Part 31

— It is true that M. Fouquet's office may cost a great deal. What would you put into it, M. Vanel?

— All that I possess, my lord.

— Which means?

— Three or four hundred thousand livres.

— And the office is worth?

— A million and a half, at the lowest. I know of persons who offered a million seven hundred thousand livres without persuading M. Fouquet. Now, if by chance it should happen that M. Fouquet wished to sell, which I do not believe, despite what I have been told...

— Ah! you have been told something! By whom?

— M. de Gourville... M. Pélisson. Oh! in passing.

— Well! if M. Fouquet wished to sell?...

— I could still not buy, since the Superintendent would only sell to have ready money, and no one has a million and a half to throw upon a table.

Colbert interrupted the councillor at this point with an imperious pantomime. He had begun to reflect again.

Seeing the master's serious attitude, seeing his persistence in bringing the conversation back to this subject, M. Vanel awaited a conclusion without daring to provoke one.

— Explain to me clearly, said Colbert then, the privileges of the office of Attorney General.

— The right to bring accusation against any French subject who is not a prince of the blood; the annulment of any accusation directed against any Frenchman who is not king or prince. An Attorney General is the king's right arm to strike a guilty man, he is also his arm to extinguish the torch of justice. Thus M. Fouquet will sustain himself against the king himself by rallying the parliaments; thus the king will humor M. Fouquet despite all, to have his edicts registered without contest. The Attorney General may be a very useful or a very dangerous instrument.

— Do you wish to be Attorney General, Vanel? said Colbert suddenly, softening his glance and his voice.

— I? cried the other. But I have had the honor of representing to you that there are at least eleven hundred thousand livres lacking in my coffers.

— You will borrow that sum from your friends.

— I have no friends richer than myself.

— An honest man!

— If everyone thought as you do, my lord.

— I think so, that suffices, and, if need be, I will answer for you.

— Beware the proverb, my lord.

— Which?

— He who answers pays.

— Let that be no obstacle.

Vanel rose, quite moved by this offer so suddenly, so unexpectedly made by a man whom the most frivolous took seriously.

— Do not jest with me, my lord, said he.

— Come, let us make haste, M. Vanel. You say that M. Gourville spoke to you of M. Fouquet's office?

— M. Pélisson also.

— Officially, or unofficially?

— Here are their words: 'These Parliament men are ambitious and rich; they should club together to make two or three millions for M. Fouquet, their protector, their light.'

— And you said?

— I said that, for my part, I would give ten thousand livres if need be.

— Ah! you love M. Fouquet then? cried M. Colbert with a glance full of hatred.

— No; but M. Fouquet is our Attorney General; he goes into debt, he sinks; we must save the honor of the body.

— That explains to me why M. Fouquet will always be safe and sound so long as he holds his office, replied Colbert.

— Thereupon, pursued Vanel, M. Gourville added: 'To give alms to M. Fouquet is always a humiliating proceeding to which he will answer with a refusal; let the Parliament club together to buy worthily the office of its Attorney General, then all is well, the honor of the body is saved, and the pride of M. Fouquet preserved.'

— That is a suggestion.

— I considered it so, my lord.

— Well! M. Vanel, you will go immediately to find M. Gourville or M. Pélisson; do you know any other friend of M. Fouquet?

— I know M. de La Fontaine very well.

— La Fontaine the rhymer?

— Precisely; he made verses to my wife, when M. Fouquet was of our friends.

— Apply to him then to obtain an interview with the Superintendent.

— Willingly; but the sum?

— On the day and at the hour fixed, M. Vanel, you will be provided with the sum, do not trouble yourself.

— My lord, such munificence! You eclipse the king, you surpass M. Fouquet.

— A moment... let us not abuse words. I do not give you fourteen hundred thousand livres, M. Vanel: I have children.

— Eh! sir, you lend them to me; that suffices.

— I lend them to you, yes.

— Demand what interest, what guarantee you please, my lord, I am ready, and, your desires being satisfied, I will repeat again that you surpass kings and M. Fouquet in munificence. Your conditions?

— Repayment within eight years.

— Oh! very well.

— Mortgage upon the office itself.

— Perfectly; is that all?

— Wait. I reserve the right to buy back the office from you at a hundred and fifty thousand livres profit if you should not follow, in the management of this office, a line conformable to the interests of the king and to my designs.

— Ah! ah! said Vanel, somewhat moved.

— Does that contain anything that could offend you, M. Vanel? said Colbert coldly.

— No, no, replied Vanel quickly.

— Well! we will sign that deed when you please. Run to the friends of M. Fouquet.

— I fly...

— And obtain an interview from the Superintendent.

— Yes, my lord.

— Be easy in concessions.

— Yes.

— And once the arrangements are made?...

— I hasten to have it signed.

— Beware of that!... Never speak of signature with M. Fouquet, nor of forfeit, nor even of word of honor, do you hear? you would lose everything!

— Well then, my lord, what to do? It is too difficult...

— Try only that M. Fouquet touch you on the hand... Go!

Chapter CLXXXII — At the Queen Mother's

The queen mother was in her bedchamber at the Palais-Royal with Mme de Motteville and the senora Molina. The king, expected until evening, had not appeared; the queen, all impatience, had often sent for news of him.

The weather seemed stormy. The courtiers and ladies avoided one another in the antechambers and corridors so as not to speak of compromising subjects.

Monsieur had joined the king since morning for a hunting party.

Madame remained in her own rooms, sulking at everyone.

As for the queen mother, after saying her prayers in Latin, she talked housekeeping with her two friends in pure Castilian.

Mme de Motteville, who understood that language admirably, replied in French.

When the three ladies had exhausted all the formulas of dissimulation and politeness to come at last to saying that the king's conduct was killing the queen, the queen mother, and all her kindred with grief, when they had, in chosen terms, fulminated all imprecations against Mlle de La Vallière, the queen mother ended the recriminations with these words full of her thought and her character:

— Estos hijos! said she to Molina.

That is to say: 'These children!'

A profound word in the mouth of a mother; a terrible word in the mouth of a queen who, like Anne of Austria, hid such singular secrets in her darkened soul.

— Yes, replied Molina, these children! to whom every mother sacrifices herself.

— To whom, replied the queen, a mother has sacrificed all.

And she did not finish her sentence. It seemed to her, when she raised her eyes toward the full-length portrait of the pale Louis XIII, that her husband once again let the light rise to his dim eyes, his wrath swell his painted nostrils. The portrait came alive; it did not speak, it threatened. A deep silence followed the queen's last words. Molina began to rummage among the ribbons and laces of a vast basket. Mme de Motteville, surprised by this flash which had simultaneously illuminated with intelligence the glance of the confidante and that of the mistress, Mme de Motteville, we say, lowered her eyes like a discreet woman, and, no longer seeking to see, listened with all her ears. She caught only a significant 'hum!' from the Spanish duenna, image of circumspection. She caught also a sigh exhaled like a breath from the queen's breast.

She lifted her head at once.

— You suffer? said she.

— No, Motteville, no; why do you say that?

— Your Majesty had groaned.

— You are right, indeed; yes, I suffer a little.

— M. Valot is near here, at Madame's, I believe.

— At Madame's, why?

— Madame has her nerves.

— Fine illness! M. Valot is quite wrong to be at Madame's, when another physician would cure Madame...

Mme de Motteville lifted her surprised eyes again.

— A physician other than M. Valot? said she; who then?

— Work, Motteville, work... Ah! if anyone is ill, it is my poor daughter.

— It is also Your Majesty.

— Less so this evening.

— Do not trust to that, madame!

And, as if to justify this threat of Mme de Motteville, a sharp pain bit the queen at the heart, made her pale and threw her back into an armchair with all the symptoms of a sudden fainting fit.

— My drops! she murmured.

— Prout! prout! replied Molina, who, without hastening her step, went to draw from a gilded tortoiseshell cabinet a great flask of rock crystal and brought it open to the queen.

The latter breathed frantically, several times, and murmured:

— It is by that the Lord will kill me. May it be done by His holy will!

— One does not die of having ill, added Molina, replacing the flask in the cabinet.

— Your Majesty is well now? asked Mme de Motteville.

— Better.

And the queen placed her finger on her lips to command discretion from her favorite.

— It is strange! said Mme de Motteville after a silence.

— What is strange? asked the queen.

— Does Your Majesty remember the day when this pain appeared for the first time?

— I remember that it was a very sad day, Motteville.

— That day had not always been sad for Your Majesty.

— Why?

— Because, twenty-three years before, madame, His Majesty the reigning king, your glorious son, was born at the same hour.

The queen uttered a cry, bent her forehead upon her hands and was lost in thought for some seconds.

Was it memory or reflection? was it still the pain?

Molina cast upon Mme de Motteville a look almost furious, so much did it resemble a reproach, and the worthy woman, understanding nothing of it, was about to question for the acquittal of her conscience, when suddenly Anne of Austria rising:

— The 5th of September! said she; yes, my pain appeared on the 5th of September. Great joy one day, great sorrow another day. Great sorrow, she added very low, expiation of too great a joy!

And, from that moment, Anne of Austria, who seemed to have exhausted all her memory and all her reason, remained impenetrable, her eye dull, her thought vague, her hands hanging.

— We must go to bed, said Molina.

— Presently, Molina.

— Let us leave the queen, added the tenacious Spaniard.

Mme de Motteville rose; bright tears large as a child's tears slowly coursed down the white cheeks of the queen.

Molina, perceiving this, darted upon Anne of Austria her black and vigilant eye.

— Yes, yes, the queen suddenly resumed. Leave us, Motteville. Go.

This word 'us' sounded unpleasantly in the ear of the French favorite. It signified that an exchange of secrets or of memories was about to take place. It signified that one person was too many in the conversation at its most interesting phase.

— Madame, will Molina suffice for the service of Your Majesty? asked the Frenchwoman.

— Yes, answered the Spaniard.

And Mme de Motteville bowed. Suddenly an old chamberwoman, dressed as she had been at the Court of Spain in 1620, opened the portières, and surprising the queen in her tears, Mme de Motteville in her learned retreat, Molina in her diplomacy:

— The remedy! the remedy! she cried joyfully to the queen, approaching without ceremony the group.

— What remedy, Chica? said Anne of Austria.

— For the ill of Your Majesty, answered the other.

— Who brings it? asked quickly Mme de Motteville; M. Valot?

— No, a lady of Flanders.

— A lady of Flanders? A Spaniard? questioned the queen.

— I know not.

— Who sends her?

— M. Colbert.

— Her name?

— She did not say it.

— Her condition?

— She will tell it.

— Her face?

— She is masked.

— See, Molina! cried the queen.

— It is useless, suddenly replied a voice at once firm and soft, coming from the other side of the tapestries, a voice which made the other ladies start and the queen shudder.

At the same time, a masked woman appeared between the curtains.

Before the queen had spoken:

— I am a lady of the béguinage of Bruges, said the unknown lady, and I bring, indeed, the remedy which must cure Your Majesty.

Each was silent. The béguine took not a step.

— Speak, said the queen.

— When we are alone, added the béguine.

Anne of Austria addressed a glance to her companions; they withdrew.

The béguine then made three steps toward the queen and bowed reverently.

The queen looked with distrust upon this woman who also looked at her with bright eyes through the holes of her mask.

— The queen of France is then very ill, said Anne of Austria, that one knows, at the béguinage of Bruges, that she needs to be cured?

— Threaten not, queen, said the béguine with gentleness; I came to you full of respect and compassion, I came from the part of a friend.

— Prove it then! Relieve instead of irritating.

— Easily; and Your Majesty shall see if one is her friend.

— Let us see.

— What misfortune has befallen Your Majesty these twenty-three years?...

— But, great misfortunes: have I not lost the king?

— I speak not of those sorts of misfortunes. I would ask you if, since... the birth of the king... an indiscretion of a friend has caused some pain to Your Majesty.

— I do not understand you, replied the queen, grinding her teeth to hide her emotion.

— I am going to make myself understood. Your Majesty remembers that the king was born on the 3rd of September 1638, at a quarter past eleven?

— Yes, stammered the queen.

— At half past twelve, continued the béguine, the dauphin, already baptized by Mgr de Meaux before the eyes of the king, before your eyes, was recognized heir to the crown of France. The king went to the chapel of the old château of Saint-Germain to hear the Te Deum.

— All that is exact, murmured the queen.

— The delivery of Your Majesty was made in the presence of the late Monsieur, the princes, the ladies of the Court. The king's physician, Bouvard, and the surgeon Honoré remained in the antechamber. Your Majesty fell asleep toward three o'clock until about seven, did you not?

— Doubtless; but you recite to me there what everyone knows as well as you and I.

— I come, madame, to what few persons know. Few persons, said I? alas! I might say two persons, for there were only five formerly, and, for some years past, the secret has been secured by the death of the principal participants. The king our lord sleeps with his fathers; the midwife Péronne followed him closely, Laporte is already forgotten.

The queen opened her mouth to reply; she found under her icy hand, which caressed her face, the pressed drops of a burning sweat.

— It was eight o'clock, pursued the béguine; the king supped with a great heart; around him were nothing but joy, cries, carouses; the people howled beneath the balconies; the Swiss, the musketeers and the guards wandered through the city, borne in triumph by the drunken students.

These formidable noises of public rejoicing made the dauphin, the future king of France, gently moan in the arms of Mme de Hausac, his governess, whose eyes, when they should open, were to perceive two crowns at the bottom of his cradle. Suddenly Your Majesty uttered a piercing cry, and dame Péronne reappeared at her bedside.

The physicians were dining in a distant hall. The palace, deserted from being so overrun, had no longer either orders or guards. The midwife, having examined the state of Your Majesty, exclaimed, surprised, and, taking you in her arms, in tears, mad with grief, sent Laporte to warn the king that Her Majesty the queen wished to see him in her chamber. Laporte, you know, madame, was a man of cool blood and wit. He did not approach the king as a frightened servant who feels his importance, and wishes also to frighten; besides, it was no frightening news that the king awaited. Be that as it may, Laporte appeared, a smile upon his lips, near the king's chair and said to him:

— Sire, the queen is very happy and would be still happier to see Your Majesty.

That day, Louis XIII would have given his crown to a poor man for a God's guard! Gay, light, lively, the king left the table saying, in the tone Henri IV might have taken: Gentlemen, I am going to see my wife.

He arrived at your rooms, madame, at the moment when dame Péronne held out to him a second prince, beautiful and strong as the first, saying to him: 'Sire, God wills not that the kingdom of France fall to the distaff.'

The king, in his first movement, leapt upon this child and cried: 'Thank you, my God!'

The béguine stopped at this point, noticing how much the queen suffered. Anne of Austria, thrown back in her armchair, her head bent, her eyes fixed, listened without hearing, and her lips moved convulsively for a prayer to God or for an imprecation against this woman.

— Ah! believe not that, if there is but one dauphin in France, cried the béguine, believe not that, if the queen let this child vegetate far from the throne, believe not that she was a bad mother. Oh! no... There are those who know how many tears she shed; there are those who could count the ardent kisses she gave the poor creature in exchange for that life of misery and shadow to which reason of State condemned the twin brother of Louis XIV.

— My God! my God! murmured the queen faintly.

— It is known, continued the béguine quickly, that the king, seeing himself with two sons, both equal in age, in pretensions, trembled for the salvation of France, for the tranquillity of his State. It is known that M. the cardinal de Richelieu, summoned to that effect by Louis XIII, reflected more than an hour in the cabinet of His Majesty, and pronounced this sentence: 'There is a king born to succeed His Majesty. God has caused another to be born to succeed this first king; but, at present, we have need only of the first-born; let us hide the second from France as God had hidden him from his parents themselves.' A prince, that is for the State peace and security; two competitors, that is civil war and anarchy.

The queen rose abruptly, pale and her fists clenched.

— You know too much, said she in a hollow voice, since you touch upon the secrets of State. As for the friends from whom you hold this secret, they are cowards, false friends. You are their accomplice in the crime which is accomplished today. Now, down with the mask, or I have you arrested by my captain of the guards. Oh! this secret does not frighten me! You had it, you shall return it to me! It shall freeze in your breast; neither this secret nor your life belong to you any longer from this moment!

Anne of Austria, joining gesture to threat, made two steps toward the béguine.

— Learn, said the latter, to know the fidelity, the honor, the discretion of your abandoned friends.

She suddenly removed her mask.

— Mme de Chevreuse! cried the queen.

— The only confidante of the secret, with Your Majesty.

— Ah! murmured Anne of Austria, come embrace me, duchess. Alas! it is to kill one's friends, to play thus with their mortal griefs.

And the queen, resting her head upon the old duchess's shoulder, let escape from her eyes a fountain of bitter tears.

— How young you still are! said the other in a hollow voice. You weep!

Chapter CLXXXIII — Two Friends

The queen looked proudly upon Mme de Chevreuse.

— I believe, said she, that you pronounced the word happy in speaking of me. Hitherto, duchess, I had thought it impossible that a human creature could find herself less happy than the queen of France.

— Madame, you have indeed been a mother of sorrows. But, beside those illustrious miseries of which we spoke just now, we, old friends, separated by the malice of men; beside, I say, those royal misfortunes, you have the joys little sensible, it is true, but much envied by this world.

— Which? said Anne of Austria bitterly. How can you pronounce the word joy, duchess, you who but now acknowledged that remedies are needed for my body and my mind?

Mme de Chevreuse collected herself a moment.

— How far kings are from other men! she murmured.

— What would you say?

— I would say that they are so removed from the common herd, that they forget for others all the necessities of life. Like the inhabitant of the African mountain who, from the midst of his verdant plateaus refreshed by streams of snow, understands not that the inhabitant of the plain dies of thirst and hunger amid lands calcined by the sun.

The queen reddened slightly; she had just understood.

— Do you know, said she, that it was wrong to have neglected us?

— Oh! madame, the king has inherited, it is said, the hatred his father bore me. The king would dismiss me if he knew me at the Palais-Royal.

— I do not say that the king is well disposed in your favor, duchess, replied the queen: but, I, I could... secretly.

The duchess let appear a disdainful smile which alarmed her interlocutrix.

— Besides, the queen hastened to add, you did very well to come here.

— Thank you, madame!

— Were it only to give us this joy of contradicting the rumor of your death.

— It had indeed been said that I was dead?

— Everywhere.

— My children had not taken mourning, however.

— Ah! you know, duchess, the Court travels often; we see little of MM. d'Albert and de Luynes, and many things escape amid the preoccupations amid which we constantly live.

— Your Majesty should not have believed the rumor of my death.

— Why not? Alas! we are mortal; do you not see that I, your younger sister, as we used to say, already incline toward the sepulcher?

— Your Majesty, if she had believed I was dead, should then have been astonished at not having had news of me.

— Death surprises sometimes very quickly, duchess.

— Oh! Your Majesty! Souls charged with secrets like that of which we spoke just now always have a need of outpouring which must be satisfied beforehand. Among the relays prepared for eternity, one counts the setting in order of one's papers.

The queen trembled.

— Your Majesty, said the duchess, shall know in a certain manner the day of my death.

— How so?

— Because Your Majesty will receive the next day, under a fourfold envelope, all that has escaped of our little correspondences so mysterious of former times.

— You have not burned them? cried Anne with dread.

— Oh! dear Majesty, replied the duchess, only traitors burn a royal correspondence.

— Traitors?

— Yes, doubtless; or rather they pretend to burn it, keep it or sell it.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”