The next morning, he sent a letter by courier to Bois-Robert, summoning him to Fontainebleau with all haste.
Bois-Robert was amazed by this mark of favor, which was the sort of thing he expected from Richelieu, but not from the king. His surprise was even greater when Louis led him to a window embrasure, pointed out Mademoiselle de Hautefort, who was walking on the terrace, and told him he wanted a verse written about that particular lovely lady.
Astonished though he was, Bois-Robert didn’t have to be asked twice. He praised Mademoiselle de Hautefort’s beauty and, learning that she was called Aurora, said he could have sought high and low and found no better name for her dawn-like loveliness. It gave him, moreover, a subject for his verse.
In his poem, Louis XIII, under his sometime title of Apollo—Apollo was the god of the lyre, and Louis XIII, as we know, liked to compose music—begged Dawn not to rise so early and vanish so quickly. Desiring her since the beginning of the world, he pursued her daily in his horse-drawn celestial chariot without ever quite reaching her, always seeing her disappear just as he reached out his hand to touch her.
The king read this verse and approved it, except for one point. “This is fine, Le Bois,” he said, “but remove the word ‘desiring’.”
“Why is that, Majesty?” asked Bois-Robert.
“Because I don’t . . . desire.”
There was no answer to that. “Desiring” was edited out.
As for the king, he set music to Bois-Robert’s words, and words and music were sung by his official musicians, Molinier and Justin, who, given the importance of the matter, wore their most splendid attire.
The two queens, and especially Anne of Austria, applauded the poetry of Bois-Robert and the melody of the king.
Louis XIII performed his Easter rites. His confessor Suffren, who was in on the scheme, soothed His Majesty’s conscience, citing the example of the Patriarchs, who were unfaithful to their wives without inviting the wrath of the Lord—but the king assured him that there was no such danger, as his love for Mademoiselle de Hautefort was pure and without sin.
Not so Madame de Fargis and company, who definitely had sin in mind. For a mind like La Fargis’s, sin was always the object.
Once Easter was past, the cabal watched Louis XIII with some anxiety, but he made no move to continue his journey south; instead, he ordered hunts and banquets—but at both banquets and hunts, though he devoted himself exclusively to Mademoiselle de Hautefort, his conduct toward her was still perfectly respectful.
There was one gambit yet to try: to make the king jealous.
There existed a certain Monsieur d’Ecquevilly Vassé, of the family of Président Hennequin. Though never finalized, there had been some talk of marriage between him and Mademoiselle de Hautefort. He arrived at Fontainebleau, having been invited by Madame de Fargis with an eye toward making him an object of jealousy. And indeed, Monsieur d’Ecquevilly seemed inclined to revive his old courtship, despite the unusual attentions the king was paying his intended.
Louis XIII took pause and asked Mademoiselle de Hautefort about the matter, who confirmed that the families had discussed a marriage.
And so finally Louis XIII became jealous—and jealous of a woman!
The two queens met with Madame de Fargis to figure out how to exploit this jealousy. And Madame de Fargis came up with a scheme. That evening, Gretchen the dwarf, who could approach without question, would speak to Mademoiselle de Hautefort and awkwardly slip her a perfumed letter, in such a way that the king couldn’t help but notice. The king would want to know who’d sent such a letter. The rest was up to the queen and Mademoiselle de Hautefort.
That evening, the usual circle gathered around Her Majesty Queen Anne. The king was sitting near Mademoiselle de Hautefort, cutting out paper dolls. Mademoiselle de Hautefort was carefully dressed, at the personal instruction of the queen. She wore a low-cut dress of white satin, and her dazzling arms and shoulders, whiter even than her dress, drew the lips like a magnet draws iron.
The king, from time to time, passed his eyes over these arms and shoulders, but no more than that.
Fargis stared openly. “Ah, Sire,” she whispered to the king, “if I were a man . . .”
Louis XIII frowned.
Anne of Austria, adjusting the hem of her dress, also seemed to be looking at this beautiful image in rose-colored marble.
At that moment, little Gretchen crawled out on all fours from between the king’s legs. The king thought it was Grisette, his favorite dog, and moved his feet to let her through. The dwarf shrieked as though the king had stepped on her hand.
His Majesty stood. Gretchen took advantage of the movement to slip the letter, as clumsily as instructed, into Mademoiselle de Hautefort’s hand. The king couldn’t fail to see it.
Taking part in this farce made the young woman blush, which served the conspirators’ purposes perfectly. The king saw the letter pass from the dwarf’s hand to Marie’s, and from Marie’s hand into a pocket.
“The dwarf gave you a letter?” he asked.
“Do you think so, Sire?”
“I know so.”
There was a brief silence.
“Who is it from?” asked the king.
“I don’t know,” said Mademoiselle de Hautefort.
“Then read it, and you’ll know.”
“Later, Sire!”
“Why later?”
“There’s no hurry.”
“With me, there is.”
“But it seems to me, Sire,” said Mademoiselle de Hautefort, “I’m free to receive letters from whomever I like.”
“Not so!”
“Why not?”
“Not when . . .”
“Not what?”
“Not when . . . not when . . . I love you!”
“What, you, love me?” said Mademoiselle de Hautefort, laughing.
“Yes!”
“But what will Her Majesty the queen say?”
“Her Majesty the queen says I can’t love anyone; this will prove I can.”
“Bravo, Sire!” said the queen. “In your place, I’d want to know who’s written to this young lady, and what it says.”
“But I’m desperate! The king mustn’t know,” said Mademoiselle de Hautefort. She rose.
“We’ll see about that,” said the king. And he rose as well.
Mademoiselle de Hautefort backed quickly away. The king made a move to grab her. The door to the queen’s boudoir was behind her, and she ran for it. Louis XIII chased her through it, the queen right behind, calling “Watch your pockets, Hautefort!”
The king cornered her and raised his hands, clearly intending to search the girl. But she, knowing the king’s prudery, pulled the letter from her pocket and thrust it into her bosom. “Take it from there, Sire,” she said.
And with the shamelessness of innocence, she presented her chest to the king. The king hesitated, and dropped his arms.
“Take it, Sire, take it!” cried the queen, laughing aloud, to the great embarrassment of her husband. To remove the young woman’s last defense, she grabbed Mademoiselle de Hautefort’s hands and pinned them behind her back. “Now, Sire—take it!”
Louis looked around, caught like a sugar cube in silver tongs . . . and then chastely, without touching her skin, drew the letter from its warm sanctuary.
The queen, who hadn’t really expected this, released Mademoiselle de Hautefort’s hands and murmured to herself, “I may have no choice but to adopt Fargis’s proposal.”
The letter was from Mademoiselle de Hautefort’s mother. The king read it and, ashamed, returned it. Then all three went back into the salon, each with different emotions.
Madame de Fargis was chatting with an officer who’d just arrived from the army, bringing, he said, important news for the king.
“The Comte de Moret!” murmured the queen, recognizing the young man she’d seen only two or three times before, though it was always Madame de Fargis who’d spoken to him. In truth, he w
as quite handsome.
Then she said, even lower: “He does look a bit like the Duke of Buckingham.” Was she just noticing it now, or did she suddenly wish for a reason to find a resemblance between Richelieu’s messenger and the former ambassador of the King of England?
HERE ENDS
the manuscript of The Red Sphinx ~
the story of the Comte de Moret
and Isabelle de Lautrec continues in
THE DOVE
PART II
The Dove
I
May 5, 1637
Beautiful dove with your silver plumage, your black collar and pink feet, since your prison seems so cruel that you threaten to batter yourself to death on its bars, I give you your freedom.
But, as you doubtless want to leave me to rejoin a person you love more, I must justify your week’s absence.
I need payment for the service I render you in setting you free from eternal captivity—for the heart is selfish, and does nothing without asking payment in return, often at double value.
Go then, gentle messenger, go and, by your return, tender these regrets to the person who calls you despite the distance. This note, which I attach to your leg, is the proof of your loyalty.
So goodbye—the window opens, and heaven awaits. . . . Farewell!
II
May 6, 1637
Thank you, whoever you are, for returning my sole companion. But that blessed act must be its own reward. If only the charming messenger who brought me your letter could have known how to thank you, or tell me where you live, for I’d hate you to think me cold and uncaring.
But the same restlessness that took her to your home brought her back to mine. Yesterday Iris was full of the joy of her return to me. However, this morning—how changeable we are!—this morning, I wasn’t enough for her. She beat with her wings and her beak, not at the bars of her cage, for she never had a cage, but at the panes of my window. She is no longer mine alone—she belongs to both of us.
Now, my opinion may not be shared by many, but I think that by sharing we double what we have. From now on, our Iris is not single, but double—and notice how prescient I was in naming her Iris, as if I knew she would become our messenger! Your Iris will bring you my letters, and my Iris will bring me yours—because I hope you will kindly reply to tell me how she came into your hands.
It may surprise you that I’m so quick to be familiar with a stranger, an unknown—but I know you must be a good man or woman, since your returned me my dove. Furthermore, the tone of your letter bespeaks a person of distinction and heart; all such noble spirits are sisters, all such refined minds are brothers. So treat me as a brother—or a sister, if you will—because I need to find the brother or sister I never had.
Iris, my dear friend, go back to where you came from, to that person I refer to as him or her—and add that I’d rather be thought of as her than as him.
Go, Iris—and remember that I’m waiting for you.
III
The same day, as the Angelus tolls
My sister,
For the delay, blame neither Iris nor myself. I wasn’t in my room when your messenger arrived, but I’d left the window open to catch the first breath of the evening breeze. Iris landed on the window sill, and as if the charming little creature understood that she had a letter to deliver and a reply to bear away, she patiently awaited my return, and when I came in, she flew to my shoulder. . . .
Hélas! In my uneven descent from the heights of human eminence, I’ve experienced along the way both the heights of joy and depths of sorrow. And I’ve never felt more sad than when I first sent away your dove, whose name I didn’t even know, consigning her to some unknown destination—and then, believing her gone forever, I was never happier than when I found her in my room and felt her cool wing caress my cheek as she alighted on my shoulder.
Dear God! For man, the eternal slave of his surroundings, how little it takes to trigger joy and sorrow! The tears of one who has lost a kingdom, who trembled at the wind of the ax as it took the heads of those around him, he cries just the same watching a bird escape into the heavens, and trembles feeling the wind from the wings of a dove! This is one of your great mysteries, dear God! And only you, with your divine mysteries, know if you have a more humble and devout worshiper than this one, who prays at the foot of the cross of your holy Son to bless your glory and greatness!
So I thought upon seeing the dear dove I’d thought I’d lost, even before I read the letter she carried.
Then, having read the letter, I fell into a deep reverie.
What good, I wondered, poor castaway that I am, who have gambled with death and tried to hoodwink the hurricane, what good is it, lost in the immensity of the ocean, to grasp at this drifting plank, the last remnant of my broken ship of life, when Providence is within reach of my hand? Is that temptation worse than the temptation of hope? Aren’t I just catching my coat on the edge of the doorway out of this world, just when I thought I was completely done with the vanities and illusions of earthly life?
You see, my sister, how much I had to consider: God above my head, the abyss beneath my feet, and around me the world I could no longer see because I’d shut my eyes, no longer hear because I’d stopped my ears—if I listened to the wind, I’d hear the hurricane once more, and carelessly open both eyes and ears.
But maybe, with imagination, I’ll see beyond my reality; maybe, if I don’t try too hard, I can look beyond the horizon of events.
You asked, my sister, for a simple story. I’ll tell you one.
About a week ago I was sitting in the garden, reading. Would you like to know what I was reading, my sister? It was that treasure of love, religion, and poetry called The Confessions of Saint Augustine. As I read it, my thoughts merged with those of that blessed bishop, who had a saint for a mother before he was a saint himself.
Suddenly I heard a fluttering over my head and, looking up, saw a plummeting dove, pursued by a hawk who already had some of its prey’s feathers in its beak.
God, who in his majesty regards the fall of a sparrow the same as the crash of an empire, God had told this poor bird, in mortal menace from the hawk, to seek succor with me.
In any event, I took hold of the poor thing, trembling and bloodstained, and clutched it to my chest, where it nestled, eyes closed, heart hammering. And I, seeing the hawk watching from the top of a poplar, took it inside to my cell.
For five or six days, the hawk didn’t leave its observation post for a moment, and day and night I saw him sitting motionless on his dry branch, watching for his prey.
The dove, for its part, doubtless sensed the hawk’s presence, for that entire time she sat, sad but resigned, on my windowsill.
Finally, the day before yesterday, the hawk disappeared, and the instinct of the prisoner must have told her that her enemy was gone, because almost immediately she began beating herself against the window pane, so roughly that I feared she’d break it.
Suddenly I was no longer a protector, but a jailer; my room no longer a refuge, but a prison. For a whole day I tried to reconcile her with me, for a whole day I held her while she struggled. Yesterday I finally gave in to pity; I wrote the brief letter you received, and then, with tears in my eyes, opened the window through which I expected her to disappear forever.
Since then, I often thought about that hawk sitting still and watchful on the highest branch of the tree—and in it I saw a symbol of the enemy of mankind, always there though we see him not, watching for his prey, quœrens quem devoret, so he can devour it.
And now, since at your desire I’ve related how your dove came to me, and then brought you my letter, I have a request: tell me, my sister, how Iris came to leave you, as I’ve told you how she came to me.
Tomorrow, at the first light of dawn, I’ll open my window, and your messenger will ride that light back to you, carrying my answer.
Meanwhile, may the cherubim we call dreams flit quietly ’round your bed, cooling your brow with t
he waft of their wings!
IV
May 10, after Matins
I waited three days before responding, as you can see by my letter’s date. Your letter gave me pause: I had hoped to be calling you sister, but I must either call you brother or renounce writing you altogether.
You fear, you say, that you’re catching your coat on the edge of the doorway out of this world. So you pass through this world in solitude?
You also say you descended from the heights of human eminence. Were you thus at the apex of society, so that your fall should take you so far?
You lost a kingdom, and passed under the ax that took the heads of those around you. So you lived among the great? You took part in the struggles of princes?
How am I to believe that, with all you’ve been through, you are yet young—and humble, too, claiming to speak from your knees?
On the other hand, what point would there be in deceiving me? You don’t know me—don’t know if I’m a noble or peasant, young or old, ugly or pretty.
Besides, it hardly matters whether I know who you are or you know who I am. We are two forlorn creatures, apart from one another, unknown to each other, and powerless to physically meet.
But, aside from physical meeting, there is the meeting of minds; beyond touch and sight of the body, there is the brotherhood of souls, that mysterious agape in which we drink the Lord’s words from the same cup, and bathe in the same glowing aura of the Holy Spirit.
That’s all I want from you. That’s all you want from me.
That said, if we find sympathy between our minds, affinity between our souls, what harm can there be in the eyes of God if our minds and souls communicate through space, like the light of two friendly stars crossing the lonely ether of the firmament?
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