by Pierre Pevel
‘Francois could not reveal more than that,’ the marquis explained. ‘Knowing that he was bound to secrecy, I did not ask any questions. Indeed, he probably told me more than he ought to have done . . . But it was precisely because of this that I suspected it was an important matter and one which was causing him great concern. And I understood just how accurate my suspicions were when I learned that, on the eve of his departure, Francois spent a long while praying at his brother’s tomb . . .’
Visibly overcome by emotion, d’Aubremont fell silent.
‘Since then,’ said La Fargue, taking up the account from his friend, ‘the chevalier has not sent any news. And as for the enquiries that the marquis has recently made of the Sisters of Saint Georges, they have yielded no results. He has received no answers. Or very evasive ones.’
‘It’s always the same closed doors, the same silences and the same lies,’ said d’Aubremont in a voice vibrant with contained anger. ‘Because I know they are lying. Or at least hiding something from me . . . But don’t I have the right to know what has become of Francois?’
Agnes gazed deeply into the eyes of this old gentleman who had already lost one son and now feared for the life of the second.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You have the right.’
‘Of course,’ the captain of the Blades pointed out, ‘it would be fruitless to call on the cardinal . . .’
‘. . . since the Mother Superior General of the Chatelaines is his cousin,’ the young baronne concluded for him.
‘And as for speaking directly to the king . . .’
‘As a last recourse only!’ decreed the marquis. ‘Kings are to be served, not solicited. Besides, what would I say to him?’
There was a moment of silence.
Agnes turned to La Fargue who, without pressuring her to do anything, waited for her to come to a decision.
‘Monsieur,’ she said to the marquis, ‘I can promise you nothing. But since my novitiate I have kept up several acquaintances among the Sisters of Saint Georges. I will go see them and perhaps I can obtain the answers you are seeking.’
D’Aubremont gave her a smile of sincere gratitude.
‘Thank you, madame.’
‘However, do not harbour any great hopes for I do not—’
‘It would be enough to know that my son is still alive, madame. Just so long as he is still alive . . .’
Immediately after the marquis d’Aubremont took his leave, Agnes ordered a horse to be saddled for her. She would have to make haste indeed in order to reach her destination before nightfall. La Fargue joined her in the stable while Andre finished preparing Vaillante, the fiery young baronne’s favourite mare.
‘I know how much this costs you, Agnes.’
They stood side by side, watching the groom busying himself with her mount.
The young woman nodded lightly.
‘I know what it costs you to resume contact under these circumstances with the White Ladies,’ La Fargue continued. ‘And I wanted to thank you.’
Because they dressed entirely in white, ‘White Ladies’ was one of the nicknames given to the Sisters of Saint Georges. They were also known as the ’Chatelaines‘, after their founder, Saint Marie de Chastel.
‘No need to thank me, captain.’
‘Of course, the marquis cannot know how great a favour you are doing him, but—’
‘The Blades owe him this service at least, don’t you think?’
‘True.’
Out in the courtyard, one of the horses Almades still held by the bridle snorted.
‘I must go to the Palais-Cardinal,’ La Fargue said. ‘Have a safe journey, Agnes.’
‘Thank you, captain. I’ll be back tomorrow.’
The duchesse de Chevreuse had been born Marie de Rohan-Montbazon.
In 1617, at the age of fifteen, she married Charles de Luynes, the marquis d’Albert. Twenty-two years older than her, at the time Luynes enjoyed the king’s favours and accumulated responsibilities, wealth and honours, despite his mediocre intelligence. Soon appointed superintendent of the queen’s household herself, the young, beautiful and joyful marquise de Luynes knew how to please Anne d’Autriche, who was already growing bored with life at the French court. A sincere friendship grew up between them, but the king began to turn away from his wife and he deemed that Marie had a bad influence upon her. It was true that the superintendent was by no means unsociable and willingly partook in the pleasures of life. And while her husband was promoted to due and then supreme commander of the royal armies, she became the mistress of the youngest son of the due de Guise, Claude de Lorraine, prince de Joinville and due de Chevreuse. Luynes died in 1622, during the course of a military campaign in the south of France against the Huguenots when Marie was twenty years old. Exposed to the hostility of Louis XIII, she nevertheless continued her duties with respect to the queen. But one evening, while she led her friend on a run through the halls of the Louvre as a game, Anne d’Autriche fell and, three days later, she suffered a miscarriage. This tragic loss provoked the king’s wrath. He blamed Marie, pronounced the young widow’s disgrace and banished her from the royal court.
Defying social conventions, Marie married the duc de Chevreuse barely four months after Luynes’s death. Louis XIII was opposed to their union. But the due’s loyalty, his glorious military record and his blood ties with the I louse of
Lorraine persuaded the king to forgive him and, shortly after, to allow the duchesse to rejoin the queen’s entourage. From that position, she then embarked on one of the most notorious careers as a schemer — and as a lover — in the history of France. In the space of only a few years she pushed the queen into the arms of the duke of Buckingham and very nearly succeeded in causing a great scandal. She opposed the marriage of the king’s brother, Gaston, to mademoiselle de Montpensier. She took part in a plot against the cardinal that was barely foiled and was implicated in another against the king himself. Her life was saved only by her status as a foreign princess. Condemned to retire to her country holdings, she fled to Lorraine and, without giving up any of her other pleasures, she continued to involve herself in conspiracies. After the siege of La Rochelle, England negotiated a peace treaty with France and interceded on behalf of the duchesse. She thus returned to France after a year in exile, surrounded by a certain diabolical aura, thirty years old but not ready to settle down. But she was either lucky enough or smart enough not to take part in the revolt that started in the summer of 1632 in Languedoc, which ended with the victory of the royal troops and a death sentence for the duc de Montmorency.
In Paris, the duchesse de Chevreuse lived in a magnificent mansion on rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, between the Louvre and the Tuileries. Remodelled for her by one of the most celebrated architects of the day, this splendid dwelling was composed of a central building flanked by two square pavilions, from which two wings extended to frame the courtyard. The latter was closed off a by third, lower wing, which contained a monumental gate decorated with pilasters and sculptures. The lateral wings contained the facilities that were indispensable to the life any great household: kitchens, offices, servants’ quarters, stables and coach houses. As for the central building, it housed the private apartments and the halls, a string of grand rooms that were used only on social occasions. To the rear, a terrace overlooked an exquisite garden.
The Hotel de Chevreuse was a veritable palace where the duchesse gave superb parties which tended to take a licentious turn. It was also a den of intrigue into which Arnaud de Laincourt, on this very afternoon, was determined to enter.
‘Come in, monsieur! Come in!’ called out madame de Chev-reuse in a light-hearted tone.
Laincourt hesitated for a brief instant, then doffed his felt hat and crossed the threshold of the doorway that had been opened for him.
The room into which he had been admitted was part of the duchesse’s private apartments. The furniture, the parquet floor, the wood panelling, the draperies, the gilt work, the painted ceilings, the o
rnaments and the framed canvases were all in the best possible taste and evidence of an extraordinary luxury. The air in the room was perfumed. As for the atmosphere, it was feverish. The chambermaids and wardrobe mistresses were engaged in whirling ballet with the duchesse at its centre. Sitting before a mirror that was held out for her, she had her back turned to the door and was giving precise instructions whose results she immediately verified in her reflection. It was question of adding a hint of rouge here, a pinch of powder there; of arranging a few stray locks that did not fall perfectly; of bringing another necklace and, upon further thought, changing the earrings which simply wouldn’t do.
Believing himself forgotten, Laincourt was seeking a discreet means of recalling his presence to mind when madame de Chevreuse, her back still turned, said:
‘You must forgive me, monsieur, for receiving you so poorly.’
‘Madame, if my visit is ill-timed—’
‘Not at all, monsieur! Not at all ... ! Stay.’
Laincourt thus remained, and waited.
Now the great matter was the perfect tilt of the duchesse’s hat, the finishing touch to a ritual whose importance the young man could only guess at and which he witnessed with a certain degree of embarrassment.
‘You were spoken of very highly to me, monsieur.’
‘I was?’
‘Does the idea displease you?’
‘Not at all, madame. But since I do not know who holds me in such good esteem as to speak—’
‘Well then, first of all there is the duc. But it is true that my husband looks favourably upon any who come from Lorraine as he does. You are from Lorraine, are you not, monsieur?’
‘In fact, I—’
‘Yes, yes . . . However, it is monsieur de Chateauneuf above all who praises your merits . . .’
Charles de l’Aubespine, the marquis de Chateauneuf, was the kingdom’s Keeper of the Seals, the highest-ranking figure in the State after the king and Cardinal Richelieu.
‘Monsieur de Chateauneuf is one of my most excellent friends. Did you know that?’
With these words, and after a final glance in the mirror, the duchesse rose and turned to Laincourt. He was immediately struck by her beauty, her tawny hair, her milky complexion, the flawless oval of her face, the sparkle of her eyes and the perfection of her carmine mouth. She had, moreover, an air of joyful boldness that was a provocation to the senses.
‘But I must take my leave,’ she said as if in regret. ‘It has already been half an hour since the queen sent word that she wished to see me at the Louvre . . .’ She extended her hand to be kissed. ‘Come back this evening, monsieur. Or rather, no, come back tomorrow. That’s it, tomorrow. At the same time. You will, won’t you?’
Laincourt would have liked to reply, but she had already left him standing there.
She disappeared through a door, abandoning the young man in a cloud of powder and perfume, exposed to the somewhat mocking gazes of the chambermaids . . .
Upon his return from the Palais-Cardinal, La Fargue found Leprat exercising alone in the fencing room. The musketeer was practising lunges in particular in order to limber up the thigh which had been wounded a month earlier and still remained a little stiff. Wearing boots, breeches and a shirt, he was sweating and did not spare his efforts, sometimes pressing an imaginary attack, then stepping back into position and beginning the exercise all over again.
He broke off when he saw his captain enter.
‘I need to speak with you, Antoine.’
‘Of course.’
‘In my office, please.’
Still catching his breath, Leprat nodded, re-sheathed his white rapier and grabbed a towel to wipe the sweat from his face and the back of his neck while La Fargue went into his private office. He joined the old gentleman there as he finished putting on his doublet and, with his brow still damp, he asked:
‘What is it, captain?’
‘Sit down.’
The musketeer obeyed and waited. Behind his desk, La Fargue appeared to be choosing his words, before he asked:
‘How is your thigh?’
‘It still causes me an occasional jolt of pain, but that’s all.’
‘That fight with the dracs was a bit of an ordeal, wasn’t it?’ the captain said, only half-jokingly.
‘That it was,’ agreed Leprat.
A silence fell, and stretched . . .
Until finally, the captain of the Blades announced gravely:
‘I have a mission for you, Antoine. A particularly dangerous mission that you will be free to refuse once I have laid it all out for you. I would understand in that case. Everyone would understand . . .’
More intrigued than worried, the musketeer gazed back with narrowed eyes.
‘But first of all, read this,’ said La Fargue, holding out a handwritten sheet.
“What is it?‘
‘The transcription of the encoded letter we found on Gueret’s body.’
Leprat frowned as he struggled to read Laincourt’s handwriting.
The letter began with salutations addressed by Marie de Medicis to madame de Chevreuse. Then, in a pompous style, the queen mother assured the duchesse of her friendship and wished her success in all her endeavours, including ‘certain affairs with respect to Lorraine’. She expressed a desire to be of assistance to her ‘very dear friend’ and, to that end, was placing at her disposal a French gentleman of no fortune, but ‘a devoted, capable man who will know how to render you great services’. This man was in fact the bearer of the letter, Gueret, of whom the queen mother provided a fairly precise physical description. She explained that the man was being sent first to Lorraine and then to Paris, where he would wait every evening at The Bronze Glaive, wearing a opaline ring on his finger, as had already been agreed. The queen mother went on to describe the precarious state of her finances, of which she did not complain for her own sake, but for those who had followed her into exile. And lastly, she concluded with the usual polite formulas.
‘Well?’ asked La Fargue. ‘What do you make of it?’
Leprat pursed his lips.
‘This missive hardly deserved to be enciphered.’
‘To be sure. But what does it tell us about Gueret?’
The musketeer reflected and, looking for clues, ran his eyes over the letter once again.
‘Firstly, that he is an agent of the queen mother as we suspected,’ he said. ‘And secondly . . . Secondly, the duchesse de Chevreuse does not know him since the queen mother had to describe him.’
‘Very true.’
Leprat, then, understood:
‘The portrait of this Gueret could in fact be my very own . . .’
‘Yes, it could.’
His chest and feet bare, Marciac lifted the curtain slightly to look down at the street without being seen. Behind him, in the bedchamber, Gabrielle had dressed again and was finishing arranging her hair by the rumpled bed. After an afternoon of passionate lovemaking and tender complicity she would soon have to take her leave of the Gascon. She was the owner and manager of Les Petites Grenouilles, an establishment whose young and comely boarders made their livings from an essentially nocturnal activity. Their first customers would be arriving soon.
‘What are you watching for?’ she asked as she placed a last pin in her strawberry-blonde hair.
Although she was beautiful, the attraction she exercised over him owed less to her beauty than to her natural elegance. She could seem cold and haughty, especially when anger lit up her royal blue eyes and a glacial mask slipped over her features. But Marciac knew her doubts, her fears and her weak points. Because she was both the only woman he truly loved and the only one he did not feel obliged to seduce. Even Agnes still had to repel his amorous assaults upon occasion.
‘Hmm?’ he muttered distractedly.
‘I asked, what are you watching out for,’ said Gabrielle.
‘Nothing.’
His mind was visibly elsewhere and she knew he was lying.
I
n truth, she even knew what he was observing. Or rather whom. What surprised her, on the other hand, was how little time it took to arouse Marciac’s suspicions. He must have been aware of something as soon as he arrived, because they had barely left the bed since then.
She wanted him to think of something else.
‘How long have you been back in Paris?’
‘A few days . . .’
‘You could have paid me a visit sooner, rather than waiting until you were injured.’
Marciac had a bandaged ankle. It was still painful, but no longer prevented him from standing. If he didn’t put too much weight on it and granted himself a good night’s rest, he could be walking almost normally the following day. And there would be no trace of it at all the day after that.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve had no free time.’
Gabrielle rose. With a sly smile on her lips, she approached the Gascon and embraced him tenderly from behind, placing her chin upon his shoulder.
‘Liar,’ she murmured in his ear. ‘You were seen at La Sovange’s mansion.’
Madame de Sovange maintained, on rue de l’Arbalete in the faubourg Saint-Jacques, a rather famous gambling house.
Now it was Marciac’s turn to want a change in the subject of conversation.
‘Do you know this individual, standing over there beneath the sign with the head of a dog? The one with the leather hat?’
She barely glanced at the man he was referring to.
‘I’ve never seen him before,’ she said, drawing away from the Gascon.
And then she added from the doorway:
‘Get dressed and come say hello to the little frogs. They won’t stop asking after you until you do.’
‘I will.’
Gabrielle departed, leaving Marciac convinced that she was holding something back concerning the man in the leather hat. Peeking out at the street again, he saw the man exchange some words with a newcomer, then walk away, leaving the other man standing there.
That dispelled any doubts the Gascon might still be harbouring.
A man who stood hanging around all afternoon in the same place might be an idler or even some sort of mischief-maker. But when he was relieved at his post in the early evening, then he had to be a lookout.