remained outside; d’Artagnan followed his master.

On entering the parlor, the first object that struck the king was Louise, not on her knees, but lying at the foot of a great stone crucifix.

The young girl was stretched upon the damp flagstone, and scarcely visible, in the shadow of that hall, which received daylight only through a narrow grated window entirely veiled by climbing plants.

She was alone, lifeless, cold as the stone on which her body rested.

On seeing her thus, the king believed her dead, and uttered a terrible cry that brought d’Artagnan running.

The king had already passed an arm around her body. D’Artagnan helped the king lift the poor woman, whom the numbness of death had already seized.

The king took her entirely in his arms, warming with his kisses her hands and frozen temples.

D’Artagnan flung himself upon the tower bell.

Then came running the Carmelite sisters.

The holy maidens uttered cries of scandal at the sight of these men holding a woman in their arms.

The superior came running too.

But, a woman more worldly than the ladies of the Court, despite all her austerity, at a single glance she recognized the king by the respect the bystanders showed him, as also by the masterful air with which he threw the whole community into confusion.

At the sight of the king, she had withdrawn to her own quarters; which was a means of not compromising her dignity.

But she sent by the nuns all sorts of cordials, Hungary-water, balm-mint, etc., etc., ordering, moreover, that the doors be shut.

It was time: the king’s grief was becoming loud and desperate.

The king seemed resolved to send for his physician, when La Vallière returned to life.

On reopening her eyes, the first thing she beheld was the king, at her feet. No doubt she did not recognize him, for she gave a painful sigh.

Louis gazed at her with eager eyes.

At last, her wandering eyes fixed upon the king. She recognized him, and made an effort to tear herself from his arms.

— What! she murmured, is the sacrifice then not yet accomplished?

— Oh! no, no! cried the king, and it shall not be accomplished, that I swear to you.

She rose, weak and utterly broken as she was.

— It must be, however, she said; it must be, do not detain me longer.

— I would let you sacrifice yourself, I? cried Louis. Never! never!

— Good! murmured d’Artagnan, it is time to withdraw. The moment they begin to talk, let us spare our ears.

D’Artagnan went out; the two lovers remained alone.

— Sire, continued La Vallière, not another word, I beg you. Do not lose the only future I hope for, that is to say my salvation; all of yours, that is to say your glory, for a caprice.

— A caprice? cried the king.

— Oh! now, said La Vallière, now, Sire, I see clearly into your heart.

— You, Louise?

— Oh! yes, I!

— Explain yourself.

— An incomprehensible, unreasonable infatuation may seem to you a sufficient excuse for the moment; but you have duties incompatible with your love for a poor girl. Forget me.

— I, forget you?

— It is already done.

— Rather die!

— Sire, you cannot love her whom you consented to kill so cruelly last night as you did.

— What are you telling me? Come, explain yourself.

— What did you ask of me yesterday morning, tell me, but to love you? What did you promise me in exchange? Never to pass midnight without offering me a reconciliation, when you should have been angry with me.

— Oh! forgive me, forgive me, Louise! I was mad with jealousy.

— Sire, jealousy is an evil thought, which comes like the tare after it is cut. You will be jealous again, and you will finish killing me. Have the pity to let me die.

— Another word like that, mademoiselle, and you will see me expire at your feet.

— No, no, Sire, I know better what I am worth. Believe me, and you will not ruin yourself for an unhappy girl whom everyone despises.

— Oh! name to me then those you accuse, name them to me!

— I have no complaint against anyone, Sire; I accuse only myself. Farewell, Sire! You compromise yourself in speaking to me thus.

— Take care, Louise; in speaking to me thus, you reduce me to despair; take care!

— Oh! Sire! Sire! leave me with God, I beseech you!

— I would tear you even from God!

— But, beforehand, cried the poor child, tear me then from those fierce enemies who seek my life and my honor. If you have strength enough to love, have then power enough to defend me; but no, her whom you say you love, she is insulted, mocked, driven away.

And the harmless child, forced by her grief to accuse, wrung her arms with sobs.

— You have been driven away! cried the king. That is the second time I hear that word.

— Ignominiously, Sire. You see plainly, I have no other protector than God, no other consolation than prayer, no other refuge than the cloister.

— You shall have my palace, you shall have my Court. Oh! fear nothing more, Louise; those, or rather those women, who drove you away yesterday shall tremble before you tomorrow; what do I say, tomorrow? this morning I have already scolded, threatened. I can let loose the thunder that I still hold back. Louise! Louise! you shall be cruelly avenged. Tears of blood shall pay for your tears. Only name your enemies to me.

— Never! never!

— How do you expect me to strike, then?

— Sire, those one would need to strike would make your hand recoil.

— Oh! you do not know me! cried Louis, exasperated. Rather than recoil, I would burn my kingdom and curse my family. Yes, I would strike even this arm, if this arm were base enough not to annihilate all that has made itself the enemy of the sweetest of creatures.

And, indeed, in saying these words, Louis struck violently with his fist upon the oak partition, which gave back a lugubrious murmur.

La Vallière was terrified. The anger of this all-powerful young man had something imposing and sinister, because, like that of the storm, it could be deadly.

She, whose grief believed it had no equal, was vanquished by that grief which broke forth through threat and violence.

— Sire, said she, for the last time, withdraw, I beg you; already the calm of this retreat has strengthened me: I feel calmer under the hand of God. God is a protector before whom all human pettiness falls. Sire, once more, leave me with God.

— Then, cried Louis, say plainly that you have never loved me, say that my humility, say that my repentance flatter your pride, but that you are not afflicted by my grief. Say that the King of France is no longer for you a lover whose tenderness could make your happiness, but a despot whose caprice has broken in your heart even the last fiber of sensibility. Do not say that you seek God, say that you flee the king. No, God is not accomplice of inflexible resolutions. God admits penitence and remorse: he forgives, he wills that one should love.

Louise writhed with suffering on hearing these words, which made the flame flow to the deepest of her veins.

— But did you not hear? said she.

— What?

— Did you not hear that I am driven away, despised, despicable?

— I will make you the most respected, the most adored, the most envied at my court.

— Prove to me that you have not ceased to love me.

— How so?

— Flee from me.

— I will prove it by never leaving you again.

— But do you think I will suffer that, Sire? Do you think I will let you declare war on all your family? Do you think I will let you repulse for my sake mother, wife, and sister?

— Ah! you have named them, at last; it is then they who did the wrong? By the all-powerful God! I will punish them!

— And I, that is why the future frightens me, that is why I refuse everything, that is why I will not have you avenge me. Enough tears, my God! enough grief, enough complaints like this. Oh! never, I will cost no complaints, grief, or tears to anyone whatsoever. I have sighed too much, I have wept too much, I have suffered too much!

— And my tears, mine, my griefs, mine, my complaints, mine, do you count them for nothing?

— Do not speak to me thus, Sire, in Heaven’s name! In Heaven’s name! do not speak to me thus. I need all my courage to accomplish the sacrifice.

— Louise, Louise, I implore you! Command, order, avenge yourself or pardon, but do not abandon me!

— Alas! we must part, Sire.

— But you do not love me, then?

— Oh! God knows it!

— Falsehood! Falsehood!

— Oh! if I did not love you, Sire, I would let you do it, I would let myself be avenged, I would accept, in exchange for the insult done me, that sweet triumph of pride you propose to me! Whereas, as you see plainly, I will not even have the sweet compensation of your love, of your love which is my life, nevertheless, since I wished to die, believing you no longer loved me.

— Well! yes, yes, I know it now, I acknowledge it at this hour: you are the most holy, the most venerable of women. None is worthy, as you are, not only of my love and my respect, but also of the love and respect of all; likewise, none shall be loved as you, Louise! none shall have over me the empire that you have. Yes, I swear it to you, I would break the world like glass at this moment, if the world hindered me. You order me to calm myself, to pardon? Very well, I will calm myself. You wish to reign through gentleness and clemency? I will be clement and gentle. Only dictate my conduct to me, I will obey.

— Ah! my God! what am I, I, a poor girl, to dictate a syllable to a king such as you?

— You are my life and my soul! Is it not the soul that rules the body?

— Oh! you love me then, my dear Sire?

— On both knees, hands joined, with all the strength God has put in me. I love you enough to give you my life smiling, if you say but a word!

— You love me?

— Oh! yes.

— Then I have nothing more to desire in the world... Your hand, Sire, and let us say farewell! I have had in this life all the happiness allotted to me.

— Oh! no, do not say that your life begins! Your happiness, it is not yesterday, it is today, it is tomorrow, it is always! To you the future! to you all that is mine! No more these ideas of separation, no more these dark despairs: love is our God, it is the need of our souls. You shall live for me, as I shall live for you.

And, prostrating himself before her, he kissed her knees with ineffable transports of joy and gratitude.

— Oh! Sire! Sire! all this is a dream.

— Why a dream?

— Because I cannot return to Court. Exiled, how see you again? Is it not better to take the cloister to bury there, in the balm of your love, the last impulses of your heart and your last avowal?

— Exiled, you? cried Louis XIV. And who exiles, when I recall?

— Oh! Sire, something that reigns above kings: the world and opinion. Reflect upon it, you cannot love a woman who is driven away; she whom your mother stained with a suspicion, she whom your sister branded with punishment, she is unworthy of you.

— Unworthy, she who belongs to me?

— Yes, that is just it, Sire; from the moment she belongs to you, your mistress is unworthy.

— Ah! you are right, Louise, and all delicacy is in you. Well! you shall not be exiled.

— Oh! you have not heard Madame, one sees it plainly.

— I will appeal to my mother.

— Oh! you have not seen your mother!

— She too? Poor Louise! Was everyone then against you?

— Yes, yes, poor Louise, who was already bending beneath the storm when you came, when you finished breaking her.

— Oh! pardon.

— Therefore, you will bend neither the one nor the other; believe me, the evil is past remedy, for I will never permit you either violence or authority.

— Well! Louise, to prove to you how much I love you, I wish to do one thing: I will go to Madame.

— You?

— I will have her revoke the sentence: I will force her.

— Force? oh! no, no!

— It is true: I will bend her.

Louise shook her head.

— I will pray, if need be, said Louis. Will you believe in my love after that?

Louise raised her head.

— Oh! never for me, never humble yourself; far rather let me die.

Louis reflected, his features took on a dark hue.

— I will love as much as you have loved, said he; I will suffer as much as you have suffered; that shall be my expiation in your eyes. Come, mademoiselle, let us leave aside these paltry considerations; let us be great as our grief, let us be strong as our love!

And, in saying these words, he took her in his arms and made a girdle of his two hands.

— My only good! my life! follow me, said he.

She made a last effort in which she concentrated no longer all her will, her will was already vanquished, but all her strength.

— No! she replied weakly, no, no! I would die of shame!

— No! you shall return as a queen. None knows of your leaving... D’Artagnan alone...

— He has then betrayed me too?

— How so?

— He had sworn...

— I had sworn to say nothing to the king, said d’Artagnan, putting his shrewd head through the half-open door, I kept my word. I spoke to Monsieur de Saint-Aignan: it is not my fault if the king heard, is it not, Sire?

— It is true, forgive him, said the king.

La Vallière smiled and held out to the musketeer her frail white hand.

— Monsieur d’Artagnan, said the delighted king, have a carriage sought for Mademoiselle.

— Sire, answered the captain, the carriage waits.

— Oh! there is the model of servants! cried the king.

— You took your time noticing it, murmured d’Artagnan, flattered, however, by the praise.

La Vallière was vanquished: after some hesitations, she let herself be drawn away, fainting, by her royal lover.

But, at the door of the parlor, at the moment of leaving it, she tore herself from the king’s arms and returned to the stone crucifix, which she kissed, saying:

— My God! you had drawn me; my God! you have repulsed me; but your grace is infinite. Only when I return, forget that I withdrew from you; for, when I return to you, it shall be to leave you no more.

The king let escape a sob.

D’Artagnan wiped away a tear.

Louis drew the young woman away, lifted her into the carriage, and placed d’Artagnan beside her.

And he himself, mounting on horseback, spurred toward the Palais-Royal, where, upon his arrival, he sent word to Madame that she should grant him a moment of audience.

Chapter CLXIX — At Madame’s

From the manner in which the king had left the ambassadors, the least clear-sighted had guessed a war.

The ambassadors themselves, little informed of intimate chronicle, had interpreted against them that celebrated word: “If I am not master of myself, I shall be master of those who insult me.”

Fortunately for the destinies of France and Holland, Colbert had followed them to give them some explanations; but the queens and Madame, very intelligent in all that passed in their houses, having heard that threatening word, had departed with much fear and vexation.

Madame, especially, felt that the royal anger would fall upon her, and, as she was brave, excessively haughty, instead of seeking support with the queen mother, she had withdrawn to her own quarters, if not without unease, at least without intention of avoiding the combat. From time to time, Anne of Austria sent messengers to inquire if the king had returned.

The silence the castle kept on this affair and the disappearance of Louise were the presage of a quantity of misfortunes for whoever knew the proud and irritable humor of the king.

But Madame, holding firm against all these rumors, shut herself in her apartment, called Montalais to her, and, in her least moved voice, had this girl talk of the event. At the moment when the eloquent Montalais was concluding with all sorts of oratorical precautions and recommending to Madame tolerance under benefit of reciprocity, M. Malicorne appeared at Madame’s to ask an audience of that princess.

The worthy friend of Montalais bore upon his face all the signs of the liveliest emotion. It was impossible to mistake them: the interview requested by the king must be one of the most interesting chapters of this history of the hearts of kings and men.

Madame was troubled by this arrival of her brother-in-law; she did not expect him so soon; she did not expect, above all, a direct step from Louis.

Now, women, who make war so well indirectly, are always less skillful and less strong when it is a question of accepting battle face to face.

Madame, have we said, was not of those who recoil, she had the contrary fault or quality.

She exaggerated valor; likewise, this dispatch from the king brought by Malicorne produced upon her the effect of the trumpet that sounds hostilities. She proudly took up the glove.

Five minutes later, the king was mounting the staircase.

He was red from having ridden hard. His powdery and disordered clothes contrasted with the toilette so fresh and so well-fitted of Madame, who, she, was growing pale beneath her rouge.

Louis made no preamble; he sat down, Montalais disappeared.

Madame sat facing the king.

— My sister, said Louis, you know that Mlle de La Vallière fled from her home this morning, and that she went to carry her grief, her despair into a cloister?

In pronouncing these words, the king’s voice was singularly moved.

— It is Your Majesty who tells me, replied Madame.

— I would have thought you had learned it this morning, at the reception of the ambassadors, said the king.

— From your emotion, yes, Sire, I guessed that something extraordinary was passing, but without specifying.

The king was frank and went to the point:

— My sister, said he, why did you send Mlle de La Vallière away?

— Because her service displeased me, replied Madame dryly.

The king turned purple, and his eyes gathered a fire that all Madame’s courage could hardly sustain.

He contained himself, however, and added:

— There must be a very strong reason, my sister, in a good woman like you, to expel and dishonor not only a young girl, but all the family of that girl. You know that the town has its eyes open upon the conduct of the ladies of the Court. To dismiss a maid of honor is to attribute to her a crime, a fault at least. What then is the crime, what then is the fault of Mlle de La Vallière?

— Since you make yourself the protector of Mlle de La Vallière, replied Madame coldly, I am going to give you explanations that I should have the right to give to no one.

— Not even to the king? cried Louis, covering himself with a gesture of anger.

— You called me your sister, said Madame, and I am in my own house.

— No matter! said the young monarch, ashamed of having been carried away, you cannot say, madame, and none can say in this kingdom that he has the right not to explain himself before me.

— Since you take it thus, said Madame with a dark anger, it remains for me to bow before Your Majesty and to be silent.

— No, let us not equivocate.

— The protection with which you cover Mlle de La Vallière imposes respect upon me.

— Let us not equivocate, I tell you; you know well that, as chief of the French nobility, I must account to all for the honor of families. You dismiss Mlle de La Vallière or any other...

A shrug of the shoulders from Madame.

— Or any other, I repeat, continued the king, and as you dishonor this person in acting thus, I ask you for an explanation, in order to confirm or to combat this sentence.

— Combat my sentence? cried Madame with haughtiness. What! when I have driven from my house one of my attendants, you would order me to take her back?

The king was silent.

— That would be no longer excess of power, Sire, that would be impropriety.

— Madame!

— Oh! I would rebel, as a woman, against an abuse outside all dignity; I would no longer be a princess of your blood, a daughter of a king; I would be the last of creatures, I would be more humble than the dismissed servant.

The king bounded with fury.

— It is no heart, he cried, that beats in your breast; if you act thus with me, let me act with the same rigor.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”