Part 13

— Well, replied Athos, drawing himself up with severity, well, prove to me that you are a man, for you have by no means proved that you are a son. I begged you to wait for the moment of a distinguished alliance; I would have found you a wife among the foremost ranks of the wealthy nobility. I wished you to shine with that double lustre given by glory and fortune: you have the nobility of blood.

— Sir, cried Raoul, carried away by a first impulse, the other day I was reproached with not knowing my mother.

Athos turned pale; then, knitting his brow like the supreme god of Antiquity:

— I am eager to know what you answered, sir, he asked majestically.

— Oh! pardon… pardon!… murmured the young man, falling from the height of his excitement.

— What did you answer, sir? demanded the count, stamping his foot.

— Sir, I had my sword in hand; he who insulted me was on guard; I sent his sword flying over a fence, and I sent him after his sword.

— And why did you not kill him?

— His Majesty forbids dueling, sir, and at that moment I was His Majesty's ambassador.

— That is well, said Athos; but all the more reason for me to go and speak to the king.

— What are you going to ask him, sir?

— Leave to draw sword against him who has offered us this insult.

— Sir, if I did not act as I ought to have acted, forgive me, I beseech you.

— Who has reproached you, Raoul?

— Why, this permission you wish to ask of the king.

— Raoul, I shall pray His Majesty to sign your marriage contract.

— Sir…

— But on one condition…

— Do you need conditions with me? Command, sir, and I will obey.

— On the condition, continued Athos, that you tell me the name of him who spoke thus of your mother.

— But, sir, what need have you to know that name?

— The insult was offered to me, and once leave is obtained from His Majesty, vengeance is my concern.

— His name, sir?

— I will not suffer you to expose yourself.

— Do you take me for a Don Diegue? His name?

— You insist?

— I will it.

— The Vicomte de Wardes.

— Ah! said Athos quietly, that is well, I know him. But our horses are ready, sir; instead of leaving in two hours, we shall leave at once. To horse, sir, to horse!

Chapter XCI — Monsieur Is Jealous of the Duke of Buckingham

While the Count de La Fère was making his way toward Paris, accompanied by Raoul, the Palais-Royal was the theater of a scene that Molière would have called a good comedy.

It was four days after his marriage; Monsieur, having breakfasted in haste, passed into his antechambers, his lips pursed, his brow furrowed.

The meal had not been a gay one. Madame had been served in her own apartments.

Monsieur had therefore breakfasted in a small party. The Chevalier de Lorraine and Manicamp alone attended this breakfast, which lasted three quarters of an hour without a single word being spoken.

Manicamp, less advanced in intimacy with His Royal Highness than the Chevalier de Lorraine, tried in vain to read in the prince's eyes what gave him so sullen an air. The Chevalier de Lorraine, who needed to become nothing more, since he knew everything, ate with that extraordinary appetite which the troubles of others gave him, and enjoyed at once the vexation of Monsieur and the embarrassment of Manicamp.

He took pleasure in detaining at table, by continuing to eat, the impatient prince, who burned with the desire to raise the siege. At times Monsieur repented of that ascendancy he had allowed the Chevalier de Lorraine to take over him, and which exempted the latter from all etiquette.

Monsieur was in one of those moments; but he feared the chevalier almost as much as he loved him, and contented himself with raging inwardly.

From time to time Monsieur raised his eyes to heaven, then lowered them upon the slices of pie the chevalier was attacking; then, not daring to burst out, he gave himself up to a pantomime of which Harlequin would have been jealous.

At length Monsieur could bear it no longer, and at the dessert, rising in great wrath, as we have said, he left the Chevalier de Lorraine to finish his breakfast as he pleased.

Seeing Monsieur rise, Manicamp stood up stiffly, napkin in hand.

Monsieur ran rather than walked toward the antechamber, and, finding an usher, charged him with an order in a low voice.

Then, turning back, so as not to pass through the dining room, he crossed his cabinets, with the intention of going to find the queen mother in her oratory, where she usually stayed. It might have been ten o'clock in the morning.

Anne of Austria was writing when Monsieur entered. The queen mother greatly loved this son, who was handsome of face and gentle of character.

Monsieur, indeed, was more tender and, if you will, more effeminate than the king.

He had won his mother by the little feminine sensitivities that always please women; Anne of Austria, who would have greatly loved to have a daughter, found in this son almost the attentions, the little cares, and the fondnesses of a child of twelve years.

Thus Monsieur employed all the time he spent with his mother in admiring her beautiful arms, in giving her advice about her pastes and recipes for her essences, wherein she showed herself most refined; then he kissed her hands and eyes with a charming childishness, always had some sweetmeat to offer her, some new ornament to recommend.

Anne of Austria loved the king, or rather kingship, in her eldest son: Louis XIV represented divine legitimacy to her.

She was queen mother with the king; she was mother only with Philippe. And the latter knew that, of all shelters, a mother's bosom is the sweetest and surest.

Accordingly, as a child, he would go take refuge there when storms had arisen between his brother and himself; often, after the cuffings which on his part constituted crimes of lèse-majesté, after the fights with fists and nails which the king and his very unruly subject waged in their shirts upon a contested bed, with the valet de chambre La Porte for sole judge of the field, Philippe, victorious but terrified at his victory, had gone to ask his mother for reinforcements, or at least the assurance of a pardon which Louis XIV granted only with difficulty and at a distance. Anne had succeeded, by this habit of peaceful intervention, in reconciling all the differences of her sons and in sharing, by the same token, in all their secrets.

The king, a little jealous of that maternal solicitude which poured itself chiefly upon his brother, felt disposed toward Anne of Austria for more submission and consideration than it was in his nature to have.

Anne of Austria had practiced this system of policy especially toward the young queen.

Thus she reigned almost despotically over the royal household, and was already planting all her batteries to reign with the same absolutism over the household of her second son. Anne of Austria was almost proud when she saw enter her presence a lengthened face, pale cheeks, and red eyes, understanding that it was a matter of giving aid to the weaker or the more wayward.

She was writing, we said, when Monsieur entered her oratory, not with red eyes, not with pale cheeks, but uneasy, vexed, irritated.

He distractedly kissed his mother's arms, and sat down before she had given him leave.

With the habits of etiquette established at the court of Anne of Austria, this forgetfulness of propriety was a sign of distraction, especially on the part of Philippe, who so willingly practiced the adulation of respect.

But if he so notably failed in all these principles, it was that the cause must be grave.

— What ails you, Philippe? asked Anne of Austria, turning toward her son.

— Ah! madame, many things, murmured the prince with a doleful air.

— You resemble, indeed, a man much afflicted, said the queen, setting the pen in the inkstand.

Philippe furrowed his brow, but answered nothing.

— Among all the things that fill your mind, said Anne of Austria, there must nevertheless be found one that occupies you more than the others?

— One, indeed, occupies me more than the others, yes, madame.

— I listen.

Philippe opened his mouth to give passage to all the grievances that passed through his mind and seemed to await but an outlet to exhale.

But suddenly he was silent, and all that he had upon his heart summed itself up in a sigh.

— Come, Philippe, come, some firmness, said the queen mother. A thing one complains of is almost always a person who is in the way, is it not?

— I do not say that, madame.

— Whom do you wish to speak of? Come, come, collect yourself.

— But it is that in truth, madame, what I should have to say is very discreet.

— Ah! my God!

— No doubt; for, after all, a woman…

— Ah! you wish to speak of Madame? asked the queen mother with a lively sentiment of curiosity.

— Of Madame?

— Of your wife, in short.

— Yes, yes, I understand.

— Well! if it is of Madame you wish to speak to me, my son, do not restrain yourself. I am your mother, and Madame is but a stranger to me. However, as she is my daughter-in-law, doubt not that I shall listen with interest, were it only for your sake, to all you tell me of her.

— Come, in your turn, madame, said Philippe, confess to me if you have not remarked something?

— Something, Philippe?… You have words of a frightening vagueness… Something, and of what sort is this something?

— Madame is pretty, in short.

— But yes.

— Yet she is not a beauty.

— No; but, as she grows, she may singularly beautify still further. You have well seen the changes that a few years have already brought upon her face. Well! she will develop more and more; she is only sixteen. At fifteen, I too was very thin; but, such as she is, Madame is pretty.

— Consequently, she may have been noticed.

— No doubt, one notices an ordinary woman, all the more a princess.

— She has been well brought up, has she not, madame?

— Madame Henriette, her mother, is a somewhat cold, somewhat pretentious woman, but a woman full of fine sentiments. The young princess's education may have been neglected, but, as to principles, I believe them good; such, at least, was my opinion of her during her stay in France; since then she has returned to England, and I know not what has passed.

— What do you mean?

— Eh! my God, I mean that certain heads, a little light, are easily turned by prosperity.

— Well! madame, you have said the word; I believe the princess has indeed a somewhat light head.

— One must not exaggerate, Philippe: she has wit and a certain dose of coquetry very natural in a young woman; but, my son, in persons of high quality this failing turns to the advantage of a court. A somewhat coquettish princess ordinarily makes herself a brilliant court; a smile of hers makes luxury, wit, and even courage everywhere bloom; the nobility fights better for a prince whose wife is beautiful.

— Great thanks, madame, said Philippe with ill humor; in truth, you paint me there pictures most alarming, my mother.

— In what? asked the queen with a feigned naivety.

— You know, madame, said Philippe dolefully, you know if I had repugnance to marrying.

— Ah! but, this time, you alarm me. You have then a serious grievance against Madame?

— Serious, I do not say that.

— Then quit that overthrown look. If you show yourself thus at home, take care, you will be taken for a most unhappy husband.

— In fact, replied Philippe, I am not a satisfied husband, and I am glad it is known.

— Philippe! Philippe!

— My faith! madame, I shall tell you frankly, I had not understood life as it is made for me.

— Explain yourself.

— My wife is not mine, in truth; she escapes me in every circumstance. In the morning, it is visits, correspondences, toilets; in the evening, it is balls and concerts.

— You are jealous, Philippe!

— I? God forbid! To others than me that silly role of jealous husband; but I am crossed.

— Philippe, these are all innocent things you reproach your wife with there, and as long as you have nothing more considerable…

— Listen then, without being guilty, a woman may give uneasiness; there are certain intimacies, certain preferences that young women display, and that suffice to make sometimes even the least jealous husbands consign their wives to the devil.

— Ah! we come to it, at last; it is not without trouble. Intimacies, preferences, good! For an hour that we have beaten about the bush, you have at last approached the true question.

— Well! yes…

— This is more serious. Madame would then have such faults toward you?

— Precisely.

— What! your wife, after four days of marriage, would prefer someone, would frequent someone? Take care, Philippe, you exaggerate her faults; by dint of wishing to prove, one proves nothing.

The prince, startled by his mother's seriousness, wished to answer, but could only stammer a few unintelligible words.

— See how you draw back, said Anne of Austria; I like that better; it is an acknowledgment of your faults.

— No! cried Philippe; no, I do not draw back, and I shall prove it. I said preferences, did I not? I said intimacies, did I not? Well! listen.

Anne of Austria complaisantly prepared to listen with that gossip's pleasure which the best woman, the best mother, were she queen, always finds in her meddling with little household quarrels.

— Well! resumed Philippe, tell me one thing.

— Which?

— Why has my wife kept an English court? Tell me!

And Philippe crossed his arms, looking at his mother, as if convinced she would find nothing to answer to this reproach.

— But, resumed Anne of Austria, it is quite simple, because the English are her compatriots, because they spent much money to accompany her to France, and it would be impolite, even impolitic, to abruptly dismiss a nobility that shrank before no devotion, before no sacrifice.

— Eh! my mother, a fine sacrifice, in truth, to discommode oneself from an ugly country to come to a fair land, where one produces with a crown more effect than elsewhere with four! A fine devotion, is it not, to travel a hundred leagues to accompany a woman one is in love with?

— In love, Philippe? Do you think of what you say?

— Parbleu!

— And who then is in love with Madame?

— The handsome Duke of Buckingham… Will you not also defend that one against me, my mother?

Anne of Austria blushed and smiled at the same time. That name of Duke of Buckingham recalled to her at once such sweet and such sad memories!

— The Duke of Buckingham? she murmured.

— Yes, one of those bed-chamber minions, as my grandfather Henri IV used to say.

— The Buckinghams are loyal and brave, said Anne of Austria courageously.

— Come! good; there is my mother defending against me the gallant of my wife! cried Philippe, so exasperated that his frail nature was shaken even to tears.

— My son! my son! cried Anne of Austria, the expression is unworthy of you. Your wife has no gallant, and if she were to have one, it would not be M. de Buckingham: those of that race, I repeat to you, are loyal and discreet; hospitality is sacred to them.

— Eh! madame! cried Philippe, M. de Buckingham is an Englishman, and do the English respect so religiously the possessions of French princes?

Anne blushed beneath her headdress for the second time, and turned about under pretext of drawing her pen from the inkstand; but, in reality, to hide her blush from her son's eyes.

— In truth, Philippe, said she, you know how to find words that confound me, and your anger blinds you, as it frightens me; reflect, come!

— Madame, I need not reflect, I see.

— And what do you see?

— I see that M. de Buckingham does not leave my wife. He dares make her presents, she dares accept them. Yesterday, she spoke of violet sachets; now, our French perfumers, you know well, madame, you who have asked for them so often without being able to obtain any—now, our French perfumers have never been able to find that scent. Well! the duke, he too had upon him a violet sachet. It is therefore from him that my wife's came.

— In truth, sir, said Anne of Austria, you build pyramids upon needle points; take care. What harm, I ask you, is there in a compatriot giving a new essence recipe to his compatriot? These strange ideas, I swear to you, painfully remind me of your father, who often made me suffer unjustly.

— The father of M. de Buckingham was no doubt more reserved, more respectful than his son, said Philippe heedlessly, without seeing that he touched roughly upon his mother's heart.

The queen paled and pressed a cramped hand to her breast; but, recovering promptly:

— In short, said she, you came here with some intention?

— No doubt.

— Then, explain yourself.

— I came, madame, with the intention of complaining energetically, and to warn you that I shall endure nothing from M. de Buckingham.

— You shall endure nothing?

— No.

— What will you do?

— I shall complain to the king.

— And what do you expect the king to answer you?

— Well! said Monsieur with an expression of fierce firmness that formed a strange contrast with the habitual gentleness of his physiognomy; well! I shall do myself justice.

— What do you call doing yourself justice? asked Anne of Austria with a certain dread.

— I wish M. de Buckingham to leave Madame; I wish M. de Buckingham to leave France, and I shall have my will signified to him.

— You shall have nothing signified at all, Philippe, said the queen; for if you acted thus, if you so violated hospitality, I would invoke against you the severity of the king.

— You threaten me, my mother! cried Philippe in tears; you threaten me when I complain!

— No, I do not threaten you, I put a dyke to your outburst. I tell you that to take against M. de Buckingham or any other Englishman a rigorous measure, to employ even an uncivil proceeding, is to drag France and England into most painful divisions. What! a prince, the brother of the King of France, cannot dissemble an injury, even real, before a political necessity!

Philippe made a movement.

— Besides, continued the queen, the injury is neither true nor possible, and it is only a ridiculous jealousy.

— Madame, I know what I know.

— And I, whatever you may know, I exhort you to patience.

— I am not patient, madame.

The queen rose full of stiffness and frozen ceremony.

— Then explain your wishes, said she.

— I have no wishes, madame; but I express desires. If, of his own accord, M. de Buckingham does not withdraw from my house, I shall forbid it to him.

— This is a question of which we shall refer to the king, said Anne of Austria, her heart swelling, her voice moved.

— But, madame, cried Philippe, striking one hand against the other, be my mother and not the queen, since I speak to you as a son; between M. de Buckingham and me, it is the matter of a four-minute interview.

— It is precisely that interview I forbid you, sir, said the queen, resuming her authority; it is not worthy of you.

— Well! be it so! I shall not appear, but I shall intimate my will to Madame.

— Oh! said Anne of Austria with the melancholy of remembrance, never tyrannize over a woman, my son; never command too high imperiously to your own. A woman conquered is not always convinced.

— What to do then?… I shall consult those around me.

— Yes, your hypocritical counselors, your Chevalier de Lorraine, your de Wardes… Leave me the care of this affair, Philippe; you desire that the Duke of Buckingham withdraw, do you not?

— As soon as may be, madame.

— Well! send the duke to me, my son! Smile upon him, betray nothing to your wife, to the king, to anyone. Take counsel from none but me. Alas! I know what a household troubled by counselors is.

— I shall obey, my mother.

— And you shall be satisfied, Philippe. Find me the duke.

— Oh! that will not be difficult.

— Where do you think he is?

— Pardieu! at Madame's door, whom he awaits to rise: that is beyond doubt.

— Good! said Anne of Austria calmly. Be so kind as to tell the duke that I pray him to come see me.

Philippe kissed his mother's hand and set off in search of M. de Buckingham.

Chapter XCII — _For ever!_

My Lord Buckingham, submitted to the queen mother's invitation, presented himself at her apartments half an hour after the Duke of Orleans's departure. When his name was pronounced by the usher, the queen, who had been leaning on her table, her head in her hands, raised herself and received with a smile the greeting full of grace and respect that the duke addressed to her. Anne of Austria was still beautiful. It is known that at that already advanced age her long ash-blond hair, her beautiful hands, her vermilion lips still drew the admiration of all who saw her. At that moment, wholly given to a memory that stirred the past in her heart, she was as beautiful as in the days of her youth, when her palace opened to receive, young and passionate, the father of this Buckingham, that unfortunate man who had lived for her, who had died pronouncing her name.

Anne of Austria therefore fixed upon Buckingham a gaze so tender that one discovered therein at once the complaisance of a maternal affection and something sweet as a lover's coquetry.

— Your Majesty, said Buckingham with respect, desired to speak with me?

— Yes, duke, replied the queen in English. Be seated, I pray you.

This favor which Anne of Austria did the young man, this caress of the language of the country of which the duke had been starved since his stay in France, profoundly moved his soul. He divined at once that the queen had something to ask of him.

After having given the first moments to the insurmountable oppression she had felt, the queen resumed her smiling air.

— Sir, said she in French, how do you find France?

— A fair country, madame, replied the duke.

— Had you already seen it?

— Already once, yes, madame.

— But, like every good Englishman, you prefer England?

— I love my country better than the country of a Frenchman, answered the duke; but if Your Majesty asks me which of the two sojourns I prefer, London or Paris, I shall answer Paris.

Anne of Austria remarked the tone full of warmth with which these words had been pronounced.

— You have, I am told, my lord, fine estates at home; you inhabit a rich and ancient palace?

— My father's palace, replied Buckingham, lowering his eyes.

— Those are precious advantages and memories, replied the queen, touching in spite of herself upon memories one does not willingly part with.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”