Part 31
Madame waited for him to speak first of La Vallière.
Then, as he said nothing of her:
“And that little one?” she asked.
“Which little one?” said the king.
“La Vallière… Did you not tell me, Sire, that she had lost consciousness?”
“She is still very unwell,” said the king, affecting the greatest indifference.
“But this will hinder the rumor you were to spread, Sire.”
“What rumor?”
“That you were paying attention to her.”
“Oh! I hope the same thing will get about,” replied the king distractedly.
Madame waited again; she wished to know whether the king would speak to her of the adventure of the royal oak.
But the king did not say a word of it.
Madame, for her part, did not open her mouth about the adventure, so that the king took his leave of her without having made her the slightest confidence.
Scarcely had she seen the king withdraw than she sought out Saint-Aignan. Saint-Aignan was easy to find; he was like the attendant vessels that always sail in convoy with the great ships.
Saint-Aignan was indeed the man Madame needed, given the frame of mind she was in.
He sought only an ear somewhat worthier than the others, to relate the event to it in all its details.
Accordingly, he spared Madame not a single word. Then, when he had finished:
“Confess,” said Madame, “that this is a charming tale.”
“Tale, no; history, yes.”
“Confess, tale or history, that it was told to you as you tell it to me, but that you were not there?”
“Madame, upon my honor, I was there.”
“And do you think those avowals would have made an impression on the king?”
“As those of Mlle de Tonnay-Charente did on me,” replied Saint-Aignan; “listen, madame, Mlle de La Vallière compared the king to the sun, which is flattering!”
“The king is not to be caught by such flatteries.”
“Madame, the king is at least as much man as sun, and I saw it clearly just now when La Vallière fell into his arms.”
“La Vallière fell into the king’s arms?”
“Oh! it was a most graceful tableau; picture to yourself that La Vallière had sunk down and that…”
“Well! what did you see? Speak, tell me.”
“I saw what ten other persons saw at the same time as I; I saw that, when La Vallière fell into his arms, the king nearly fainted.”
Madame gave a little cry, the only sign of her smoldering anger.
“Thank you,” she said, laughing convulsively, “you are a charming storyteller, Monsieur de Saint-Aignan.”
And she fled alone and suffocating toward the château.
Chapter CXVIII — Night Rides
Monsieur had left the princess in the best humor in the world, and as he had wearied himself greatly during the day, he had returned to his own quarters, leaving everyone to finish the night as they pleased.
On returning, Monsieur had set about his night toilette with a care that redoubled still further in his paroxysms of satisfaction.
He therefore sang, throughout the labors of his valets de chambre, the principal airs of the ballet that the violins had played and the king had danced.
Then he called his tailors, had them show him his clothes for the next day, and, as he was very satisfied with them, he distributed a few gratuities.
Finally, as the Chevalier de Lorraine, having seen him return, came in his turn, Monsieur overwhelmed the Chevalier de Lorraine with friendship.
The latter, after saluting the prince, kept silent for a moment, like a skirmisher chief studying from what point he will open fire; then, seeming to decide:
“Have you noticed a singular thing, my lord?” said he.
“No, what?”
“It is the poor reception that His Majesty gave, in appearance, to the Comte de Guiche.”
“In appearance?”
“Yes, doubtless, since, in reality, he restored his favor to him.”
“But I did not see that,” said the prince.
“How! you did not see that, instead of sending him back into exile, as was natural, he authorized him in his strange resistance by permitting him to resume his place in the ballet?”
“And you find the king was wrong, Chevalier?” asked Monsieur.
“Are you not of my opinion, prince?”
“Not quite, my dear Chevalier, and I approve of the king for not raging against an unhappy man more foolish than ill-intentioned.”
“My faith!” said the Chevalier, “as for me, I confess this magnanimity astonishes me to the highest degree.”
“And why so?” asked Philippe.
“Because I should have thought the king more jealous,” replied the Chevalier maliciously.
For some moments, Monsieur had felt something irritating stirring beneath his favorite’s words; this last word set fire to the powder.
“Jealous!” cried the prince; “jealous! What does that word mean? Jealous of what, if you please, or jealous of whom?”
The Chevalier perceived that he had just let slip one of those malicious words he sometimes uttered. He therefore tried to retrieve it, while it was still within reach of his hand.
“Jealous of his authority,” said he with affected naïveté; “of what would you have the king be jealous!”
“Ah!” said Monseigneur, “very good.”
“Would Your Royal Highness,” continued the Chevalier, “have asked the pardon of that dear Comte de Guiche?”
“My faith, no!” said Monsieur. “Guiche is a fellow of wit and courage, but he was light with Madame, and I wish him neither ill nor good.”
The Chevalier had embittered matters against Guiche as he had tried to embitter them against the king; but he thought he perceived that the time was for indulgence, and even for the most absolute indifference, and that, to clarify the question, he would be forced to put the lamp right under the husband’s nose.
With that game one sometimes burns others, but often burns oneself.
“Very well, very well,” said the Chevalier to himself, “I shall wait for Wardes; he will do more in a day than I in a month, for I believe — God forgive me! or rather God forgive him! — that he is even more jealous than I am. And then it is not Wardes I need, it is an event, and in all this I see none. That Guiche should have returned when he had been dismissed, certainly that is grave; but all gravity disappears when one reflects that Guiche returned at the moment when Madame no longer concerns herself with him. Indeed, Madame concerns herself with the king, that is clear. But, besides that my teeth cannot and need not bite upon the king, here is Madame who can no longer long concern herself with the king if, as is said, the king no longer concerns himself with Madame. It results from all this that we must remain quiet and await the coming of a new caprice, and that one will determine the outcome.”
And thereupon the Chevalier stretched out with resignation in the armchair where Monsieur permitted him to sit in his presence, and, having no more malices to utter, it turned out that the Chevalier had no more wit.
Very fortunately, Monsieur had his store of good humor, as we have said, and he had enough for two until the moment when, dismissing valets and officers, he passed into his bedchamber.
On retiring, he charged the Chevalier to pay his compliments to Madame and tell her that, the moon being fresh, Monsieur, who feared for his teeth, would not go down into the park for the rest of the night.
The Chevalier entered the princess’s rooms precisely at the moment when she herself was returning.
He acquitted himself of this commission like a faithful messenger, and first remarked the indifference, even the disturbance, with which Madame received the communication from her husband.
This seemed to him to contain some novelty.
Had Madame gone out with that strange air, he would have followed her.
But Madame was coming in; nothing to be done, then. He pirouetted on his heels like an idle heron, interrogated the air, the earth, and the water, shook his head and oriented himself mechanically, so as to direct himself toward the flowerbeds.
He had not gone a hundred paces when he met two young men who held each other by the arm and walked, heads lowered, kicking with their foot the little pebbles that lay before them, and who accompanied their thoughts with that vague amusement. They were MM. de Guiche and de Bragelonne.
Their sight produced, as always, upon the Chevalier de Lorraine an effect of instinctive repulsion. He nevertheless gave them a great salute, which was returned with interest.
Then, seeing that the park was emptying, that the illuminations were beginning to go out, that the morning breeze was beginning to blow, he took to the left and re-entered the château by the small court. They drew to the right and continued their way toward the great park.
At the moment when the Chevalier was mounting the little staircase that led to the concealed entrance, he saw a woman, followed by another woman, appear under the arcade that gave passage from the small into the great court.
These two women quickened their pace, which the rustling of their silk gowns betrayed in the already dark night.
That form of mantle, that elegant figure, that bearing at once mysterious and haughty which distinguished these two women, and above all her who walked first, struck the Chevalier.
“There are two women I certainly know,” said he to himself, stopping on the last step of the perron.
Then, as with his limier’s instinct he was preparing to follow them, one of his lackeys, who had been running after him for some moments, stopped him.
“Monsieur,” said he, “the courier has arrived.”
“Good! good!” said the Chevalier. “We have time; till tomorrow.”
“It is that there are urgent letters which Monsieur le Chevalier will perhaps be glad to read.”
“Ah!” said the Chevalier; “and whence do they come?”
“One comes from England, and the other from Calais; the latter arrives by estafette, and appears to be very important.”
“From Calais! And who the devil writes to me from Calais?”
“I thought I recognized the handwriting of your friend the Comte de Wardes.”
“Oh! I go up then,” cried the Chevalier, forgetting at that instant his plan of espionage.
And he went up, indeed, while the two unknown ladies disappeared at the extremity of the court opposite to that by which they had just entered.
It is they whom we shall follow, leaving the Chevalier entirely to his correspondence.
Arrived at the quincunx, the first stopped, somewhat out of breath, and, raising her headdress with precaution:
“Are we still far from that tree?” said she.
“Oh! yes, madame, more than five hundred paces; but let Madame stop an instant: she could not walk long at this pace.”
“You are right.”
And the princess, for it was she, leaned against a tree.
“Come, mademoiselle,” she resumed after breathing a moment, “hide nothing from me, tell me the truth.”
“Oh! madame, you are already severe,” said the young girl in an agitated voice.
“No, my dear Athénaïs; reassure yourself, for I bear you no ill will at all. They are not my affairs, after all. You are uneasy about what you may have said under that oak; you fear having wounded the king, and I wish to set your mind at rest by assuring myself in person whether you could have been overheard.”
“Oh! yes, madame, the king was so near us.”
“But, finally, you were not speaking so loud that a few words might not have been lost?”
“Madame, we believed ourselves absolutely alone.”
“And you were three?”
“Yes, La Vallière, Montalais and I.”
“So that you, personally, spoke lightly of the king?”
“I fear so. But, in that case, Your Highness would have the goodness to make my peace with His Majesty, would you not, Madame?”
“If need be, I promise you. However, as I was telling you, it is better not to go to meet the mischief and above all to assure oneself well whether the mischief has been done. The night is dark, and darker still under these great woods. You will not have been recognized by the king. To warn him by speaking first is to denounce yourself.”
“Oh! madame! madame! if they recognized Mlle de La Vallière, they will have recognized me too. Besides, M. de Saint-Aignan left me in no doubt upon that subject.”
“But, finally, you were saying then things quite disobliging to the king?”
“Not at all, madame, not at all. It is another who was saying things too obliging, and then my words will have made contrast with hers.”
“That Montalais is so mad!” said Madame.
“Oh! it is not Montalais. Montalais said nothing, she; it is La Vallière.”
Madame trembled as if she had not already known it perfectly.
“Oh! no, no,” said she, “the king will not have heard. Besides, we are going to make the trial for which we came out. Show me the oak.”
And Madame set off again.
“Do you know where it is?” she continued.
“Alas! yes, madame.”
“And you will find it again?”
“I would find it with my eyes closed.”
“Then that is marvelous; you shall sit on the bench where you were, on the bench where La Vallière was, and you shall speak in the same tone and to the same effect; I, I shall hide in the thicket, and, if anyone hears, I shall tell you so well enough.”
“Yes, madame.”
“It follows that, if you did indeed speak loud enough for the king to have heard you, well…”
Athénaïs seemed to await with anxiety the end of the begun phrase.
“Well!” said Madame in a voice stifled no doubt by the rapidity of her course, “well, I shall defend you…”
And Madame doubled her pace yet again.
Suddenly she stopped.
“An idea comes to me,” said she.
“Oh! a good idea, assuredly,” replied Mlle de Tonnay-Charente.
“Montalais must be as embarrassed as you two?”
“Less; for she is less compromised, having said less.”
“No matter, she will help you well with a little lie.”
“Oh! especially if she knows that Madame is so good as to interest herself in me.”
“Good! I think I have found what we need, my child.”
“What happiness!”
“You shall say that all three of you knew perfectly the presence of the king behind that tree, or behind that thicket, I no longer know well, as well as that of M. de Saint-Aignan.”
“Yes, madame.”
“For, you do not disguise it from yourself, Athénaïs, Saint-Aignan takes advantage of some words very flattering to him that you would have pronounced.”
“Eh! madame, you see well that one hears, cried Athénaïs, since M. de Saint-Aignan heard.”
Madame had said a light thing, she bit her lips.
“Oh! you know well what Saint-Aignan is like!” said she; “the king’s favor turns his head, and he says, he says at random; often even he invents. There, besides, is not the question. Has the king heard or has he not heard? That is the fact.”
“Well! yes, madame, he has heard!” said Athénaïs in despair.
“Then, do as I said: boldly maintain that you all three knew, do you hear, all three, for, if one is doubted, the others will be doubted; maintain, I say, that you all three knew the presence of the king and of M. de Saint-Aignan, and that you wished to divert yourselves at the expense of the listeners.”
“Ah! madame, at the expense of the king! never shall we dare say that!”
“But, pleasantry, pure pleasantry; innocent raillery and quite permitted to women whom men wish to surprise. In this way all is explained. What Montalais said of Malicorne, raillery; what you said of M. de Saint-Aignan, raillery; what La Vallière may have said…”
“And which she would gladly recall.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Oh! yes, I answer for it.”
“Well! so much the more reason, raillery that all that; M. de Malicorne will have no cause to be angry. M. de Saint-Aignan will be confounded, they will laugh at him instead of laughing at you. Finally, the king will be punished for his curiosity little worthy of his rank. That one laugh a little at the king in this circumstance, and I do not think he will complain of it.”
“Ah! madame, you are truly an angel of goodness and wit.”
“It is my interest.”
“How so?”
“You ask me how it is my interest to spare my ladies of honor gibes, unpleasantnesses, calumnies perhaps! Alas! you know it, my child, the court has no indulgence for those sorts of peccadilloes. But here we have been walking a long time already; are we not soon arrived?”
“Another fifty or sixty paces. Turn to the left, madame, if you please.”
“So, you are sure of Montalais?” said Madame.
“Oh! yes.”
“She will do all you wish?”
“All. She will be delighted.”
“As for La Vallière?…” ventured the princess.
“Oh! for her it will be more difficult, madame; she shrinks from lying.”
“However, when she will find her interest in it…”
“I fear that will absolutely change nothing in her ideas.”
“Yes, yes,” said Madame, “I had already been warned of that; she is a very precious person, one of those mincing creatures who put God forward to hide behind Him. But, if she will not lie, as she will expose herself to the railleries of the whole court, as she will have provoked the king by an avowal as ridiculous as indecent, Mlle de La Baume Le Blanc de La Vallière will find it good that I send her back to her pigeons, so that there, in Touraine, or in the Blaisois, I know not where, she may at her ease make sentiment and shepherdessing.”
These words were said with a vehemence and even a hardness that frightened Mlle de Tonnay-Charente.
In consequence, she promised herself, as for her, to lie as much as should be needful.
It was in these good dispositions that Madame and her companion arrived in the neighborhood of the royal oak.
“Here we are,” said Tonnay-Charente.
“We shall soon see if one hears,” replied Madame.
“Hush!” said the young girl, detaining Madame with a rapidity rather forgetful of etiquette.
Madame stopped.
“Do you see that one hears,” said Athénaïs.
“How so?”
“Listen.”
Madame held her breath, and one heard, indeed, these words, pronounced by a suave and sad voice, float in the air:
“Oh! I tell you, vicomte, I tell you that I love him madly; I tell you that I love him unto death.”
At that voice, Madame trembled, and beneath her mantle a joyful ray illuminated her face.
She detained her companion in turn, and, with a light step, led her back twenty paces, that is to say out of reach of the voice:
“Stay there,” she said to her, “my dear Athénaïs, and let no one surprise us. I think it is of you that this conversation treats.”
“Of me, madame?”
“Of you, yes, or rather of your adventure. I am going to listen; two of us, we should be discovered. Go find Montalais and return to wait for me with her on the edge of the wood.”
Then, as Athénaïs hesitated:
“Go!” said the princess in a voice that admitted no observations.
She therefore gathered up her rustling skirts, and, by a path that cut the thicket, regained the parterre.
As for Madame, she crouched in the thicket, leaning against a gigantic chestnut tree, one of whose stems had been cut at the height of a seat.
And there, full of anxiety and fear: “Let us see,” said she, “let us see, since one hears from here, let us listen to what this other love-fool called the Comte de Guiche is going to say of me to M. de Bragelonne.”
Chapter CXIX — Where Madame Acquires Proof That One May, by Listening, Hear What Is Said
There was a moment of silence, as if all the mysterious noises of the night had hushed to listen, together with Madame, to that juvenile and loving confidence. It was for Raoul to speak. He leaned lazily against the trunk of the great oak and answered in his soft and harmonious voice:
“Alas! my dear de Guiche, it is a great misfortune.”
“Oh! yes,” cried the latter, “very great!”
“You do not hear me, de Guiche, or rather you do not understand me. I say that a great misfortune befalls you, not in loving, but in not knowing how to hide your love.”
“How so?” cried de Guiche.
“Yes, you do not perceive one thing, which is that now it is no longer to your sole friend, that is to say to a man who would let himself be killed rather than betray you; you do not perceive, I say, that it is no longer to your sole friend that you confide your loves, but to the first comer.”
“To the first comer!” cried de Guiche; “are you mad, Bragelonne, to say such things to me?”
“It is thus.”
“Impossible! How and in what way should I have become indiscreet to that point?”
“I mean, my friend, that your eyes, your gestures, your sighs speak despite you; that every exaggerated passion leads and carries a man out of himself. Then that man no longer belongs to himself; he is prey to a madness that makes him recount his pain to the trees, to the horses, to the air, from the moment he has no intelligent being within reach of his voice. Now, my poor friend, remember this: that it is very rare that there is not always someone there to hear particularly the things that ought not to be heard.”
De Guiche uttered a deep sigh.
“See,” continued Bragelonne, “at this moment you pain me; since your return here, you have a hundred times and in a hundred different ways related your love for her; and yet, had you said nothing, your return alone was already a terrible indiscretion. I come back then to conclude this: that, if you do not observe yourself better than you do, a day will come, sooner or later, that will bring an explosion. Who will save you then? Tell me, answer me. Who will save her herself? For, all innocent as she will be of your love, your love will be, in the hands of her enemies, an accusation against her.”
“Alas! my God!” murmured de Guiche.
And a deep sigh accompanied these words.
“That is not answering, that, de Guiche.”
“Yes it is.”
“Well! come, what do you answer?”
“I answer that, that day, my friend, I shall be no more dead than I am today.”
“I do not understand.”
“Yes; so many alternations have worn me out! Today, I am no longer a thinking, acting being; today, I am not worth a man, however mediocre he be; also, you see, today my last forces are extinguished, my last resolutions have vanished, and I renounce struggling. When one is in camp, as we have been together, and one sets out alone to skirmish, sometimes one meets a party of five or six foragers, and, alone though one is, one defends oneself; then, six others come up, one grows angry and perseveres; but, if yet others come, six, eight, ten across the way, one sets to spurring one’s horse, if one still has a horse, or else one gets oneself killed rather than flee. Well! I am at that point: I first struggled against myself; then against Buckingham. Now, the king has come; I shall not struggle against the king, nor even — I hasten to tell you — were the king to withdraw, nor even against the character alone of that woman. Oh! I deceive myself not: entered in the service of this love, I shall get myself killed in it.”
“It is not to her that reproaches should be made,” answered Raoul, “it is to you.”
“Why so?”
“Stories of the world, in your language.”