Читать книгу Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century - G. J. Whyte-Melville - Страница 16

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“It is good to be superior to mortal weakness,” said Malletort to himself as he re-entered his coach and drove from Bartoletti’s door. “In the human subject I cannot but observe how few emotions are conducive to happiness. That which touches the heart seems always prejudicial to the stomach. How ridiculous, how derogatory, and how uncomfortable to turn red and pale, to burst into tears, to spring at people’s throats, nay, even to feel the pulse beat, the head swim, the voice fail at a word, a look, a presence! What, then, constitutes the true well-being of man, the summum bonum, the vantage point, the grand desideratum to which all philosophy is directed? Self-command! But self-command leads to the command of others—to success, to victory, to power! and power, with none to share it, none to benefit by it, is it worth the labour of attainment? Can it be that its eminence is but like the crest of a mountain, from which the more extended the horizon the flatter and the more monotonous appears the view. It may, but what matter? Let me only get to the summit, and I can always come down again at my leisure. Basta! here we are. Now to gain a foothold on the slippery path that leads to the very top!”

The Abbé’s carriage was brought to a halt while he spoke by a post of Grey Musketeers stationed in front of the Palais-Royal. The churchman’s plain and quiet equipage had no right of entrance, and he alighted to pass through the narrow ingress left unguarded for foot-passengers. Hence he crossed a paved court, turned short into a wing of the building with which he seemed well acquainted, and stopped at the foot of a narrow staircase, guarded by one solitary sentry of the corps.

It was our acquaintance, Bras-de-Fer, beguiling the tedium of his watch by a mental review of his own adventures in love and war.

The Abbé knew everybody, and the grim Musketeer saluted his holy friend cordially enough, excusing himself, while he balanced his heavy weapon across his breast, that his orders forbade him to allow any one to pass.

“Lay down your arms, my son,” said the churchman, good-humouredly. “How your wrists must ache by supper-time! I have but three words to say to your captain, and if you will bend your tall head lower by a few inches I can give you the countersign.”

With that he whispered it in his ear, and Bras-de-Fer, again excusing himself, bade him pass on, regaining an attitude of extreme stiffness and martial severity, as if to make amends for past civility somewhat at variance with established discipline.

A green-baize door at the head of the staircase swung open to the Abbé’s push, admitting him to an ante-room, of which Captain George was the only occupant. He, too, seemed weary of his watch, which was tedious from its dull unvarying routine—void of excitement, yet entailing grave and oppressive responsibilities. His greeting to Malletort, however, was more cordial, so thought that keen observer, than is afforded by a man who merely wearies of his own society; and the Abbé was right in his general impression, only wrong in detail.

Captain George was indeed favourably affected to everybody connected, however distantly, with the house of Montmirail. So far the Abbé judged correctly enough, but he missed the true cause by a hair’s-breadth, and attributed to the magic of black eyes an effect exclusively owing to blue.

There was little leisure, however, for exchange of compliments, and the Musketeer’s solitude was to be relieved but for a few precious moments at a time.

“His Highness has already twice asked for you,” said he, in the tone of an injured man. “You had better go in at once.” So Malletort, leaving the ill-used warrior to his own companionship, passed on to an inner apartment, taking with him a stool in his hand, as was the custom, in case the interview should be protracted, and the Regent require him to sit down.

The room he entered was small, gloomy, panelled with a dark-coloured wood, octagonal in shape, relieved by very little furniture, and having another door, opposite that which admitted the visitor, concealed by heavy velvet curtains. At the solitary table, and on the single chair the apartment contained, a man was seated, writing busily, with his back to the Abbé. A general air of litter pervaded the place, and although the table was heaped with papers, several more were scattered in disorder over the floor.

The writer continued his occupation for several minutes, as if unconscious of the Abbé’s presence. Suddenly he gave a sigh of relief, pushed his chair back from the table, and looked up joyously, like a schoolboy interrupted in his task.

“You are welcome, monsieur, you are welcome,” said he, rising and pacing to and fro with short, quick steps, while Malletort performed a series of courtly and elaborate bows. “I am about wearied of figures, and I have been saying to myself, with every passing step for the last half-hour, ‘Ah! here comes my little Abbé, who confines himself exclusively to facts—my material and deep-thinking churchman, the best judge in Christendom of wine, pictures, carriages, cutlets, ankles, eyelashes, probabilities, dress, devilry, and deeds of darkness. Here are calculations of Las, to show us all how we need only be able to write our names, and so acquire boundless wealth; but the miserable Scotchman knows no more than the dead how to spend his millions. Would you believe it, my dear fellow, Vaudeville dined with him last night, and they served olives with the stewed ortolans? Olives, I tell you, with ortolans! The man must be a hog!” And the Regent wrinkled up his forehead while he spoke in a favourite grimace, that he flattered himself resembled the portraits of Henri Quatre.

He bore, indeed, a kind of spurious resemblance to that great king and gallant soldier, but the resemblance of the brach to the deer-hound, the palfrey to the war-horse, the hawk to the eagle. He made the most of it, however, such as it was; brushed his dark hair into a cluster on the top of his head, contracted the point of his nose, elongated his chin, and elevated his eyebrows, till he almost fancied himself the first Bourbon who sat on the throne of France. Nay, he even went so far as to wear his stockings and the knees of his breeches extremely tight, while the latter were gathered and puckered loosely about the waist, to approach as nearly as possible the costume in which the hero was usually portrayed.

In all the worst points of his paragon’s character he copied him to the life, only exaggerating to habitual vice the love of pleasure that was Henry’s principal weakness. As the Duke’s face was broad, high-coloured, good-humoured, nay, notwithstanding the marks it bore of his excesses, tolerably well-favoured, while his figure, though scarcely tall enough for dignity, was robust and in fair proportion, the imitation seemed, perhaps, not entirely unfaithful to its original. Both possessed in a high degree the charm of an exquisite manner; but while the King of Navarre combined with a monarch’s condescension the frank and simple bearing of a soldier, the Duke of Orleans was especially distinguished for the suavity and external ease that mark the address of an accomplished gentleman.

This prince possessed, no doubt, the germ of many good qualities, but how could the most promising seed bear fruit when it was choked up and overgrown by such rank weeds as gluttony, drunkenness, and sensuality? vices which seem to sap the energy of the mind as surely, if not so rapidly, as they destroy the vigour of the body.

Yet the Regent was gifted with a certain persuasive eloquence, a certain facility of speech and gesture, invaluable to those who have the conduct of public affairs. He possessed a faithful memory, ready wit, imperturbable good-humour, and quickness of perception in seizing the salient points of a subject, which made him appear, at least, a capable politician, if not a deep and far-seeing statesman. Neither was he wanting in that firmness which was so much required by the state of parties at the time when he assumed the Regency, and this was the more remarkable, that his nervous system could not but have been much deteriorated and deranged by the frequency and extravagance of his debauches. Meantime, we have left the Abbé bowing and the Duke grimacing at the bare idea of brown game and olives in the same stew-pan, a subject that occupied his attention for several minutes. Rousing himself after a while, he began, as usual, to detail the proceedings of the morning’s council to Malletort, who had grown by degrees, from a mere comrade of his pleasures, into the confidential and principal adviser of his schemes. It promised to be a long report, and he motioned the Abbé, who had fortunately prepared himself with a stool, to sit down. There were many complaints to make—many knots to unfasten—many interests to reconcile, but the Abbé listened patiently, and suggested remedies for each in turn.

The parliament had been refractory. Nothing could bring them to subjection but a Bed of Justice, or full assemblage of peers and representatives in presence of the young king.

The Keeper of the Seals was unreasonable. He must be forced into collision with the parliament, whom he had always held in antagonism, and they might be left to punish each other.

The Duc du Maine and Marshal de Villeroy, constant thorns in the Regent’s side, had applied for more powers, more pomp, and, worse still, more money, on the score of the young king. His Majesty must be set against his governors, and it could best be done by making a festival for him to which these would not trust his person, and from which an enforced restriction would cause the royal pupil to feel himself shamefully aggrieved. In short, conflicting interests were to be reconciled, if their disunion seemed to threaten the Government; political parties to be dissolved by a judicious apple of discord thrown in their midst at the Abbé’s instigation; and a general balance of power to be established, in which the Regent could always preponderate by lending his own weight to the scale. Altogether a dozen difficulties of statecraft were disposed of in as many minutes, and the Duke, rising from the table, pressed his hand familiarly on the confidant’s shoulder, to keep him in his seat, and exclaimed, gaily—

“They may well call me the ‘Débonnaire,’ little Abbé. Hein! There have been but two Bourbons yet who ever understood France. One was a king, and the other—well, the other is only a regent. No matter. Cric! Crac! Two snaps of the fingers, and everything fits into its place like a game at dominoes. But, little Abbé,” added the exulting politician, while his brow clouded and he forgot to look like Henri Quatre, “to govern the nation signifies but ruling men. Such matters arrange themselves. The state machine can go without a push. But I have worse complications than these. Counsel me, my dear Abbé. There is discord dire this morning throughout the women. I tell you the whole heap are at daggers drawn with one another, and my life is hardly safe amongst them all.”

Malletort smiled and shook his head. The difficulty was natural enough, but the remedy required consideration. So he opened his snuff-box.

“There is a tribe of Arabs,” he replied, “Highness, far up in the desert, of whom I have heard that their religion permits each man to marry two wives, but with the stipulation, at first sight reasonable enough, that he should live with them both in one tent. The practice of bigamy, I understand, has in that tribe so fallen into disuse as to be completely unknown.”

The Regent laughed loudly. “I believe it,” said he, “I believe it implicitly. Powers of strife! and parts of speech. A man should be blind and deaf also to endure the Parabére and the Sabran in neighbouring faubourgs, not to speak of the same tent! Ah! these Orientals understand domestic government thoroughly. The harem is a place for repose, and a noisy woman soon quits it, I believe, by the river-gate. We too have the Seine, but alas! where is the sack? I tell you, Malletort, I am tired of them both. I am tired of them all. Madame la Duchesse may be cold, pompous, stiff, contradictory, and, oh! as wearisome as a funeral! but at least she remains half the day in her own apartments, and can command herself sufficiently to behave with decency when she leaves them.”

“Madame la Duchesse,”replied the Abbé, bowing reverentially, “is an exemplary and adorable princess. She has but one fault, perhaps I should say less her fault than her misfortune—she is your Highness’s wife.”

The Débonnaire laughed again, loud and long. “Well said, little Abbé!” he exclaimed. “My fault, her misfortune. Nevertheless the crime is unpardonable—so no more of her. How shall I reconcile Madame de Sabran and Madame de Parabére? I tell you, they sup with us this very night. You make one, Abbé, of course!” Malletort bowed lower than ever. “But think of these two at enmity across my narrow table! Why the Centaurs and Lapithæ would be a love-feast compared to it. Like my ancestor of Navarre, Monsieur l’Abbé, I fear neither man nor devil, but there are some women, I honestly confess, whose anger I dare not encounter, and that is the truth!”

“I know nothing of women and their ways,” answered Malletort, humbly. “It is a science my profession and my inclinations forbid me alike to understand, but I imagine that in gallantry as in chemistry, counteracting influences are most effectual when of a cognate nature to the evil. Similia similibus curantur; and your Highness can have no difficulty, surely, in applying a thousand smiling soft-spoken antidotes to two scowling women.”

The Regent shook his head gravely. It was a subject of which he had diligently studied both theory and practice, yet found he knew little more about it than when he began.

“They are all so different,” he complained, peevishly, “and yet all so alike in their utter insensibility to reason, their perverted wilfulness in looking on impossibilities as accomplished facts. There is Madame de Sabran wants me to make her a duchess of France! ‘How can I make you a duchess of France, madame?’ said I. ‘Would you have your “mastiff,” as you call him, created a duke for your services?’ ‘He would make a better than so and so, and so and so,’ she answered, as coolly as possible, naming half-a-dozen, who it must be confessed are not one bit more respectable! That is another thing about the woman, she always contrives to have a distorted shadow of reason, like a stick in the water, on her side. It was only the other day I made him one of my chamberlains, and now she declares he ought to be given a step of rank to uphold the dignity of the office. How can you reason with such a woman as that?”

“Waste of time, Highness!” answered Malletort, composedly. “They are born not to be instructed, but admired!”

“I used to admire her more than I do now,” observed the Regent, thoughtfully. “Still the woman is amusing and witty; there is no denying it. Besides, she speaks her mind freely, and however violent the passions she puts herself in, they are over in five minutes. But what am I to do with the other? I give you the honour of a Bourbon, my friend, she has not uttered a syllable beyond ‘Yes, monsieur,’ ‘No, monsieur,’ since yesterday afternoon, when she dropped at once from the height of good-humour into a fit of impenetrable sulks.”

“Without the slightest cause, of course!” observed the Abbé.

“Without the slightest cause,” repeated the Prince, “at least that I could discover. There was indeed a slight difficulty about some flowers. I had promised her a bouquet of stephanotis for the masked ball to-night. It is rare—its smell is to me overpowering, but it is her favourite perfume. Well, my people scoured the country for half-a-dozen leagues round Paris, and none was to be procured. With you or me, Abbé, the conclusion would seem natural enough, that if the stephanotis has not yet bloomed, the stephanotis cannot yet be in flower. But to a woman—bah—such an argument is no reason at all! It is quite possible she may even refuse to accompany me to the ball to-night!”

Malletort did not think so, and his hopes, just now so buoyant, lost nothing by a suggestion which only betrayed his patron’s ignorance of the female mind.

“Ah, Highness,” he exclaimed, throwing a gleam of sympathy into his eyes, which contrasted much with their usual expression, “how completely is your condescension misjudged! how utterly your kind heart thrown away! You say truly, women are so different. These think of their own aggrandisement even while they bask in your affection. Others here at Court would throw themselves body and soul at your feet were you to-morrow changed into a simple page from Duke of Orleans and Master of France!”

“How?” exclaimed the Regent, unable to conceal that his vanity was gratified. “Do you speak from your own knowledge? Are you laughing at me? How can you possibly have found this out?”

“It is indeed a matter quite beyond my province,” answered the Abbé; “but circumstances have thrown me so frequently into the society of one of the ladies in question, that I must indeed have been blind not to perceive the truth. Excuse me, Highness, I had rather not pursue the subject any farther.”

But the Regent was not so to be put off. With all his shrewdness, he had considerable personal vanity, and but for his debaucheries, might perhaps have shown some sensibility of heart. In his mind he ran over the leading beauties of the Court, and as he had been little scrupulous in paying them attention, one and all, the riddle was perhaps the less difficult to solve. His eye sparkled, and he clapped his hands like a schoolboy, while he shouted out—

“I have it! I have it! Little Abbé, you have let the cat out of the bag. Now I know why the proudest names in France have been offered her in vain. Now I understand her defiance, her coldness, her unapproachable dignity. Do you know, my friend, what you tell me is a veritable romance, and, in return, I assure you I have never been insensible to the charms of Madame de Montmirail!”

“You are speaking of my kinswoman, Monsieur le Duc,” replied the Abbé, haughtily; “and a member of the proudest house in the kingdom. Your Highness will be good enough to reflect that I mentioned no names, and I have been too faithful a servant, I think, to deserve a gratuitous insult.”

“Pardon, my dear Abbé!” exclaimed the Regent, with an affectation of deep concern, though accepting Malletort’s protest, no doubt, at its real value. “None can respect the house of Montmirail more than I do. None can value the friendship of Abbé Malletort so much; but these women and their whims turn my poor head. What did you advise about the Parabére? I forget.”

“Dismiss her!” answered the churchman, shortly. “It will be one embarrassment the less in your Highness’s career.”

“But she is so beautiful,” whimpered the Regent. “There is not such another complexion in France. If I were to leave her, do you not think half my nobility would be mad to pay their court to her? She is so white, you see—so exceedingly white and soft. Such a skin, my dear Abbé. Such a skin!”

“Skin her then!” replied Malletort, “and make a covering of her integument for your arm-chair. It is the best advice I can offer your Highness, and what I should do myself in your case.”

Then they both laughed at the brutal jest. The one because he was in high good-humour with the prospect of his hinted conquest; the other because he had not forgotten the bouquet, of which a few inhalations could turn the whole face black; and because, reflecting on the rapid progress of his schemes, he thought it only fair that those should laugh who win.

But in order thoroughly to act his part out, he returned to business before he took his leave. “Those Lettres de Cachet!” he exclaimed, as if he had just recollected them. “Did your Highness express your views on the subject to your council?”

“I did indeed,” answered the Regent, significantly; “and the good old custom is revived by an edict. But though he who seeks finds, I think he is more sure to find who hides, and I will take care no man in France shall use them but myself.”

Then Malletort bowed himself out, well satisfied, and found Captain George in the ante-room, putting on his belts to receive the Black Musketeers, whose band could be heard playing and their arms clashing as they marched into the court to relieve guard.