Part 37

— It is about time, said the sick man, whose brows contracted for a moment; I have then two hours?

— Yes, especially if you take the potion I am going to send you.

— And it will give me two hours?

— Two hours.

— I shall take it, were it poison, for these two hours are necessary not only to me, but to the glory of the order.

— Oh! what a loss! murmured the physician, what a catastrophe for us!

— It is the loss of a man, that is all, answered the Franciscan; and God will provide that the poor monk who leaves you shall find a worthy successor. Farewell, Monsieur Grisart; it is already a permission from the Lord that I met you. A physician not affiliated with our holy congregation would have left me ignorant of my condition, and, still counting on days of life, I could not have taken the necessary precautions. You are learned, Monsieur Grisart, that does us all honor: it would have repelled me to see one of our own mediocre in his profession. Farewell, Master Grisart, farewell! and send me your cordial quickly.

— Bless me, at least, my lord!

— In spirit, yes… go… in spirit, I tell you… _Animo_, Master Grisart… _viribus impossibile_.

And he fell back into his armchair, almost fainting again.

Master Grisart hesitated whether to bring him momentary relief or to run and prepare the promised cordial. No doubt he decided in favor of the cordial, for he dashed out of the room and disappeared down the stairs.

Chapter CXXVII — The Secret of State

A few moments after Doctor Grisart's departure, the confessor arrived.

Scarcely had he crossed the threshold of the door than the Franciscan fixed his deep gaze upon him.

Then, shaking his pale head:

— There is a poor spirit, he murmured, and I hope that God will forgive me for dying without the help of that living infirmity.

The confessor, for his part, looked with astonishment, almost with terror, upon the dying man. He had never seen eyes so ardent at the moment of closing, glances so terrible at the moment of extinction.

The Franciscan made with his hand a rapid and imperious sign.

— Sit there, my father, he said, and listen to me.

The Jesuit confessor, a good priest, simple and naively initiated, who of the mysteries of the order had seen only the initiation, obeyed the superiority of the penitent.

— There are several persons in this hostelry, continued the Franciscan.

— But, asked the Jesuit, I thought I had come for a confession. Is this a confession you are making to me?

— Why that question?

— To know whether I must keep your words secret.

— My words are terms of confession; I entrust them to your duty as confessor.

— Very well! said the priest, settling into the armchair that the Franciscan had with great difficulty just left to stretch himself upon the bed.

The Franciscan continued.

— There are, as I was telling you, several persons in this hostelry.

— I have heard it said.

— These persons should be eight in number.

The Jesuit made a sign that he understood.

— The first I wish to speak to, said the dying man, is a German from Vienna, and is called the Baron de Wostpur. You will do me the pleasure of going to him, and telling him that he whom he awaited has arrived.

The confessor, astonished, looked at his penitent; the confession seemed singular to him.

— Obey, said the Franciscan with the irresistible tone of command.

The good Jesuit, entirely subjugated, rose and left the room.

Once the Jesuit had gone, the Franciscan took up again the papers that a fit of fever had already once forced him to lay aside.

— Baron de Wostpur? Good! said he: ambitious, foolish, narrow.

He refolded the papers, which he pushed under his pillow.

Rapid footsteps were heard at the end of the corridor.

The confessor re-entered, followed by the Baron de Wostpur, who marched with head held high, as if it had been a question of piercing the ceiling with his plume.

Also, at the sight of this Franciscan with his dark gaze, and of this simplicity in the chamber:

— Who calls me? demanded the German.

— I! said the Franciscan.

Then, turning toward the confessor:

— Good father, he said to him, leave us alone for an instant; when Monsieur leaves, you shall return.

The Jesuit went out, and no doubt profited by this momentary exile from his dying man's room to ask the host some explanations concerning this strange penitent, who treated his confessor as one treats a valet.

The baron approached the bed and would have spoken, but with his hand the Franciscan imposed silence upon him.

— The moments are precious, said the latter hastily. You came here for the competition, did you not?

— Yes, my father.

— You hope to be elected general?

— I hope so.

— You know upon what conditions alone one may attain that high rank, which makes a man the master of kings, the equal of popes?

— Who are you, demanded the baron, to subject me to this interrogation?

— I am he whom you awaited.

— The general elector?

— I am the elected.

— You are…

The Franciscan gave him no time to finish; he extended his emaciated hand: upon his hand shone the ring of the generalship.

The baron recoiled in surprise; then, immediately, bowing with profound respect:

— What! he cried, you here, my lord? you in this poor chamber, you upon this miserable bed, you seeking and choosing the future general, that is to say your successor?

— Trouble yourself not about that, Monsieur; quickly fulfill the principal condition, which is to furnish the order with a secret of such importance that one of the greatest courts of Europe shall, through your mediation, be forever feoffed to the order. Well! have you this secret, as you promised to have it in your petition addressed to the Grand Council?

— My lord…

— But let us proceed in order… You are indeed the Baron de Wostpur?

— Yes, my lord.

— This letter is indeed from you?

The general of the Jesuits drew a paper from his packet and presented it to the baron.

The baron cast his eyes upon it, and with an affirmative sign:

— Yes, my lord, this letter is indeed from me, said he.

— And can you show me the reply made by the secretary of the Grand Council?

— Here it is, my lord.

The baron handed the Franciscan a letter bearing this simple address:

To His Excellency the Baron de Wostpur.

And containing this single phrase:

From the 15th to the 22nd of May, Fontainebleau, at the Sign of the Beau-Paon.

À M D G.

— Good! said the Franciscan, here we are in presence; speak.

— I have a body of troops composed of fifty thousand men; all the officers are won over. I am encamped upon the Danube. In four days I can overthrow the emperor, opposed, as you know, to the progress of our order, and replace him by that one of the princes of his family whom the order shall designate to us.

The Franciscan listened without giving any sign of life.

— Is that all? said he.

— There is a European revolution in my plan, said the baron.

— That will do, Monsieur de Wostpur, you shall receive the answer; return home, and be gone from Fontainebleau within a quarter of an hour.

The baron withdrew backward, and as obsequious as if he had been taking leave of that emperor whom he was about to betray.

— That is not a secret, murmured the Franciscan; it is a plot… Besides, added he after a moment of reflection, the future of Europe is no longer today in the house of Austria.

And, with a red pencil that he held in his hand, he struck from the list the name of the Baron de Wostpur.

— To the cardinal, now, said he; on the side of Spain, we must have something more serious.

Raising his eyes, he perceived the confessor who awaited his orders, submissive as a schoolboy.

— Ah! ah! said he, noticing this submission, you have spoken to the host?

— Yes, my lord, and to the physician.

— To Grisart.

— Yes.

— He is then there?

— He waits, with the promised potion.

— That is well! if need be, I shall call; now, you understand all the importance of my confession, do you not?

— Yes, my lord.

— Then go fetch me the Spanish cardinal Herrebia. Make haste. This time only, as you know of what it is about, you shall remain near me, for I feel faintness coming on.

— Should I call the physician?

— Not yet, not yet… The Spanish cardinal, that is all… Go.

Five minutes later, the cardinal entered, pale and uneasy, into the little chamber.

— I learn, my lord… stammered the cardinal.

— To the point, said the Franciscan in a failing voice.

And he showed the cardinal a letter written by the latter to the Grand Council.

— Is this your handwriting? demanded he.

— Yes; but…

— And your convocation?…

The cardinal hesitated to reply. His purple rebelled against the coarse frock of the poor Franciscan.

The dying man extended his hand and showed the ring.

The ring produced its effect, greater as the person upon whom the Franciscan exercised it was greater.

— The secret, the secret, quickly! demanded the sick man, leaning upon his confessor.

— _Coram isti?_ demanded the cardinal, uneasy.

— Speak Spanish, said the Franciscan, lending the most lively attention.

— You know, my lord, said the cardinal, continuing the conversation in Castilian, that the condition of the marriage of the infanta with the King of France is an absolute renunciation by the said infanta, as also by King Louis, of all appanage of the crown of Spain?

The Franciscan made an affirmative sign.

— It results therefrom, continued the cardinal, that the peace and the alliance between the two kingdoms depend upon the observance of this clause of the contract.

Same sign from the Franciscan.

— Not only France and Spain, said the cardinal, but Europe entire would be shaken by the unfaithfulness of one of the parties.

New movement of the head of the sick man.

— It results therefrom, continued the speaker, that he who could foresee events and give as certain that which is never but a cloud in the mind of man, that is to say the idea of good or evil to come, would preserve the world from an immense catastrophe; one would turn to the profit of the order the event divined in the very brain of him who prepares it.

— _Pronto! pronto!_ murmured the Franciscan, who grew pale and bent over the priest.

The cardinal approached the ear of the dying man.

— Well! my lord, said he, I know that the King of France has decided that, at the first pretext, a death for example, whether that of the King of Spain, or that of a brother of the infanta, France will reclaim, arms in hand, the inheritance, and I hold all prepared the political plan arranged by Louis XIV on this occasion.

— This plan? said the Franciscan.

— Here it is, said the cardinal.

— By what hand is it written?

— By my own.

— Have you nothing more to say?

— I believe I have said much, my lord, answered the cardinal.

— It is true, you have rendered a great service to the order. But how did you procure the details with the aid of which you built this plan?

— I have in my pay the low menials of the King of France, and I hold from them all the discarded papers that the chimney had spared.

— That is ingenious, murmured the Franciscan, trying to smile. Monsieur the cardinal, you shall depart from this hostelry within a quarter of an hour; answer shall be given you, go!

The cardinal withdrew.

— Call me Grisart, and go fetch me the Venetian Marini, said the sick man.

While the confessor obeyed, the Franciscan, instead of striking out the cardinal's name as he had done that of the baron, traced a cross beside that name.

Then, exhausted by the effort, he fell upon his bed murmuring the name of Doctor Grisart.

When he came to himself, he had drunk half of a potion of which the remainder waited in a glass, and he was supported by the physician, while the Venetian and the confessor stood near the door.

The Venetian went through the same formalities as his two competitors, hesitated like them at the sight of the two strangers, and, reassured by the order of the general, revealed that the pope, frightened at the power of the order, was weaving a plan of general expulsion of the Jesuits, and was practicing upon the courts of Europe to obtain their aid. He indicated the auxiliaries of the pontiff, his means of action, and designated the place in the archipelago where, by a coup de main, two cardinals adepts of the eleventh year, and consequently supreme chiefs, were to be deported with thirty-two of the principal affiliates of Rome.

The Franciscan thanked the _signor_ Marini. It was no small service rendered to the society, this denunciation of the pontifical project.

After which, the Venetian received the order to depart within a quarter of an hour, and went away radiant, as if he already held the ring, insignia of the command of the society.

But, while he withdrew, the Franciscan murmured upon his bed:

— All these men are spies or knaves, not one is a general; all have discovered a plot, not one has a secret. It is not with ruin, with war, with force that one should govern the Society of Jesus, it is with the mysterious influence given by a moral superiority. No, the man is not found, and, to crown my misfortune, God strikes me, and I die. Oh! must the society fall with me for lack of a column; must the death that awaits me devour with me the future of the order? That future which ten years of my life would have eternized, for it opens radiant and splendid, that future, with the reign of the new king!

These words half thought, half spoken, the good Jesuit listened to them with dread, as one listens to the ravings of a feverish man, while Grisart, a loftier mind, devoured them as the revelations of an unknown world into which his gaze plunged without his hand being able to reach it.

Suddenly the Franciscan raised himself.

— Let us finish, said he, death gains upon me. Oh! but a moment ago, I died tranquil, I hoped… Now I fall in despair, unless among those who remain… Grisart! Grisart, make me live one hour more!

Grisart approached the dying man and made him swallow a few drops, not of the potion that was in the glass, but of the contents of a flask that he carried about him.

— Call the Scot! cried the Franciscan; call the merchant of Bremen! Call! call! Jesus! I am dying! Jesus! I suffocate!

The confessor darted to go seek help, as if there were a human force that could lift the finger of death which weighed upon the sick man; but on the threshold of the door, he found Aramis, who, a finger upon his lips, like the statue of Harpocrates, god of silence, repelled him with a look to the back of the chamber.

The physician and the confessor, however, after consulting each other with their eyes, made a movement to thrust Aramis aside. But the latter, with two signs of the cross each made in a different fashion, nailed them both in their place.

— A chief! they murmured both.

Aramis slowly entered the chamber where the dying man struggled against the first approaches of agony.

As for the Franciscan, whether the elixir produced its effect, or whether this appearance of Aramis restored his strength, he made a movement, and, with ardent eye, half-open mouth, hair damp with sweat, he raised himself upon the bed.

Aramis felt that the air of this chamber was stifling; all the windows were closed, a fire burned in the hearth, two yellow wax candles spread in a sheet upon the brass candlesticks and heated still further the atmosphere with their thick vapor.

Aramis opened the window, and, fixing upon the dying man a gaze full of intelligence and respect:

— My lord, said he to him, I beg your pardon for arriving thus without your having sent for me, but your state frightens me, and I thought that you might be dead before having seen me, for I came only sixth upon your list.

The dying man started and looked at his list.

— You are then he whom they once called Aramis and since the Chevalier d'Herblay? You are then the Bishop of Vannes.

— Yes, my lord.

— I know you, I have seen you.

— At the last jubilee, we found ourselves together at the house of His Holiness.

— Ah! yes, that is true, I recall. And you put yourself forward?

— My lord, I heard it said that the order had need to possess a great state secret, and, knowing that through modesty you had resigned in advance your functions in favor of him who should bring this secret, I wrote that I was ready to compete, possessing alone a secret which I believe important.

— Speak, said the Franciscan; I am ready to hear you and to judge of the importance of this secret.

— My lord, a secret of the value of that which I shall have the honor to confide to you is not spoken with the word. Every idea that has once issued from the limbo of thought and manifested itself by some manifestation whatsoever belongs no longer even to him who engendered it. The word may be gathered by an attentive and hostile ear; one must not therefore sow it at hazard, for then the secret is no longer called a secret.

— How then do you count upon transmitting your secret? demanded the dying man.

Aramis with one hand signed to the physician and the confessor to withdraw, and, with the other, he extended to the Franciscan a paper covered by a double envelope.

— And writing, demanded the Franciscan, is it not more dangerous still than speech, say?

— No, my lord, said Aramis, for you will find in this envelope characters that you alone and I can understand.

The Franciscan looked at Aramis with an ever-growing astonishment.

— It is, continued the latter, the cipher that you had in 1655, and that your secretary, Juan Jujan, who is dead, could alone decipher were he to return to the world.

— You then knew this cipher?

— It is I who gave it to him.

And Aramis, bowing with a grace full of respect, advanced toward the door as if to leave.

But a gesture of the Franciscan, accompanied by a cry of summons, detained him.

— Jesus! said he; ecce homo!

Then, re-reading the paper a second time:

— Come quickly, said he, come.

Aramis drew near the Franciscan with the same calm face and the same respectful air.

The Franciscan, his arm extended, burned the paper that Aramis had given him at the candle.

Then, taking Aramis's hand and drawing him to him:

— How and by whom could you have learned such a secret? demanded he.

— By Mme de Chevreuse, the intimate friend, the confidante of the queen.

— And Mme de Chevreuse?

— She is dead.

— And others, others knew?…

— A man and a woman of the people only.

— Who were they?

— Those who had brought her up.

— What has become of them?

— Dead also… This secret burns like fire.

— And you survived?

— All the world is ignorant that I know it.

— How long have you had this secret?

— For fifteen years.

— And you kept it?

— I wished to live.

— And you give it to the order, without ambition, without return?

— I give it to the order with ambition and with return, said Aramis; for, if you live, my lord, you will make of me, now that you know me, what I can, what I ought to be.

— And as I die, cried the Franciscan, I make of you my successor… Take!

And, tearing off the ring, he passed it upon Aramis's finger.

Then, turning toward the two spectators of this scene:

— Be witnesses, said he, and attest upon occasion that, sick in body but sound in mind, I have freely and voluntarily remitted this ring, mark of omnipotence, to Mgr d'Herblay, Bishop of Vannes, whom I name my successor, and before whom, I, humble sinner, ready to appear before God, bow myself first, to give example to all.

And the Franciscan bowed indeed, while the physician and the Jesuit fell to their knees.

Aramis, growing paler than the dying man himself, successively extended his gaze over all the actors of this scene. Satisfied ambition flowed with the blood toward his heart.

— Let us make haste, said the Franciscan; that which I had to do here presses me, devours me! I shall never attain it.

— I shall do it, I, said Aramis.

— That is well, said the Franciscan.

Then, addressing the Jesuit and the physician:

— Leave us alone, said he.

Both obeyed.

— With this sign, said he, you are the man needed to move the earth; with this sign you shall overthrow; with this sign you shall build: In hoc signo vinces! Close the door, said the Franciscan to Aramis.

Aramis shot the bolts and returned near the Franciscan.

— The pope has conspired against the order, said the Franciscan; the pope must die.

— He shall die, said Aramis tranquilly.

— There is owed seven hundred thousand livres to a merchant, at Bremen, named Bonstett, who came here seeking the guarantee of my signature.

— He shall be paid, said Aramis.

— Six knights of Malta, whose names are here, have discovered, through the indiscretion of an affiliate of the eleventh year, the third mysteries; it must be known what these men have done with the secret, to recover it and extinguish it.

— It shall be done.

— Three dangerous affiliates must be sent back into Tibet to perish there; they are condemned. Here are their names.

— I shall have the sentence executed.

— Finally, there is a lady of Antwerp, great-niece of Ravaillac; she has in her hands certain papers that compromise the order. There has been in the family, for fifty-one years, a pension of fifty thousand livres. The pension is heavy; the order is not rich… To buy back the papers for a sum of money given once, or, in case of refusal, to suppress the pension… without risk.

— I shall see to it, said Aramis.

— A ship coming from Lima should have entered last week into the port of Lisbon; it is laden ostensibly with chocolate, in reality with gold. Each ingot is hidden beneath a layer of chocolate. This ship is the order's; it is worth seventeen millions of livres, you shall have it claimed: here are the bills of lading.

— Into what port shall I have it brought?

— To Bayonne.

— Saving contrary winds, within three weeks it will be there. Is that all?

The Franciscan made with his head an affirmative sign, for he could no longer speak; the blood invaded his throat and his head and burst forth from the mouth, from the nostrils, and from the eyes. The unhappy man had only time to press Aramis's hand and fell all convulsed from his bed upon the floor.

Aramis placed his hand upon the heart; the heart had ceased to beat.

In bending down, Aramis remarked that a fragment of the paper he had remitted to the Franciscan had escaped the flames.

He picked it up and burned it to the last atom.

Then, recalling the confessor and the physician:

— Your penitent is with God, said he to the confessor; he has need no longer but of prayers and of the burial of the dead. Go prepare all for a simple interment, and such as befits a poor monk… Go.

The Jesuit went out.

Then, turning toward the physician, and seeing his pale and anxious face:

— Monsieur Grisart, said he very low, empty this glass and clean it; there remains too much of that which the Grand Council had commanded you to put therein.

Grisart, stunned, terror-stricken, crushed, well-nigh fell backward.

Aramis shrugged his shoulders in sign of pity, took the glass, and emptied its contents into the ashes of the hearth.

Then he went out, carrying away the papers of the dead.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”