The Red Sphinx

by Alexandre Dumas

“Who?”

  “Our messenger, the Comte de Moret.”

  “Indeed, he seemed a worthy gentleman, who gave the impression of being a true knight.”

  “Ah, my dear Queen, if another son of Henri IV I know were at all like him, I believe the throne of France wouldn’t lack an heir, as it does now.”

  “As to an heir,” the queen said thoughtfully, “I must show you the letter the count brought me. It was from my brother, Philip IV, and I confess I don’t quite understand some of his advice.”

  “I’m sure I can explain it. You know there are few such things I don’t understand.”

  “Sibyl!” said the queen, who had no doubt her friend was right. She smiled and began to rise.

  “Can I save Your Majesty some trouble?” Madame de Fargis asked.

  “No, I’m the only one who knows how to open the secret drawer.” Anne went to a small vanity, pulled open a drawer, removed a tray, and took from its false bottom a copy of the letter brought by the count. The letter, ostensibly from Don Gonzalès de Cordova, bore instructions, we recall, that it should be read by the queen alone.

  With this letter in her hand, she returned to her seat. “Sit here, near me,” she said, patting the divan.

  “What, on the same seat as you!”

  “Yes, we need to speak privately.”

  Madame de Fargis glanced over the paper the queen was holding. “So,” she said, “I’ll listen while you interpret. What do these first three or four lines say?”

  “Nothing. They just advise me to keep your husband in Spain as long as possible.”

  “Nothing? Your Majesty calls that nothing? I think it’s quite important. Indeed, Monsieur de Fargis must stay in Spain as long as possible. Ten years—twenty years, even! This is good advice indeed. If the rest is as good as the first, then Your Majesty is advised by King Solomon himself. More, more!”

  “Can you never be serious, even in the gravest matters?” The queen shrugged, but smiled. “Now, here’s the advice from my brother, Philip IV.”

  “And that’s the part Your Majesty doesn’t quite understand?”

  “The part I don’t understand at all, Fargis,” said the queen, adopting a perfect air of innocence.

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “‘My sister,’” the queen read, “‘I know from our good friend Monsieur de Fargis of the plan by which, in the event of the death of King Louis XIII, you promise to marry his brother and heir to the throne, Gaston d’Orléans.’”

  “A vile plan,” interrupted Madame de Fargis, “by which you’d trade bad for worse.”

  “Wait, there’s more.” The queen continued: “‘However, it would be even better if, at the time of Louis’s death, you were with child.’”

  “Oh, yes,” murmured Madame de Fargis, “that would be better for everyone.”

  “‘The Queens of France,’” Anne of Austria continued, seemingly trying to find the meaning in the words, “‘have a great advantage over their husbands in that they can produce dauphins on their own, an ability their husbands lack.’”

  “And that’s the part Your Majesty doesn’t understand?”

  “Or, at least, I don’t understand how it’s possible.”

  “What a pity,” said Madame de Fargis, raising her eyes to heaven, “in matters like these, which involve not only the happiness of a great queen, but the future of a great people—what a pity on top of everything else to have to deal with an honest woman!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that if, in the gardens of Amiens, you’d done what I’d have done in your place, in the arms of a man who loved Your Majesty more than life itself, and who gave that life for you—if, instead of calling for Laporte and Putange, you hadn’t called at all. . . .”

  “Well?”

  “Well! Perhaps your brother wouldn’t need to give you the advice he does, and a dauphin wouldn’t be so hard to find.”

  “But that would have been a double crime!”

  “Does Your Majesty really see crime in an act advised not only by a great king, but by a king renowned for his piety?”

  “I would have wronged first my husband, and second the throne of France by placing on it the son of an Englishman.”

  “That first wrong is, in every country of the world, no more than a venial sin, and Your Majesty has only to look around to see that the majority of her subjects share that opinion. Furthermore, to deceive a husband like King Louis XIII, who’s so far from being a husband he’s unworthy of the name, is more virtue than vice.”

  “Fargis!”

  “You know, Madame, in your heart of hearts, what you lost by that untimely scream, when by your silence you could have won all.”

  “Alas!”

  “So that addresses the first matter, and your ‘Alas!’ tells me you agree. But the second matter, that of a foreigner’s dauphin, remains—and there I must say Your Majesty and I are in agreement.”

  “Do you say so?”

  “But consider this: suppose, for example, that instead of dealing with an Englishman, who though charming was nonetheless a foreigner—suppose you were dealing with a man no less charming”—Anne gave a sigh—“but a Frenchman, and even better, a Frenchman of royal blood, a true son of Henri IV—unlike King Louis, who seems to me, by his tastes, his habits, and his character, to instead be the son of a certain Virginio Orsini.”

  “You, Fargis—you believe these slanders?”

  “Slanders, perhaps, but they come from Your Majesty’s home country. But suppose, in short, that you’d taken the Comte de Moret in place of the Duke of Buckingham. Would the crime be so great? Or, on the contrary, would it be an act of Providence that brought the true blood of Henri IV to the throne of France?”

  “But, Fargis, I’m not in love with the Comte de Moret!”

  “Well, there, Madame, you’d have to sacrifice, which would atone for the sin—and in this case, your sacrifice would be more to the glory and future of France than to your own interests.”

  “Fargis! I don’t understand how a woman could give herself to a man who isn’t her husband and not die of shame the first time she comes face to face with him.”

  “Oh, Madame, Madame!” said Fargis. “If all women thought as Your Majesty, how many husbands would be in mourning for their wives without knowing why they’d died? Perhaps in the past facing a lover was such a problem, but since the invention of fans, deaths from shame have become far less frequent.”

  “Fargis, Fargis! You must be the most immoral person in the world. I don’t know if even Chevreuse is as perverse as you. And this is the dream lover you speak of?”

  “No, not mine. He loves your protégée Isabelle.”

  “Isabelle de Lautrec, who brought him to me the other night? But where did he see her?”

  “He didn’t see her. This love came over him while playing blindman’s-buff with her in the dark.”

  “The poor boy! This isn’t going to go his way—I believe there’s an agreement between her father and a certain Vicomte de Pontis. Anyway, Fargis, we’ll talk more of this later. I want to thank you for the service you’ve rendered me.”

  “And which the count could still render you.”

  “Fargis!”

  “Madame?”

  Anne spoke as calmly as if they hadn’t been discussing great affairs. “Fargis, my dear, just help me to bed. My God, what foolish dreams I’ll have after listening to your stories.”

  And the queen, getting up, walked into her bedchamber, more casual and languid than usual, leaning on the shoulder of her confidante Fargis. The queen had many faults, but no one could say she didn’t love her friends.

  XXI

  In Which the Cardinal Uses,

  on His Own Behalf, the Invention for Which

  He’d Granted Souscarrières the Patent

  Since he’d been warned by the letter found on Doctor Senelle and deciphered by Rossignol, the cardinal wasn’t surprised by the scene between Monsieur, the Dowager of
Longueville, the Princesse Marie, and Vautier (as described to him by Madame de Combalet). It accorded perfectly with the plan agreed between his enemies and Marie de Médicis.

  Marie de Médicis was, indeed, his most implacable enemy—we’ve gone into the reasons for her hatred elsewhere—and she was also the enemy he feared most, because of her influence over her son and through her control of Cardinal Bérulle, who sat on the King’s Council.

  So it was the fatal influence of the queen mother that Richelieu had to remove, an influence that had grown since her return from exile. Louis XIII needed to be purged of his mother far more than he needed to be purged of the black humors feared by Doctor Bouvard.

  There was one sure way to do this, but the means was terrible. Richelieu had always shrunk from it in the past, but it seemed that the time had come for heroic measures. It was time to prove to Louis XIII that his mother had been an accomplice in the death of Henri IV. For Louis XIII respected his father King Henri so much that it almost amounted to worship.

  When Louis had punished Concini by having him assassinated and then hung from the bridge of the Louvre, it was more for being an accomplice in the king’s murder than for being his mother’s lover and for plundering the French treasury.

  So the cardinal was sure of one thing: the moment Louis XIII was convinced of his mother’s complicity in Henri’s assassination, that moment would be the beginning of her final exile.

  When his office clock sounded half past eleven, Richelieu took two documents from his desk, both already signed and sealed, and called his valet Guillemot. He removed his red robe and lace-edged fur cloak, donned a simple Capuchin robe like Father Joseph’s, and sent for a sedan chair. Pulling his hood over his face, he entered the chair and gave orders to be taken to the Inn of the Painted Beard in the Rue de l’Homme-Armé.

  From the Place Royale to the Rue de l’Homme-Armé wasn’t far. They went by way of Rue Neuve-Sainte-Catherine and the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, turned left on the Rue du Temple, then right past the convent of the Blancs-Manteaux and onto the Rue de l’Homme-Armé.

  The cardinal noticed something that, to his mind, spoke well of Maître Soleil: though midnight was ringing from the belfry of the Blancs-Manteaux, his inn was still well lit, ready to receive travelers, and a lad was posted at the door to welcome potential customers.

  The cardinal ordered his porters to wait at the corner of the Rue du Plâtre. He descended from the chair and made his way to the door of the Inn of the Painted Beard, where the lad, taking him for Father Joseph, asked if he wanted to see the penitent Latil.

  It was for just that purpose that the cardinal had come.

  Latil was the kind of man who, since he hadn’t been instantly killed, had immediately begun to recover. He’d taken so many previous sword wounds that new ones just followed the tracks of the old. Though still very weak, he could foresee the day when he could be carried to the Hotel de Montmorency, with what was left of the Comte de Moret’s gold still jingling in his purse.

  Father Joseph, to whom he’d confessed all unknowing, hadn’t returned, but to his amazement he’d been visited by the cardinal’s own doctor, who’d been ordered by His Eminence’s secretary to take good care of him. Latil had no idea to what he should attribute this good fortune.

  No longer laid out on a table in the lower hall, Latil had been carried up to the bed in room number eleven, which was adjacent to number thirteen, the room the beautiful Marina—or Madame de Fargis, if you will—kept on a monthly retainer.

  He awoke to the glow of the candle borne before the minister by the lad from the door. The first thing he saw by this candle, which the lad set on a table before withdrawing, was a long gray figure in a hooded robe. Latil thought here was yet another Capuchin monk, possibly even the same one—because it must be admitted, even if it offends our more religious readers, that that confession had been his first acquaintance with that ancient and venerable branch of the tree of Saint Francis.

  It occurred to him that perhaps the worthy friar thought he was worse, and might need to be confessed a second time, or was even dead and ready to be buried. “Hold on, Father,” he said. “No need to rush. By the grace of God, and thanks to your prayers, there’s been a miracle on my behalf. It seems Étienne Latil is going to live on, in his poor honest way, despite marquises and viscounts who, four against one, try to cut his throat.”

  “I know of your noble conduct, brother, and I congratulate you on your convalescence.”

  “The devil!” Latil said. “Is that why you got me up at such an hour? Couldn’t you wait until daytime to pay me such compliments?”

  “No, my brother,” said the seeming Capuchin, “for I needed to speak with you urgently and secretly.”

  “On affairs of State, I suppose?” Latil laughed.

  “Exactly. On affairs of State.”

  “Well,” continued Latil, still laughing, “if you need to speak to me despite my two injuries and four wounds, you must be no less than His Gray Eminence!”

  “Oh, better than that,” said the cardinal, laughing in his turn. “I am His Red Eminence.” And he lowered his hood so Latil could see who he was.

  “What!” Latil started back in fear. “By my patron saint, stoned before the gates of Jerusalem—it really is you, Monseigneur.”

  “Yes, and that should tell you the importance of my business, since I come to speak to you by night and alone, despite the risk that entails.”

  “Monseigneur will find me his obedient servant, so far as my strength allows.”

  “Good. Now take a moment and collect your memory.”

  There was a moment of silence during which the cardinal’s eyes were fixed on Latil, as if to penetrate the depths of his mind.

  “Though young at the time, you must have been devoted to the late king,” the cardinal said, “since you refused to kill his son, despite the enormous sum you were offered.”

  “Yes, Monseigneur—I must say that I’ve remained loyal to his memory. That was one of the reasons why I left the service of Monsieur d’Épernon.”

  “I’m told you were on the running board of the king’s carriage when he was assassinated. Can you tell me what you remember about the murderer at the time, and afterward? And how did the Duc d’Épernon take this catastrophe?”

  “I was at the Louvre beforehand, waiting, with the Duc d’Épernon. The king came down at four o’clock.”

  “And did you notice,” asked the cardinal, “whether he was happy or sad?”

  “Very sad, Monseigneur. But is this really the time for me to tell, well, everything?”

  “Everything!” said the cardinal. “If you have the strength.”

  “The king’s sadness wasn’t just a mood—it was due to all the prophecies. You must know about those, Monseigneur?”

  “I wasn’t in Paris at the time; I didn’t arrive until five years later. So speak to me as if I don’t know anything.”

  “All right, then! I’ll tell you everything, Monseigneur, because I feel like your presence gives me strength, and because the cause in which you ask must please the Lord God—who may have permitted the death of my master, the king, but that doesn’t mean his death must go unpunished.”

  “Take courage, my friend,” said the cardinal, “for what you do is righteous.”

  The wounded man continued, making a visible effort to recall his memories despite his loss of blood. “In 1607, several books of astrology appeared at the Frankfurt fair that said the King of France would die in his fifty-ninth year, that is to say, 1610. That same year, a mysterious series of letters stating that the king would be assassinated was found on his altar by a prior of Montargis.

  “And one day, the queen mother came to see my duke at his hotel. They locked themselves inside his study, but, being a curious page, I sneaked into a closet from which I could listen. I heard the queen say that a doctor of theology named Olivé had predicted, in a book dedicated to Philip III, that the king would die in 1610. Furthermore, the ki
ng would die in a carriage—and the king knew of this prediction.”

  “Did you ever hear tell of a man named Lagarde?” asked the cardinal.

  “Yes, Monseigneur,” said Latil, “and that reminds me of a detail I’d forgotten, one that greatly disturbed Monsieur d’Épernon. This Lagarde, upon returning from the wars against the Turks, settled in Naples, where he lived with a man named Hébert, who’d been secretary to the conspirator Biron. As the latter had been executed only two years before, his accomplices were still in exile. One day Hébert invited Lagarde to dinner, and while they dined a big man dressed in purple entered the room and announced that all refugees would soon be able to return to France, because before the end of 1610, he would kill the king. Lagarde asked his name, was told he was called Ravaillac, and that he served Monsieur d’Épernon.”

  “Yes,” the cardinal said, “I knew about that.”

  “Monseigneur would like me to be more succinct?”

  “No, don’t leave out a word. Too much is better than not enough.”

  “While Lagarde was in Naples, he was taken to visit a Jesuit named Père Alagon. This Jesuit was committed to the assassination of Henri IV. ‘We’ll choose a hunting day,’ he said. ‘Ravaillac will strike him on foot, and I from horseback.’ On his way to France, he received a letter outlining the same plan. When he reached Paris, he took the letter to the king. Ravaillac and d’Épernon were both named.”

  “Did you hear whether the king took this letter seriously?”

  “Oh, very seriously! Nobody in the Louvre knew why he was so melancholy. For a week, he kept the fatal secret to himself. Then he left the Court to spend some time alone in Ivry, at a small house of the captain of his guards. Finally, too worried to sleep, he came to the Arsenal and told everything to his minister Sully, begging him to lend him a place to stay, just three or four rooms, where he could rest and change his clothes.”

  “To this,” murmured Richelieu, “to this he came, so good a king, the best France has had, obliged like the wretched Tiberius to sleep in a different room every night for fear of being murdered! And yet I complain of my problems!”