“Yes, certainly, or rather they pretend to destroy, instead of which they keep or sell it. Faithful friends, on the contrary, most carefully secrete such treasures, for it may happen that some day or other they would wish to seek out their Queen in order to say to her: ‘Madame, I am getting old; my health is fast failing me; in the presence of the danger of death, for there is the danger for your Majesty that this secret may be revealed; take, therefore, this paper, so fraught with danger for yourself, and trust not to another to burn it for you.’ ”
“What paper do you refer to?”
“As far as I am concerned, I have but one, it is true, but that is indeed most dangerous in its nature.”
“Oh! Duchesse, tell me what it is.”
“A letter, dated Tuesday, the 2nd of August, 1644, in which you beg me to go to Noisy-le-Sec, to see that unhappy child. In your own handwriting, madame, there are those words, ‘that unhappy child!’ ”
A profound silence ensued; the Queen’s mind was wandering in the past; Madame de Chevreuse was watching the progress of her scheme. “Yes, unhappy, most unhappy,” murmured Anne of Austria; “how sad the existence he led, poor child, to finish it in so cruel a manner.”
“Is he dead!” cried the Duchesse suddenly, with a curiosity whose sincere accents the Queen instinctively detected.
“He died of consumption, died forgotten, died withered and blighted, like the flowers a lover has given to his mistress, which she leaves to die secreted in a drawer where she had hid them from the gaze of others.”
“Died!” repeated the Duchesse with an air of discouragement, which would have afforded the Queen the most unfeigned delight, had it not been tempered in some measure by a mixture of doubt.
“Died—at Noisy-le-Sec?”
“Yes, in the arms of his tutor, a poor, honest man, who did not long survive him.”
“That can easily be understood; it is so difficult to bear up under the weight of such a loss and such a secret,” said Madame de Chevreuse, the irony of which reflection the Queen pretended not to perceive. Madame de Chevreuse continued: “Well, madame, I inquired some years ago at Noisy-le-Sec about this unhappy child. I was told that it was not believed he was dead, and that was my reason for not having at first been grieved with your Majesty; for, most certainly, if I could have thought it were true, never should I have made the slightest allusion to so deplorable an event, and thus have re-awakened your Majesty’s legitimate distress.”
“You say that it is not believed that the child died at Noisy?”
“No, madame.”
“What did they say about him, then?”
“They said—but, no doubt, they were mistaken—”
“Nay, speak, speak!”
“They said, that, one evening, about the year 1645, a lady, beautiful and majestic in her bearing, which was observed notwithstanding the mask and the mantle which concealed her figure—a lady of rank, of very high rank no doubt—came in a carriage to the place where the road branches off; the very same spot, you know, where I awaited news of the young Prince when your Majesty was graciously pleased to send me there.”
“Well, well?”
“That the boy’s tutor or guardian took the child to this lady.”
“Well, what next?”
“That both the child and his tutor left that part of the country the very next day.”
“There, you see there is some truth in what you relate, since, in point of fact, the poor child died from a sudden attack of illness, which makes the lives of all children, as doctors say, suspended as it were by a thread.”
“What your Majesty says is quite true; no one knows it better than you—no one believes it more than myself. But yet, how strange it is—”
“What can it now be?” thought the Queen.
“The person who gave me these details, who had been sent to inquire after the child’s health—”
“Did you confide such a charge to any one else? Oh, Duchesse! ”
“Some one as dumb as your Majesty, as dumb as myself; we will suppose it was myself, madame; this ‘some one,’ some months after, passing through Touraine—”
“Touraine!”
“Recognised both the tutor and the child, too! I am wrong; he thought he recognised them, both living, cheerful, happy, and flourishing, the one in a green old age, the other in the flower of his youth. Judge after that what truth can be attributed to the rumours which are circulated, or what faith, after that, placed in anything that may happen in the world? But I am fatiguing your Majesty; it was not my intention, however, to do so, and I will take my leave of you, after renewing to you the assurance of my most respectful devotion.”
“Stay, Duchesse; let us talk a little about yourself.”
“Of myself, madame; I am not worthy that you should bend your looks upon me.”
“Why not, indeed? Are you not the oldest friend I have? Are you angry with me, Duchesse?”
“I, indeed! what motive could I have? If I had reason to be angry with your Majesty, should I have come here?”
“Duchesse, age is fast creeping on us both; we should be united against that death whose approach cannot be far off.”
“You overpower me, madame, with the kindness of your language.”
“No one has ever loved or served me as you have done, Duchesse.”
“Your Majesty is too kind in remembering it.”
“Not so. Give me a proof of your friendship, Duchesse.”
“My whole being is devoted to you, madame.”
“The proof I require is, that you should ask something of me.”
“Ask—”
“Oh, I know you well,—no one is more disinterested, more noble, and truly royal.”
“Do not praise me too highly, madame,” said the Duchesse, somewhat anxiously.
“I could never praise you as much as you deserve to be praised.”
“And yet, age and misfortune effect a terrible change in people, madame.”
“So much the better; for the beautiful, the haughty, the adored Duchesse of former days might have answered me ungratefully, ‘I do not wish for anything from you.’ Heaven be praised! The misfortunes you speak of have indeed worked a change in you, for you will now, perhaps, answer me, ‘I accept.”’
The Duchesse’s look and smile soon changed at this conclusion, and she no longer attempted to act a false part.
“Speak, dearest, what do you want?”
“I must first explain to you—”
“Do so unhesitatingly.”
“Well, then, your Majesty can confer the greatest, the most ineffable pleasure upon me.”
“What is it?” said the Queen, a little distant in her manner, from an uneasiness of feeling produced by this remark. “But do not forget, my good Chevreuse, that I am quite as much under my son’s influence as I was formerly under my husband’s.”
“I will not be too hard, madame.”
“Call me as you used to do; it will be a sweet echo of our happy youth.”
“Well, then, my dear mistress, my darling Anne—”
“Do you know Spanish still?”
“Yes.”
“Ask me in Spanish then.”
“Will your Majesty do me the honour to pass a few days with me at Dampierre?”
“Is that all?” said the Queen stupefied. “Nothing more than that?”
“Good heavens! can you possibly imagine that in asking you that, I am not asking you the greatest conceivable favour. If that really be the case, you do not know me. Will you accept?”
“Yes, gladly. And I shall be happy,” continued the Queen, with some suspicion, “if my presence can in any way be useful to you.”
“Useful!” exclaimed the Duchesse, laughing; “oh, no, no, agreeable—delightful, if you like; and you promise me then?”
“I swear it,” said the Queen, whereupon the Duchesse seized her beautiful hand, and covered it with kisses. The Queen could not help murmuring to herself, “She is a good-he
arted woman, and very generous too.”
“Will your Majesty consent to wait a fortnight before you come?”
“Certainly; but why?”
“Because,” said the Duchesse, “knowing me to be in disgrace, no one would lend me the hundred thousand francs which I require to put Dampierre into a state of repair. But when it is known that I require that sum for the purpose of receiving your Majesty at Dampierre properly, all the money in Paris will be at my disposal.”
“Ah!” said the Queen, gently nodding her head in sign of intelligence, “a hundred thousand francs! you want a hundred thousand francs to put Dampierre into repair?”
“Quite as much as that.”
“And no one will lend you them?”
“No one.”
“I will lend them to you, if you like, Duchesse.”
“Oh, I hardly dare accept such a sum.”
“You would be wrong if you did not. Besides, a hundred thousand francs is really not much. I know but too well that you never set a right value upon your silence and your secrecy. Push that table a little towards me, Duchesse, and I will write you an order on M. Colbert; no, on M. Fouquet, who is a far more courteous and obliging man.”
“Will he pay it, though?”
“If he will not pay it, I will; but it will be the first time he will have refused me.”
The Queen wrote and handed the Duchesse the order, and afterwards dismissed her with a warm and cheerful embrace.
6
How Jean de la Fontaine Wrote His First Tale
ALL THESE INTRIGUES ARE exhausted; the human mind, so variously complicated, has been enabled to develop itself at its ease in the three outlines with which our recital has supplied it. It is not unlikely that, in the future we are now preparing, a question of politics and intrigues may still arise, but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and paintings, just as at a theatre, where a colossus appears upon the scene walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child concealed within the framework.
We now return to Saint-Mandé, where the Surintendant was in the habit of receiving his select society of epicureans. For some time past, the host had met with some terrible trials. Every one in the house was aware of and felt the minister’s distress. No more magnificent or recklessly improvident réunions. Money had been the pretext assigned by Fouquet, and never was any pretext, as Gourville said, more fallacious, for there was not the slightest appearance of money.
M. Vatel was most resolutely painstaking in keeping up the reputation of the house,7 and yet the gardeners who supplied the kitchens complained of a ruinous delay. The agents for the supply of Spanish wines frequently sent drafts which no one honoured; fishermen, whom the Surintendant engaged on the coast of Normandy, calculated that if they were paid all that was due to them, the amount would enable them to retire comfortably for the rest of their lives; fish, which, at a later period, was the cause of Vatel’s death, did not arrive at all. However, on the ordinary day of reception, Fouquet’s friends flocked in more numerously than ever. Gourville and the Abbé Fouquet talked over money matters—that is to say, the Abbé borrowed a few pistoles from Gourville; Pélisson, seated with his legs crossed, was engaged in finishing the peroration of a speech with which Fouquet was to open the Parliament; and this speech was a masterpiece, because Pélisson wrote it for his friend—that is to say, he inserted everything in it which the latter would most certainly never have taken the trouble to say of his own accord. Presently Loret and La Fontaine would enter from the garden, engaged in a dispute upon the facility of making verses. The painters and musicians, in their turn, also, were hovering near the dining-room. As soon as eight o’clock struck the supper would be announced, for the Surintendant never kept any one waiting. It was already half-past seven, and the appetites of the guests were beginning to be declared in a very emphatic manner. As soon as all the guests were assembled, Gourville went straight up to Pélisson, awoke him out of his reverie, and led him into the middle of a room, and closed the doors. “Well,” he said, “anything new?”
Pélisson raised his intelligent and gentle face, and said, “I have borrowed five-and-twenty thousand francs of my aunt, and I have them here in good sterling money.”
“Good,” replied Gourville, “we only want one hundred and ninety-five thousand livres for the first payment.”
“The payment of what?” asked La Fontaine.
“What! absent as usual! Why, it was you who told us that the small estate at Corbeli was going to be sold by one of M. Fouquet’s creditors; and you, also, who proposed that all his friends should subscribe; more than that, too, it was you who said that you would sell a corner of your house at Château-Thierry, in order to furnish your own proportion, and you now come and ask—‘The payment of what?”’
This remark was received with a general laugh, which made La Fontaine blush. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “I had not forgotten it; oh, no! only—”
“Only you remembered nothing about it,” replied Loret.
“There is the truth; and the fact is, he is quite right; there is a great difference between forgetting and not remembering.”
“Well, then,” added Pélisson, “you bring your mite in the shape of the price of the piece of land you have sold?”
“Sold? no!”
“Have you not sold the field, then?” inquired Gourville in astonishment, for he knew the poet’s disinterestedness.
“My wife would not let me,” replied the latter, at which there were fresh bursts of laughter.
“And yet you went to Château-Thierry for that purpose,” said some one.
“Certainly, I did, and on horseback.”
“Poor fellow!”
“I had eight different horses, and I was almost jolted to death.”
“You are an excellent fellow! And you rested yourself when you arrived there?”
“Rested! Oh! of course I did, for I had an immense deal of work to do.”
“How so?”
“My wife had been flirting with the man to whom I wished to sell the land. The fellow drew back from his bargain, and so I challenged him.”
“Very good; and you fought?”
“It seems not.”
“You know nothing about it, I suppose?”
“No, my wife and her relations interfered in the matter. I was kept a quarter of an hour with my sword in my hand; but I was not wounded.”
“And your adversary?”
“Oh! he just as much, for he never came on to the field.”
“Capital!” cried his friends from all sides; “you must have been terribly angry.”
“Exceedingly so; I had caught cold; I returned home, and then my wife began to quarrel with me.”
“In real earnest?”
“Yes, in real earnest; she threw a loaf of bread at my head, a large loaf.”
“And what did you do?”
“Oh! I upset the table over her and her guests; and then I got upon my horse again, and here I am.”
Every one had great difficulty in keeping his countenance at the exposure of this heroi-comedy, and when the laughter had somewhat ceased, one of the guests present said to him, “Is that all you have brought us back?”
“Oh, no! I have an excellent idea in my head.”
“What is it?”
“Have you noticed that there is a good deal of sportive, jesting poetry written in France?”
“Yes, of course,” replied every one.
“And,” pursued La Fontaine, “only a very small portion of it is printed.”
“The laws are strict, you know.”
“That may be, but a rare article is a dear article and that is the reason why I have written a small poem, excessively free in its style, very broad, and extremely cynical in its tone.”
“The deuce you have!”
“Yes,” continued the poet, with cold indifference, “and I have introduced in it the gr
eatest freedom of language I could possibly employ.”
Peals of laughter again broke forth, while the poet was thus announcing the quality of his wares. “And,” he continued, “I have tried to exceed everything that Boccacio, Arétin, and other masters of their craft, have written in the same style.”
“Its fate is clear,” said Pélisson; “it will be scouted and forbidden.”
“Do you think so?” said La Fontaine simply; “I assure you, I did not do it on my own account so much as on M. Fouquet’s.”
This wonderful conclusion again raised the mirth of all present.
“And I have sold the first edition of this little book for eight hundred livres,” exclaimed La Fontaine, rubbing his hands together. “Serious and religious books sell at about half that rate.”
“It would have been better,” said Gourville, “to have written two religious books instead.”
“It would have been too long and not amusing enough,” replied La Fontaine tranquilly; “my eight hundred livres are in this little bag, and I beg to offer them as my contribution.”
As he said this, he placed his offering in the hands of their treasurer; it was then Loret’s turn, who gave a hundred and fifty livres; the others stripped themselves in the same way; and the total sum in the purse amounted to forty thousand livres. The money was still being counted over when the Surintendant noiselessly entered the room; he had heard everything; and then this man, who had possessed so many millions, who had exhausted all the pleasures and honours that this world had to bestow, this generous heart, this inexhaustible brain, which had, like two burning crucibles, devoured the material and moral substance of the first kingdom in the world, was seen to cross the threshold with his eyes filled with tears, and pass his fingers through the gold and silver which the bag contained.
“Poor offering,” he said, in a softened and affected tone of voice; “you will disappear in the smallest corner of my empty purse, but you have filled to overflowing that which no one can ever exhaust, my heart. Thank you, my friends—thank you.” And as he could not embrace everyone present, who were all weeping a little, philosophers as they were, he embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, “Poor fellow! so you have, on my account, been beaten by your wife and censured by your confessor.”
Man in the Iron Mask (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Page 9