Part 27

Madame Henriette looked at Louis sideways. She was one of those well-ordered natures that know how to look both within themselves and into others at the same time. She saw love at the bottom of Louis's heart, as a skilled diver sees a pearl at the bottom of the sea.

She understood that Louis was in hesitation, if not in doubt, and that this lazy or timid heart must be pushed forward.

— So?… she said, questioning even as she broke the silence.

— What do you mean? asked Louis after waiting a moment.

— I mean that I shall have to return to the resolution I had taken.

— Which one?

— The one I had already submitted to Your Majesty.

— When was that?

— The day we explained ourselves regarding Monsieur's jealousies.

— What did you say to me that day? asked Louis, uneasy.

— You do not remember it anymore, Sire?

— Alas! if it is another misfortune, I shall remember it soon enough.

— Oh! it is a misfortune only for me, Sire, replied Madame Henriette; but it is a necessary misfortune.

— My God!

— And I shall submit to it.

— Come, then, what is this misfortune?

— Absence!

— Oh! again that wicked resolution?

— Sire, believe that I did not take it without struggling violently against myself… Sire, I must, believe me, return to England.

— Oh! never, never shall I permit you to leave France! cried the king.

— And yet, said Madame, affecting a gentle and sad firmness, and yet, Sire, nothing is more urgent; and, more than that, I am persuaded that such is your mother's will.

— Her will! cried the king. Oh! oh! dear sister, you have spoken a strange word before me.

— But, replied Madame Henriette with a smile, are you not happy to submit to the wishes of a good mother?

— Enough, I beg you; you are tearing my heart.

— I?

— Doubtless, you speak of this departure with such calm.

— I was not born to be happy, Sire, answered the princess melancholically, and, very young, I took up the habit of seeing my dearest thoughts thwarted.

— Do you speak true? And would your departure thwart a thought dear to you?

— If I answered yes, is it not true, Sire, that you would already be taking your ill with patience?

— Cruel one!

— Take care, Sire, someone is approaching us.

The king looked around him.

— No, he said.

Then, returning to Madame:

— Come, Henriette, instead of seeking to combat Monsieur's jealousy by a departure that would kill me…

Henriette lifted her shoulders slightly, like a woman who doubts.

— Yes, that would kill me, answered Louis. Come, instead of fixing upon this departure, would not your imagination… or rather would not your heart suggest something to you?

— And what would you have my heart suggest to me, my God?

— But come, tell me, how does one prove to someone that he is wrong to be jealous?

— First, Sire, by giving him no cause for jealousy, that is to say, by loving only him.

— Oh! I expected better.

— What did you expect?

— That you would simply answer that one reassures the jealous by concealing the affection one bears toward the object of their jealousy.

— Concealing is difficult, Sire.

— Yet it is by overcoming difficulties that one arrives at all happiness. As for me, I swear to you that I shall give the lie to my jealous ones, if need be, by affecting to treat you like all other women.

— Poor means, weak means, said the young woman, shaking her charming head.

— You find everything bad, dear Henriette, said Louis displeased. You destroy all that I propose. At least put something in its place. Come, search. I trust much in the inventions of women. Invent in your turn.

— Well! I find this. Are you listening, Sire?

— You ask me that! You speak of my life or my death, and you ask me if I am listening!

— Well! I judge by myself. If it were a matter of deceiving me as to my husband's intentions toward another woman, one thing would reassure me above all.

— Which?

— It would be to see, first, that he does not concern himself with that woman.

— Well! that is precisely what I was telling you just now.

— Be it so. But I would wish, to be fully reassured, to see him yet concern himself with another.

— Ah! I understand you, answered Louis with a smile. But, tell me, dear Henriette…

— What?

— If the means is ingenious, it is hardly charitable.

— Why?

— In curing the apprehension of the wound in the jealous one's mind, you give him one in the heart. He no longer has the fear, true; but he has the ill, which seems to me far worse.

— Granted; but at least he does not surprise, he does not suspect the real enemy, he does no harm to love; he concentrates all his forces on the side where his forces will wrong nothing nor anyone. In a word, Sire, my system, which I am astonished to see you combat, I confess, does harm to the jealous, true, but does good to the lovers. Now, I ask you, Sire, except perhaps yourself, who has ever thought to pity the jealous? Are they not melancholy beasts, always as unhappy without cause as with cause? Remove the cause, you will not destroy their affliction. This disease lies in the imagination, and, like all imaginary diseases, it is incurable. Hold, it reminds me, on this subject, very dear Sire, of an aphorism of my poor doctor Dawley, a learned and witty doctor, whom, but for my brother, who cannot do without him, I would have near me now: 'When you suffer from two affections,' he said to me, 'choose the one that troubles you least, I shall leave you that one; for, by God!' said he, 'that one is supremely useful to me so that I may arrive at extirpating the other.'

— Well said, well judged, dear Henriette, answered the king with a smile.

— Oh! we have clever men in London, Sire.

— And these clever men make adorable pupils; this Daley, Darley… what do you call him?

— Dawley.

— Well! I shall give him a pension from tomorrow for his aphorism; you, Henriette, begin, I pray you, by choosing the lesser of your ills. You do not answer, you smile; I guess, the lesser of your ills, is it not, is your stay in France? I shall leave you that ill, and, to begin the cure of the other, I wish to seek from today a subject of diversion for the jealous of either sex who persecute us.

— Hush! this time, someone is indeed coming, said Madame.

And she bent down to pick a periwinkle from the thick grass.

Someone was indeed coming, for suddenly there precipitated, over the crest of the mound, a crowd of young women followed by the horsemen; the cause of all this irruption was a magnificent vine sphinx with upper wings similar to the plumage of the screech-owl, lower wings like rose leaves.

This opulent prey had fallen into the nets of Mlle de Tonnay-Charente, who showed it with pride to her rivals, less good huntresses than she.

The queen of the hunt sat some twenty paces from the bench where Louis and Madame Henriette were, leaned against a magnificent oak entwined with ivy, and pinned the butterfly to the reed of her long cane.

Mlle de Tonnay-Charente was very beautiful; thus the men deserted the other women to come, under pretext of complimenting her on her skill, and press in a circle around her.

The king and the princess looked slyly at this scene as spectators of another age look upon the games of little children.

— They amuse themselves over there, said the king.

— Greatly, Sire; I have always remarked that one amuses oneself where youth and beauty are.

— What do you say of Mlle de Tonnay-Charente, Henriette? asked the king.

— I say she is a bit blonde, answered Madame, hitting at once upon the only fault one could reproach to the almost perfect beauty of the future Mme de Montespan.

— A bit blonde, be it so! but beautiful, it seems to me, despite that.

— Is that your opinion, Sire?

— But yes.

— Well! then, it is mine also.

— And sought after, you see.

— Oh! for that, yes: the lovers flutter. If we were to hunt the lovers, instead of hunting the butterflies, just see the fine capture we would make around her.

— Come, Henriette, what would one say if the king were to mingle with all those lovers and let his gaze fall that way? Would they still be jealous over there?

— Oh! Sire, Mlle de Tonnay-Charente is a very efficacious remedy, said Madame with a sigh; she would cure the jealous one, true, but she might well make a jealous woman.

— Henriette! Henriette! cried Louis, you fill my heart with joy! Yes, yes, you are right, Mlle de Tonnay-Charente is too beautiful to serve as a cloak.

— Cloak of a king, said Madame Henriette smiling; cloak of a king must be beautiful.

— Do you counsel me to? asked Louis.

— Oh! I, what should I tell you, Sire, save that to give such counsel would be to give arms against myself? It would be folly or pride to counsel you to take for the heroine of a false love a woman more beautiful than the one for whom you claim to feel a true love.

The king sought Madame's hand with his hand, her eyes with his eyes, then he stammered some words so tender, but at the same time pronounced so low, that the historian, who must hear all, heard them not.

Then aloud:

— Well! said he, choose me yourself her who should cure our jealous ones. To her all my cares, all my attentions, all the time I steal from affairs; to her, Henriette, the flower I shall pick for you, the thoughts of tenderness you shall awaken in me; to her the gaze I shall not dare address to you, and which should go to wake you in your carelessness. But choose her well, lest in meaning to think of her, lest in offering her the rose detached by my fingers, I find myself vanquished by you yourself, and that the eye, the hand, the lips return at once to you, though the whole universe guess my secret.

While these words escaped the king's mouth like a flood of love, Madame blushed, palpitated, happy, proud, intoxicated; she found nothing to answer, her pride and her thirst for homage were satisfied.

— I shall fail, she said, raising her beautiful eyes, but not as you beg me to, for all this incense you would burn on the altar of another goddess, ah! Sire, I am jealous of that too and I wish it to return to me, and I will not that one atom of it stray by the way. Therefore, Sire, I shall choose, with your royal permission, that which seems to me least capable of distracting you, and which shall leave my image quite intact in your soul.

— Happily, said the king, your heart is not ill-composed, otherwise I should shudder at the threat you make me; we have taken our precautions on this point, and around you, as around me, it would be difficult to meet a troublesome face.

While the king spoke thus, Madame had risen, had run her eyes over all the lawn, and, after a detailed and silent examination, calling the king to her:

— See, Sire, said she, do you see on the slope of the hill, near that snowball bush, that beautiful straggler who goes alone, head lowered, arms hanging, seeking in the flowers she tramples underfoot, like all those who have lost their thought.

— Mlle de La Vallière? said the king.

— Yes.

— Oh!

— Does she not suit you, Sire?

— But see the poor child, she is thin, almost wasted!

— Good! am I fat, I?

— But she is sad unto death!

— That will make contrast with me, whom they accuse of being too gay.

— But she limps!

— You think?

— Doubtless. See, she has let everyone pass for fear her disgrace be noticed.

— Well! she will run less fast than Daphne and will not be able to flee Apollo.

— Henriette! Henriette! said the king quite sulkily, you have just gone to fetch me the most defective of your maids of honor.

— Yes, but she is one of my maids of honor, note that.

— Doubtless. What do you mean?

— I mean that, to visit this new divinity, you will not be able to dispense with coming to my rooms, and that, decency forbidding your flame to converse particularly with the goddess, you will be constrained to see her at my circle, to speak to me while speaking to her. I mean, in short, that the jealous will be wrong if they believe you come to me for me, since you will come there for Mlle de La Vallière.

— Who limps.

— Barely.

— Who never opens her mouth.

— But who, when she opens it, shows charming teeth.

— Who could serve as a model for osteologists.

— Your favor will fatten her.

— Henriette!

— In short, you left me mistress?

— Alas! yes.

— Well! it is my choice; I impose it on you. Submit to it.

— Oh! I would submit to one of the Furies, if you imposed her on me.

— La Vallière is gentle as a lamb; fear not that she will ever contradict you when you tell her you love her.

And Madame began to laugh.

— Oh! you are not afraid I shall say too much to her, are you?

— It was within my rights.

— Be it so.

— It is then a treaty made?

— Signed.

— You will keep me a brother's friendship, a brother's assiduity, a king's gallantry, will you not?

— I shall keep you a heart that already has no other habit than to beat at your command.

— Well! do you see the future assured in this way?

— I hope so.

— Will your mother cease to look upon me as an enemy?

— Yes.

— Will Marie-Thérèse cease to speak in Spanish before Monsieur, who has a horror of colloquies held in a foreign tongue, because he always believes he is ill-spoken of therein?

— Alas! is he wrong? murmured the king tenderly.

— And to conclude, said the princess, will the king still be accused of thinking of illegitimate affections, when it is true that we feel nothing one for the other, save pure sympathies free of all afterthought?

— Yes, yes, stammered the king. But they will say something else.

— And what will they say, Sire? Truly, shall we then never be at rest?

— They will say, continued the king, that I have very bad taste; but what is my self-love beside your tranquility?

— Of my honor, Sire, and of that of our family, you would say. Besides, believe me, do not thus hasten to prick yourself against La Vallière; she limps, true, but she is not lacking in a certain good sense. All that the king touches, besides, turns to gold.

— In short, madame, be certain of one thing, which is that I am still grateful to you; you could have made me pay even dearer for your stay in France.

— Sire, someone comes to us.

— Well?

— One last word.

— Which?

— You are prudent and wise, Sire, but it is here that you must call to your aid all your prudence, all your wisdom.

— Oh! cried Louis laughing, I begin this very evening to play my role, and you shall see if I have a vocation for representing shepherds. We have a great walk in the forest after the collation, then we have supper and ballet at ten o'clock.

— I know it well.

— Now, my flame shall this very evening burst higher than the fireworks, shine more clearly than the lanterns of our friend Colbert; it shall resplend so that the queens and Monsieur shall have their eyes burned.

— Take care, Sire, take care!

— Eh! my God, what have I done then?

— There, I take back my compliments of a moment ago… You, prudent! you, wise! did I say… But you debut with abominable follies! Does a passion light thus, like a torch, in a second? Does a king, without any preparation, do as you, fall at the feet of a girl like La Vallière?

— Oh! Henriette! Henriette! Henriette! I catch you at it… We have not yet begun the campaign and you pillage me!

— No, but I recall you to sound ideas. Light your flame progressively, instead of making it burst thus all at once. Jupiter thunders and makes the lightning shine before setting palaces afire. Everything has its prelude. If you heat up thus, no one will believe you smitten, and everyone will believe you mad. Unless, however, they guess you. People are sometimes less foolish than they appear.

The king was obliged to concede that Madame was an angel of knowledge and a devil of wit.

— Well! be it, said he, I shall ruminate my plan of attack; generals, my cousin of Condé, for example, grow pale over their strategic maps before moving a single one of those pawns called army corps; I, I wish to draw up a whole plan of attack. You know that the Tender is subdivided into all sorts of districts. Well! I shall stop at the village of Little-Cares, at the hamlet of Love-Notes, before taking the road of Visible-Love; the path is all traced, you know it, and that poor Mlle de Scudéry would never forgive me for thus skipping the stages.

— We are back on the right path, Sire. Now, do you wish that we separate?

— Alas! it must be; for, see, they separate us.

— Ah! said Madame Henriette, indeed, there they bring us Mlle de Tonnay-Charente's sphinx, with the sounds of horn in use among the great huntsmen.

— It is then well understood: this evening, during the walk, I shall slip into the forest, and finding La Vallière without you…

— I shall send her away. That concerns me.

— Very well! I shall accost her amid her companions, and launch the first shaft.

— Be skillful, said Madame laughing, miss not the heart.

And the princess took leave of the king to go toward the joyful troop, which came running with great ceremonies and hunting fanfares intoned by all mouths.

Chapter CXIII — The Ballet of the Seasons

After the collation, which took place around five o'clock, the king entered his cabinet, where the tailors awaited him.

It was a matter at last of trying on that famous Spring costume which had cost so much imagination, so much effort of thought to the draftsmen and ornamentists of the court.

As for the ballet itself, everyone knew their step and could figure in it.

The king had resolved to make it the object of a surprise. Thus hardly had he finished his conference and returned to his rooms, than he summoned his two masters of ceremony, Villeroy and Saint-Aignan.

Both answered him that they awaited only his order, and that they were ready to begin; but for him to give that order, fair weather and a propitious night were needed.

The king opened his window; the gold dust of evening fell at the horizon through the tears in the woods; white as snow, the moon already traced itself in the sky.

Not a ripple on the surface of the green waters; the swans themselves, resting on their folded wings like ships at anchor, seemed to imbibe the warmth of the air, the coolness of the water, and the silence of an admirable evening.

The king, having seen all these things, contemplated this magnificent picture, gave the order demanded by MM. de Villeroy and de Saint-Aignan.

For this order to be executed royally, a last question was necessary; Louis XIV put it to these two gentlemen.

The question had four words:

— Have you money?

— Sire, answered Saint-Aignan, we have come to an understanding with M. Colbert.

— Ah! very well.

— Yes, Sire, and M. Colbert has said he would be near Your Majesty as soon as Your Majesty manifested the intention of giving follow-up to the feasts of which he has given the program.

— Then let him come.

As if Colbert had been listening at the doors to keep himself abreast of the conversation, he entered as soon as the king had pronounced his name before the two courtiers.

— Ah! very well, Monsieur Colbert, said His Majesty. To your posts then, gentlemen!

Saint-Aignan and Villeroy took leave.

The king sat in an armchair near the window.

— I dance my ballet this evening, Monsieur Colbert, said he.

— Then, Sire, it is tomorrow that I pay the notes?

— How so?

— I promised the suppliers to settle their accounts the day after the day the ballet should have taken place.

— Be it so, Monsieur Colbert, you promised, pay.

— Very well, Sire; but, to pay, as M. de Lesdiguières said, money is needed.

— What! were not the four millions promised by M. Fouquet delivered? I had forgotten to ask you account of it.

— Sire, they were with Your Majesty at the appointed hour.

— Well?

— Well! Sire, the colored glasses, the fireworks, the violins and the cooks ate four millions in eight days.

— Entirely?

— To the last sou. Each time Your Majesty ordered the grand canal banks illuminated, that burned as much oil as there is water in the basins.

— Good, good, Monsieur Colbert. In short, you have no more money?

— Oh! I have none, but M. Fouquet has some.

And Colbert's face lit up with a sinister joy.

— What do you mean? asked Louis.

— Sire, we have already had six millions given to M. Fouquet. He gave them with too good a grace not to give others still if need were. Need is today; therefore, he must execute.

The king frowned.

— Monsieur Colbert, said he, accentuating the financier's name, it is not thus that I understand it, I will not employ against one of my servants means of pressure that embarrass him and that hinder his service. M. Fouquet has given six millions in eight days, that is a sum.

Colbert paled.

— However, he said, Your Majesty did not speak that language some time ago; when the news of Belle-Île arrived, for example.

— You are right, Monsieur Colbert.

— Nothing is changed since, however, quite the contrary.

— In my thought, Monsieur, all is changed.

— How, Sire, does Your Majesty no longer believe in the attempts?

— My affairs concern me, Monsieur the sub-intendant, and I have already told you that I conduct them myself.

— Then, I see that I have had the misfortune, said Colbert trembling with rage and fear, to fall into the disfavor of Your Majesty.

— Not at all; you are, on the contrary, very agreeable to me.

— Eh! Sire, said the minister with that affected and skillful brusqueness he used when it was a matter of flattering Louis's self-love, of what use is it to be agreeable to Your Majesty if one is no longer useful to him?

— I reserve your services for a better occasion, and, believe me, they will only be worth the more.

— Thus the plan of Your Majesty in this affair?…

— You need money, Monsieur Colbert?

— Seven hundred thousand livres, Sire.

— You shall take them from my private treasury.

Colbert bowed.

— And, added Louis, as it seems difficult to me that, despite your economy, you satisfy with a sum so exiguous the expenses I wish to make, I am going to sign you a note for three millions.

The king took a pen and signed at once. Then, handing the paper to Colbert:

— Be at ease, said he, the plan I have adopted is a king's plan, Monsieur Colbert.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”