Part 35

— No, the one on the left.

— Ah! the devil!

— No, no… just wait…

— You do not seem very sure. Try to remember, I beg you, mademoiselle.

— The one in the middle.

— There are four of them.

— That is true. All I know is that, of the four, one leads straight to Madame's; that one I know.

— But M. de Guiche is not at Madame's, is he?

— Thank God! no.

— The one that leads to Madame's is therefore of no use to me, and I should like to exchange it for the one that leads to M. de Guiche's.

— Yes, certainly, that one I also know; but as for pointing it out here, the thing seems impossible to me.

— But, finally, mademoiselle, let us suppose I had found that blessed alley.

— Then you have arrived.

— Good.

— Yes, you have only the labyrinth left to cross.

— Only that? The devil! there is a labyrinth, then?

— Rather complicated, yes; even by daylight one sometimes loses one's way in it; there are turns and windings without end; first you must make three turns to the right, then two turns to the left, then one turn… Is it one turn or two? Just wait! Finally, on leaving the labyrinth, you find an alley of sycamores, and that alley of sycamores leads you straight to the pavilion where M. de Guiche lives.

— Mademoiselle, said Manicamp, that is an admirable description, and I do not doubt that, guided by it, I shall lose myself this very instant. I have, in consequence, a small service to ask of you.

— What is it?

— It is to offer me your arm and guide me yourself like another… like another…. I knew my mythology, however, mademoiselle; but the gravity of events has made me forget it. Come, I beg you.

— And I! cried Malicorne, and I, am I to be abandoned thus!

— Eh! monsieur, impossible!… said Montalais to Manicamp; I might be seen with you at such an hour, and just think what would be said.

— You will have your conscience with you, mademoiselle, said Manicamp sententiously.

— Impossible, monsieur, impossible!

— Then let me help Malicorne down; he is a very intelligent fellow and has a good nose; he will guide me, and if we lose ourselves, we shall lose ourselves together and save each other. Two of us, if we are met, will look like something; whereas, alone, I should look like a lover or a thief. Come, Malicorne, here is the ladder.

— Monsieur Malicorne, cried Montalais, I forbid you to leave your tree, and that under pain of incurring all my anger.

Malicorne had already stretched a leg toward the top of the wall, which he withdrew sadly.

— Hush! said Manicamp in a low voice.

— What is it? asked Montalais.

— I hear footsteps.

— Oh! my God!

Indeed, the suspected steps became a manifest noise, the foliage opened, and de Saint-Aignan appeared, his eye laughing and his hand outstretched, surprising each in the position he was in: that is to say, Malicorne on his tree with his neck stretched out, Montalais on her rung clinging to the ladder, Manicamp on the ground with his foot forward, ready to set out.

— Eh! good evening, Manicamp, said the count, welcome, dear friend; you were missed this evening, and you were asked for. Mademoiselle de Montalais, your… most humble servant!

Montalais blushed.

— Ah! my God! she stammered, hiding her head in her two hands.

— Mademoiselle, said de Saint-Aignan, reassure yourself, I know all your innocence and will give good account of it. Manicamp, follow me. The hedge, the crossways and the labyrinth know me; I shall be your Ariadne. Eh! there is your mythological name recovered.

— Upon my word! true, count, thank you!

— But, by the same token, count, said Montalais, take Monsieur Malicorne with you too.

— No, no, said Malicorne. Monsieur Manicamp has talked with you as long as he wished; it is my turn now, if you please, mademoiselle; I, for my part, have a multitude of things to say to you concerning our future.

— You hear, said the count laughing; stay with him, mademoiselle. Do you not know that this night is the night of secrets?

And, taking Manicamp's arm, the count led him off at a quick pace in the direction of the path Montalais knew so well and indicated so poorly.

Montalais followed them with her eyes as long as she could see them.

Chapter CXXIV — How Malicorne had been dislodged from the Hôtel du Beau-Paon

While Montalais followed the count and Manicamp with her eyes, Malicorne had profited by the young girl's distraction to make himself a more tolerable position.

When she turned round, this change that had come about in Malicorne's position therefore immediately struck her eyes.

Malicorne was seated like a kind of monkey, his behind on the wall, his feet on the first rung.

Wild vines and honeysuckles crowned him like a faun, the twists of the ivy fairly represented his goat's feet.

As for Montalais, nothing was lacking for her to be taken for a finished dryad.

— Oh! she said, climbing up a rung, do you make me unhappy, do you persecute me enough, you tyrant that you are!

— I? said Malicorne, I, a tyrant?

— Yes, you compromise me unceasingly, Monsieur Malicorne; you are a monster of wickedness.

— I?

— What had you to do at Fontainebleau? Come! is not your home at Orléans?

— What I have to do here, you ask? But I have business to see you.

— Ah! a fine necessity.

— Not for you, perhaps, mademoiselle, but most certainly for me. As for my home, you know well that I have abandoned it, and that I have no other home in the future than the one you yourself have. Therefore, your home being for the moment at Fontainebleau, I have come to Fontainebleau.

Montalais shrugged her shoulders.

— You wish to see me, do you not?

— Assuredly.

— Well! you have seen me, you are satisfied, depart!

— Oh! no, said Malicorne.

— What! oh! no?

— I did not come only to see you; I came to talk with you.

— Well! we shall talk later and in another place.

— Later! God knows if I shall meet you later in another place! We shall never find a more favorable one than this.

— But I cannot this evening, I cannot at this moment.

— Why is that?

— Because a thousand things have happened this night.

— Well! my affair will make a thousand and one.

— No, no, Mlle de Tonnay-Charente is waiting for me in our chamber for a communication of the highest importance.

— For long?

— For an hour at least.

— Then, said Malicorne tranquilly, she will wait a few minutes more.

— Monsieur Malicorne, said Montalais, you forget yourself.

— That is to say, you forget me, mademoiselle, and that I am impatient of the role you make me play here. 'Sdeath! mademoiselle, for a week I have been prowling among you all, without your deigning once to notice that I was there.

— You have been prowling here, you, for a week?

— Like a werewolf; burned here by the fireworks that singed two wigs of mine, drowned there among the osiers by the evening damp or the vapor of the fountains, always hungry, always worn out, with the prospect of a wall or the necessity of a climb. 'Sblood! that is no sort of fate, mademoiselle, for a creature who is neither squirrel, nor salamander, nor otter; but, since you push inhumanity to the point of wishing to make me renounce my condition of man, I assert it. A man I am, 'sdeath! and a man I shall remain, unless ordered otherwise from above.

— Well! let us see, what do you desire, what do you want, what do you demand? said Montalais submissively.

— Will you not tell me you were ignorant I was at Fontainebleau?

— I…

— Be frank.

— I suspected it.

— Well! for a week, could you not have seen me at least once a day?

— I was always prevented, Monsieur Malicorne.

— Stuff!

— Ask those young ladies, if you do not believe me.

— I never ask explanation of things I know better than anyone.

— Calm yourself, Monsieur Malicorne, that will change.

— It must.

— You know, whether you are seen or not seen, you know that one thinks of you, said Montalais with her coaxing air.

— Oh! one thinks of me…

— Word of honor.

— And nothing new?

— About what?

— About my post in Monsieur's household.

— Ah! my dear Monsieur Malicorne, one did not approach His Royal Highness during those past days.

— And now?

— Now, it is another thing: since yesterday, he is no longer jealous.

— Bah! And how did the jealousy leave him?

— There was a diversion.

— Tell me that.

— The rumor was spread that the king had cast his eyes on another woman, and Monsieur found himself calmed all at once.

— And who spread that rumor?

Montalais lowered her voice.

— Between ourselves, she said, I believe Madame and the king are in accord.

— Ah! ah! said Malicorne, that was the only means. But M. de Guiche, the poor suitor?

— Oh! that one, he is quite dislodged.

— Have they written?

— Good God no; I have not seen either the one or the other hold a pen for a week.

— How are you with Madame?

— On the best of terms.

— And with the king?

— The king smiles at me when I pass.

— Good! Now, on what woman have the two lovers cast their choice to serve them as a screen?

— On La Vallière.

— Oh! oh! poor girl! But that must be prevented, my dear!

— Why?

— Because M. Raoul de Bragelonne will kill her or himself if he has a suspicion.

— Raoul! that good Raoul! You think so?

— Women have the pretension of knowing about passions, said Malicorne, and women do not even know how to read what they themselves think in their own eyes or in their own heart. Well! I tell you, I, that M. de Bragelonne loves La Vallière to such a degree, that, if she makes a show of betraying him, he will kill himself or kill her.

— The king is there to defend her, said Montalais.

— The king! cried Malicorne.

— Certainly.

— Eh! Raoul will kill the king like a mercenary!

— Good heavens! said Montalais, but you are going mad, Monsieur Malicorne!

— Not at all; all I tell you is, on the contrary, of the utmost seriousness, my dear, and, for my part, I know one thing.

— Which?

— It is that I shall quietly warn Raoul of the jest.

— Hush! unhappy man! said Montalais, climbing yet another rung to draw that much closer to Malicorne, do not open your mouth to that poor Bragelonne.

— Why is that?

— Because you know nothing yet.

— What is there then?

— It is that this evening… Is no one listening?

— No.

— It is that this evening, under the royal oak, La Vallière said aloud and quite naively these words:

"I cannot conceive that, once one has seen the king, one could ever love another man."

Malicorne gave a leap upon his wall.

— Ah! my God! said he, she said that, the unhappy girl?

— Word for word.

— And she means it?

— La Vallière always means what she says.

— But that cries for vengeance! but women are serpents! said Malicorne.

— Calm yourself, my dear Malicorne, calm yourself!

— Not at all! Let us cut the evil at its root, on the contrary. Let us warn Raoul, there is time.

— Clumsy fellow! it is, on the contrary, no longer time, answered Montalais.

— How so?

— That word of La Vallière's…

— Yes.

— That word addressed to the king…

— Well?

— Well! it reached its address.

— The king knows it? It was reported to the king?

— The king heard it.

— _Ohimè!_ as Monsieur the cardinal used to say.

— The king was precisely hidden in the thicket nearest the royal oak.

— It follows, said Malicorne, that henceforth the plan of the king and Madame will roll along on little wheels, passing over the body of poor Bragelonne.

— You have said it.

— That is frightful.

— That is how it is.

— My faith! said Malicorne after a minute of silence given to meditation, between a great oak and a great king, let us not put our poor person, we should be crushed there, my dear.

— That is what I wished to tell you.

— Let us think of ourselves.

— That is what I was thinking.

— Open your pretty eyes then.

— And you, your big ears.

— Bring your little mouth close for a good big kiss.

— Here, said Montalais, who paid on the spot in sounding coin.

— Now, let us see. Here is M. de Guiche who loves Madame; there is La Vallière who loves the king; there is the king who loves Madame and La Vallière; there is Monsieur who loves no one but himself. Among all these loves, a fool would make his fortune, all the more so persons of sense like us.

— There you are with your dreams again.

— That is to say, with my realities. Let yourself be guided by me, my dear, you have not fared too badly up to now, have you?

— No.

— Well! the future answers for the past. Only, since everyone thinks of himself here, let us think of us.

— That is only just.

— But of us alone.

— Agreed!

— Offensive and defensive alliance!

— I am ready to swear it.

— Extend your hand; that is it: All for Malicorne!

— All for Malicorne!

— All for Montalais! answered Malicorne, extending his hand in turn.

— Now, what must be done?

— To have eyes open unceasingly, ears open, to gather arms against others, never to leave any lying about that could serve against ourselves.

— Agreed.

— Settled.

— Sworn. And now that the pact is made, adieu.

— How, adieu?

— Certainly. Return to your inn.

— To my inn?

— Yes; are you not lodged at the Hôtel du Beau-Paon?

— Montalais! Montalais! you see plainly that you know of my presence at Fontainebleau.

— What does that prove? That one occupies oneself with you beyond your deserts, ingrate!

— Hum!

— Return then to the Beau-Paon.

— Well! that is just the thing!

— What?

— It has become impossible.

— Had you not a room?

— Yes, but I have it no longer.

— You no longer have it? and who took it from you?

— Wait… Just now I was coming back from running after you, I arrive quite out of breath at the inn, when I perceive a litter on which four peasants were carrying a sick monk.

— A monk?

— Yes, an old gray-bearded Franciscan. As I was looking at this sick monk, they carry him into the inn. As they were making him mount the stairs, I follow, and, as I reach the top of the stairs, I perceive they are making him enter my room.

— Your room?

— Yes, my own room. I think it is a mistake, I challenge the host: the host declares to me that the room I had rented for a week was rented to this Franciscan for the ninth.

— Oh! oh!

— That is precisely what I did: Oh! oh! I did even more, I tried to get angry. I went back up. I addressed myself to the Franciscan himself. I wished to point out to him the impropriety of his procedure; but this monk, dying as he seemed to be, raised himself on his elbow, fixed two flaming eyes on me, and, in a voice that would have creditably commanded a cavalry charge: "Throw that rogue out the door," said he. Which was instantly executed by the host and the four bearers, who made me descend the stairs a little faster than was seemly. That is how it comes about, my dear, that I have no lodging.

— But what is this Franciscan? asked Montalais. Is he a general then?

— Precisely; it seemed to me that is the title one of the bearers gave him in speaking to him half-voice.

— So that?… said Montalais.

— So that I have no room, no inn, no lodging, and that I am as determined as my friend Manicamp was just now not to sleep outdoors.

— What is to be done? cried Montalais.

— There! said Malicorne.

— But nothing simpler, said a third voice.

Montalais and Malicorne uttered a simultaneous cry.

De Saint-Aignan appeared.

— Dear Monsieur Malicorne, said de Saint-Aignan, a happy chance brings me back here to get you out of trouble. Come, I offer you a room at my house, and that one, I swear to you, no Franciscan will take from you. As for you, my dear mademoiselle, reassure yourself; I already have the secret of Mlle de La Vallière, that of Mlle de Tonnay-Charente; you have just had the kindness to confide yours to me, thank you: I shall keep three as well as one.

Malicorne and Montalais looked at each other like two schoolboys caught stealing; but, as after all Malicorne saw a great advantage in the proposal made to him, he gave Montalais a sign of resignation which she returned.

Then Malicorne descended the ladder rung by rung, reflecting at each degree on the means of wrenching bit by bit from M. de Saint-Aignan all he might know of the famous secret.

Montalais was already gone, light as a doe, and neither crossways nor labyrinth had the power to deceive her.

As for de Saint-Aignan, he did indeed lead Malicorne back to his house, showering him with a thousand courtesies, delighted as he was to hold in his hand the two men who, supposing de Guiche remained silent, could best inform him concerning the maids of honor.

Chapter CXXV — What had in reality passed at the Hôtel du Beau-Paon

First, let us give our readers some details on the Hôtel du Beau-Paon; then we shall pass to the description of the travelers who inhabited it.

The Hôtel du Beau-Paon, like every inn, owed its name to its sign. This sign represented a peacock displaying its tail.

Only, after the manner of certain painters who gave the figure of a pretty lad to the serpent tempting Eve, the painter of the sign had given the fine peacock a woman's face.

This inn, a living epigram against that half of the human race which makes the charm of life, said M. Legouvé, stood at Fontainebleau in the first side street on the left, which, coming from Paris, cut across that great artery which alone forms the whole town of Fontainebleau.

The side street was then called the rue de Lyon, no doubt because, geographically, it advanced in the direction of the second capital of the kingdom. This street was composed of two houses inhabited by bourgeois, houses separated from one another by two large gardens bordered with hedges. In appearance, it seemed however that there were three houses in the street; let us explain how, despite this appearance, there were only two.

The Hôtel du Beau-Paon had its principal facade on the great street; but, in return, on the rue de Lyon, two blocks of buildings, divided by courtyards, enclosed large lodgings fit to receive all travelers, whether on foot, on horseback, or even in a carriage, and to furnish not only board and lodging, but also walk and solitude to the richest courtiers, when, after a rebuff at court, they desired to shut themselves up with themselves to devour the insult or meditate vengeance.

From the windows of this returning block of buildings, the travelers saw first the street, with its grass growing between the paving-stones, which it gradually disjointed. Next the fine hedges of elder and hawthorn which enclosed, as between two green and flowering arms, those bourgeois houses of which we have spoken. Then, in the intervals of those houses, forming a backcloth and outlining themselves like an unfathomable horizon, a line of thick, luxuriant woods, first sentinels of the vast forest that unfolds before Fontainebleau.

One could therefore, provided one had an apartment making a corner on the great rue de Paris, partake of the view and noise of the passers-by and festivities, and, by the rue de Lyon, of the view and calm of the country.

Not to mention that in case of urgency, at the moment when one knocked at the great door on the rue de Paris, one could slip out by the little door on the rue de Lyon, and, skirting the gardens of the bourgeois houses, gain the first thickets of the forest.

Malicorne, who, first of all, it will be remembered, spoke to us of this Hôtel du Beau-Paon, to deplore his expulsion from it, Malicorne, preoccupied with his own affairs, was far from having told Montalais all there was to tell of this curious inn.

We are going to try to fill this regrettable gap left by Malicorne.

Malicorne had forgotten to say, for example, in what way he had entered the Hôtel du Beau-Paon.

Moreover, apart from the Franciscan of whom he had said a word, he had given no information on the travelers who inhabited this inn.

The way they had entered, the way they lived, the difficulty there was for any person other than the privileged travelers to enter the inn without a password, and to stay there without certain preparatory precautions, had however ought to have struck, and had even, we would dare answer for it, certainly struck Malicorne.

But, as we have said, Malicorne had personal preoccupations which prevented him from noticing many things.

Indeed, all the apartments of the Hôtel du Beau-Paon were occupied and reserved by sedentary strangers of very calm behavior, bearers of prepossessing faces, none of whom was known to Malicorne.

All these travelers had arrived at the inn since he had arrived there himself; each had entered with a kind of password which had at first preoccupied Malicorne; but he had informed himself directly, and he had learned that the host gave as reason for this kind of surveillance that the town, being as full as it was of rich lords, must also be full of clever and eager rogues.

It was therefore a matter of the reputation of an honest house like the Beau-Paon not to let the travelers be robbed.

Thus Malicorne sometimes asked himself, when he withdrew into himself and sounded his position at the Hôtel du Beau-Paon, how he had been let in to this hostelry, while, since he had entered, he had seen the door refused to so many others.

He asked himself above all how Manicamp, who, according to him, ought to be a lord held in veneration by everyone, having wished to feed his horse at the Beau-Paon on his arrival, horse and rider had been turned away with a most intractable _nescio vos_.

It was thus a problem for Malicorne which, moreover, occupied as he was with ambitious and amorous intrigue, he had not applied himself to fathom. Had he wished to, despite the intelligence we have granted him, we would not dare say he would have succeeded.

A few words will prove to the reader that none less than Oedipus in person would have been needed to resolve such an enigma.

For a week seven travelers had entered this hostelry, all arrived the day after the blessed day on which Malicorne had cast his choice on the Beau-Paon.

These seven persons, come with a reasonable retinue, were:

First, a brigadier of the German armies, his secretary, his physician, three lackeys, seven horses. This brigadier was named the Count de Wostpur.

A Spanish cardinal with two nephews, two secretaries, an officer of his household and twelve horses. This cardinal was named Mgr Herrebia.

A rich merchant of Bremen with his lackey and two horses. This merchant was named _mein herr_ Bonstett.

A Venetian senator with his wife and daughter, both of perfect beauty. This senator was named il _signor_ Marini.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”