Читать книгу At Odds with the Regent - Burton Egbert Stevenson - Страница 4

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It was with no little interest that I looked about me, for the salon of the Duchess du Maine was one of the most famous in France. My first impression was one of disappointment, for the scene was less striking than I had thought to find it. Groups of people were scattered here and there down the long room, and at the farther end a little court was gathered about a lady whom I did not doubt was the duchess herself. There were few other women present, a circumstance which greatly astonished me, and the men had a singular diversity of dress and manner, betokening that it was no ordinary motive which had drawn them together from so many ranks of life and so many strata of society. It needed but a glance to tell me that these were not wits and beaux, but, in Richelieu’s words, men of action. Nearly every one looked up as we entered with, as it seemed to me, a vague air of fear, but this vanished instantly when they saw that Richelieu was my companion.

“Ah, Mlle. de Launay,” said the duke to a young lady who hastened to us from the nearest group, “I trust fortune is using us as we could wish?”

“Yes, fortune is with us still, M. le Duc,” she answered, smiling brightly. “Indeed, the justice of our cause seems to have inspired an unaccustomed constancy in that fickle dame, and she has decided to stay with us to the end.”

“I hope it may be so.” And then, turning to me, “Permit me to present my friend M. de Brancas, a young man of stout heart who comes from Poitiers to seek adventure in Paris, and who, I see, has already fallen a victim to your bright eyes.”

“In faith, ’twould take a much stouter heart than mine to resist them,” I protested, bowing over the hand she gave me, “and I wager mine is not the first they have made captive.”

“Oh, but the fickleness of men!” exclaimed the girl, smiling at me not unkindly. “To-day their hearts are broken, to-morrow they are quite healed, I know not by what wondrous surgery. I believed that in the Chevalier de Rey I had at last found a constant man, but even he is failing me, for his affection is decreasing regularly in a geometrical ratio.”

“A geometrical ratio, mademoiselle?” cried Richelieu. “And pray how do you show that?”

“’Tis very easily shown,” and her eyes were sparkling with mischief. “You know it has been the custom of M. de Rey to accompany me home from the salon of Madame de Tencin on such occasions as I have been there recently, and in the course of the journey we are compelled to cross the Place des Victoires. In the first stages of his passion M. de Rey would walk me carefully around the sides of this square in order to make the journey longer, but as his affection gradually cooled he took a more direct course, until, last night, he simply traversed it in the middle. Hence I conclude that his love has diminished in the same proportion which exists between the diagonal of a square and its sides.”

“Quod erat demonstrandum!” cried Richelieu. “I have never heard a geometrical proposition explained more clearly. But come, I have a word to say to madame and must introduce my protégé to her. You will excuse us, mademoiselle?”

I should not have been sorry to remain longer where I was, but I promised myself to seek her again before the evening closed. Richelieu was kept busy bowing to right and left as we traversed the length of the room, but he did not pause, though obviously many would have been grateful for a second’s conversation with him. In a moment we reached the group at the farther end, which separated as we approached and opened a way to the duchess.

“Ah, Richelieu!” she cried, as soon as she perceived him; and holding out her hands to him, “I am glad to see you, and hope you bring good news.”

“I trust you will think it such, madame,” replied Richelieu, and he bent over her hand and kissed it.

A curious gleam illumined the gaze she bent upon him.

“You have, then, decided?” she asked, in a voice which she endeavored vainly to compose.

“I am at madame’s service now and always,” and he bowed again with a certain sternness in his face and without raising his eyes.

The duchess went red, then white, and her eyes were like twin stars. I dimly realized that she had won a great victory. An excited whispering behind me told me that others had understood better than I.

“I thank you, M. le Duc,” she said, when her emotion permitted her to speak. “Believe me, your devotion shall not be forgotten.”

“But I have forgotten something, madame,” cried Richelieu, gayly, as though putting the subject behind him. “This is my friend M. de Brancas, who has offered his sword in my service.”

“And in madame’s, should she ever have need of so feeble an instrument,” I added. I felt rather than saw the questioning glance she shot at Richelieu over my bowed head and the affirmative nod he gave in reply.

“M. de Brancas is welcome,” she answered, graciously, “and his generous offer shall be remembered. But you must excuse me, gentlemen,” she continued, turning to the group, which had withdrawn to a little distance, but which yet could hear every word that passed. “I have much to do and must leave you. M. Chancel, will you kindly tell Mlle. de Launay that I wish her to join me in the course of half an hour?”

I gazed with unfeigned interest after this remarkable woman as she walked away, for that remarkable she was I very well knew. A granddaughter of the Great Condé, she had been compelled by Louis XIV. to marry the Duke du Maine, his eldest son by Madame de Montespan, an alliance which the house of Condé had regarded as a disgrace, but which it was powerless to prevent. This disgrace had been somewhat mitigated in 1714, when the king had issued a decree legitimating the duke and declaring him competent to succeed to the throne in the failure of the legitimate line, a decree which had awakened lively dissatisfaction among the other noble houses, who were jealous of their precedence, and which had been the subject of no little comment even at Poitiers. Madame du Maine had at once taken a position commensurate with this new honor, and her salons at Sceaux and at the Tuileries were known by reputation from the Pyrenees to the Meuse.

I had seen at a glance that she was not beautiful. Her figure was almost infantile in its proportions, and a slightly deformed shoulder destroyed its symmetry. Her mouth was large and her other features irregular, but this was more than counter-balanced by the beauty and brilliancy of her eyes. I, who had seen them blaze under the magic of Richelieu’s words, would certainly never forget them. It was Richelieu’s voice which aroused me from my thoughts.

“I see the people interest you, de Brancas,” he said, “and well they may, for it is seldom indeed that one room contains so many worth attention. That gentleman whom the duchess has just sent on an errand to Mlle. de Launay is Lagrange Chancel, whose philippics have driven so many thorns into the side of the regent. For myself, I confess I deem the sword a better weapon of warfare than the pen, but each has its uses. That man over there in black and with the air of a bourgeois is de Mesmes, president of parliament, through whom we hope to be able to do great things.”

“Great things?” I asked. “I do not understand, monsieur.”

“You will in time,” he answered, smiling. “Till then have patience. Yonder handsome churchman is the Cardinal de Polignac, who affects to be absorbed in a new Latin poem, but who is really interested only in politics, and in whom I have little faith. There is Malesieu, madame’s tutor, who was wont to bore us nearly to death reading the tragedies of Sophocles when the Honey Bees met at Sceaux. There is the Abbé Chaulieu, whose age cannot dim the brightness of his wit nor lessen the lightness of his heart. And there is Saint Aulaire, whose eighty years do not prevent him entertaining a hopeless passion for the duchess, but who knows nothing of politics and cares less, and who, consequently, is no longer in favor.”

“But, monsieur,” I protested, “even I can see that this is no ordinary salon. These are not wits nor poets. They are not disputing. They are not even gossiping. They are talking in undertones. They have an air of I know not what,—of plotting, of intrigue,—some of them even of fear.”

“You have come dangerously near the truth, my friend,” and Richelieu glanced about to see that no one heard. “They do intrigue, they are plotting, and some of them do fear.”

“But what are they plotting? Whom do they fear?” I questioned, determined to get to the bottom of this riddle if I could.

Again Richelieu glanced about him, and at that moment Polignac touched him on the arm.

“May I have a word with you, M. le Duc?” he asked.

“Certainly,” answered Richelieu, though I saw he was not pleased at the interruption. “Excuse me a moment, de Brancas,” and the two stepped to one side, engaged in earnest conversation. I glanced about me, and seeing that Mlle. de Launay was making her adieux preparatory to joining her mistress, hastened to her side.

“You are already famous, M. de Brancas,” she cried, as I approached her. “Richelieu has dropped a word of it. Believe me, it is not every one who cares to cross swords with the rogues of Cartouche, or who values his purse more highly than his head. Perhaps you had some keepsake in yours, monsieur, which made it doubly precious,” she added, mischievously.

“No, mademoiselle,” I answered; “and yet, I was loath to part with it, else I should have had no proper receptacle in which to place that ribbon which you wear in your hair and which you are going to give me presently.”

“Oh, am I?” she exclaimed, as her hand mechanically sought her hair and she looked into my eyes. “Well, take it,” and she handed me the ribbon. “Such audacity deserves reward. No one would for a moment suspect you were from the provinces, M. de Brancas,” she added.

“Indeed, mademoiselle, I forget it myself when you are speaking,” I answered, and she laughed merrily and bade me adieu, while I placed the ribbon in my purse, simulating a passion which I confess I did not feel.

But I watched her pass across the room as I had watched the duchess, for both were unusual women, and the maid’s fame was, if anything, greater than that of the mistress. Mlle. de Launay possessed little beauty, as I had seen for myself, and she was of obscure birth, the daughter of a painter, it was said, of whom no one had ever heard. But the abbess of a convent in Normandy had discovered the child somewhere—beside her drunken father in a bottle-house, most likely—and had taken a liking to her and given her a refuge in the convent. She had received a brilliant education, and oddly enough, had preferred the exact sciences to belles-lettres. Of her predilection for geometry I had already had proof. But the abbess died and she had been forced to leave the convent. Through the influence of friends she had secured the position of femme du chambre to Madame du Maine, which she had been compelled to accept to keep from starving, and it was from that position that she had risen, by sheer force of character, to be one of the brightest lights of the gay court at Sceaux. Every girl in the kingdom knew the story and had resolved to profit by it, but few had the wit to do so. It was again Richelieu who broke in upon my thoughts.

“A remarkable woman, is she not, monsieur?” he asked, following my eyes. “Few have yet measured the height of her talents, and no one has sounded the depth of her heart. But come, let us go. You are to lodge with me to-night, for I have many things to say to you.”

“Nothing would please me more, M. le Duc,” I answered, warmly, thankful for any chance which postponed my return to the Rue Bailleul and delighted at the prospect of entering the Hotel de Richelieu. He led the way towards the door, and as he repassed the people scattered about the room I remarked a new expression on their faces. They turned to look at him as they had done before, and not one failed to return his bow, but their manner was not the same. It seemed to combine respect and contempt, admiration and disapproval. The duke appeared not to notice it, yet he avoided any pretext for stopping, as though he did not wish to enter into a conversation which might easily become disagreeable. It was evident to me, however, that the hidden meaning of the words which he had exchanged with the duchess was known to all the persons in the room, and that they knew not whether to blame or praise. I, also, was to learn their meaning before the night was out.

We paused in the vestibule, Richelieu wrapping his cloak about his face and pulling his hat down over his eyes. He bade me do the same, and in another moment we were in the street. We mingled quickly with the crowd which, even in winter, thronged the gardens of the Tuileries, and turning towards the river, crossed it by the Pont Royal.