Part 16

**Chapter 16**

Upon leaving the convent, he entered the magistracy, becoming president of the mortier in his uncle's place, embraced the Cardinal's party — which proved no small sagacity — became Chancellor, served His Eminence zealously in his hatred against the Queen Mother and his vengeance against Anne of Austria; spurred on the judges in the Chalais affair, encouraged the experiments of M. de Laffemas, the great hangman of France; and finally, invested with all the Cardinal's confidence — a confidence he had so well earned — he came to receive the singular commission for the execution of which he now presented himself before the Queen.

The Queen was still standing when he entered, but scarcely had she seen him than she sat down again in her armchair and made a sign to her women to sit back down on their cushions and stools, and, with a tone of supreme haughtiness:

"What do you desire, Monsieur?" asked Anne of Austria, "and with what purpose do you present yourself here?"

"To make, in the King's name, Madame, and saving all the respect I have the honour of owing to Your Majesty, an exact search among your papers."

"What, Monsieur! A search among my papers... mine! But this is an unworthy thing!"

"Pardon me, Madame, but in this circumstance I am but the instrument the King uses. Did His Majesty not just leave here, and did he not himself invite you to prepare for this visit?"

"Search then, Monsieur; I am a criminal, it appears: Estefania, give me the keys to my writing desk and my secretaries."

The Chancellor made a pretence of searching the furniture, but he knew well that it was not in a piece of furniture that the Queen would have placed the important letter she had written that day.

When the Chancellor had opened and closed the drawers of the secretary twenty times, it was necessary, despite any hesitation he might feel — it was necessary, I say, to come to the conclusion of the affair: that is, to search the Queen herself. The Chancellor therefore advanced towards Anne of Austria, and with a very perplexed tone and a very embarrassed air:

"And now," he said, "it remains for me to make the principal search."

"Which one?" asked the Queen, who did not understand, or rather who would not understand.

"His Majesty is certain that a letter was written by you today; he knows it has not yet been sent to its address. This letter is found neither in your table nor in your secretary, and yet this letter is somewhere."

"Will you dare to lay hands on your Queen?" said Anne of Austria, drawing herself up to her full height and fixing upon the Chancellor her eyes, whose expression had become almost threatening.

"I am a faithful subject of the King, Madame; and whatever His Majesty commands, I shall do."

"Well, it is true," said Anne of Austria, "and M. le Cardinal's spies have served him well. I wrote a letter today; that letter has not been sent. The letter is there."

And the Queen brought her beautiful hand to her bodice.

"Then give me that letter, Madame," said the Chancellor.

"I will give it only to the King, Monsieur," said Anne.

"If the King had wished that letter to be remitted to him, Madame, he would have asked for it himself. But, I repeat to you, it is I whom he charged to reclaim it from you; and if you would not give it up..."

"Well?"

"It is still I whom he charged to take it from you."

"What, what do you mean?"

"That my orders go far, Madame, and that I am authorized to seek the suspect paper on the person of Your Majesty herself."

"What horror!" cried the Queen.

"Be so gracious, therefore, Madame, to act more easily."

"This conduct is of an infamous violence; do you know that, Monsieur?"

"The King commands, Madame; excuse me."

"I will not suffer it; no, no, rather die!" cried the Queen, in whom the imperious blood of the Spaniard and the Austrian rebelled.

The Chancellor made a deep bow, then, with the very evident intention of not retreating one step in the accomplishment of the commission with which he had been charged, and as a torturer's assistant might have done in the torture chamber, he approached Anne of Austria, from whose eyes one saw instantly gush tears of rage.

The Queen was, as we have said, of great beauty.

The commission could therefore pass for a delicate one, and the King had reached, through force of jealousy against Buckingham, the point of no longer being jealous of anyone.

No doubt Chancellor Séguier sought at that moment with his eyes the cord of the famous bell; but, not finding it, he resigned himself and reached his hand towards the place where the Queen had admitted the paper to be.

Anne of Austria stepped back, so pale one would have said she was about to die; and, supporting herself with her left hand, so as not to fall, on a table which stood behind her, she drew with her right a paper from her bosom and held it out to the Keeper of the Seals.

"There, Monsieur, here is that letter," cried the Queen, in a broken and trembling voice, "take it, and deliver me from your odious presence."

The Chancellor, who on his side trembled with an emotion easy to conceive, took the letter, bowed to the ground, and withdrew.

Scarcely had the door closed behind him than the Queen fell half-fainting into the arms of her women.

The Chancellor went to carry the letter to the King without having read a single word of it. The King took it with a trembling hand, looked for the address, which was missing, became very pale, opened it slowly, then, seeing by the first words that it was addressed to the King of Spain, he read it very rapidly.

It was an entire plan of attack against the Cardinal. The Queen invited her brother and the Emperor of Austria to pretend, wounded as they were by Richelieu's policy — whose eternal preoccupation was the abasement of the House of Austria — to declare war on France and to impose as a condition of peace the dismissal of the Cardinal: but of love, there was not a single word in all that letter.

The King, overjoyed, inquired whether the Cardinal was still at the Louvre. He was told that His Eminence was waiting, in the working cabinet, for His Majesty's orders.

The King immediately went to him.

"Here, Duc," he said, "you were right, and it is I who was wrong; all the intrigue is political, and there was no question whatever of love in this letter, which here it is. In exchange, there is much question of you."

The Cardinal took the letter and read it with the greatest attention; then, when he had reached the end, he read it a second time.

"Well, Your Majesty," he said, "you see how far my enemies go: they threaten you with two wars, if you do not dismiss me. In your place, in truth, Sire, I would yield to such powerful instances, and it would be on my side with a veritable happiness that I would retire from affairs."

"What are you saying there, Duc?"

"I say, Sire, that my health is failing in these excessive struggles and these eternal labours. I say that, according to all probability, I will not be able to sustain the fatigues of the siege of La Rochelle, and that it is better for you to appoint either M. de Condé, or M. de Bassompierre, or indeed some valiant man whose profession it is to lead war, and not myself, who am a churchman and whom they constantly divert from my vocation to apply me to things for which I have no aptitude. You will be happier domestically, Sire, and I do not doubt that you will be greater abroad."

"Monsieur le Duc," said the King, "I understand; be calm; all those who are named in this letter shall be punished as they deserve, and the Queen herself."

"What are you saying there, Sire? God forbid that for my sake the Queen should suffer the slightest vexation! she has always believed me her enemy, Sire, although Your Majesty can attest that I have always warmly taken her part, even against yourself. Oh! if she were betraying Your Majesty's honour, that would be another matter, and I would be the first to say: 'No mercy, Sire, no mercy for the guilty one!' Fortunately it is nothing of the kind, and Your Majesty has just received new proof of it."

"That is true, Monsieur le Cardinal," said the King, "and you were right, as always; but the Queen nonetheless deserves all my anger."

"It is you, Sire, who have incurred hers; and truly, if she were to sulk seriously with Your Majesty, I would understand it; Your Majesty has treated her with severity!..."

"It is thus I will always treat my enemies and yours, Duc, however highly placed they may be and whatever peril I run in acting severely with them."

"The Queen is my enemy, but she is not yours, Sire; on the contrary, she is a devoted, submissive, and irreproachable wife; allow me, therefore, Sire, to intercede for her with Your Majesty."

"Let her humble herself then, and let her return to me first!"

"On the contrary, Sire, set the example; it was you who were first at fault, since it was you who suspected the Queen."

"I, return first?" said the King; "never!"

"Sire, I beseech you."

"Besides, how could I return first?"

"By doing something you know would please her."

"And what is that?"

"Give a ball; you know how the Queen loves dancing; I assure you her resentment will not hold out against such an attention."

"Monsieur le Cardinal, you know I do not like worldly pleasures."

"The Queen will only be the more grateful, since she knows your antipathy for this pleasure; besides, it will be an occasion for her to put on those beautiful diamond studs you gave her the other day on her name day, and which she has not yet had time to wear."

"We shall see, Monsieur le Cardinal, we shall see," said the King, who, in his joy at finding the Queen guilty of a crime about which he cared little, and innocent of a fault which he greatly feared, was quite ready to be reconciled with her; "we shall see, but, upon my honour, you are too indulgent."

"Sire," said the Cardinal, "leave severity to ministers; indulgence is the royal virtue; use it, and you will find you do well by it."

Whereupon the Cardinal, hearing the clock strike eleven, bowed deeply, asking the King's leave to retire, and begging him to be reconciled with the Queen.

Anne of Austria, who, following the seizure of her letter, was expecting some reproach, was greatly astonished the next day to see the King making attempts at reconciliation with her. Her first movement was repulsive; her woman's pride and her Queen's dignity had both been so cruelly offended that she could not so easily come around at the first blow; but, overcome by the counsel of her women, she finally appeared to begin to forget. The King profited by this first moment of return to tell her that he shortly intended to give a fête.

A fête was such a rare thing for the poor Anne of Austria that at this announcement, as the Cardinal had thought, the last trace of her resentment disappeared, if not from her heart, at least from her face. She asked what day this fête was to take place, but the King replied that he must confer with the Cardinal on that point.

Indeed, each day the King asked the Cardinal at what period this fête would take place, and each day the Cardinal, under some pretext or other, put off fixing it.

Ten days thus elapsed.

On the eighth day after the scene we have related, the Cardinal received a letter, postmarked London, which contained only these few lines:

"I have them; but I cannot leave London, as I lack money; send me five hundred pistoles, and four or five days after receiving them, I shall be in Paris."

The very day the Cardinal had received this letter, the King addressed him his habitual question.

Richelieu counted on his fingers and said softly to himself:

"She will arrive, she says, four or five days after receiving the money; it takes four or five days for the money to go, four or five days for her to return, that makes ten days; now let us allow for contrary winds, ill chances, women's weaknesses, and let us put that at twelve days."

"Well, Monsieur le Duc," said the King, "have you calculated?"

"Yes, Sire: we are today the 20th of September; the aldermen of the city give a fête on the 3rd of October. That will arrange itself marvellously, for you will not appear to be making advances towards the Queen."

Then the Cardinal added:

"By the way, Sire, don't forget to tell Her Majesty, on the eve of that fête, that you wish to see how the diamond studs become her."

**Chapter 17: The Bonacieux Household**

This was the second time the Cardinal had returned to this point about the diamond studs with the King. Louis XIII was therefore struck by this insistence, and thought that this recommendation concealed a mystery.

More than once the King had been humiliated that the Cardinal, whose police — without yet having attained the perfection of the modern police — was excellent, should be better informed than himself of what passed in his own household. He hoped therefore, in a conversation with Anne of Austria, to draw some light from this conversation and then return near His Eminence with some secret that the Cardinal might or might not know, which, in either case, would raise him infinitely in the eyes of his minister.

He therefore went to find the Queen, and, according to his habit, approached her with new threats against those who surrounded her. Anne of Austria bowed her head, let the torrent flow without answering, hoping that it would finally stop; but this was not what Louis XIII wanted. Louis XIII wanted a discussion from which some light might spring, convinced as he was that the Cardinal had some ulterior motive and was plotting some terrible surprise such as His Eminence knew how to devise. He arrived at this goal by his persistence in accusing.

"But," cried Anne of Austria, weary of these vague attacks, "but, Sire, you do not tell me all that you have in your heart. What then have I done? Come, what crime have I committed? It is impossible that Your Majesty should make all this noise about a letter written to my brother."

The King, attacked in his turn so directly, did not know what to answer; he thought that this was the moment to place the recommendation he was only to make on the eve of the fête.

"Madame," he said with majesty, "there will shortly be a ball at the Hôtel de Ville; I intend that, to do honour to our brave aldermen, you should appear there in ceremonial dress, and above all adorned with the diamond studs I gave you for your fête. This is my answer."

The answer was terrible. Anne of Austria believed that Louis XIII knew everything, and that the Cardinal had obtained from him this long dissimulation of seven or eight days, which was moreover in his character. She became excessively pale, rested upon a console her hand of admirable beauty, which seemed then a hand of wax, and looking at the King with frightened eyes, she answered not a single syllable.

"You hear, Madame," said the King, who enjoyed this embarrassment in all its extent, but without guessing its cause, "you hear?"

"Yes, Sire, I hear," stammered the Queen.

"You will appear at this ball?"

"Yes."

"With your studs?"

"Yes."

The Queen's paleness increased still more, if possible; the King perceived it, and enjoyed it with that cold cruelty which was one of the bad sides of his character.

"Then it is agreed," said the King, "and that was all I had to say to you."

"But what day will this ball take place?" asked Anne of Austria.

Louis XIII felt instinctively that he should not answer this question, the Queen having asked it in an almost dying voice.

"But very shortly, Madame," he said; "but I do not precisely recall the date of the day; I will ask the Cardinal."

"It is the Cardinal, then, who announced this fête to you?" cried the Queen.

"Yes, Madame," replied the King, astonished; "but why that?"

"It is he who told you to invite me to appear there with these studs?"

"That is to say, Madame..."

"It is he, Sire, it is he!"

"Well, what matter whether it be he or I? Is there a crime in this invitation?"

"No, Sire."

"Then you will appear?"

"Yes, Sire."

"That is well," said the King, retiring, "that is well; I count on it."

The Queen made a curtsey, less out of etiquette than because her knees gave way beneath her.

The King departed enchanted.

"I am lost," murmured the Queen, "lost, for the Cardinal knows everything, and it is he who pushes the King, who knows nothing yet, but who will know all soon. I am lost! My God! my God! my God!"

She knelt upon a cushion and prayed, her head buried between her trembling arms.

Indeed, the position was terrible. Buckingham had returned to London; Mme de Chevreuse was at Tours. More watched than ever, the Queen felt obscurely that one of her women was betraying her, without being able to say which one. La Porte could not leave the Louvre. She had not a soul in the world to trust.

And so, in the presence of the misfortune that threatened her and the abandonment that was hers, she burst into sobs.

"Can I then be of no use to Your Majesty?" suddenly said a voice full of sweetness and pity.

The Queen turned sharply, for there was no mistaking the expression of that voice: it was a friend who spoke thus.

Indeed, at one of the doors that opened into the Queen's apartment appeared the pretty Mme Bonacieux; she was occupied in arranging dresses and linen in a cabinet when the King had entered; she could not leave, and had heard everything.

The Queen uttered a piercing cry at finding herself surprised, for in her trouble she did not at first recognize the young woman who had been given to her by La Porte.

"Oh! fear nothing, Madame," said the young woman, clasping her hands and weeping herself at the Queen's anguish; "I belong to Your Majesty body and soul, and however far I may be from her, however inferior my position, I believe I have found a means of delivering Your Majesty from her trouble."

"You! O Heaven! you!" cried the Queen; "but come, look me in the face. I am betrayed on all sides; can I trust you?"

"Oh! Madame!" cried the young woman, falling to her knees; "upon my soul, I am ready to die for Your Majesty!"

This cry came from the bottom of the heart, and, like the first, there was no mistaking it.

"Yes," continued Mme Bonacieux, "yes, there are traitors here; but, by the holy name of the Virgin, I swear that no one is more devoted than I to Your Majesty. These studs which the King asks for again, you gave them to the Duke of Buckingham, did you not? These studs were enclosed in a little rosewood box which he held under his arm? Do I mistake? Is it not that?"

"Oh my God! my God!" murmured the Queen, whose teeth chattered with fright.

"Well, these studs," continued Mme Bonacieux, "must be got back."

"Yes, no doubt, they must be," cried the Queen; "but how to do it, how to manage it?"

"Someone must be sent to the Duke."

"But who?... who?... whom can I trust?"

"Trust in me, Madame; do me this honour, my Queen, and I will find the messenger, I!"

"But you must write!"

"Oh! yes. That is indispensable. Two words from the hand of Your Majesty and your private seal."

"But these two words would be my condemnation. It would mean divorce, exile!"

"Yes, if they fell into infamous hands! But I answer that these two words shall be delivered to their address."

"Oh my God! I must then trust my life, my honour, my reputation into your hands!"

"Yes! yes, Madame, you must, and I will save all that, I!"

"But how? at least tell me how."

"My husband was set free two or three days ago; I have not yet had time to see him again. He is a brave and honest man who has neither hatred nor love for anyone. He will do what I wish: he will set off upon an order from me, without knowing what he carries, and he will deliver Your Majesty's letter, without even knowing that it is from Your Majesty, to the address it indicates."

The Queen seized the two hands of the young woman with a passionate impulse, looked at her as if to read to the bottom of her heart, and seeing only sincerity in her beautiful eyes, she embraced her tenderly.

"Do this," she cried, "and you will have saved my life, you will have saved my honour!"

"Oh! do not exaggerate the service I have the happiness of rendering you; I have nothing to save for Your Majesty, who is only the victim of perfidious plots."

"It is true, it is true, my child," said the Queen, "and you are right."

"Give me then this letter, Madame; time presses."

The Queen ran to a small table on which were ink, paper, and pens: she wrote two lines, sealed the letter with her seal, and gave it to Mme Bonacieux.

"And now," said the Queen, "we forget one necessary thing."

"Which?"

"Money."

Mme Bonacieux blushed.

"Yes, that is true," she said, "and I will confess to Your Majesty that my husband..."

"Your husband has none, that is what you mean to say."

"Yes, he has some, but he is very miserly, that is his fault. However, let not Your Majesty worry; we will find means..."

"But I have none either," said the Queen (those who will read the Memoirs of Mme de Motteville will not be astonished at this answer); "but wait."

Anne of Austria ran to her jewel case.

"Here," she said, "is a ring of great value, it is said; it came from my brother the King of Spain, it is mine and I can dispose of it. Take this ring and turn it into money, and let your husband depart."

"Within an hour you shall be obeyed."

"You see the address," added the Queen, speaking so low that her words could scarcely be heard: "To my Lord Duke of Buckingham, London."

"The letter shall be delivered to himself."

"Generous child!" cried Anne of Austria.

Mme Bonacieux kissed the Queen's hands, hid the paper in her bosom, and disappeared with the lightness of a bird.

Ten minutes later she was at home. As she had told the Queen, she had not seen her husband since his release; she was therefore ignorant of the change that had taken place in him with regard to the Cardinal — a change that flattery and money from His Eminence had wrought, and that two or three visits from the Comte de Rochefort, who had become Bonacieux's best friend, had since corroborated — Rochefort having made him believe, without much difficulty, that no guilty feeling had brought about his wife's abduction, but that it was only a political precaution.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”