The Red Sphinx

by Alexandre Dumas

  He was purged, he was bled, and it made him neither happier nor healthier: on the contrary, his melancholy and his pallor had only increased.

  No one knew the cause of this melancholy, though it had afflicted the king since he was fourteen or fifteen. The mood drove him to try, one after another, every form of diversion or amusement he’d never tried before. Worse, in the middle of his crowded court he was virtually alone and friendless, accompanied only by his fool l’Angely, who always dressed in black, which added to the general air of gloom.

  Nothing could be sadder than his lonely suite of rooms, where no woman ever entered, with the exception of Queen Anne and the queen mother, who did so only to keep him from coming to their own apartments.

  If you had an audience scheduled with him, upon arriving at the designated time, often you would be received first by Monsieur de Tréville, or Monsieur de Guitaut, or by Beringhen, who in his capacity as Premier Valet de Chambre was known as “Monsieur le Premier.” One or another of these gentlemen would introduce you into a seemingly empty chamber where you might look about and wonder if the king was there at all. Then you would notice him, standing in an embrasure and staring out the window, possibly with one of his gentlemen, whom he has honored by saying, “Come, Monsieur So-and-So, let us be weary together.” Anyone who heard the tone in which he said this knew he spoke with complete sincerity.

  More than once, the queen, trying to gain some leverage over this dreary personality and none too sure of being able to do it herself, had, on the advice of the queen mother, brought in a young beauty of whose loyalty she was certain in hopes that the girl might catch his eye, then exert some influence, but always in vain.

  This was the king whom Luynes, after four years of marriage, had been forced to carry into his wife’s bedchamber. This was a king whose favorites were always men, never women. The Italians thought they understood his preferences and summed him up with a phrase, La buggera ha passato i monti—that is, “Sodomy has come over the mountains.”

  Even “La Irresistible,” the stunning Madame de Chevreuse, had tried to catch his eye; but despite the triple allure of youth, beauty, and wit, she had failed.

  “But Sire,” she said to him one day, exasperated by his chilly indifference, “wouldn’t you like to have a mistress?”

  “Yes, Madame, I would,” the king said.

  “Ah! And how would you like to have her, then?”

  “Only above the belt,” replied the king.

  “Well,” said Madame de Chevreuse, “the next time I come to the Louvre I’ll dress like the actor Gros-Guillaume, who’s so fat he wears a belt above and a belt below: but I’ll just wear the belt below, on my thigh.”

  It was in the hope of engaging the king that the chaste and beautiful damsel we have presented to our readers as Isabelle de Lautrec had been brought to Court. We have seen how devoted she was to the queen, though her father was a retainer of the Duc de Rethel. And indeed, Isabelle was so lovely that even Louis XIII had noticed. He’d chatted with her and found her personality quite charming. She, for her part, quite ignorant that she was part of a scheme, had spoken to the king with modesty and respect. But that was all six months before the time of our story, and since then the king had acquired a new page as a personal servant, with whom he was so taken that he had little time for Isabelle, let alone the queen.

  In fact, with this king, favorite succeeded favorite so rapidly that at any given moment it was hard for the courtiers to know who, as they say at the horse races, had the inside track.

  First there had been Pierrot, the peasant farmer we mentioned.

  Then had come Luynes, the chief of his Cabinet of Birds.

  Then came d’Esplan, his Arbalest Bearer, whom he made Marquis de Grimaud.

  Then Chalais, who wound up beheaded.

  Then Baradas, the favorite of the moment.

  And now, at last, came Saint-Simon, who, hoping to become a permanent favorite, was conspiring at the disgrace of Baradas—a disgrace that was all too predictable, given the fragile moods of King Louis XIII, a man who kept his favorites in that impossible place between friendship and love.

  Next beyond his favorites was his loyal entourage. This included Monsieur de Tréville, his Captain of Musketeers, who may be familiar to the reader from some other books we won’t bother to mention here; the Comte de Nogent-Bautru, brother of that Bautru the cardinal had sent to Spain, a man who, the first time he’d been presented at Court, had chanced to meet the king at a path in the Tuileries flooded with water, and had carried the king over it on his shoulders as St. Christopher had carried Jesus Christ, and who had the rare privilege, shared only with the fool l’Angely, of being allowed to say anything in the presence of the king, even attempt to jolly him out of his gloomy moods; Bassompierre, made a marshal in 1622, more for service in the bedchamber of Marie de Médicis than for his exploits in battle, a man, moreover, of wit, charm, and heart who kept an outstanding memoir of his time, from the end of the 16th century through the early part of the 17th; Sublet-Desnoyers, the king’s secretary, or rather his valet; La Vieuville, Superintendent of Finances; Guitaut, his Captain of the Guards, a man entirely devoted to him and to Queen Anne of Austria, who replied to all offers to join the service of the cardinal with “Impossible, Your Eminence—I’m a man of the king, and the Gospel says no one can serve two masters”; and finally Maréchal de Marillac, brother of the Keeper of the Seals, whose execution was later to be a bloody stain on the reign of Louis XIII—or rather the ministry of Cardinal Richelieu.

  It so happened that, the day after Souscarrières had delivered his uncannily accurate report to Richelieu about the events of the night before, the king, after lunching with Baradas, had formed an impromptu party with Nogent and called for two of his musicians, Molinier and Justin, to accompany them with lute and viola while he engaged in his latest diversion. He then turned to Bassompierre, Marillac, Desnoyers, and La Vieuville, who had just come in, and said, “Gentlemen, let’s go to the kitchens and lard some meat.”

  “Yes, gentlemen, let’s go larding!” said l’Angely in snotty hauteur. “How well they go together: royalty and larding.”

  And, with this rather mediocre joke, he popped his hat on his head and pulled Nogent’s down over his ears. “What are you doing, buffoon?” Nogent said.

  “Covering your head and mine,” said l’Angely.

  “In front of the king? What are you thinking?”

  “Bah! Etiquette doesn’t apply to buffoons like us.”

  “Sire, please silence this insolent clown!” Nogent cried, furious.

  “What, Nogent?” said Louis XIII. “You think anyone could keep l’Angely quiet?”

  “You pay me to speak my mind,” l’Angely said. “If I shut up, I’d be as dull as Monsieur de La Vieuville, whom you made Superintendent of Finances even though he has no finances and has to pay himself from yours. At least I steal my money honestly.”

  “Didn’t Your Majesty hear what he said?” Nogent persisted.

  “I did, but I think you should mind how you speak yourself.”

  “How I speak . . . to you, Sire?”

  “Indeed. When we were playing tennis and I just missed the ball, you said, ‘See that? There’s Louis the Just Missed.’ You must be a buffoon just like l’Angely, Nogent, if I allow you to say such things to me. Now come, gentlemen, let’s go larding.”

  These words, let’s go larding, deserve an explanation, as we don’t want to leave our readers in the dark. The explanation is as follows.

  As we’ve already mentioned, to fight his melancholy the king engaged in all kinds of diversions, though he was rarely diverted by them. As a child he’d made squirt-guns out of leather scraps, as a young man he’d daubed colors on canvas that his courtiers were required to call “paintings,” then played what they were obliged to call “music” (though he was quite a good drummer, according to Bassompierre). He had hammered together frames and cages with Monsieur Desnoyers; he had made preserves
and jam, and excellent jam at that; he had taken up gardening, managing to grow green peas in February, which were sold at market, where Monsieur de Montausson had bought some; and finally, he had learned how to be a barber. One day, in his enthusiasm for this new hobby, he had summoned and shaved all his officers, leaving on each chin only that slim goatee that became known as the “royale.”

  A satire about this went briefly around the Louvre:

  Alas, my poor beard!

  Who trimmed you thusly?

  The great King Louis,

  Thirteenth of the name,

  Chief barber of his manse.

  “Monsieur de La Force,

  You should do it, too!”

  “Alas, Sire, thank you,

  I don’t dare to try,

  Your soldiers won’t give me the chance.”

  Let’s all wear the beard

  Of Cousin Richelieu.

  Yes, that will do.

  For only a fool would dare

  To out-barber the King of France!

  However, King Louis had tired of shaving his men’s beards, as he tired of everything. A few weeks before this, he had gone down to the kitchens to test a theory of more economical recipes, so General Coquet could afford his milk soup and Monsieur de La Vrillière could still have his biscuits in the morning. There he saw his chef and his cooks larding bacon and pork fat into cutlets of veal, loins of beef, and whole hares and pheasants, a process he found fascinating. As a result, for the last month His Majesty had been larding meat in his kitchens, and had insisted that his courtiers go larding with him.

  I don’t know if the art of cooking was improved by the involvement of the royal hands, but the king certainly improved its presentation. Loins of veal and beef fillets, which were large enough to be trimmed artistically, started coming up from the kitchens in novel shapes: trees, houses, dogs, wolves, deer, and fleurs de lys were seen. Nogent and some of the others went from cutting heraldic shapes to making rather lewd images, which earned them severe reprimands from the priggish Louis, who forbade such tasteless viands from being served on the royal tables.

  And now our readers know enough that we can proceed with our story. When the king said “Gentlemen, let’s go larding,” his entourage hastened to follow him down the stairs.

  Bassompierre took advantage of the time it took to get the chamber prepared for the king’s latest pursuit, where there were five or six marble-topped tables, each with its loin of veal, its fillet of beef, its hare or its pheasant, and where the squire Georges waited with plates of precut bacon and larding needles, which he handed to those who wished to humor His Majesty by submitting to his latest whimsy—Bassompierre, we say, took advantage of this moment to place a hand on the shoulder of the Superintendent of Finance and say, in a low voice but loud enough to be heard by everyone, “Monsieur le Surintendant, if it’s not being too curious, might I ask when you plan to pay me my quarterly stipend as Colonel-General of the Swiss Guard, an office for which I paid a hundred thousand crowns in cash?”

  Instead of answering, Monsieur de La Vieuville, who, like Nogent, was sometimes given to playing the fool, began to spin his arms like the hands on a clock, saying, “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late . . . !”

  “My faith,” said Bassompierre, “in my life I’ve solved many a riddle, but I don’t know the answer to this one.”

  “Monsieur le Maréchal,” said La Vieuville, “when one is late, he is not current, no?”

  “. . . Yes.”

  “Well, I have no currency, so I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”

  Just then the party was joined by the Duc d’Angoulême, the bastard of King Charles IX and Marie Touchet, and the Duc de Guise, whom we last saw at the soirée for Princess Marie and whom the Duc d’Orléans had promised a corps in the army, assuming he would be lieutenant general to the king in the Italian offensive. Both waited to approach until they were recognized by the king.

  Bassompierre, who was at a loss for a reply to La Vieuville, bravely went up to the Duc d’Angoulême—we say bravely, because as Angoulême turned to face him, he brought to bear one of the most formidable noses of the époque. “You’re late, you’re late, you’re late—fine, so’s your wife,” said Bassompierre. “What’s that to me? Ah,pardieu, if I could only counterfeit money like Monsieur d’Angoulême, here, I’d have no worries.”

  The Duc d’Angoulême, who had no ready response, turned his nose and looked away, pretending he hadn’t heard—but King Louis XIII had heard, and maliciously interjected, “Cousin, did you hear what Monsieur de Bassompierre said?”

  “No, Sire, I am deaf in my right ear,” replied the duke.

  “Like Caesar,” said Bassompierre.

  “He wonders if you make counterfeit money.”

  “Pardon, Sire,” replied Bassompierre. “I do not wonder if Monsieur d’Angoulême makes counterfeit money, I assert it as a known fact.”

  The Duc d’Angoulême shrugged. “For twenty years I’ve been putting up with this nonsense.”

  “Is there some truth to it, Cousin? Tell us,” said the king.

  “Ah, mon Dieu, very well: here is the truth. In my Château de Grosbois I rented a room to an alchemist called Merlin who claimed the location was perfect for finding the Philosopher’s Stone. He gave me four thousand crowns a year on condition I not inquire into what he was doing, and allow him to live in a house of a Son of France where the law couldn’t reach him. You understand, Sire, that since I was being paid more for a single room than I could get for the whole mansion, I wasn’t about to pry and risk losing such a good tenant.”

  “You see how you slander him, Bassompierre?” said the king. “What could be more honest than the entrepreneurship of our cousin?”

  “Besides,” said the Duc d’Angoulême, “what’s a little counterfeit money to me, the son of King Charles IX of France, when your father, of glorious memory, son of Antoine de Bourbon and King of Navarre, was such a thief?”

  “What—my father, a thief!” cried Louis XIII.

  “Aha!” said Bassompierre. “Perhaps that’s why he said to me one day, ‘It’s a good thing I’m the king, or else I’d be hanged!’”

  “Sire, with all due respect owed to Your Majesty,” continued the Duc d’Angoulême, “the king, your father, was a thief when gaming.”

  “And I,” said Louis XIII, “I’ll just point out to you that stealing in a game isn’t stealing, it’s just cheating. Besides, after the game, he returned the money.”

  “Not always,” said Bassompierre.

  “What do you mean, not always?” said the king.

  “Upon my word, it’s the truth, and your august mother will support me. One day, or rather one night, I had the honor of playing with the king. There were fifty pistoles in the pot, but we noticed some half-pistoles were mixed in. ‘Sire,’ I said to the king, ‘is Your Majesty trying to pass off half-pistoles as full pistoles?’ ‘No, it’s you,’ replied the king. So I took all the half-pistoles, opened a window, threw them down to the servants waiting in the courtyard, and then returned to the game with all the full pistoles.”

  “You did that, Bassompierre?” said the king.

  “Yes, Sire, and your august mother said, ‘Today Bassompierre is the king, and the king is Bassompierre.’”

  “Faith of a gentleman, that was well said,” cried Louis XIII. “And what did my father say?”

  “Sire, no doubt memories of his marital woes with Queen Marguerite led him to speak unfairly, for he said, ‘Yes, you’d like it if he was the king, as you’d have a younger husband.’”

  “So, who won the game?” asked Louis XIII.

  “King Henri IV, Sire. He took the entire pot, and he must have been preoccupied by Her Majesty’s remarks, as when he pocketed his winnings he also took some of my spare coins that were still on the table.”

  “Oh,” said the Duc d’Angoulême, “I saw him steal much more than that. . . .”

  “My father?” asked Louis XIII.

 
; “I once saw him steal a cloak.”

  “A cloak . . .?”

  “Though it’s true that, at the time, he was still just King of Navarre.”

  “Very well,” said Louis XIII, “tell us about that, Cousin.”

  “King Henri III was dying in Saint-Cloud, assassinated in the same house where he and Monsieur de Gondy had plotted the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre, though he was then still just Duc d’Anjou. Anyway, it was the anniversary of the day of the decision, and the King of Navarre was there; it was in his arms that Henri III died, bequeathing him the throne. Navarre’s outfit of purple velvet wasn’t appropriate for mourning, and he didn’t have enough money to buy a black doublet and breeches, so he rolled up the dark mantle of death that covered the king, put it under his arm, and stole away, thinking no one would be paying attention to him. But His Majesty had an excuse—assuming kings need an excuse to steal—as, without that cloak, he wouldn’t have been able to mourn properly!”

  “And now you complain, Cousin, that you can’t afford to pay your servants,” said the king, “when you have a room you could rent for four thousand crowns a year to a counterfeiting alchemist.”

  “Your pardon, Sire,” said the Duc d’Angoulême. “It’s possible my servants complain that I can’t pay them, but I’ve never complained about it. The last time they came to me to demand their wages, saying they didn’t have so much as a silver piece between them, I simply replied, ‘This is within your own power to solve, fools that you are. Four dark streets lead to the Hotel d’Angoulême, a perfect setup. Put yourselves to work there.’ They took my advice. There have been some complaints lately about robberies in the Rue Pavée, the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Catherine, and the Rue de la Couture, but those clowns no longer bother me for their wages.”

  “Yes,” said Louis XIII, “and one day I’ll hang your clowns from the gate of your hotel.”

  “If you can get the cardinal’s permission, Sire!” laughed the Duc d’Angoulême.