Part 25

— De Saint-Aignan, I am dying of impatience; de Saint-Aignan, I am withering away; de Saint-Aignan, I shall never wait until tomorrow... Tomorrow! but tomorrow is an eternity.

— And yet, Sire, if it please you, you are going out shortly and will distract that impatience with a good walk.

— With you, very well: we will talk of your plans, we will speak of her.

— Not so, Sire, I am staying.

— With whom, then, shall I go out?

— With the ladies.

— Ah! faith no, de Saint-Aignan.

— Sire, it must be.

— No, no! a thousand times no! No, I will no longer expose myself to that horrible torment of being two steps from her, of seeing her, of brushing her gown as I pass and saying nothing to her. No, I renounce that torment which you believe a happiness and which is only a torture that burns my eyes, that devours my hands, that crushes my heart; to see her in the presence of all strangers and not tell her that I love her, when my whole being reveals that love to her and betrays me before all. No, I have sworn to myself that I would do so no more, and I shall keep my oath.

— And yet, Sire, listen well to this.

— I listen to nothing, de Saint-Aignan.

— In that case, I continue. It is urgent, Sire, do you understand well, urgent, of the utmost urgency, that Madame and her maids of honor be absent two hours from your residence.

— You confound me, de Saint-Aignan.

— It is hard for me to command my king; but in this circumstance I command, Sire: I must have a hunt or a walk.

— But this walk, this hunt, would be a caprice, an eccentricity! In showing such impatiences, I reveal to all my Court a heart that no longer belongs to itself. Is it not already said too often that I dream of conquering the world, but that beforehand I should begin by conquering myself?

— Those who say that, Sire, are impertinent and seditious; but, whoever they be, if Your Majesty prefers to listen to them, I have nothing more to say. Then, the day of tomorrow recedes into indeterminate epochs.

— De Saint-Aignan, I shall go out this evening... This evening, I will go to sleep at Saint-Germain by torchlight; I will breakfast there tomorrow and be back in Paris around three o'clock. Is that it?

— Exactly.

— Then I shall depart this evening at eight o'clock.

— Your Majesty has guessed the minute.

— And you will tell me nothing?

— That is to say, I can tell you nothing. Craft has some part in this world, Sire; however, chance plays so great a role there, that I have the habit of always leaving it the narrowest share, certain that it will arrange matters so as always to take the widest.

— Come, I abandon myself to you.

— And you are right.

Reassured in this manner, the king went straight to Madame's apartments, where he announced the planned walk.

Madame at once believed she saw, in this improvised outing, a plot by the king to be with La Vallière, whether on the road, under cover of darkness, or otherwise; but she took good care to show nothing of this to her brother-in-law, and accepted the invitation with a smile on her lips.

She gave orders aloud that her maids of honor should follow her, reserving for the evening to do what seemed to her best calculated to thwart His Majesty's loves.

Then, when she was alone and the poor lover who had given that order could believe that Mlle de La Vallière would be of the walk, at the moment perhaps when he feasted in thought on that sad happiness of persecuted lovers, which is to realize, by sight alone, all the joys of forbidden possession, at that very moment, Madame, in the midst of her maids of honor, said:

— I shall have enough of two young ladies this evening: Mlle de Tonnay-Charente and Mlle de Montalais.

La Vallière had foreseen the blow, and consequently expected it; but persecution had made her strong. She gave Madame no joy of seeing upon her face the impression of the blow she received at the heart.

On the contrary, smiling with that ineffable sweetness which gave an angelic character to her physiognomy:

— So, Madame, I am free this evening? said she.

— Yes, assuredly.

— I shall take advantage of it to advance that tapestry which Your Highness was pleased to notice, and which, in advance, I had the honor to offer her.

And, having made a respectful reverence, she withdrew to her own rooms.

Mlles de Montalais and de Tonnay-Charente did likewise.

The noise of the walk went out with them from Madame's chamber and spread through the whole castle. Ten minutes later, Malicorne knew Madame's resolution and slipped under Montalais's door a note conceived in these terms:

"L. V. must spend the night with Madame."

Montalais, according to the conventions made, began by burning the paper, then set herself to reflect.

Montalais was a girl of resources, and she soon settled her plan.

At the hour when she was to present herself to Madame, that is to say toward five o'clock, she crossed the cloister at a run, and, arriving within ten paces of a group of officers, gave a cry, fell gracefully to one knee, rose, and continued on her way, but limping.

The gentlemen hurried to her to support her. Montalais had given herself a sprain.

She would none the less, faithful to her duty, continue her ascent to Madame's rooms.

— What is it, and why do you limp? Madame asked her; I took you for La Vallière.

Montalais recounted how, in running to come the faster, she had twisted her foot.

Madame seemed to pity her and wished to send at once for a surgeon.

But she, assuring that the accident was of no gravity:

— Madame, said she, I am only afflicted at failing in my service, and I would have prayed Mlle de La Vallière to replace me near Your Highness...

Madame frowned.

— But I did nothing of the sort, continued Montalais.

— And why did you do nothing of the sort? asked Madame.

— Because poor La Vallière seemed so happy to have her freedom for an evening and a night, that I did not feel the courage to put her in service in my place.

— How, is she joyful to that degree? asked Madame, struck by these words.

— That is to say, she is wild with it; she was singing, she who is always so melancholy. Besides, Your Highness knows that she detests the world, and that her character contains a grain of wildness.

"Oh! oh!" thought Madame, "this great gaiety does not seem natural to me."

— She has already made her preparations, continued Montalais, to dine in her rooms, tête-à-tête with one of her cherished books. And then, besides, Your Highness has six other young ladies who will be very happy to accompany you; so I did not even make my proposal to Mlle de La Vallière.

Madame was silent.

— Did I do well? continued Montalais with a slight tightening of the heart, seeing so ill succeed this ruse of war upon which she had so completely counted, that she had not thought it necessary to seek another. Madame approves? she continued.

Madame thought that, during the night, the king might well leave Saint-Germain, and that, as only four and a half leagues were counted from Paris to Saint-Germain, he might well be in Paris in an hour.

— Tell me, said she, knowing you wounded, did La Vallière at least offer you her company?

— Oh! she does not yet know my accident; but, did she know it, I would certainly ask nothing of her that would disturb her plans. I believe she means to realize alone, this evening, the pleasure party of the late king, when he said to M. de Saint-Mars: 'Let us be bored, M. de Saint-Mars, let us be well bored.'

Madame was convinced that some amorous mystery was hidden under this thirst for solitude. That mystery must be the nocturnal return of Louis. There was no longer room to doubt it, La Vallière was advised of this return, hence this joy at remaining at the Palais-Royal.

It was a whole plan combined in advance.

— I shall not be their dupe, said Madame.

And she took a decisive course.

— Mademoiselle de Montalais, said she, be so good as to warn your friend, mademoiselle de La Vallière, that I am in despair at disturbing her plans of solitude; but, instead of being bored alone in her rooms, as she wished, she will come to be bored with us at Saint-Germain.

— Ah! poor La Vallière, made Montalais with a doleful air, but with gladness in her heart. Oh! Madame, would there not be some means that Your Highness...

— Enough, said Madame, I will have it! I prefer the society of Mlle La Baume Le Blanc to all other societies. Go, send her to me and care for your leg.

Montalais did not have the order repeated. She returned, wrote her answer to Malicorne, and slipped it under the carpet. "We shall go," said that answer. A Spartan would not have written more laconically.

"In this way," thought Madame, "on the road I watch her, during the night she sleeps near me, and clever indeed is His Majesty if he exchanges a single word with Mlle de La Vallière."

La Vallière received the order to depart with the same indifferent sweetness with which she had received the order to stay.

Only, inwardly, her joy was keen, and she regarded this change of resolution in the princess as a consolation sent her by Providence.

Less penetrating than Madame, she set it all down to chance.

While everyone, with the exception of the disgraced, the sick, and those having sprains, directed themselves toward Saint-Germain, Malicorne had his workman enter a carriage of M. de Saint-Aignan and conducted him to the chamber corresponding to La Vallière's chamber.

This man set to work, allured by the splendid reward that had been promised him.

As they had taken from the engineers of the king's household all the most excellent tools, among others one of those saws with invincible bites that go so far as to cut, in water, oak beams hard as iron, the work advanced rapidly, and a square piece of the ceiling, chosen between two joists, fell into the arms of Saint-Aignan, of Malicorne, of the workman, and of a trusted valet, a personage brought into the world to see all, hear all, and repeat nothing.

Only, by virtue of a new plan indicated by Malicorne, the opening was made in the corner.

Here is why.

As there was no dressing room in La Vallière's chamber, La Vallière had asked and obtained, that very morning, a large screen intended to replace a partition.

The screen had been granted.

It sufficed perfectly to hide the opening, which besides would be disguised by all the artifices of cabinetmaking.

The hole made, the workman slipped between the joists and found himself in La Vallière's chamber.

Arrived there, he squarely sawed the floor, and, with the very leaves of the parquet, fashioned a trapdoor adapting so perfectly to the opening, that the most practiced eye could see there only the obligatory interstices of a parquet seam.

Malicorne had foreseen all. A handle and two hinges, bought in advance, were fixed to this leaf of wood.

One of those little spiral staircases, such as they were beginning to put in mezzanines, was bought ready-made by the industrious Malicorne, and paid two thousand livres.

It was higher than needful; but the carpenter removed some steps, and it proved of exact measure.

This staircase, destined to receive so illustrious a weight, was hung to the wall by two brackets only.

As to its base, it was secured in the very parquet of the count by two screwed pins: the king and all his council could have gone up and down that staircase without any fear.

Every hammer struck upon a pad of tow, every file bit, its handle wrapped in wool, its blade steeped in oil.

Besides, the noisiest work had been done during the night and during the morning, that is to say in the absence of La Vallière and of Madame.

When, toward two o'clock, the Court returned to the Palais-Royal, and La Vallière went back up to her chamber, all was in place, and not the least particle of sawdust, not the smallest shaving attested the violation of domicile.

Only, de Saint-Aignan, who had wished to aid as best he could in this work, had torn his fingers and his shirt, and expended much sweat in the service of his king.

The palm of his hands, above all, was all covered with blisters.

These blisters came of his having held the ladder for Malicorne.

He had, besides, carried one by one the five pieces of the staircase, formed each of two steps.

Finally, we may say it, the king, had he seen him so ardent at the work, the king would have sworn him eternal gratitude.

As Malicorne, the man of exact measures, had foreseen, the workman had terminated all his operations in twenty-four hours.

He received twenty-four louis and departed overflowing with joy; it was as much as he ordinarily earned in six months.

No one had the slightest suspicion of what had passed beneath Mlle de La Vallière's apartment.

But, on the evening of the second day, at the moment when La Vallière had just left Madame's circle and returned to her rooms, a slight creaking resounded at the back of the chamber.

Astonished, she looked to see whence the noise came. The noise recommenced.

— Who is there? she asked with an accent of fright.

— I, answered the so well known voice of the king.

— You!... you! cried the young girl, who for an instant believed herself under the sway of a dream. But where is that, you?... you, Sire?

— Here, replied the king, unfolding one of the leaves of the screen, and appearing like a shadow at the back of the apartment.

La Vallière gave a cry and fell all a-tremble into an armchair.

Chapter CLXXIV — The Apparition

La Vallière promptly recovered from her surprise; by dint of being respectful, the king, by his presence, restored her more confidence than his apparition had taken from her.

But, as he saw above all that what troubled La Vallière was the way in which he had penetrated to her, he explained to her the system of the staircase hidden by the screen, defending himself especially from being a supernatural apparition.

— Oh! Sire, said La Vallière, shaking her blonde head with a charming smile, present or absent, you appear no less to my mind at one moment than at another.

— Which means, Louise?

— Oh! what you know well, Sire: that there is not an instant when the poor girl whose secret you surprised at Fontainebleau, and whom you came to take again at the foot of the cross, does not think of you.

— Louise, you overwhelm me with joy and happiness.

La Vallière smiled sadly and continued:

— But, Sire, have you reflected that your ingenious invention could be of no use to us?

— And why so? Speak, I am listening.

— Because this chamber where I lodge, Sire, is not safe from search, far from it; Madame may come here by chance; at every instant of the day, my companions come here; to lock my door from within is to denounce myself as clearly as if I wrote upon it: 'Do not enter, the king is here!' And, see here, Sire, at this very moment, nothing prevents the door from opening, and His Majesty, surprised, from being seen near me.

— Then, said the king laughing, that is when I should truly be taken for a ghost, for none can say by what way I came here. Now, there are only ghosts that pass through walls or through ceilings.

— Oh! Sire, what an adventure! think well on it, Sire, what a scandal! Never anything like this would have been said of the maids of honor, poor creatures whom malice seldom spares, however.

— And you conclude from all this, my dear Louise?... Come, speak, explain yourself!

— That it must be, alas! forgive me, it is a hard word...

Louis smiled.

— Come, said he.

— That His Majesty must suppress the staircase, machinations and surprises; for the evil of being caught here, think on it, Sire, would be greater than the happiness of being seen there.

— Well! dear Louise, answered the king with love, instead of suppressing this staircase by which I ascend, there is a simpler means which you have not thought of.

— A means... again?...

— Yes, again. Oh! you do not love me as I love you, Louise, since I am more inventive than you.

She looked at him. Louis held out his hand, which she pressed gently.

— You say, continued the king, that I shall be surprised in coming where everyone may enter at their ease?

— See here, Sire, at the very moment you speak of it, I tremble.

— Be it so, but you would not be surprised, you, in descending this staircase to come into the chambers that are below.

— Sire, Sire, what are you saying there? cried La Vallière, frightened.

— You misunderstand me, Louise, since, at my first word, you take this great anger; first, do you know to whom those chambers belong?

— But to M. le comte de Guiche.

— No, to M. de Saint-Aignan.

— Truly! cried La Vallière.

And that word, escaped from the joyful heart of the young girl, made shine like a flash of sweet omen in the expanded heart of the king.

— Yes, to de Saint-Aignan, to our friend, said he.

— But, Sire, resumed La Vallière, I can no more go to M. de Saint-Aignan's than to M. le comte de Guiche's, ventured the angel returned woman.

— Why then can you not, Louise?

— Impossible! impossible!

— It seems to me, Louise, that, under the safeguard of the king, one may do all.

— Under the safeguard of the king? said she with a glance charged with love.

— Oh! you believe my word, do you not?

— I believe it when you are not there, Sire; but, when you are there, when you speak to me, when I see you, I believe in nothing more.

— What do you need to reassure you, my God?

— It is little respectful, I know, to doubt thus the king; but you are not the king, to me.

— Oh! God be thanked, I hope so; you see how I seek. Listen: will the presence of a third party reassure you?

— The presence of M. de Saint-Aignan? yes.

— In truth, Louise, you pierce my heart with such suspicions.

La Vallière answered nothing, she only looked at Louis with that clear gaze which penetrated to the bottom of hearts, and said low:

— Alas! alas! it is not of you I distrust, it is not upon you that my suspicions bear.

— I accept then, said the king sighing, and M. de Saint-Aignan, who has the happy privilege of reassuring you, shall always be present at our interview, I promise you.

— Truly, Sire?

— Word of a gentleman! And you, on your side?...

— Wait, oh! that is not all.

— Something more, Louise?

— Oh! certainly; do not weary so quickly, for we are not at the end, Sire.

— Come, finish piercing my heart.

— You understand well, Sire, that these interviews must at least have, near M. de Saint-Aignan himself, a sort of reasonable motive.

— A reasonable motive! resumed the king in a tone of gentle reproach.

— Doubtless. Reflect, Sire.

— Oh! you have all the delicacies, and, believe it, my only desire is to equal you on this point. Well! Louise, it shall be done as you wish. Our interviews shall have a reasonable object, and I have already found that object.

— So that, Sire?... said La Vallière smiling.

— That, from tomorrow, if you will...

— Tomorrow?

— You mean it is too late? cried the king, pressing between his two hands the burning hand of La Vallière.

At this moment, steps were heard in the corridor.

— Sire, Sire, cried La Vallière, someone approaches, someone comes, do you hear? Sire, Sire, flee, I beg you!

The king made but one bound from his chair behind the screen.

It was time; as the king drew one of the leaves over him, the door knob turned, and Montalais appeared on the threshold.

It goes without saying that she entered quite naturally and without any ceremony.

She knew well, the cunning girl, that to knock discreetly at that door instead of pushing it, was to show La Vallière a distrustful slight.

She entered then, and after a rapid glance which showed her two chairs very near one another, she employed so much time in re-closing the door which rebelled, no one knows how, that the king had time to lift the trapdoor and redescend to de Saint-Aignan's.

An imperceptible noise to any ear less fine than hers warned Montalais of the prince's disappearance; she then succeeded in closing the rebellious door, and approached La Vallière.

— Let us talk, Louise, said she to her, let us talk seriously, you consent.

Louise, all in her emotion, heard without a secret terror this seriously, upon which Montalais had deliberately insisted.

— My God! my dear Aure, murmured she, what is there now?

— There is, dear friend, that Madame suspects everything.

— Everything what?

— Need we explain ourselves, and do you not understand what I mean? Come: you must have seen Madame's fluctuations for several days; you must have seen how she took you near her, then dismissed you, then took you again.

— It is strange, indeed; but I am used to her whims.

— Wait still. You remarked next that Madame, after excluding you from the walk yesterday, had you ordered to attend that walk.

— If I remarked it! assuredly.

— Well! it appears that Madame now has sufficient information, for she went straight to the mark, having nothing more to oppose in France to that torrent which breaks all obstacles; you know what I mean by the torrent?

La Vallière hid her face between her hands.

— I mean, pursued Montalais relentlessly, that torrent which forced the door of the Carmelites of Chaillot, and overturned all court prejudices, as well at Fontainebleau as at Paris.

— Alas! alas! murmured La Vallière, still veiled by her fingers, between which rolled her tears.

— Oh! do not grieve thus, when you are but at half your troubles.

— My God! cried the young girl with anxiety, what is there now?

— Well! here is the fact. Madame, destitute of auxiliaries in France, for she has successively worn out the two queens, Monsieur and all the Court, Madame remembered a certain person who has pretended rights over you.

La Vallière became white as a waxen statue.

— This person, continued Montalais, is not in Paris at this moment.

— Oh! my God! murmured Louise.

— This person, if I am not mistaken, is in England.

— Yes, yes, sighed La Vallière, half broken.

— Is it not at the Court of King Charles II that this person is found? Speak.

— Yes.

— Well! this evening, a letter left Madame's cabinet for Saint-James, with order for the courier to push straight through to Hampton-Court, which is, it appears, a royal house situated twelve miles from London!

— Yes, and after?

— Now, as Madame writes regularly to London every fifteen days, and the ordinary courier had been dispatched to London only three days ago, I thought that only a grave circumstance could put the pen to her hand. Madame is lazy to write, as you know.

— Oh! yes.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”