Part 20

— Yes, he said, it is indeed the hand of M. de Mazarin; I recognize his writing. Now, my dear governor, he continued, as if this last communication had exhausted his interest, let us pass, if you will, to our little arrangements.

— Well! what term do you wish me to set? Fix it yourself.

— Set no term; give me a plain and simple acknowledgment of debt for a hundred and fifty thousand francs.

— Payable on demand?

— At my will. But, you understand, I shall only want it when you yourself wish it.

— Oh! I am easy, said Baisemeaux with a smile; but you have already given me two receipts.

— See, then, I tear them up.

And Aramis, after showing the two receipts to the governor, did indeed tear them up.

Vanquished by so marked a proof of confidence, Baisemeaux signed without hesitation a bond for a hundred and fifty thousand francs, repayable at the prelate's will.

Aramis, who had followed the pen over the governor's shoulder, put the bond in his pocket without seeming to have read it, which gave Baisemeaux complete peace of mind.

— Now, said Aramis, you will not hold it against me, will you, if I take away a prisoner or two?

— How so?

— By obtaining his pardon, no doubt. Did I not tell you, for instance, that poor Seldon interested me?

— Ah! that is true!

— Well?

— That is your affair; act as you see fit. I see you have a long arm and a free hand.

And Aramis departed, carrying the governor's blessings.

Chapter C — The Two Friends

At the hour when M. de Baisemeaux was showing the prisoners of the Bastille to Aramis, a carriage stopped before the door of Mme de Bellière, and at that still early hour set down upon the steps a young woman wrapped in silken hoods.

When Mme Vanel was announced to Mme de Bellière, the latter was occupied, or rather absorbed, in reading a letter, which she hastily concealed.

She had but just finished her morning toilet; her women were still in the adjoining room.

At the name, at the step of Marguerite Vanel, Mme de Bellière ran to meet her. She thought she saw in her friend's eyes a brightness that was not that of health or joy.

Marguerite embraced her, pressed her hands, scarce left her time to speak.

— My dear, she said, you forget me then? You are wholly given up to the pleasures of the court?

— I have not so much as seen the wedding festivities.

— What do you do, then?

— I am preparing to go to Bellière.

— To Bellière!

— Yes.

— A country lady, then. I love to see you in such a frame of mind. But you are pale.

— No, I am wonderfully well.

— So much the better, I was uneasy. You do not know what I was told?

— So many things are said!

— Oh! this one is extraordinary.

— How you know how to keep your audience in suspense, Marguerite.

— Here I am. It is that I am afraid of angering you.

— Oh! never. You yourself admire my evenness of temper.

— Well! it is said that… Ah! truly, I shall never be able to confess it to you.

— Let us speak of it no more, then, said Mme de Bellière, who divined a malice beneath these preamble, but who nevertheless felt devoured by curiosity.

— Well! my dear marquise, it is said that for some time you have regretted M. de Bellière, the poor man, very much less.

— That is an ill rumor, Marguerite; I regret and shall always regret my husband; but it is two years since he died; I am but twenty-eight, and the grief of his loss ought not to dominate all the actions, all the thoughts of my life. Were I to say so, you, you, Marguerite, the woman par excellence, would not believe it.

— Why? You have so tender a heart! replied Mme Vanel maliciously.

— You have it too, Marguerite, and I have not seen you let yourself be cast down by sorrow when the heart was wounded.

These words were a direct allusion to Marguerite's rupture with the surintendant. They were also a veiled but direct reproach addressed to the young woman's heart.

As if she had but waited for this signal to loose her arrow, Marguerite cried:

— Well! Élise, it is said that you are in love.

And she devoured Mme de Bellière with her gaze, who blushed in spite of herself.

— One is never sparing of calumniating women, replied the marquise after a moment's silence.

— Oh! they do not calumniate you, Élise.

— What! they say I am in love, and they do not calumniate me?

— First, if it is true, there is no calumny, there is only gossip; next, for you do not let me finish, the public does not say that you abandon yourself to this love. It paints you, on the contrary, as a virtuous lover armed with claws and teeth, shutting yourself up at home like in a fortress, and in a fortress otherwise impenetrable than that of Danaë, though the tower of Danaë was made of brass.

— You have wit, Marguerite, said Mme de Bellière, trembling.

— You have always flattered me, Élise… In short, you are said to be incorruptible and inaccessible. You see if they calumniate you… But what are you dreaming of while I speak to you?

— I?

— Yes, you are all red and all silent.

— I am seeking, said the marquise, raising her beautiful eyes shining with a beginning of anger, I am seeking to what you could have alluded, you so learned in mythology, in comparing me to Danaë.

— Ah! ah! said Marguerite laughing, you seek that?

— Yes; do you not remember that at the convent, when we sought arithmetical problems… Ah! what I am going to tell you is learned too, but in my turn… Do you not remember that, if one of the terms was given, we were to find the other? Seek, then, seek.

— But I do not guess what you mean.

— Nothing simpler, though. You pretend that I am in love, do you not?

— I was told so.

— Well! no one says that I am in love with an abstraction. Is there a name in all this noise?

— Certainly, yes, there is a name.

— Well! my dear, it is not astonishing that I should have to seek this name, since you do not tell it to me.

— My dear marquise, seeing you blush, I thought you would not seek long.

— It was your word Danaë that surprised me. Who says Danaë says shower of gold, does it not?

— That is to say that the Jupiter of Danaë changed himself for her into a shower of gold.

— My lover then… the one you give me…

— Oh! pardon; I am your friend and give you no one.

— Be it so!… but the enemies.

— Shall I tell you the name?

— You have kept me waiting for it this half-hour.

— You shall hear it. Do not be startled, it is a powerful man.

— Good!

The marquise dug her slender nails into her hands, like the patient at the approach of the knife.

— It is a very rich man, continued Marguerite, the richest perhaps. It is finally…

The marquise closed her eyes an instant.

— It is the Duke of Buckingham, said Marguerite, laughing aloud.

The perfidy had been calculated with incredible skill. This name, falling amiss in place of the name the marquise expected, produced upon the poor woman the effect of those ill-sharpened axes that had mangled, without killing, MM. de Chalais and de Thou upon their scaffolds.

She recovered, however.

— I was right, said she, to call you a woman of wit; you give me an agreeable moment. The jest is charming… I have never seen M. de Buckingham.

— Never? said Marguerite, restraining her bursts of laughter.

— I have not set foot outside my home since the duke has been in Paris.

— Oh! resumed Mme Vanel, stretching her roguish foot toward a paper that trembled near the window upon a rug. One may not see each other, but one writes.

The marquise shuddered. This paper was the envelope of the letter she was reading at her friend's entrance. This envelope was sealed with the arms of the surintendant.

In drawing back upon her sofa, Mme de Bellière made the thick folds of her wide silk robe roll over this paper, and thus buried it.

— Come, said she then, come, Marguerite, was it to tell me all these follies that you came so early?

— No, I came to see you first and to recall our old habits so sweet and so good, you know, when we went walking at Vincennes, and, beneath an oak, in a thicket, we talked of those we loved and who loved us.

— You propose a walk to me.

— I have my carriage and three hours of liberty.

— I am not dressed, Marguerite… and… if you would have us talk, without going to the wood of Vincennes, we should find in the garden of the hôtel a fine tree, thick hedgerows, a lawn strewn with daisies, and all that violet one smells from here.

— My dear marquise, I regret that you refuse me… I had need to pour out my heart into yours.

— I repeat it to you, Marguerite, my heart is yours, as well in this room, as well here close by, beneath this lime tree of my garden, as yonder, beneath an oak in the wood.

— For me, it is not the same… In drawing near to Vincennes, marquise, I drew my sighs near the goal toward which they have tended for some days.

The marquise suddenly raised her head.

— That astonishes you, does it not… that I still think of Saint-Mandé?

— Saint-Mandé! cried Mme de Bellière.

And the glances of the two women crossed like two uneasy swords at the first engagement of combat.

— You, so proud?… said the marquise with disdain.

— I… so proud!… replied Mme Vanel. I am made thus… I do not pardon forgetfulness, I do not bear infidelity. When I leave and one weeps, I am tempted to love still; but, when one leaves me and laughs, I love madly.

Mme de Bellière made an involuntary movement.

"She is jealous," thought Marguerite.

— Then, continued the marquise, you are madly smitten… with M. de Buckingham… no, I mistake… with M. Fouquet?

She felt the blow, and all her blood rushed to her heart.

— And you wished to go to Vincennes… to Saint-Mandé itself!

— I know not what I wished, you might perhaps have advised me.

— In what?

— You have often done so.

— Certainly, it would not have been on this occasion; for, I, I do not pardon as you do. I love less perhaps; but when my heart has been bruised, it is forever.

— But M. Fouquet has not bruised you, said Marguerite Vanel with the naïveté of a virgin.

— You understand perfectly what I mean to tell you. M. Fouquet has not bruised me; he is known to me neither by favor nor by injury, but you have cause to complain of him. You are my friend, I should not therefore advise you as you would wish.

— Ah! you prejudge?

— The sighs of which you spoke are more than indications.

— Ah! but you overwhelm me, said the young woman suddenly, gathering all her strength like the wrestler who prepares to deal the last blow; you count only upon my evil passions and my weaknesses. As to what I have of pure and generous feelings, you say nothing of it. If I feel myself drawn at this moment toward M. the surintendant, if I even take a step toward him, which is probable, I confess it to you, it is that the fate of M. Fouquet touches me deeply, it is that he is, in my view, one of the most unhappy of men.

— Ah! said the marquise, pressing a hand to her heart, there is then something new?

— You know nothing, then?

— I know nothing, said Mme de Bellière with that palpitation of anguish which suspends thought and speech, which suspends even life.

— My dear, there is first that all the king's favor has withdrawn from M. Fouquet to pass to M. Colbert.

— Yes, it is said.

— It is quite simple, since the discovery of the plot of Belle-Île.

— I had been assured that this discovery of fortifications had redounded to the honor of M. Fouquet.

Marguerite began to laugh in so cruel a fashion that Mme de Bellière would at that moment have gladly plunged a dagger into her heart.

— My dear, continued Marguerite, it is no longer even a question of the honor of M. Fouquet; it is a question of his safety. Before three days, the ruin of the surintendant is consummated.

— Oh! said the marquise, smiling in her turn, that is going a little fast.

— I said three days, because I love to deceive myself with a hope. But very certainly the catastrophe will not pass twenty-four hours.

— And why?

— By the most humble of all reasons: M. Fouquet has no more money.

— In finance, my dear Marguerite, he who has no money today may bring in millions tomorrow.

— That might have been for M. Fouquet when he had two rich and skillful friends who amassed for him and drew money from all coffers; but those friends are dead.

— Crowns do not die, Marguerite; they are hidden, one seeks them, one buys them and one finds them.

— You see in white and rose, so much the better for you. It is very unfortunate that you are not the egeria of M. Fouquet, you would point out to him the source where he may draw the millions the king asked of him yesterday.

— Millions? said the marquise with dread.

— Four… it is an even number.

— Infamous! murmured Mme de Bellière, tortured by this ferocious joy…

— M. Fouquet has well four millions, I think, replied she courageously.

— If he has those the king asks of him today, said Marguerite, perhaps he will not have those the king will ask of him in a month.

— The king will ask him for money again?

— Doubtless, and that is why I tell you that the ruin of this poor M. Fouquet becomes infallible. From pride, he will furnish money, and, when he has no more, he will fall.

— That is true, said the marquise shuddering; the plan is clever… Tell me, does M. Colbert then hate M. Fouquet?

— I believe he does not love him… Now, M. Colbert is a powerful man; he gains by being seen close; gigantic conceptions, will, discretion; he will go far.

— He will be surintendant?

— It is probable… That is why, my good marquise, I felt moved in favor of this poor man who loved me, adored me even; that is why, seeing him so unhappy, I pardoned him his infidelity… of which he repents, I have reason to believe; that is why I should not have been averse to carrying him a consolation, a good counsel; he would have understood my step and been grateful for it. It is sweet to be loved, you see. Men greatly prize love when they are not blinded by power.

The marquise, stunned, crushed by these atrocious attacks, calculated with the justness and precision of artillery fire, no longer knew how to reply; she no longer knew how to think.

The voice of the perfidious one had taken the most affectionate intonations; she spoke like a woman and hid the instincts of a panther.

— Well! said Mme de Bellière, who vaguely hoped that Marguerite would cease overwhelming the vanquished enemy; well! why do you not go to M. Fouquet?

— Decidedly, marquise, you have made me reflect. No, it would be unseemly that I make the first advance. M. Fouquet loves me doubtless, but he is too proud. I cannot expose myself to an affront… I have my husband, besides, to consider. You say nothing to me. Come! I shall consult M. Colbert on this.

She rose smiling as if to take leave. The marquise had not the strength to imitate her.

Marguerite took a few steps to continue to enjoy the humiliating pain into which her rival was plunged; then suddenly:

— You do not see me out? said she.

The marquise rose, pale and cold, without further concerning herself with that envelope which had so greatly preoccupied her at the beginning of the conversation and which her first step left exposed.

Then she opened the door of her oratory, and, without even turning her head toward Marguerite Vanel, shut herself within.

Marguerite uttered or rather stammered three or four words that Mme de Bellière did not even hear.

But, as soon as the marquise had disappeared, her envious enemy could not resist the desire to assure herself that her suspicions were well founded; she stretched herself like a panther and seized the envelope.

— Ah! said she, gnashing her teeth, it was indeed a letter from M. Fouquet that she was reading when I arrived!

And she, in her turn, sprang out of the chamber.

Meanwhile the marquise, arrived behind the rampart of her door, felt that she was at the end of her strength; for an instant she remained stiff, pale and motionless as a statue; then, like a statue that a storm wind shakes upon its base, she wavered and fell senseless upon the rug.

The noise of her fall rang out at the same moment that rang the rolling of Marguerite's carriage leaving the hôtel.

Chapter CI — The Silverware of Mme de Bellière

The blow had been the more painful in that it was unexpected; the marquise was therefore some time in recovering; but, once recovered, she at once began to reflect upon events as they announced themselves.

Then she took up again, though her sight should shatter yet upon the way, that line of ideas her implacable friend had made her follow.

Treachery, then black threats veiled beneath a semblance of public interest, such were the maneuvers of Colbert.

Odious joy at an approaching fall, incessant efforts to arrive at that end, seductions no less guilty than the crime itself: such were the means Marguerite employed.

The hooked atoms of Descartes triumphed; to the man without bowels had united the woman without heart.

The marquise saw with sadness, even more than with indignation, that the king dipped into a plot which betrayed the duplicity of Louis XIII already old, and the avarice of Mazarin when he had not yet had time to glut himself with French gold. But soon the spirit of this courageous woman resumed all its energy and ceased to dwell upon the retrograde speculations of compassion.

The marquise was not of those who weep when they should act and amuse themselves pitying a misfortune they have means to relieve.

She leaned, for some ten minutes, her brow in her icy hands; then, raising her brow, she rang for her women with a firm hand and with a gesture full of energy.

Her resolution was taken.

— Has all been prepared for my departure? she asked one of her women who entered.

— Yes, madame; but it was not counted that Madame la marquise would depart for Bellière before three days.

— However, all that is ornaments and valuables is in cases?

— Yes, madame; but we are in the habit of leaving all that at Paris; Madame ordinarily does not take her jewels to the country.

— And all that is arranged, you say?

— In Madame's cabinet.

— And the goldwork?

— In the coffers.

— And the silverware?

— In the great oak armoire.

The marquise was silent; then, in a tranquil voice:

— Let my silversmith be sent for, said she.

The women disappeared to execute the order.

Meanwhile the marquise had entered her cabinet, and, with the greatest care, was considering her caskets.

Never had she given such attention to those riches which make a woman's pride; never had she looked upon those ornaments save to choose them according to their settings or their colors. Today she admired the size of the rubies and the limpidity of the diamonds; she despaired at a stain, a flaw; she found the gold too weak and the stones miserable.

The silversmith surprised her in this occupation when he arrived.

— M. Faucheux, said she, you furnished my silverware, I believe?

— Yes, madame la marquise.

— I no longer remember to how much the bill amounted.

— The new one, madame, or the one M. de Bellière gave you on marrying you? For I furnished both.

— Well! the new one, first.

— Madame, the ewers, the goblets and the plates with their cases, the centerpiece and the ice mortars, the preserve basins and the fountains cost Madame la marquise sixty thousand livres.

— Only that, my God?

— Madame found my bill very dear…

— That is true! that is true! I remember indeed it was dear; the workmanship, was it not?

— Yes, madame: engravings, chasings, new forms.

— The workmanship accounts for how much of the price? Do not hesitate.

— A third of the value, madame. But…

— We still have the other service, the old one, my husband's?

— Oh! madame, it is less wrought than that of which I speak to you. It is worth but thirty thousand livres, intrinsic value.

— Seventy! murmured the marquise. But, M. Faucheux, there is still my mother's silverware; you know, all that massy plate I would not part with because of the memory?

— Ah! madame, that, for example, is a famous resource for people who, like Madame la marquise, would not be free to keep their plate. In that time, madame, they did not work light as today. They worked in ingots. But this plate is no longer presentable; only, it weighs.

— That is all, that is all that is needed. How much does it weigh?

— Fifty thousand livres, at least. I do not speak of the enormous buffet vases which alone weigh five thousand livres of silver: say ten thousand livres the two.

— A hundred thirty! murmured the marquise. You are sure of these figures, M. Faucheux?

— Sure, madame. Besides, it is not hard to weigh.

— The quantities are written in my books.

— Oh! you are a woman of order, madame la marquise.

— Let us pass to something else, said Mme de Bellière.

And she opened a casket.

— I recognize these emeralds, said the merchant, it is I who set them; they are the finest at court; that is to say, no: the finest are Mme de Châtillon's; they come to her from the Guises; but yours, madame, are the second.

— They are worth—

— Set?

— No; suppose one wished to sell them.

— I know well who would buy them! cried M. Faucheux.

— That is precisely what I ask you. They would be bought, then?

— All your stones would be bought, madame; it is known you have the finest casket in Paris. You are not of those women who change; when you buy, it is of the beautiful; when you possess, you keep.

— Therefore, one would pay for these emeralds?

— A hundred thirty thousand livres.

The marquise wrote upon her tablets, with a pencil, the figure cited by the silversmith.

— This ruby necklace? said she.

— Balas rubies?

— Here they are.

— They are fine, they are superb. I did not know you had these stones, madame.

— Estimate.

— Two hundred thousand livres. The one in the middle alone is worth a hundred.

— Yes, yes, that is what I thought, said the marquise. The diamonds, the diamonds! oh! I have many: rings, chains, pendants and girandoles, clasps, brooches! Estimate, M. Faucheux, estimate.

The silversmith took his loupe, his balances, weighed, peered, and low, making his addition:

— There are stones, said he, which cost Madame la marquise forty thousand livres of income.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”