Part 8

— Yes, but as true as it is, Sire, admit it. There is more: I grant for a moment the possibility of breaking your word and evading the treaty; that is often seen, that one breaks one's word and evades a treaty, but it is when one has some great interest in doing so or when one finds oneself too much hampered by the contract; well! you would authorize the undertaking that is asked of you; France, her banner, which is the same thing, will cross the strait and fight; France will be defeated.

— Why so?

— Upon my faith, a clever general is His Majesty Charles II, and Worcester gives us fine guarantees!

— He will no longer have to deal with Cromwell, monsieur.

— Yes, but he will have to deal with Monck, who is far more dangerous.

"This worthy beer-merchant of whom we speak was a seer; he had moments of exaltation, of blossoming, of swelling, during which he split open like an overfull barrel; through the cracks then escaped always a few drops of his thought, and from the sample one knew the whole thought. Cromwell thus let us, more than ten times, penetrate into his soul, when one believed that soul enveloped in triple brass, as Horace says. But Monck! Ah! Sire, God keep you from ever making policy with Mr. Monck! It is he who, for a year past, has given me all the grey hairs I have!

"Monck is not a seer, he, unfortunately; he is a politician; he does not split open, he tightens. For ten years his eyes have been fixed upon a goal, and no one has yet been able to guess which.

"Every morning, as Louis XI advised, he burns his nightcap. Thus, the day this plan, slowly and solitarily matured, bursts forth, it will burst with all the conditions of success that always accompany the unforeseen.

"There is Monck, Sire, of whom you had perhaps never heard, whose name you perhaps did not even know, before your brother Charles II, who knows what he is, pronounced it before you — that is to say, a marvel of depth and tenacity, the two only things against which spirit and ardor are blunted. Sire, I had ardor when I was young, I have always had spirit. I may boast of it, since it is reproached to me. I have made a fine road with these two qualities, since from being the son of a fisherman of Piscina, I have become First Minister of the King of France, and in that capacity, Your Majesty is pleased to acknowledge, I have rendered some services to the throne of Your Majesty. Well! Sire, had I met Monck on my path, instead of finding there M. de Beaufort, M. de Retz, or M. le Prince, why, we had been lost. Engage lightly, Sire, and you will fall into the claws of that political soldier. Monck's helmet, Sire, is an iron coffer in the bottom of which he locks his thoughts, and of which no one has the key. Thus, near him, or rather before him, I bow, Sire, I who have but a velvet cap.

— What then do you think Monck wants?

— Eh! if I knew, Sire, I would not tell you to beware of him, for I should be stronger than he; but with him I fear to guess; to guess! you understand my word? for if I believe I have guessed, I shall stop at an idea, and, despite myself, I shall pursue that idea. Since this man has been in power over there, I am like those damned of Dante whose neck Satan has twisted, who walk forward and look backward: I go toward Madrid, but I do not lose sight of London. To guess, with that devil of a man, is to be mistaken, and to be mistaken is to be lost. God keep me from ever seeking to guess what he desires; I limit myself, and that is enough, to spying upon what he does; now, I believe — you understand the reach of the word I believe? I believe, relative to Monck, commits to nothing — I believe he simply has a mind to succeed Cromwell. Your Charles II has already made him proposals by ten persons; he contented himself with driving away the ten go-betweens without saying anything else to them than: 'Begone, or I will hang you!' He is a sepulcher, that man! At this moment, Monck is making devotion to the Rump Parliament; of that devotion, for example, I am not duped: Monck does not wish to be assassinated. An assassination would stop him in the middle of his work, and his work must be accomplished; thus I believe, but do not believe what I believe, I say I believe by habit; I believe Monck spares the Parliament until the moment he will break it. Swords are asked of you, but it is to fight against Monck. God keep us from fighting against Monck, Sire, for Monck will beat us, and beaten by Monck, I should never console myself for my life! That victory, I should say to myself Monck had foreseen it for ten years. For God's sake! Sire, out of friendship for you, if not out of consideration for him, let Charles II keep quiet; Your Majesty will make him here a small income; she will give him one of her castles. Eh! eh! wait though! but I recall the treaty, that famous treaty of which we spoke but now! Your Majesty has not even the right to give him a castle!

— How so?

— Yes, yes, His Majesty engaged not to give hospitality to King Charles, to make him leave France itself. It is for that you will make your brother understand he cannot remain with us, that it is impossible, that he compromises us, or myself...

— Enough, monsieur! said Louis XIV, rising. That you refuse me a million, you have the right: your millions are yours; that you refuse me two hundred gentlemen, you have still the right, for you are First Minister, and you have, in the eyes of France, the responsibility of peace and war; but that you pretend to prevent me, the king, from giving hospitality to the grandson of Henri IV, to my cousin-german, to the companion of my childhood! there your power stops, there my will begins.

— Sire, said Mazarin, delighted to be quit at so cheap a rate, and who moreover had fought so warmly only to arrive there; Sire, I shall always bow before the will of my king; let my king keep near him or in one of his castles the King of England, let Mazarin know it, but let the minister not know it.

— Good night, monsieur, said Louis XIV, I go away in despair.

— But convinced, that is all I need, Sire, replied Mazarin.

The king answered not, and withdrew full pensive, convinced, not of all that Mazarin had told him, but of a thing on the contrary that he had taken good care not to tell him, which was of the necessity of studying seriously his affairs and those of Europe, for he saw them difficult and obscure.

Louis found the King of England seated in the same place where he had left him.

At sight of him, the English prince rose; but at a first glance he read discouragement written in dark letters upon his cousin's brow.

Then, taking the word first, as if to facilitate to Louis the painful avowal he had to make to him:

— Be it as it may, said he, I shall never forget all the kindness, all the friendship you have shown toward me.

— Alas! replied Louis XIV hollowly, sterile good will, my brother!

Charles II became extremely pale, passed a cold hand over his brow, and struggled some moments against a dizziness that made him stagger.

— I understand, said he at last, no more hope!

Louis seized the hand of Charles II.

— Wait, my brother, said he, precipitate nothing, all may change; it is extreme resolutions that ruin causes; add, I beseech you, yet another year of trial to the years you have already endured. There is, for you to decide to act at this moment rather than at another, neither occasion nor opportunity; come with me, my brother, I will give you one of my residences, whichever it shall please you to inhabit; I will keep eye with you upon events, we will prepare them together; come, my brother, courage!

Charles II disengaged his hand from the king's, and drawing back to salute him with more ceremony:

— With all my heart, thanks, replied he, Sire, but I have prayed without result to the greatest king on earth; now I am going to ask a miracle of God.

And he went out without willing to hear more, his brow high, his hand trembling, with a painful contraction of his noble face, and that deep gloom of gaze which, finding no more hope in the world of men, seems to go beyond to ask it of unknown worlds.

The officer of the musketeers, seeing him thus pass livid, bowed almost to his knees to salute him.

He then took a torch, called two musketeers and descended with the unhappy king the deserted staircase, holding in his left hand his hat, whose plume swept the steps.

Arrived at the door, the officer asked the king which way he was heading, so as to send the musketeers there.

— Monsieur, answered Charles II in a half-voice, you who knew my father, say, perhaps you prayed for him? If that be so, forget me not either in your prayers. Now I go alone, and pray you to accompany me not nor have me accompanied further.

The officer bowed and sent his musketeers back inside the palace.

But he remained an instant under the porch to see Charles II withdraw and lose himself in the shadow of the winding street.

— To that one, as formerly to his father, murmured he, Athos, were he here, would rightly say: 'Hail to fallen Majesty!'

Then, mounting the stairs:

— Ah! the vile service I do! said he at each step. Ah! the piteous master! Life thus made is no longer tolerable, and it is time at last that I make up my mind!... No more generosity, no more energy! continued he.

"Come, the master has succeeded, the pupil is atrophied forever. 'Sblood! I shall not withstand it. Come, you others, continued he, entering the antechamber, what do you there staring at me thus? Extinguish those torches and return to your posts! Ah! you kept watch over me? Yes, you watch over me, do you not, good folk? Brave nincompoops! I am not the Duke of Guise, go, and I shall not be assassinated in the little corridor. Besides, added he very low, that would be a resolution, and one no longer takes resolutions since M. the Cardinal de Richelieu died. Ah! there was a man, that one! It is decided, tomorrow I throw the cassock to the nettles!

Then, reconsidering:

— No, said he, not yet! I have a superb trial to make, and I shall make it; but that one, I swear, shall be the last, 'sblood!

He had not finished, when a voice issued from the king's chamber.

— Monsieur le lieutenant! said that voice.

— Here I am, answered he.

— The king asks to speak to you.

— Come, said the lieutenant, perhaps it is for what I think.

And he entered the king's room.

Chapter XII — The King and the Lieutenant

When the king saw the officer near him, he dismissed his valet de chambre and his gentleman.

— Who is on duty tomorrow, monsieur? he then asked. The lieutenant inclined his head with a soldier's politeness and answered:

— I, Sire.

— How, still you?

— I always.

— How comes that, monsieur?

— Sire, the musketeers, on travel, furnish all the posts of the household of Your Majesty, that is to say yours, that of the queen mother and that of M. the cardinal, who borrows of the king the best part or rather the most numerous part of his royal guard.

— But the temporary reliefs?

— There is relief, Sire, only for twenty or thirty men who rest upon a hundred twenty. At the Louvre it is different, and if I were at the Louvre, I should rest upon my brigadier; but on the road, Sire, one knows not what may happen and I rather like to do my work myself.

— Thus, you are on guard every day?

— And every night, yes, Sire.

— Monsieur, I cannot suffer that, and I wish you to rest.

— That is very well, Sire, but I, I do not wish it.

— What say you? said the king, who did not at first understand the sense of this answer.

— I say, Sire, that I will not expose myself to a fault. If the devil had a bad trick to play me, you understand, Sire, as he knows the man he has to deal with, he would choose the moment when I should not be there. My service before all and the peace of my conscience.

— But at that trade, monsieur, you will kill yourself.

— Eh! Sire, it is five and thirty years I have been at that trade, and I am the man of France and Navarre who bears himself best. At surplus, Sire, trouble not yourself about me, I pray you; that would seem too strange to me, seeing I am not used to it.

The king cut short the conversation by a new question.

— You will be there then tomorrow morning? he asked.

— As at present, yes, Sire.

The king then made some turns in his chamber; it was easy to see he burned with desire to speak, but that some fear held him back. The lieutenant, standing, immobile, the felt hat in hand, the fist on the hip, watched him make his evolutions, and while watching him, he grumbled biting his mustache:

"He has not resolution for half a pistole, my word of honor! Let us wager he will not speak."

The king continued to walk, throwing from time to time a sidelong glance at the lieutenant.

"He is his father to the life, pursued the other in his secret monologue; he is at once proud, stingy and timid. Plague take the master, go!"

Louis stopped.

— Lieutenant? said he.

— Here I am, Sire.

— Why then, this evening, did you cry out there, in the hall: 'The king's service, the musketeers of His Majesty'?

— Because you gave me the order, Sire.

— I?

— Yourself.

— In truth, I did not say a single word of that, monsieur.

— Sire, one gives an order by a sign, by a gesture, by a wink, as frankly, as clearly as with speech. A servant who should have but ears would be but half a good servant.

— Your eyes are then very piercing, monsieur.

— Why so, Sire?

— Because they see what is not.

— My eyes are good, indeed, Sire, though they have served long and much their master; thus, all the times they have aught to see, they miss not the occasion. Now, this evening they saw that Your Majesty was reddening from sheer desire to yawn; that Your Majesty looked with eloquent supplications, first at His Eminence, next at Her Majesty the queen mother, lastly at the door by which one goes out; and they so well remarked all I have just said, that they saw the lips of Your Majesty articulate these words: 'Who then will get me out of there?'

— Monsieur!

— Or at least this, Sire: 'My musketeers!' Then I hesitated not. That look was for me, the word was for me; I cried at once: 'The musketeers of His Majesty!' And besides, so true is it, Sire, that Your Majesty, not only gave me not the lie, but gave me further the right by departing on the spot.

The king turned away to smile; then, after some seconds, he brought back his limpid eye upon that countenance so intelligent, so bold and so firm, that one would have said the energetic and proud profile of the eagle facing the sun.

— That is well, said he after a short silence, during which he tried, but in vain, to make his officer lower his eyes.

But seeing the king said no more, the other wheeled upon his heels and made three steps to go away murmuring: "He will not speak, 'sblood! he will not speak!"

— Thanks, monsieur, said then the king.

"In truth, pursued the lieutenant, there lacked but that, to be blamed for having been less foolish than another."

And he gained the door making his spurs jingle militarily.

But arrived on the threshold, and feeling the king's desire drew him backward, he turned round.

— Has Your Majesty told me all? he asked in a tone nothing could render and which, without seeming to provoke the royal confidence, contained such persuasive frankness, that the king replied on the spot:

— Indeed, monsieur, draw near.

"Come then! murmured the officer, he comes to it at last!"

— Listen to me.

— I lose not a word, Sire.

— You will mount on horseback, monsieur, tomorrow, toward four o'clock in the morning, and you will have a horse saddled for me.

— From the stables of Your Majesty?

— No, from one of your musketeers.

— Very well, Sire. Is that all?

— And you will accompany me.

— Alone?

— Alone.

— Shall I come fetch Your Majesty, or await you?

— You will await me.

— Where, Sire?

— At the little gate of the park.

The lieutenant bowed, understanding the king had told him all he had to tell him.

Indeed, the king dismissed him with a very amiable gesture of his hand. The officer left the king's chamber and came back to place himself philosophically on his chair, where, far from falling asleep, as one might have believed, given the late hour of the night, he set himself to reflect more deeply than he had ever done.

The result of these reflections was not so sad as had been the preceding reflections.

"Come, he has begun, said he; love pushes him, he walks, he walks! The king is naught in his own house, but the man may perhaps be worth something. Besides, we shall see well tomorrow morning... Oh! oh! cried he suddenly straightening up, there is a gigantic idea, 'sblood! and perhaps my fortune is in that idea!"

After this exclamation, the officer rose and paced, hands in the pockets of his justaucorps, the immense antechamber that served him for apartment.

The candle flamed furiously under the effort of a fresh breeze which, introducing itself by the chinks of the door and the cracks of the window, cut the hall diagonally. It cast a reddish, uneven light, now radiant, now dimmed, and one saw march upon the wall the great shadow of the lieutenant, cut in silhouette like a figure of Callot, with the sword as a spit and the plumed felt hat.

"Certainly, murmured he, or I am much mistaken, or Mazarin lays there a snare for the young lover; Mazarin gave this evening a rendezvous and an address as complaisantly as might have done M. Dangeau himself. I have heard and I know the value of words. 'Tomorrow morning,' said he, 'they will pass by the height of the bridge of Blois.' 'Sblood! that is clear, that! and above all for a lover! It is why this embarrassment, it is why this hesitation, it is why this order: 'Monsieur the lieutenant of my musketeers, on horseback tomorrow, at four o'clock in the morning.' Which is as clear as if he had said to me: 'Monsieur the lieutenant of my musketeers, tomorrow, at four o'clock in the morning, at the bridge of Blois, do you hear?' There is then there a state secret that I, puny, hold at this hour. And why is it I hold it? Because I have good eyes, as I said but now to His Majesty. It is that they say he loves her to fury, that little Italian doll! It is that they say he threw himself at his mother's knees to ask her to marry him! It is that they say the queen went so far as to consult the court of Rome to know if such a marriage, made against her will, would be valid! Oh! if I still had five and twenty years! if I had there, at my side, those I no longer have! if I did not profoundly despise all the world, I would embroil M. de Mazarin with the queen mother, France with Spain, and I would make a queen of my fashion; but, bah!"

And the lieutenant snapped his fingers in sign of disdain.

"That miserable Italian, that craven, that green miser, who has just refused a million to the King of England, would perhaps not give me a thousand pistoles for the news I should carry him. Oh! 'sblood! see me falling into childhood! see me brutifying myself! Mazarin give something, ha! ha! ha!"

And the officer set himself to laugh formidably alone.

"Let us sleep, said he, let us sleep, and at once. My mind is tired from my evening, tomorrow it will see clearer than today."

And upon this recommendation made to himself, he wrapped himself in his cloak, flouting his royal neighbor.

Five minutes after, he slept with clenched fists, lips parted, letting escape, not his secret, but a sonorous snore which developed at ease under the majestic vault of the antechamber.

Chapter XIII — Marie de Mancini

The sun scarce illuminated with its first rays the great woods of the park and the high weathervanes of the castle, when the young king, already awake for more than two hours, and wholly given to the insomnia of love, opened his shutter himself and threw a curious glance upon the courts of the sleeping palace.

He saw it was the appointed hour: the great clock of the court marked even a quarter past four.

He woke not his valet de chambre, who slept profoundly at some distance; he dressed alone, and that valet, all aghast, arriving, believing he had failed in his service, when Louis sent him back to his chamber recommending to him the most absolute silence. Then he descended the little stair, went out by a side door, and perceived along the wall of the park a horseman holding a horse by the bridle.

That horseman was unrecognizable in his cloak and under his hat.

As for the horse, saddled like that of a rich burgher, it offered nothing remarkable to the most practiced eye.

Louis came to take the bridle of that horse; the officer held him the stirrup, without himself quitting the saddle, and asked in a discreet voice the orders of His Majesty.

— Follow me, answered Louis XIV.

The officer put his horse to a trot behind that of his master, and they descended thus toward the bridge.

When they were on the other side of the Loire:

— Monsieur, said the king, you are going to do me the pleasure of riding ahead of you until you perceive a coach; then you will come back to warn me; I hold myself here.

— Will Your Majesty deign give me some details upon the coach I am charged to discover?

— A coach in which you will see two ladies and probably also their attendants.

— Sire, I will make no mistake; is there yet another sign by which I may recognize this coach?

— It will be, in all probability, with the arms of M. the cardinal.

— That is well, Sire, answered the officer, entirely fixed upon the object of his reconnaissance.

He then put his horse to a great trot and rode in the direction indicated by the king. But he had not made five hundred paces when he saw four mules, then a coach appear behind a small hill.

Behind that coach came another. He needed but a glance to assure himself that these were indeed the equipages he had come to seek.

He turned bridle on the spot, and drawing near the king:

“Stories of the world, in your language.”