by George Sand
“That’s all fine and good,” said La Mettrie, “but it fails to explain to me how Your Majesty’s Porporina saw the dead man upright. For, in short, if she has the qualities of mind affirmed by Your Majesty, this goes against Your Majesty’s argument. True, the sorcerer made a mistake when he pulled a dead man out of his bag of tricks, instead of the live one that had been requested. But it’s only all the more certain that he disposes of death and life; and, in that respect, he knows more than Your Majesty, who, with all due respect to Your Majesty, has had many men killed at war without ever being able to resurrect a single one.”
“So we believe in the devil, my dear subject,” said the king, laughing at the comic glances that La Mettrie shot in Quintus Icilius’s direction at each emphatic utterance of the royal title.
“Why wouldn’t we believe in Satan? Everybody heaps calumny on the poor old fellow, and he’s so witty,” La Mettrie retorted.
“Off to the stake with the Manichean!” said Voltaire, putting a candle near the young doctor’s wig.
“Well, my sublime Fritz,” he continued, “I’ve handed you a troublesome argument. Either the charming Porporina is silly and gullible, and she saw her dead man, or she’s philosophical, and didn’t see a thing. Yet she was frightened, which she admits, right?”
“She wasn’t frightened,” said the king. “She was grief-stricken, as you would be seeing a portrait that looks exactly like a person you have loved and knowing too well that you’ll never see him again. But if all must be said, I’m inclined to think that she became frightened after the fact and did not emerge from the ordeal with her inner strength as sound as it once was. Since then she has been subject to attacks of black melancholy, which are always proof of weakness or disorder within us. I’m sure that her mind is still suffering from shock, even though she denies it. There are always consequences when one plays with lies. In my opinion, the sort of attack she had this evening is a result of that whole experience, and I would wager that her troubled brain harbors some dread of the magic power ascribed to Saint-Germain. I’ve been told that she does nothing but weep since returning home.”
“Ah! that I can’t believe, dear Majesty,” said La Mettrie. “You’ve been to see her; therefore, she weeps no more.”
“You’re very curious, aren’t you, Panurge, to learn the reason for my visit. You, too, d’Argens, despite your silence and airs of indifference, and the same may go for you, dear Voltaire.”
“How could one fail to be curious about each and every thing that Frederick the Great sees fit to do?” replied Voltaire, who made an effort to oblige, seeing that the king was talking. “Perhaps certain men don’t have the right to conceal anything when the least of their words is a precept, the least of their actions an example.”
“My dear friend, you want to swell my head. Who wouldn’t be proud to be praised by Voltaire? You were nevertheless making fun of me for the quarter hour that I was away. Yet you can’t possibly think that in fifteen minutes I would have had the time to get as far as the Opera, where Porporina lives, recite her a long madrigal, and return on foot, for I was on foot.”
“Bah! Sire, the Opera is very close by, and you win a battle in less time than that.”
“Wrong, that requires much more time,” replied the king in a rather chilly tone. “Just ask Quintus Icilius. As for the marquis, who has such intimate knowledge of actresses and their virtue, he’ll tell you that it takes more than a quarter of an hour to conquer them.”
“Well, well, Sire, that depends.”
“Yes, that depends, but I hope for your own sake that Mlle Cochois gave you more trouble than that. The fact is, gentlemen, I did not see Signora Porporina tonight. I merely went to talk to her maid and find out how she was doing.”
“You, Sire?” exclaimed La Mettrie.
“I wanted to take her myself a little flask I suddenly remembered having such good effects on those stomach spasms that would occasionally make me pass out. Well, you’re speechless? Are you all flabbergasted? You want to praise my fatherly, kingly kindness, and you don’t dare, for deep in your hearts you find me perfectly ludicrous.”
“Indeed, Sire, if you’ve fallen in love like a mere mortal, I don’t find it bad,” said La Mettrie. “And I don’t see that it’s a matter for either praise or ridicule.”
“Well, my good Panurge, I’m not at all in love, since one must speak one’s mind. True, I’m a mere mortal, but I’m not the king of France, and the gallant ways that suit a great monarch like Louis XV would be most inappropriate for a modest margrave of Brandenburg like me. I’ve got other fish to fry to keep my poor little shop humming along, and there’s no leisure for naps in the groves of Cytherea.”
“In that case, I utterly fail to understand your concern for this little opera singer,” said La Mettrie. “Unless it’s the product of a raging fit of melomania, I simply give up.”
“That being so, my friends, I’ll have you know that I’m not Porporina’s lover, nor am I in love with her. Yet I’m very attached to her because, in an incident too long to relate to you just now, she saved my life without knowing who I was. A bizarre adventure, which I’ll relate to you another time. It’s too late this evening, and Voltaire is falling asleep. Be content knowing that if I am here, and not in hell, where zeal wanted to send me, I owe it to that girl. Now you can understand that I, knowing her to be dangerously ill, might go see if she hadn’t died and bring her a little flask of Dr. Stahl’s remedy without wanting you for that reason to take me for the likes of a Richelieu or a Lauzun. Well, gentlemen, goodnight to you. I’ve been in my boots for the last eighteen hours, and in six hours I’ll have to put them back on. I pray God to keep you under his holy, noble protection, as one says at the end of a letter.”
When the great clock of the palace struck twelve, the young and worldly Abbess of Quedlinburg had just slipped into her pink satin bed. While arranging her mistress’s slippers on her ermine rug, the head chambermaid suddenly shuddered and uttered a shriek. Someone had just knocked on the door of the princess’s bedroom.
“Well, have you gone mad?” asked the beautiful Amalia, half opening her bed curtains. “What’s making you start and sigh like that?”
“Your Royal Highness didn’t hear that knock?”
“There was a knock at the door? Then go see what it is.”
“Oh! Madame, who alive would dare knock at Your Highness’s door knowing that she’s in bed?”
“No living person would dare? Is that what you’re saying? In that case, it’s a dead one. In the meantime, go open the door. Now there’s another knock. Go on, you’re making me impatient.”
The chambermaid, more dead than alive, dragged herself to the door and quavered, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Mme von Kleist,” replied a familiar voice. “If the princess is not yet asleep, tell her that I’ve got something important to tell her.”
“Quick, quick! Let her in,” exclaimed the princess, “and leave us alone.”
As soon as the abbess and her favorite were alone, Mme von Kleist sat down on the foot of the bed and said, “Your Royal Highness was not mistaken. The king is madly in love with Porporina, and he is not yet her lover. That surely gives the girl, for the time being, unlimited influence over his mind.”
“How did you come to learn this in the last hour?”
“While undressing for bed, I got my chambermaid chattering, and she told me that one of her sisters is Porporina’s maid. So I start asking her questions, worming things out of her, and bit by bit I learn that this maid had just got back from visiting her sister at Porporina’s place and that just as she was leaving, so was the king.”
“Are you quite sure of this?”
“My maid saw the king as clearly as I’m seeing you now. He spoke to her, taking her for her sister, who was off in another room looking after her mistress who was either ill or pretending to be ill. The king asked about Porporina with extraordinary concern. He stamped his foot and looked thoro
ughly distressed when he was told that Porporina was still weeping. He didn’t ask to see her, for fear of bothering her, he said. He gave her a very precious little flask for her mistress. Then he left, urging her to tell Porporina in the morning that he had come by at eleven in the evening.”
“Here’s an adventure, I hope!” exclaimed the princess, “and I dare not believe my ears. Does your maid really know what the king looks like?”
“Who doesn’t know a king who is always out on horseback? Besides, a page had been sent as a scout five minutes earlier to see if the fair lady was alone. Meanwhile the king, wrapped and muffled, was waiting down in the street, all in disguise, as is his habit.”
“So, disguise, anxiety, and especially respect. It’s love, or I don’t know what I’m talking about, von Kleist. And, despite the cold and the dark, you came to tell me right away. Ah! my poor child, how very kind!”
“Despite the ghosts, too! Do you know that for the last few nights there’s been a new terror afoot in the castle? My footman was trembling like an idiot while escorting me down the halls.”
“What’s going on? The woman in white again?”
“Yes, the Sweeper.”
“This time, we’re not the ones playing that trick, my poor von Kleist! Our ghosts are far away. May God bring them back to us!”
“At first I thought the king was playing the ghost, since he now has reasons for wanting to chase nosy footmen out of his way. But I’m truly amazed to see that the witches’ sabbath doesn’t take place near his rooms nor along the way he takes to go see Porporina. The spirits are congregating around Your Highness. Now that I don’t have anything to do with these doings, I must confess that I find them a bit frightening.”
“What are you saying, child! How could you believe in ghosts, you who know them so well?”
“There’s the rub! I’ve heard that ghosts sorely resent impostors. They thirst for revenge and hunt down the offenders.”
“In that case, they’d really be taking their time, for they’ve left us in peace for over a year now. Go on, don’t worry about such nonsense. As for these lost souls, we know precisely what to believe. Surely it’s just some page or junior officer who comes by night to woo the prettiest of my chambermaids. That’s why my old chambermaid, whom nobody bothers to woo any longer, was stricken with terror when she heard your knock. She almost refused to open the door. But why are we talking about that? Von Kleist, we’ve found out the king’s secret, and we must take full advantage. But how are we going to do it?”
“We have to win over Porporina and be quick about it before his favor makes her vain and mistrustful.”
“We must spare nothing, showering her with presents, promises, and compliments. Tomorrow you’ll pay her a visit and ask her to send me some music, for example, original pieces by Porpora. She must have lots of unpublished manuscripts by Italian masters. You’ll promise her in return manuscripts by Sebastian Bach, of which I have several. We’ll begin by exchanging things. Then I’ll ask her to come give me lessons. As soon as I’ve got her with me, I’ll take it upon myself to seduce her, to put her under my control.”
“I’ll go tomorrow, Madame.”
“Good night, von Kleist. Here, come give me a kiss, my one and only friend. Off to bed with you now, and if you catch a glimpse of the Sweeper out in the hall, take a good, long look and see if she’s not wearing spurs under her dress.”
1. The Opera started and finished earlier than it did in our day. Frederick began supper at ten o’clock.
2. “I’m still keeping him because I need him. Come next year he won’t be of any further use to me, and I’ll get rid of him. I squeeze the orange, then throw away the peel.” This remark was known to be a raw wound for Voltaire’s pride.
Chapter IV
The next day, as Porporina was emerging from a distressing night’s sleep and feeling quite overwhelmed, she found on her bed two objects that her chambermaid had just placed there, a little rock-crystal flask bearing a gold clasp engraved with the letter F under a royal crown as well as a sealed scroll. When Porporina asked about them, the maid told her that the king had come in person the night before to deliver the flask. Porporina was touched to hear about his visit, so respectful, so delicately naïve. “What a strange man!” she thought to herself, wondering how to reconcile such kindness in the private realm with such severity and despotism in public life. She slipped into a daydream, gradually forgetting about the king and turning her thoughts inward. When confused memories of the previous evening came back to her, she once again began to weep.
“What’s this, Mademoiselle?” asked the maid, who was a kind-hearted chatterbox, “are you going to start sobbing again, as you did last night falling asleep? It broke our hearts, and the king, who was listening through the door, shook his head a few times like a man in pain. Yet many people would envy your lot, Mademoiselle. The king doesn’t court every woman. I even hear that he doesn’t court anybody at all. And, for sure, here he is in love with you!”
“In love! What are you saying there, you poor wretch?” Porporina exclaimed with a shudder. “Never again say such an absurd, indecent thing! The king in love with me, God in heaven!”
“Well, Mademoiselle, but what if he were?”
“God help me! But that’s not the case, and it never will be. What is this scroll, Catherine?”
“A servant delivered it early this morning.”
“Whose servant?”
“A hired servant. At first he wouldn’t tell me who sent him, but he wound up admitting that he worked for a certain Count de Saint-Germain, who arrived here only yesterday.”
“And why did you ask him so many questions?”
“Because I wanted to know, Mademoiselle!”
“How naïve! Now go.”
As soon as Porporina was alone, she opened the scroll and found a parchment covered with bizarre, indecipherable characters. Although she had heard much talk about the Count de Saint-Germain, she was not acquainted with him. She turned the manuscript every which way. Completely baffled by it and bewildered as to why a person with whom she had never had anything to do would send her such a riddle, she concluded, along with many others, that he was insane. Yet, while examining the scroll she found a loose scrap of paper with these words, “Princess Amalia of Prussia takes great interest in divination and astrology. Deliver this parchment to her, and you can rest assured of her protection and favors.” There was no signature, the handwriting was unknown to her, and the scroll bore no address. Porporina was amazed that the Count de Saint-Germain, in order to reach Princess Amalia, would turn to her, as she had never approached Her Highness. Thinking that the scroll had been delivered to her by mistake, she was about to roll it up and send it back. But when she picked up the sheet of rough white paper in which it was wrapped, she saw music printed on the inside face. This awakened a memory. It took her only a second to look for a certain symbol in a corner of the sheet, recognize it as one that she herself had scratched there with a pencil eighteen months before, and verify that this page of music was part of the complete score that she had given as an identifier. This memento from an absent, unhappy friend stirred up such tender feelings that she forgot her own sorrows. Yet she still did not know what to do with the arcane missive, nor why she had been charged with delivering it to the Prussian princess. Was it really to ensure her that lady’s favor and protection? Porporina had neither desire nor need of that. Was it in order to set up a connection between the princess and the prisoner that would help save or succor the latter?
The young woman hesitated, remembering the proverb, “When in doubt, don’t.” Then she thought that there are good and bad proverbs, some for prudent egotism, others for courageous self-sacrifice. She stood up and said to herself, “When in doubt, do, when the only person you’re putting in jeopardy is yourself and you can hope to serve your friend and fellow creature.”
Still very weak and shattered by the crisis of the previous evening, she had nearly fi
nished dressing in a somewhat leisurely fashion. While doing up her beautiful black hair, she wondered how to get the mysterious parchment promptly and safely to the princess. At that very moment there arrived a splendidly trimmed footman wanting to know if she was alone, if she could receive a visit from a nameless lady who wished to have a few words with her. The young singer often cursed the subjection in which artists of that time lived vis-à-vis people in high places. She was tempted to reply, in order to dismiss the importune lady, that she was with the male singers of the opera. While that was a way of shocking certain prudish ladies and driving them away, it was also guaranteed to attract others even faster, she told herself. Thus, she resigned herself to the visit, and Mme von Kleist entered a moment later.
The very polished great lady had resolved to use her charm and make the singer forget all matters of rank, but she was ill at ease. On the one hand, she had heard that the girl was very proud; on the other, Mme von Kleist, feeling most curious on her own account, was eager to make Porporina talk and reveal the very depths of her mind. For that reason, although the lovely lady was kind and harmless, there was just then something fake and forced in her whole countenance that struck Porporina. Curiosity is so close to treachery that it can make the most beautiful faces ugly.
Porporina recognized Mme von Kleist as the person whom she saw in Princess Amalia’s box every evening at the opera. Knowing that Mme von Kleist was very fond of necromancy, her first impulse was to seize upon this pretext and request an interview with her mistress. Yet, as she dared not trust a person who was reputed to be a little eccentric and also something of a schemer, Porporina resolved to see what her game was and began scrutinizing her guest with the quiet, penetrating eye of someone on the defensive, therefore superior to attacks of restless curiosity.
At last the ice was broken, and when Mme von Kleist conveyed the princess’s request for music, Porporina, masking her pleasure a bit at this happy juncture, ran to fetch several unpublished scores. Feeling a sudden burst of inspiration, she exclaimed, “Ah! What a joy, Madame, to lay all my little treasures at the feet of Her Highness, and I’d be so happy if she were to allow me to do so in person.”