Part 3

— What was that? said Montalais, hastening to feign surprise, so greatly did she fear to see Louise do something foolish.

— Do you not know the news, then? said Mme de Saint-Remy.

— What news, madame, would you have two girls learn in this dovecote?

— What!... you have seen no one?...

— Madame, you speak in riddles and are killing us by slow fire! cried Montalais, who, alarmed to see Louise growing paler and paler, knew not which saint to pray to.

At last she caught from her companion a speaking glance, one of those glances that would give understanding to a wall.

Louise was pointing out to her friend the hat, the ill-fated hat of Raoul, which was strutting upon the table.

Montalais threw herself forward, and, seizing it with her left hand, passed it behind her into her right, and hid it thus while speaking.

— Well! said Mme de Saint-Remy, a courier arrives announcing the king's imminent coming. Now, young ladies, it is a matter of being beautiful!

— Quick! quick! cried Montalais, follow your mother, Louise, and leave me to adjust my ceremony gown.

Louise rose, her mother took her by the hand and drew her out upon the landing.

— Come, she said.

And in a low voice:

— When I forbid you to come to Montalais's, why do you come?

— Madame, she is my friend. Besides, I was just arriving.

— No one was hidden from you?

— Madame!

— I saw a man's hat, I tell you: that of that rogue, that good-for-nothing!

— Madame! cried Louise.

— That lazy Malicorne! A maid of honor keeping such company... fie!

And the voices were lost in the depths of the little staircase.

Montalais had not lost a word of this talk which the echo returned to her as through a funnel.

She shrugged her shoulders, and, seeing Raoul, who, come out of his hiding place, had also listened:

— Poor Montalais! said she, victim of friendship!... Poor Malicorne!... victim of love!

She paused at Raoul's tragi-comic expression, who was vexed with himself for having in one day surprised so many secrets.

— Oh! mademoiselle, said he, how shall I acknowledge your kindnesses?

— We shall settle accounts some day, she replied; for the moment, gain the foot, Monsieur de Bragelonne, for Mme de Saint-Remy is not indulgent, and some indiscretion on her part might bring here a domiciliary visit unfortunate for us all. Adieu!

— But Louise... how shall I know?...

— Go! go! King Louis XI knew well what he was doing when he invented the post.

— Alas! said Raoul.

— And am I not here, I, who am worth all the posts of the kingdom? To your horse quickly! and if Mme de Saint-Remy comes back up to preach at me, let her not find you here.

— She would tell my father, would she not? murmured Raoul.

— And you would be scolded! Ah! vicomte, one sees plainly you come from the court: you are fearful like the king. Peste! at Blois we get along better than that without papa's consent! Ask Malicorne.

And, with these words, the mad young girl put Raoul out by the shoulders; he slipped along the porch, found his horse, sprang upon it and departed as if the eight guards of Monsieur were at his heels.

Chapter IV — The Father and the Son

Raoul followed the well-known road, dear to his memory, which led from Blois to the house of the Count de La Fère. The reader will excuse us from a new description of this dwelling. He has entered it with us at other times; he knows it. Only, since the last journey we made there, the walls had taken a greyer tint, and the brick tones of a more harmonious copper; the trees had grown, and such as once stretched its slender arms above the hedges, now, rounded, bushy, luxuriant, cast afar, beneath its branches swollen with sap, the thick shadow of flowers or fruits for the passer-by.

Raoul perceived afar the pointed roof, the two little turrets, the dovecote among the elms, and the flights of pigeons which wheeled incessantly, never able to leave it, around the cone of bricks, like gentle memories fluttering about a serene soul. When he drew near, he heard the noise of pulleys creaking under the weight of massive buckets; it seemed to him also to hear the melancholy moaning of the water falling back into the well, a sad, funereal, solemn noise, which strikes the ear of the dreaming child and poet, which the English call _splass_, the Arab poets _gasgachau_, and which we French, who would fain be poets, can translate only by a periphrasis: the noise of water falling into water. It was more than a year since Raoul had come to see his father. He had spent all that time at M. le Prince's.

Indeed, after all those emotions of the Fronde of which we have formerly tried to reproduce the first period, Louis de Condé had made with the court a public, solemn and frank reconciliation. During all the time that M. le Prince's rupture with the king had lasted, M. le Prince, who had long since grown attached to Bragelonne, had vainly offered him all the advantages which may dazzle a young man. The Count de La Fère, ever faithful to his principles of loyalty and royalty, set forth one day before his son in the vaults of Saint-Denis, the Count de La Fère, in his son's name, had always refused. There was more: instead of following M. de Condé in his rebellion, the vicomte had followed M. de Turenne, fighting for the king. Then, when M. de Turenne, in his turn, seemed to abandon the royal cause, he had left M. de Turenne, as he had done M. de Condé. It resulted from this invariable line of conduct that, as never Turenne and Condé had been victorious one over the other save beneath the king's banners, Raoul had, young as he still was, ten victories inscribed upon his record of service, and not one defeat for which his bravery and conscience need suffer. Therefore Raoul had, according to his father's wish, served obstinately and passively the fortune of King Louis XIV, despite all the tergiversations, which were endemic and, one may say, inevitable at that epoch.

M. de Condé, being back in favor, had used every means, first his privilege of amnesty to ask back many things which had been granted him and, among other things, Raoul. Thereupon M. le Comte de La Fère, in his unshakable good sense, had sent Raoul back to the Prince de Condé.

A year then had elapsed since the last separation of father and son; a few letters had softened, but not cured, the pains of his absence. We have seen that Raoul left at Blois another love than filial love.

But let us render him this justice, that, without chance and Mlle de Montalais, two tempting demons, Raoul, after the message accomplished, would have set off at a gallop toward his father's dwelling, turning his head doubtless, but without stopping a single instant, had he seen Louise stretching out her arms to him.

Also, the first part of the journey was given by Raoul to regret for the past he had just left so quickly, that is to say to the mistress; the other half to the friend he was going to find again, too slowly to his liking. Raoul found the garden gate open and launched his horse down the alley, without heeding the great arms which, in sign of anger, were made by an old man clad in a violet woolen waistcoat and capped with a wide worn velvet bonnet. This old man, who was weeding with his fingers a flowerbed of dwarf roses and daisies, was indignant to see a horse running thus in his raked and sanded paths.

He even ventured a vigorous _hum!_ which made the rider turn back. Then was a change of scene; for as soon as he had seen Raoul's face, this old man straightened up and set off running in the direction of the house with broken grunts which seemed in him the paroxysm of a wild joy. Raoul arrived at the stables, gave his horse to a little lackey, and strode up the steps with an ardor which would have gladdened his father's heart.

He crossed the antechamber, the dining room and the salon without finding anyone; at last, arrived at the door of M. le Comte de La Fère, he knocked impatiently and entered almost without waiting for the word: _Enter!_ which a voice at once grave and gentle threw to him. The count was seated before a table covered with papers and books: it was still indeed the noble and handsome gentleman of former times, but time had given to his nobility, to his beauty, a more solemn and distinct character. A white and unwrinkled brow beneath his long hair more white than black, a piercing and gentle eye beneath the lashes of a young man, the fine and scarcely greying moustache, framing lips of a pure and delicate model, as if they had never been twisted by mortal passions; a straight and supple waist, an irreproachable but thinned hand, such still was the illustrious gentleman whose praise so many illustrious mouths had sung under the name of Athos. He was then occupied in correcting the pages of a manuscript book, entirely filled by his hand. Raoul seized his father by the shoulders, by the neck, as best he could, and kissed him so tenderly, so rapidly, that the count had not the strength nor the time to disengage himself, nor to overcome his paternal emotion.

— You here, you are here, Raoul! said he, is it possible?

— Oh! monsieur, monsieur, what joy to see you again!

— You do not answer me, vicomte. Have you leave to be at Blois, or has some misfortune happened in Paris?

— Thank God! monsieur, replied Raoul, calming himself by degrees, nothing has happened but what is happy; the king is marrying, as I had the honor to tell you in my last letter, and he is setting out for Spain. His Majesty will pass through Blois.

— To pay a visit to Monsieur?

— Yes, monsieur le comte. Also, fearing to take him unawares, or desiring to be particularly agreeable to him, M. le prince has sent me to prepare the lodgings.

— You have seen Monsieur? asked the count eagerly.

— I have had that honor.

— At the château?

— Yes, monsieur, answered Raoul, lowering his eyes, because, no doubt, he had felt in the count's questioning more than curiosity.

— Ah! indeed, vicomte?... I congratulate you. Raoul bowed.

— But you have seen someone else at Blois?

— Monsieur, I have seen Her Royal Highness, Madame.

— Very well. It is not of Madame that I speak.

Raoul blushed exceedingly and answered not.

— You do not understand me, it would seem, Monsieur le vicomte? insisted M. de La Fère, without accenting his question more nervously, but by forcing the somewhat severer expression of his gaze.

— I understand you perfectly, monsieur, replied Raoul, and if I prepare my answer, it is not that I seek a lie, you know it, monsieur.

— I know you never lie. Also, I must wonder that you take so long to tell me: yes or no.

— I can only answer you by understanding you well, and if I have understood you well, you will take my first words in ill part. It displeases you doubtless, monsieur le comte, that I have seen...

— Mlle de La Vallière, is it not?

— It is of her you would speak, I know well, monsieur le comte, said Raoul with an inexpressible gentleness.

— And I ask you if you have seen her.

— Monsieur, I was absolutely ignorant, when I entered the château, that Mlle de La Vallière could be there; it was only in returning, after my mission accomplished, that chance put us in presence. I had the honor to present my respects to her.

— What is the chance called which reunited you with Mlle de La Vallière?

— Mlle de Montalais, monsieur.

— What is Mlle de Montalais?

— A young person whom I did not know, whom I had never seen. She is maid of honor to Madame.

— Monsieur le vicomte, I shall not push my interrogation further, which I already reproach myself for having prolonged. I had recommended you to avoid Mlle de La Vallière, and to see her only with my authorization. Oh! I know you have told me true, and that you made no move to approach her. Chance has done me wrong; I have not to accuse you. I shall content myself then with what I have already said concerning that young lady. I reproach her with nothing, God is my witness; only it is not in my designs that you frequent her house. I pray you once again, my dear Raoul, to have understood this. One would have said that the eye so limpid and pure of Raoul grew troubled at this word.

— Now, my friend, continued the count with his gentle smile and his habitual voice, let us speak of something else. You return perhaps to your service?

— No, monsieur, I have nothing more but to remain near you all this day. M. le prince has happily fixed no other duty for me than that, which agreed so well with my desires.

— The king is well?

— Marvelously.

— And M. le Prince also?

— As always, monsieur.

The count forgot Mazarin: it was an old habit.

— Well! Raoul, since you are mine alone now, I shall give you, for my part, all my day. Embrace me... again... again... You are at home, vicomte... Ah! here is our old Grimaud!... Come, Grimaud, M. le vicomte wishes to embrace you too.

The great old man did not need to be told twice; he came running with open arms. Raoul spared him half the way.

— Now, will you that we go to the garden, Raoul? I shall show you the new lodging I have had prepared for you on your leaves, and, while looking at the plantings of this winter and two saddle horses I have changed, you will give me news of our friends in Paris.

The count closed his manuscript, took the young man's arm and passed into the garden with him.

Grimaud looked melancholy after Raoul departing, whose head almost grazed the crossbeam of the door, and, while caressing his white royal beard, let escape this profound word:

— Grown!

Chapter V — Wherein Shall Be Spoken of Cropoli, of Cropole, and of a Great Unknown Painter

While the Count de La Fère visits with Raoul the new buildings he has had built, and the new horses he has had bought, our readers will permit us to bring them back to the town of Blois and to make them witness the unusual movement which agitated the city. It was especially in the hotels that the recoil of the news brought by Raoul was felt.

Indeed, the king and the court at Blois, that is to say a hundred horsemen, ten coaches, two hundred horses, as many valets as masters, where to lodge all that world, where to house all those gentlemen of the surroundings who were going to arrive in two or three hours perhaps, as soon as the news should have widened the center of its reverberation, like those growing circumferences produced by the fall of a stone in the water of a tranquil lake?

Blois, as peaceful in the morning, we have seen, as the calmest lake in the world, at the announcement of the royal arrival, suddenly filled with tumult and buzzing. All the valets of the château, under the inspection of the officers, went into the town to seek provisions, and ten mounted couriers galloped toward the reserves of Chambord to fetch game, to the fisheries of the Beuvron for fish, to the greenhouses of Cheverny for flowers and for fruits. They drew from the furniture storehouse the precious tapestries, the chandeliers with great gilded links; an army of poor folk swept the courts and washed the stone frontages, while their wives trod the meadows beyond the Loire to gather rushes of greenery and field flowers. The whole town, not to remain below this luxury of cleanliness, made its toilet with great use of brushes, brooms and water.

The gutters of the upper town, swollen by these continual washings, became rivers at the lower town, and the little pavement, sometimes very muddy, it must be said, cleansed itself, diamonded itself in the friendly rays of the sun.

At last, the musicians prepared, the drawers emptied; they monopolized at the merchants' wax, ribbons and sword knots; the housewives laid in bread, meats and spices. Already even a good number of burghers, whose house was furnished as for sustaining a siege, having nothing more to occupy themselves with, donned holiday clothes and directed themselves toward the town gate to be the first to signal or to see the cortège. They knew well the king would not arrive until night, perhaps even the following morning. But what is waiting, if not a sort of madness, and what is madness, if not an excess of hope? In the lower town, at hardly a hundred paces from the États castle, between the mall and the château, in a fairly handsome street which was then called Vieille street, and which indeed must have been very old, rose a venerable edifice, with pointed gable, of squat and broad form ornamented with three windows on the street at the first floor, two at the second, and a little ox-eye at the third.

On the sides of this triangle one had recently constructed a rather vast parallelogram which encroached without ceremony upon the street, according to the very familiar usages of the building authority of that time. The street found itself thus narrowed by a quarter, but the house found itself widened by nearly half; is not that a sufficient compensation?

A tradition held that this pointed-gable house was inhabited, in the time of Henri III, by a councillor of the États whom Queen Catherine came, some say to visit, others to strangle. Be that as it may, the good lady must have set a circumspect foot upon the threshold of that building.

After the councillor dead by strangulation or dead naturally, it matters not, the house had been sold, then abandoned, finally isolated from the other houses of the street. Only toward the middle of the reign of Louis XIII, an Italian named Cropoli, escaped from the kitchens of the Marshal d'Ancre, came to establish himself in this house. He had founded there a little hostelry where was fabricated a macaroni so refined that one came to seek or eat it there from several leagues around.

The fame of the house had come from Queen Marie de Médicis, prisoner, as is known, at the États castle, having once sent for some.

It was precisely the day she escaped by the famous window. The plate of macaroni had remained on the table, only grazed by the royal mouth.

From this double favor done to the triangular house, of a strangulation and a macaroni, the idea had come to poor Cropoli to name his hostelry with a pompous title. But his quality of Italian was not a recommendation at that time, and his little fortune carefully hidden prevented him from making himself too conspicuous. When he saw himself near to death, which arrived in 1643, after the death of King Louis XIII, he had his son brought, a young scullion of the fairest promise, and, tears in his eyes, he recommended to him to guard well the secret of the macaroni, to Frenchify his name, to marry a Frenchwoman, and finally, when the political horizon should be cleared of the clouds which covered it — one already practiced at that epoch this figure, much in use nowadays in the first Paris and at the Chamber — to have cut by the neighboring smith a fine signboard, upon which a famous painter whom he designated would trace two portraits of the queen with these words in legend: Aux Médicis. The goodman Cropoli, after these recommendations, had only the strength to indicate to his young successor a chimney beneath the flagstone of which he had buried a thousand ten-franc louis, and he expired. Cropoli son, as a man of heart, bore the loss with resignation and the gain without insolence.

He began by accustoming the public to sound so little the final i of his name, that, general complaisance aiding, he was no longer called but M. Cropole, which is a wholly French name.

Next he married, having just at hand a little Frenchwoman of whom he was enamored, and from whose parents he wrung a reasonable dowry by showing the underside of the flagstone of the chimney. These two first points accomplished, he set about the search for the painter who was to make the signboard.

The painter was soon found.

It was an old Italian emulous of the Raphaels and the Carraccis, but an unhappy emulus. He said himself of the Venetian school, no doubt because he greatly loved color. His works, of which he had never sold a single one, drew the eye at a hundred paces and displeased the burghers formidably, so well that he had ended by doing nothing more.

He boasted always of having painted a bathing room for Mme la Maréchale d'Ancre, and complained that this room had been burned at the disaster of the marshal.

Cropoli, in his quality of compatriot, was indulgent toward Pittrino. That was the name of the artist. Perhaps he had seen the famous paintings of the bathing room. Be that as it may, he had in such esteem, nay in such friendship, the famous Pittrino, that he took him into his house. Pittrino, grateful and nourished on macaroni, learned to propagate the reputation of this national food, and, in the time of his founder, he had rendered by his tireless tongue signal services to the Cropoli house.

In growing old, he attached himself to the son as to the father, and by little and little became the sort of overseer of a house where his upright probity, his recognized sobriety, his proverbial chastity, and a thousand other virtues which we judge useless to enumerate here, gave him eternal place at the hearth, with right of inspection over the servants. Moreover, it was he who tasted the macaroni, to maintain the pure taste of the ancient tradition; it must be said he pardoned not a grain of pepper too much, or an atom of parmesan too little. His joy was very great the day when, called to share the secret of Cropole son, he was charged with painting the famous signboard.

He was seen to rummage eagerly in an old box, where he found again brushes a little eaten by rats, but still passable, colors in nearly dried bladders, linseed oil in a bottle, and a palette which had formerly belonged to Bronzino, that _diou_ of _pittoure_, as said, in his always juvenile enthusiasm, the ultramontane artist.

Pittrino was heightened by all the joy of a rehabilitation. He did as Raphael had done, he changed his manner and painted in the fashion of Alban two goddesses rather than two queens. These illustrious ladies were so gracious upon the signboard, they offered to astonished gazes such an assemblage of lilies and roses, enchanting result of the change of manner of Pittrino; they affected poses of sirens so anacreontic, that the principal alderman, when he was admitted to see this capital piece in Cropole's room, declared at once that these ladies were too beautiful and of too lively a charm to figure as a signboard in view of the passers-by.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”