Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)

by SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  “And who is your own director, monsieur?”

  De Catinat felt that the worst had come upon him. “I have none, madame.”

  “Ah, it is too common to dispense with a director, and yet I know not how I could guide my steps in the difficult path which I tread if it were not for mine. Who is your confessor, then?”

  “I have none. I am of the Reformed Church, madame.”

  The lady gave a gesture of horror, and a sudden hardening showed itself in mouth and eye. “What, in the court itself,” she cried, “and in the neighbourhood of the king’s own person!”

  De Catinat was lax enough in matters of faith, and held his creed rather as a family tradition than from any strong conviction, but it hurt his self-esteem to see himself regarded as though he had confessed to something that was loathsome and unclean. “You will find, madame,” said he sternly, “that members of my faith have not only stood around the throne of France, but have even seated themselves upon it.”

  “God has for His own all-wise purposes permitted it, and none should know it better than I, whose grandsire, Theodore d’Aubigny, did so much to place a crown upon the head of the great Henry. But Henry’s eyes were opened ere his end came, and I pray — oh, from my heart I pray — that yours may be also.”

  She rose, and throwing herself down upon the prie-dieu sunk her face in her hands for some few minutes, during which the object of her devotions stood in some perplexity in the middle of the room, hardly knowing whether such an attention should be regarded as an insult or as a favour. A tap at the door brought the lady back to this world again, and her devoted attendant answered her summons to enter.

  “The king is in the Hall of Victories, madame,” said she. “He will be here in five minutes.”

  “Very well. Stand outside, and let me know when he comes. Now, sir,” she continued, when they were alone once more, “you gave a note of mine to the king this morning?”

  “I did, madame.”

  “And, as I understand, Madame de Montespan was refused admittance to the grand lever?”

  “She was, madame.”

  “But she waited for the king in the passage?”

  “She did.”

  “And wrung from him a promise that he would see her to-day?”

  “Yes, madame.”

  “I would not have you tell me that which it may seem to you a breach of your duty to tell. But I am fighting now against a terrible foe, and for a great stake. Do you understand me?”

  De Catinat bowed.

  “Then what do I mean?”

  “I presume that what madame means is that she is fighting for the king’s favour with the lady you mentioned.”

  “As heaven is my judge, I have no thought of myself. I am fighting with the devil for the king’s soul.”

  “‘Tis the same thing, madame.”

  The lady smiled. “If the king’s body were in peril, I could call on the aid of his faithful guards, and not less so now, surely, when so much more is at stake. Tell me, then, at what hour was the king to meet the marquise in her room?”

  “At four, madame.”

  “I thank you. You have done me a service, and I shall not forget it.”

  “The king comes, madame,” said Mademoiselle Nanon, again protruding her head.

  “Then you must go, captain. Pass through the other room, and so into

  the outer passage. And take this. It is Bossuet’s statement of the

  Catholic faith. It has softened the hearts of others, and may yours.

  Now, adieu!”

  De Catinat passed out through another door, and as he did so he glanced back. The lady had her back to him, and her hand was raised to the mantel-piece. At the instant that he looked she moved her neck, and he could see what she was doing. She was pushing back the long hand of the clock.

  CHAPTER IX.

  LE ROI S’AMUSE.

  Captain de Catinat had hardly vanished through the one door before the other was thrown open by Mademoiselle Nanon, and the king entered the room. Madame de Maintenon rose with a pleasant smile and curtsied deeply, but there was no answering light upon her visitor’s face, and he threw himself down upon the vacant arm-chair with a pouting lip and a frown upon his forehead.

  “Nay, now this is a very bad compliment,” she cried, with the gaiety which she could assume whenever it was necessary to draw the king from his blacker humours. “My poor little dark room has already cast a shadow over you.”

  “Nay; it is Father la Chaise and the Bishop of Meaux who have been after me all day like two hounds on a stag, with talk of my duty and my position and my sins, with judgment and hell-fire ever at the end of their exhortations.”

  “And what would they have your Majesty do?”

  “Break the promise which I made when I came upon the throne, and which my grandfather made before me. They wish me to recall the Edict of Nantes, and drive the Huguenots from the kingdom.”

  “Oh, but your Majesty must not trouble your mind about such matters.”

  “You would not have me do it, madame?”

  “Not if it is to be a grief to your Majesty.”

  “You have, perchance, some soft feeling for the religion of your youth?”

  “Nay, sire; I have nothing but hatred for heresy.”

  “And yet you would not have them thrust out?”

  “Bethink you, sire, that the Almighty can Himself incline their hearts to better things if He is so minded, even as mine was inclined. May you not leave it in His hands?”

  “On my word,” said Louis, brightening, “it is well put. I shall see if Father la Chaise can find an answer to that. It is hard to be threatened with eternal flames because one will not ruin one’s kingdom. Eternal torment! I have seen the face of a man who had been in the Bastille, for fifteen years. It was like a dreadful book, with a scar or a wrinkle to mark every hour of that death in life. But Eternity!” He shuddered, and his eyes were filled with the horror of his thought. The higher motives had but little power over his soul, as those about him had long discovered, but he was ever ready to wince at the image of the terrors to come.

  “Why should you think of such things, sire?” said the lady, in her rich, soothing voice. “What have you to fear, you who have been the first son of the Church?”

  “You think that I am safe, then?”

  “Surely, sire.”

  “But I have erred, and erred deeply. You have yourself said as much.”

  “But that is all over, sire. Who is there who is without stain? You have turned away from temptation. Surely, then, you have earned your forgiveness.”

  “I would that the queen were living once more. She would find me a better man.”

  “I would that she were, sire.”

  “And she should know that it was to you that she owed the change. Oh, Francoise, you are surely my guardian angel, who has taken bodily form! How can I thank you for what you have done for me?” He leaned forward and took her hand, but at the touch a sudden fire sprang into his eyes, and he would have passed his other arm round her had she not risen hurriedly to avoid the embrace.

  “Sire!” said she, with a rigid face and one finger upraised.

  “You are right, you are right, Francoise. Sit down, and I will control myself. Still at the same tapestry, then! My workers at the Gobelins must look to their laurels.” He raised one border of the glossy roll, while she, having reseated herself, though not without a quick questioning glance at her companion, took the other end into her lap and continued her work.

  “Yes, sire. It is a hunting scene in your forests at Fontainebleau. A stag of ten tines, you see, and the hounds in full cry, and a gallant band of cavaliers and ladies. Has your Majesty ridden to-day?”

  “No. How is it, Francoise, that you have such a heart of ice?”

  “I would it were so, sire. Perhaps you have hawked, then?”

  “No. But surely no man’s love has ever stirred you! And yet you have been a wife.”

  “A nurse,
sire, but never a wife. See the lady in the park! It is surely mademoiselle. I did not know that she had come up from Choisy.”

  But the king was not to be distracted from his subject.

  “You did not love this Scarron, then?” he persisted. “He was old, I have heard, and as lame as some of his verses.”

  “Do not speak lightly of him, sire. I was grateful to him; I honoured him; I liked him.”

  “But you did not love him.”

  “Why should you seek to read the secrets of a woman’s heart?”

  “You did not love him, Francoise?”

  “At least I did my duty towards him.”

  “Has that nun’s heart never yet been touched by love then?”

  “Sire, do not question me.”

  “Has it never—”

  “Spare me, sire, I beg of you!”

  “But I must ask, for my own peace hangs upon your answer.”

  “Your words pain me to the soul.”

  “Have you never, Francoise, felt in your heart some little flicker of the love which glows in mine?” He rose with his hands outstretched, a pleading monarch, but she, with half-turned bead, still shrank away from him.

  “Be assured of one thing, sire,” said she, “that even if I loved you as no woman ever loved a man yet, I should rather spring from that window on to the stone terraces beneath than ever by word or sign confess as much to you.”

  “And why, Francoise?”

  “Because, sire, it is my highest hope upon earth that I have been chosen to lift up your mind towards loftier things — that mind the greatness and nobility of which none know more than I.”

  “And is my love so base, then?”

  “You have wasted too much of your life and of your thoughts upon woman’s love. And now, sire, the years steal on and the day is coming when even you will be called upon to give an account of your actions, and of the innermost thoughts of your heart. I would see you spend the time that is left to you, sire, in building up the Church, in showing a noble example to your subjects, and in repairing any evil which that example may have done in the past.”

  The king sank back into his chair with a groan. “Forever the same,” said he. “Why, you are worse than Father la Chaise and Bossuet.”

  “Nay, nay,” said she gaily, with the quick tact in which she never failed. “I have wearied you, when you have stooped to honour my little room with your presence. That is indeed ingratitude, and it were a just punishment if you were to leave me in solitude to-morrow, and so cut off all the light of my day. But tell me, sire, how go the works at Marly? I am all on fire to know whether the great fountain will work.”

  “Yes, the fountain plays well, but Mansard has thrown the right wing too far back. I have made him a good architect, but I have still much to teach him. I showed him his fault on the plan this morning, and he promised to amend it.”

  “And what will the change cost, sire?”

  “Some millions of livres, but then the view will be much improved from the south side. I have taken in another mile of ground in that direction, for there were a number of poor folk living there, and their hovels were far from pretty.”

  “And why have you not ridden to-day, sire?”

  “Pah! it brings me no pleasure. There was a time when my blood was stirred by the blare of the horn and the rush of the hoofs, but now it is all wearisome to me.”

  “And hawking too?”

  “Yes; I shall hawk no more.”

  “But, sire, you must have amusement.”

  “What is so dull as an amusement which has ceased to amuse? I know not how it is. When I was but a lad, and my mother and I were driven from place to place, with the Fronde at war with us and Paris in revolt, with our throne and even our lives in danger, all life seemed to be so bright, so new, and so full of interest. Now that there is no shadow, and that my voice is the first in France, as France’s is in Europe, all is dull and lacking in flavour. What use is it to have all pleasure before me, when it turns to wormwood when it is tasted?”

  “True pleasure, sire, lies rather in the inward life, the serene mind, the easy conscience. And then, as we grow older, is it not natural that our minds should take a graver bent? We might well reproach ourselves if it were not so, for it would show that we had not learned the lesson of life.”

  “It may be so, and yet it is sad and weary when nothing amuses. But who is there?”

  “It is my companion knocking. What is it, mademoiselle?”

  “Monsieur Corneille, to read to the king,” said the young lady, opening the door.

  “Ah, yes, sire; I know how foolish is a woman’s tongue, and so I have brought a wiser one than mine here to charm you. Monsieur Racine was to have come, but I hear that he has had a fall from his horse, and he sends his friend in his place. Shall I admit him?”

  “Oh, as you like, madame, as you like,” said the king listlessly. At a sign from Mademoiselle Nanon a little peaky man with a shrewd petulant face, and long gray hair falling back over his shoulders, entered the room. He bowed profoundly three times, and then seated himself nervously on the very edge of the stool, from which the lady had removed her work-basket. She smiled and nodded to encourage the poet, while the monarch leaned back in his chair with an air of resignation.

  “Shall it be a comedy, or a tragedy, or a burlesque pastoral?” Corneille asked timidly.

  “Not the burlesque pastoral,” said the king with decision. “Such things may be played, but cannot be read, since they are for the eye rather than the ear.”

  The poet bowed his acquiescence.

  “And not the tragedy, monsieur,” said Madame de Maintenon, glancing up from her tapestry. “The king has enough that is serious in his graver hours, and so I trust that you will use your talent to amuse him.”

  “Ay, let it be a comedy,” said Louis; “I have not had a good laugh since poor Moliere passed away.”

  “Ah, your Majesty has indeed a fine taste,” cried the courtier poet. “Had you condescended to turn your own attention to poetry, where should we all have been then?”

  Louis smiled, for no flattery was too gross to please him.

  “Even as you have taught our generals war and our builders art, so you would have set your poor singers a loftier strain. But Mars would hardly deign to share the humbler laurels of Apollo.”

  “I have sometimes thought that I had some such power,” answered the king complacently; “though amid my toils and the burdens of state I have had, as you say, little time for the softer arts.”

  “But you have encouraged others to do what you could so well have done yourself, sire. You have brought out poets as the sun brings out flowers. How many have we not seen — Moliere, Boileau, Racine, one greater than the other? And the others, too, the smaller ones — Scarron, so scurrilous and yet so witty — Oh, holy Virgin! what have I said?”

  Madame had laid down her tapestry, and was staring in intense indignation at the poet, who writhed on his stool under the stern rebuke of those cold gray eyes.

  “I think, Monsieur Corneille, that you had better go on with your reading,” said the king dryly.

  “Assuredly, sire. Shall I read my play about Darius?”

  “And who was Darius?” asked the king, whose education had been so neglected by the crafty policy of Cardinal Mazarin that he was ignorant of everything save what had come under his own personal observation.

  “Darius was King of Persia, sire.”

  “And where is Persia?”

  “It is a kingdom of Asia.”

  “Is Darius still king there?”

  “Nay, sire; he fought against Alexander the Great.”

  “Ah, I have heard of Alexander. He was a famous king and general, was he not?”

  “Like your Majesty, he both ruled wisely and led his armies victoriously.”

  “And was King of Persia, you say?”

  “No, sire; of Macedonia. It was Darius who was King of Persia.”

  The king frowned, for the sl
ightest correction was offensive to him.

  “You do not seem very clear about the matter, and I confess that it does not interest me deeply,” said he. “Pray turn to something else.”

  “There is my Pretended Astrologer.”

  “Yes, that will do.”

  Corneille commenced to read his comedy, while Madame de Maintenon’s white and delicate fingers picked among the many-coloured silks which she was weaving into her tapestry. From time to time she glanced across, first at the clock and then at the king, who was leaning back, with his lace handkerchief thrown over his face. It was twenty minutes to four now, but she knew that she had put it back half an hour, and that the true time was ten minutes past.

  “Tut! tut!” cried the king suddenly. “There is something amiss there. The second last line has a limp in it, surely.” It was one of his foibles to pose as a critic, and the wise poet would fall in with his corrections, however unreasonable they might be.

  “Which line, sire? It is indeed an advantage to have one’s faults made clear.”

  “Read the passage again.”

  “Et si, quand je lui dis le secret de mon ame,

  Avec moins de rigueur elle eut traite ma flamme,

  Dans ma fayon de vivre, et suivant mon humeur,

  Une autre eut bientot le present de mon coeur.”

  “Yes, the third line has a foot too many. Do you not remark it, madame?”

  “No; but I fear that I should make a poor critic.”

  “Your Majesty is perfectly right,” said Corneille unblushingly.

  “I shall mark the passage, and see that it is corrected.”

  “I thought that it was wrong. If I do not write myself, you can see that I have at least got the correct ear. A false quantity jars upon me. It is the same in music. Although I know little of the matter, I can tell a discord where Lully himself would miss it. I have often shown him errors of the sort in his operas, and I have always convinced him that I was right.”

  “I can readily believe it, your Majesty.” Corneille had picked up his book again, and was about to resume his reading when there came a sharp tap at the door.

  “It is his Highness the minister, Monsieur de Louvois,” said