The affair, put up for debate, suffered great difficulties, but finally, in spite of the opposition of the most stubborn, the mediation of Pacific was agreed by a majority vote.
He would have liked nothing better than to accept; he knew the easy-going humor of Clair-obscur, who did not have the strength to refuse him anything, but he was lazy and did not like to transplant himself. The fay said so many nice things to him that she eventually persuaded him. He set forth with a good equipage and reached his friend’s palace in short stages, at the moment when the latter arrived there with the queen, whom he had picked up on the way.
“You’ve arrived just in time to share my joy,” he said to him. “It’s excessive; everything has succeeded beyond my hopes. What an admirable person Virtue is! When you know what she has done for Funestine you’ll be amazed. I want to take you there; you won’t believe your eyes. Those impertinent fays, who gave themselves airs and defied me, have been completely belied. I learn with pleasure that they’ll die in a matter of days. When you see them again, tell them that I’ll be content when I’ve seen the last of them die; but I scorn them too much to talk about them anymore. Let’s only think about rejoicing.”
“However,” Pacific replied, “I’m charged with proposing an accommodation to you on their behalf.”
“To me!” said the genius. “Are they mad?”
“On the contrary,” replied the negotiator. “I find that they’re very sage, since they’re trying to regain your amity.”
“But I no longer have any passion than to get along well with everyone,” said Clair-obscur. “If we’ve fallen out, it’s their fault. They’re repenting of it! They want an accommodation! I consent to that all the more willingly because, having no more need of them, it will be without interest on my part. I see that the loss of immortality afflicts them; it’s necessary to console them for it. Is that what brings you? You have only to say so; I’ll give you satisfaction.”
“I confess,” replied Pacific, astonished by such a prompt mollification, “that you couldn’t give me a greater pleasure.”
“Ah, genius,” said Clair-obscur, “you’ve loved someone, or perhaps several. Well, when I’ve married my son, I’ll go to pay them a visit; I promise to rehabilitate those you indicate to me then. You don’t count on returning today; we’ll sup with the queen, then I’ll tell you the story of Funestine and that of Formosa, in order that you can tell it yourself to your good friends.”
The supper was long. Clair-obscur was a great talker, and narrated heavily; if metempsychosis occurred among the genii, one could have believed that that one had been a woman and would become a financier. The queen, less patient than Dido, yawned two or three times. Pacific bit his lips until he drew blood in order to avoid doing likewise. Fortunately, the storyteller went to sleep in the middle of a long pause during the most confused part of his story, and his servants put him to bed. Pacific escorted the queen to her room and then went to bed himself.
After twelve hours of peaceful slumber, he took his leave of his host and went back to announce to the fays that peace had been made, but he arrived too late; they were no more.
The conquests of Formosa are not my subject, I fear the declamatory tone too much to go into the details of warfare in a tale of fays. I could, like so many others, have divided my work into several volumes, speaking of plans, marches, campaigns, contributions, sieges and battles, but that reeks of the historian, and I am not one. I could even, by making a poetic effort, have entered into the council of the gods assembled on Olympus in order to deliberate the fate of mortals; one would have seen them arouse that proud conqueror against them and make terror, death and victory march before him, but those sublime images are too elevated for a teller of tales, who is only recommendable by his simplicity.
Let us, however, say something about his expedition against the fays. He had just destroyed the Severambi.70 Strange things had been said about the mores and politics of that people; he was informed of them; he was horrified by them; and he exterminated them all.
Only Embarces found mercy before the conqueror; he was a young prince about the same age as Formosa; he also had great qualities and views so vast that fortune did not second them. He had just conquered twenty rival kings, and Néodie, one of the most beautiful princesses in the world; he had scarcely savored with her the first fruits of his victory when Bellona snatched him from the arms of Amour.
At the rumor of the rapid exploits of Formosa, Embarces tried to engage the neighboring peoples to join forces for common defense. Fear not allowing any resource to be glimpsed except in slavery, all of them ran. Too weak to resist alone, he threw himself into a fortress that closed the entry to his kingdom. He defended it with a valor that initially excited Formosa’s anger, but which soon changed it into esteem and admiration.
Embarces had neglected nothing to make Néodie consent to put herself in security in his capital. “You will be necessary to me there,” he said to her. “You will strengthen the fidelity of my subjects, you will be able to send me help, you will conserve a retreat for me, and you will spare yourself the horrors of a siege.” Either out of obstinacy or tenderness, she was absolutely determined to share his fortune. The most complaisant woman always reserves the right to do as she wishes.
Every city besieged is taken; the strongest resistance ends like the weakest; sooner or later, one yields to the truth, but one yields. A few days more or less decide the glory or ignominy. Such is the belief; it is the sovereign of the world, it is necessary to respect it.
The prince, reduced to the extremity, assembled his officers; there was only one opinion, which was to perish in the breach. “Sire,” said Sevaris, an old soldier whose merit had elevated him, “perhaps we will repel the enemy, perhaps we will be forced. We will do our duty; that is all that we can promise you; we only ask you for one favor, and that is to make the queen leave; her presence would not astonish your courage, but it would alarm our tenderness; you would be prodigal with your own life, but you would tremble for hers. The passion to acquire renders men bold, that to conserve renders them circumspect; often, in spite of oneself, one is a fortunate lover at the moment when one ought only to be a hero. I know a subterranean tunnel that emerges in a wood beyond the besiegers’ lines; I know all its detours; if the garrison had been more numerous I would have proposed it to make sorties, but far from being in a state to attack, we are scarcely sufficient to man our ramparts. Confide Néodie to me and I will answer for her with my head; I only ask for ten soldiers to conduct her to Embarcide; I hope that I will be able to return soon enough to die at your side.”
The king liked the proposition, but that was not enough; it was necessary to make the queen agree to it; she nearly drove him to despair with her tears and her resistance.
As soon as she has given in, she is disguised; the night is advancing, time is pressing. Sevaris puts her in the middle of her escort; they go down; the darkness and the silence favor them; they emerge from the issue and believe themselves to be out of danger, when, by one of those strokes of fortune so common in war, Formosa, who had been shown the same tunnel, appears, ready to enter it at the head of a hundred men. What can valor do against numbers? Sevaris is killed with two of his companions, most of the others are wounded, and, not knowing whether Néodie is among them, are preparing to flee.
A voice rises up crying: “Save the queen, comrades, and let me sustain the effort of the enemy.” Those few words are heard by Formosa, who gives the order to suspend the combat and only take prisoners.
Meanwhile, the unknown man attacked with an astonishing vigor. The destroyer of so many nations was obliged to dispute his life against a simple soldier. They became animated, they dealt terrible blows, their weapons shattered, the blood flowed from all parts of their bodies. Embarces fell, covered in wounds. Who else but Embarces could have held firm against Formosa? There was enough daylight to distinguish objects.
“O Heaven!” cried one of his men. “The king is dea
d!”
Formosa recognized him, had him carried to his tent, and, without forgetting the state he was in himself, he searched for the queen. Needless haste! She was found expiring beside Sevaris. He helped to lift her up; she scarcely opened her eyes; she asked in a faint voice where the king was; she learned that he was not in danger. “I die content, then,” she added, and rendered her last sigh in the arms of those sustaining her.
Embarces was cured; the death of his wife had been hidden from him. “Prince,” Formosa said to him, “an enemy worthy of me, arms in hand, has sacred rights over my heart when he is disarmed. It is not me who has vanquished you, but fortune that has betrayed you. I render you your estates. I wish the gods permitted that my amity could render you...”
“Oh, Sire,” Embarces interrupted, “You are telling me too much! The queen is no more. What use can your benefits be to an unfortunate who only dreams of being reunited with the one he loves? What is my destiny! The author of all my woes inspires gratitude, and I shall die without hating him.”
“No, no,” said Formosa. “You will live in order to be loved by me, perhaps to love me yourself. Prince, put the greatest price on the amity that I am asking of you, my heart will find nothing impossible to obtain it.”
Formosa was too proud to dissimulate, Embarces too generous to be ingrate; their union became as celebrated as their valor. The idea of the queen became less vivid; it was gradually effaced; the tender Néodie was forgotten. “On the wings of time sadness flies away.”71 Perhaps that new Aeneas did not find his Dido in his passage; but we shall see him consoling himself with Rêveuse, as the first was consoled by Lavinia.
The story of Embarces might seem out of place; it appears less so to me. We authors are bizarre; one gives what he has not promised, another does not give what he has promised; it is necessary for us to let some things pass.
It was at approximately that time that the Thuvarians came to complain to Formosa about the insupportable pride of the Medoncires. The prince did not think that it was in his dignity to enter into a quarrel of such scant importance, which did not trouble the tranquility of his other subjects, and he sent them away.
The story of their dispute has nothing interesting for the reader who hears talk of similar things every day. People are no longer amused nowadays by the bizarre scenes that those two nations gave to the public; they recur too frequently. One sees without astonishment that in spite of the scorn and hatred that each had for the other, they live together, because we know that interest is stronger than antipathy. The Thuvarians can say that the Medoncires have shrugged of their yoke, but no one listens to them because those new helots, in spite of the obscurity of their origin and the baseness of their occupations, take a tone of superiority with their former masters with so much arrogance that no one knows any longer who were the slaves.
The Medoncires, informed that the Thuvarians had asserted their rights in vain, thought they owed thanks to Formosa. They delegated one of their number, who was a summary of the nation in himself. That modern orator, imagining that a passable face was a title of intelligence, presented himself with an air of confidence that surprised Formosa, accustomed to see everyone tremble. His discourse, although sugary, was rather good, thanks to the pen of a Thuvarian who sacrificed the honor of his brethren to the love he had for the daughter of the speech-maker.
The prince listened to him with a sort of pleasure, and was perhaps about to judge in his favor if the imprudent Medoncire “had not presumed to combine inaptly/the praises of a fop with those of a hero.”72 He was sent away without a response. Following the example of their master, the courtiers turned their backs in order not to be surprised making him false caresses. All that was nothing for his self-esteem, proof against disgraces; he was scarcely humiliated by the discourse of Embarces, which he heard distinctly. “That species of man,” he said, “only has consistency when they speak about others and have the habit of it.”
There only remained one realm for Formosa to conquer, and he could only render himself master of it by traversing the empire of the fays. He delegated Embarces to request passage from them. That step had unfortunate consequences.
The prince departed with a brisk and superb retinue; the marvels that were offered to his sight made an agreeable diversion for his dolor. He was in the land of the fays, that says it all, Many others have talked about it, and I do not want to be a plagiarist.
The rumor spread that Formosa was sending them a ambassador. They assembled and deliberated as to whether they ought to receive him and hear him. Opinion was divided; the affirmative prevailed, and they reunited to decide that he would not be granted anything before the return of Pacific.
Embarces arrived and requested an audience. He endured a thorny ceremonial before obtained it; he was lodged in a palace so vast, and the apartments of which were so high-ceilinged, that it requires neatly thirty thousand aunes of jonquil damask to furnish them. They quibbled over his prerogatives, over his equipages, over his expenditure, over everything.
Finally, he was given permission; he entered the council chamber and said: “Formosa, master of all the earth, or at least the greater part of it, has sent me to tell you that he leaves you free enjoyment of your estates, I have the power to treat with you, Mesdames, as with sovereigns, and to offer you, on his part, all that can depend on a conqueror of whom laws and obstacles only know him moderation. He only expects of you a slight complaisance, which is to give him passage in order to go against the Apicholes, who do not want to submit. I promise you, word of a prince, that his troops will not cause any disorder on your lands, and will even pay for the water of the rivers if you demand it.”
They replied harshly that, it not being permitted to any mortal to enter their empire without their permission, he was fortunate that they did not want to violate the rights of people; that he had doubtless forgotten that all the kings of earth were their subjects, otherwise he would not have had the temerity to assume before them the title of prince; that with regard to the son of Clair-obscur, he was a petty braggart of whose hatred and amity they were equally scornful; that the Apicholes were their allies, and that they would never suffer that he might try to oppress them.”
“But have you considered,” Embarces said, “that you might irritate Formosa?”
At that speech the ceiling of the hall opened; a frightful monster filled it with sulfur and smoke. The prince, who saw it hurl itself upon him mouth agape put himself on the defensive. His sword broke in his hand; he called to his men for help, who could not hear him; they were petrified.
“So, Mesdames,” he said to them, “you are coming to acts of hostility? Do you think you can intimidate me with vain illusions? You will see that the friend of Formosa does not fear prestiges.” Then, uncorking a phial that he took from his pocket, he raised it to the nose of the dragon, which came crawling to lick his feet. After that mark of respect the monster took flight, and the vault closed again. The prince immediately ran to his men, whose different attitudes amused him greatly. Scarcely had they respired the precious elixir than the charm ceased.
The fays, surprised by that event, disappeared one after another. Embarces returned to Formosa and rendered him an account of his commission. “I’m annoyed by this contretemps,” he said. “I would have like to have had no quarrel with them, for fear that it might be said in the world that I made war on women; but they are extravagant individuals who ought not to arrest us; we’ll get away with enduring a few insults.”
The next day the army couriers reported that they had been repelled by a few cavalry units; others said that they had seen troops forming up and retrenching on a hill three leagues from the camp. The princes found such scant plausibility in that story that they wanted to see for themselves what it was.
They started marching at the head of thirty masters. Scarcely had they taken a thousand paces than all of them, except Formosa, who was in the lead, cried: “Sire, you’re going to drown us; the river is rapid and appears v
ery deep.” He thought they had lost their minds, because he saw nothing but open country ahead of him. By virtue of a prerogative of which he was unaware himself, enchantments, whatever they were, could not change the natural order of things in his eyes. He continued his route; his detachment followed him, astonished to be in the water without getting wet.
Embarces threw a few drops of his elixir into the river: a new prodigy! They found themselves in a vast forest, filed with a prodigious quantity of wolves, the sight of which, and their howls, frightened the horses so much that the troop was carried away by a stampede. The princes would have suffered the same fate had they not jumped promptly to the ground
“What does this panic terror signify?” Formosa asked.
“It’s a gallantry on the part of the fays,” replied Embarces laughing, “who are sending wolves to devour us.”
“Wolves!” said Formosa, almost angrily. “Are you speaking seriously?”
“What, Sire, you don’t see wolves, and you don’t believe that you’re in a wood?”
“No, in truth,” said Formosa, “And all these jests are beginning to annoy me.”
Embarces understood that Formosa was not subject to enchantments, and Formosa knew that Embarces had the gift of dissipating them.
They decided to return to the camp and make the army march, which the prince would precede in order to destroy the phantoms that presented themselves. It was not a petty occupation, but he carried it out to his honor.
Funestine and Other Adventures in Romancia Page 28