Between Two Kings

by Lawrence Ellsworth

  Parry made an indignant gesture, but the young man just patted his hand and smiled. “Suddenly I have two hundred seventy-four more pistoles,33 and I feel rich, so no despair there. Now, why do I have need of resignation?”

  The old man just raised his trembling hands toward heaven.

  “Come,” said the young stranger. “Conceal nothing from me. What’s happened?”

  “My story won’t take long, Milord; but in heaven’s name, don’t shudder so!”

  “It’s impatience, Parry. Come, what did the general tell you?”

  “At first the general refused to see me.”

  “He thought you were some kind of spy.”

  “Yes, Milord, but I wrote him a letter.”

  “Well?”

  “He accepted it, and read it, Milord.”

  “That letter explained my position and my wishes?”

  “Yes, indeed!” said Parry, with a sad smile. “It faithfully conveyed your thoughts.”

  “Then, Parry?”

  “Then the general sent the letter back to me by an aide-de-camp, who informed me that, if I was still in the general’s area of command the next day, he’d have me arrested.”

  “Arrested!” murmured the young man. “Arrested! You, my most faithful servant!”

  “Yes, Milord.”

  “Even though you’d signed the letter Parry?”

  “Every letter, Milord,” said the old man with a sigh. “And that aide-de-camp had known me at Saint James’s and at Whitehall.”

  The young man’s eyes closed and his head drooped. “Perhaps… that’s what the general did in front of his people,” he said, trying to deceive himself, “but behind their backs, in private, he sent to you? Tell me.”

  “Alas, Milord! What he sent me was four burly cavalrymen who put me on the horse you saw me lead in. These cavalrymen made me ride to the little port of Tenby, embarked me, or rather threw me aboard a small fishing boat bound for Brittany, and here I am.”

  “Oh!” sighed the young man, convulsively gripping his throat to stifle a sob. “And that’s all, Parry? That’s all?”

  “Yes, Milord. That’s all.”

  After this brief reply from Parry there was a long interval of silence, during which nothing was heard but the sound of the young man furiously grinding his heel on the parquet floor.

  The old man decided to change the subject. “Milord,” he said, “what was all that noise just before I arrived? Why were all those people shouting, ‘Long live the king’? Which king? And why all the torches?”

  “Ah, Parry, don’t you know?” said the young man ironically. “It’s the King of France who is pleased to visit his good city of Blois. All those fanfares were for him, all those shining cloaks were on his courtiers, all those gentlemen wear swords to defend him. His royal mother precedes him in a magnificent carriage encrusted with silver and gold. Oh, happy mother! His minister amasses millions and conducts him to a marriage with a rich fiancée. Thus, all his people are joyful, they love their king, they shout their acclamations until they’re hoarse, and still they cry, ‘Vive le roi! Vive le roi!’ ”

  “Now, now, Milord,” said Parry, even more anxious about the tone of this new subject than the old one.

  “And you know,” continued the stranger, “that during all this honor paid to King Louis XIV, my mother and my sister live in poverty, without money or bread. You know that within a fortnight, when what you’ve just told me is generally known, I’ll be an object of scorn across all Europe. Is this not a situation, Parry, where even a man of my condition might consider…”

  “Milord, in heaven’s name!”

  “You’re right, Parry, I’m a coward, and if I do nothing for myself, what should God do for me? No, no, I have two arms, Parry, I have a sword…” He struck his arm with a fist, and then took his sword down from the wall.

  “What are you going to do, Milord?”

  “What am I going to do, Parry? I’ll do as the rest of my family does. My mother lives on public charity, my sister asks alms for my mother, my brothers do likewise. And it’s time that I, the eldest, do the same. I’m going to beg, Parry!”

  And with these words, which he cut short with a nervous and terrible laugh, the young man belted on his sword, picked up his hat from a chest, and tied a black cloak around his shoulders, the same one he’d worn traveling the high roads. Then he took up the hands of the old man, who was looking at him anxiously, and said, “My good Parry, make yourself a fire, drink, eat, sleep, and be happy. Be happy, my faithful friend, my only friend, for we’re rich—as rich as kings!”

  He slapped the bag of pistoles, which dropped to the floor, repeated the dismal laugh that had frightened Parry so, and while the whole house was humming and hustling, preparing to receive and house the Parisian courtiers and their lackeys, he slipped out through the common room into the street, where the old man, who had gone to the window to watch him, soon lost sight of him in the darkness.

  VIII His Majesty Louis XIV at the Age of Twenty-Two

  As we related, the entrance of King Louis XIV into the city of Blois had been brilliant and boisterous, and so the young monarch had seemed satisfied. Arriving under the porte cochère of the Hall of the Estates General, the king met there, surrounded by his guards and gentlemen, His Royal Highness Gaston d’Orléans, whose demeanor, never less than majestic, boasted an added dignity and grandeur for this solemn occasion. For her part, Madame, resplendent in her grand ceremonial gown, awaited the entrance of her nephew on the interior balcony. All the windows of the old château, bleak and deserted on most days, glistened with bright ladies and lights.

  Then it was to the sound of tambours, trumpets, and cheers that the young king crossed the threshold of that château in which King Henri III, seventy-two years earlier, had stooped to betrayal and assassination to keep on his head and in his house a crown that was already slipping from the Valois to the Bourbons.34 After admiring the young king, so handsome, so charming, and so noble, all eyes sought out that second King of France, more powerful than the first, the man so old, so pale, and so bent who was called Cardinal Mazarin.

  Louis was brimming with all those natural gifts that made him the perfect gentleman. His eyes were a brilliant, mild, azure blue—but even the most brilliant physiognomists, those delvers into the soul, upon fixing their gaze upon them, assuming they could sustain the regard of a king, even they couldn’t see beyond into the depths that seeming mildness concealed. The eyes of the king contained the infinite depths of the summer sky, or the more sublime but frightening abysses beneath the hull of a ship on a summer’s day on the blue Mediterranean, that immense mirror of the sky that sometimes reflects its stars, and sometimes its storms.

  The king wasn’t large, if anything shorter than average, but his youth outweighed this defect, and he moved with the grace of an athlete, shown by his easy mastery of most physical skills. In truth, he looked every inch a king, and it was no small thing to be a king who looked the part in that period of traditional respect and devotion. Until recently he’d been little seen by his people, and when he had been it was next to his mother, a tall and majestic woman, or Monsieur le Cardinal, a handsome and magnetic man, and beside those two veteran rulers few had thought much of the king.

  Unaware of these belittling comparisons, which were mainly confined to the capital, the citizens of Blois received the young prince like a god, while Monsieur and Madame, the lords of the château, paid him nearly kingly honors. However, it must be said that when the king saw awaiting them in the Reception Hall a row of chairs of equal height, for him, his mother, the cardinal, his aunt and his uncle, an arrangement cleverly mitigated by their placement in a semicircle, Louis XIV flushed with anger, and looked around at the others to see if anyone was amused at his expense by this calculated humiliation. But as he saw nothing on the cardinal’s face, nothing in his mother’s expression, and nothing from the courtiers, he resigned himself and sat down, though he deliberately sat first and on the c
entermost chair.

  The local gentlemen and ladies were then introduced to Their Majesties and to Monsieur le Cardinal. The king noticed that where he and his mother were rarely familiar with the names of those presented, the cardinal, on the contrary, knew all of them, and never failed to ask about their estates or absent family members, mentioning their children by name, which delighted these provincials and confirmed in them the idea that he was truly the sole king. It is the true king who knows his subjects, just as there is only one sun, for only the sun shines equally on everyone.

  These lessons for the young king, who’d begun his studies some time ago without anyone noticing, were duly absorbed, and he spent some time observing those circulating in the hall, trying to draw conclusions about even the least significant of them. They were served a collation; the king, without daring to demand hospitality of his uncle, had awaited this impatiently—and this time he received all the honors due, if not to his rank, then at least to his appetite. As for the cardinal, he contented himself with touching to his withered lips a little broth served in a golden cup. The all-powerful minister, who had appropriated her regency from the queen mother and his royalty from the king, had been unable to command nature to give him good digestion. Anne of Austria,* already suffering from the cancer that in a few more years would take her life, ate little more than the cardinal. As for Monsieur, preoccupied with this great event that had overturned his provincial life, he ate nothing at all.

  Madame alone, like a true Lorrainer, kept up with His Majesty, so that Louis XIV, who’d been embarrassed to be the only one eating, was grateful to his aunt, and also to Monsieur de Saint-Rémy, her maître d’hôtel, who’d likewise distinguished himself.

  The collation complete, at a gesture from Mazarin the king rose, and at the invitation of his aunt began to circulate among the ranks of those assembled there. The ladies observed, for there are certain things that the ladies are as quick to observe in Blois as in Paris, that Louis XIV had a bold and lingering eye, which promised to those with attractions a distinguished appreciation. The men, for their part, observed that the prince was proud and haughty, and that he would hold the gaze of those who looked at him too openly or too long until they dropped their eyes, which seemed to foretell a masterful ruler.

  Louis XIV had completed a third of his circuit when his ears pricked up at a word spoken by His Eminence, who was conversing with Monsieur. This word was a woman’s name. Louis XIV had scarcely heard this word before he cut short the arc of his circulation and began drifting toward the cardinal, whose conversation, despite his pretense otherwise, now occupied all the king’s attention.

  Monsieur, as a good courtier, had inquired of His Eminence about the health of his nieces. In fact, five or six years earlier, three nieces had arrived at the cardinal’s house from Italy: Mesdemoiselles Hortense, Olympe, and Marie de Mancini. Therefore, Monsieur asked after the health of these nieces, regretting that he didn’t have the pleasure of receiving them at the same time as their uncle, as they must certainly have grown in both beauty and grace since Monsieur had seen them last.

  The king had been struck by the difference in the voices of the two speakers. The voice of Monsieur was calm and natural, but that of Monsieur de Mazarin was strident and elevated above its usual tone. It was as if he were pitching his voice so it would carry to the end of the hall. “Monseigneur,” he replied, “Mesdemoiselles de Mancini still have to complete their educations, comprehend their positions, and learn how to fulfill their duties. To stay at a young and brilliant Court would distract or even dissipate them.”

  Louis smiled sadly at this last characterization. The Court was young, it was true, but the cardinal’s thrift and avarice ensured it was far from brilliant.

  “But surely you have no intention,” replied Monsieur, “of keeping them cloistered or educating them among the bourgeois?”

  “Not at all,” said the cardinal, emphasizing his Italian accent so that his voice, usually soft and smooth, became sharp and penetrating. “Not at all; I intend to see them married, and as well as possible.”

  “You’ll have no shortage of suitors, Monsieur le Cardinal,” replied Monsieur, like a cheerful merchant congratulating another on his bustling trade.

  “So I hope, Monseigneur, especially since God has graced them with charm, wisdom, and beauty.”

  During this conversation, Louis XIV, led by Madame, had been making a circuit of the room. “Mademoiselle Arnoux, the daughter of my music tutor,” said the princess, presenting to His Majesty a buxom blonde of twenty-two, who at a village festival might have been taken for a peasant in her Sunday best.

  The king smiled. Madame had never been able to play four fair notes in a row on the viol or the harpsichord.

  “Mademoiselle Aure de Montalais,” continued Madame, “a young lady of quality, and my good servant.”

  This time it wasn’t the king who smiled, it was the young woman presented to him, because for the first time in her life she heard Madame, who was usually rather brusque, speak well of her. So Montalais, our old acquaintance, made a deep bow to His Majesty, as much from respect as from the need to hide an inappropriate and quite unladylike smirk, which the king might have misunderstood.

  It was at just that moment that the king heard the name that had made him start.

  “And the third one is called…?” asked Monsieur.

  “Marie, Monseigneur,” replied the cardinal.

  There was, beyond doubt, some magical power in this name, for as we’ve said, at this word the king shuddered, and drew Madame toward the origin of the conversation, as if he wished to put some confidential question to her, but in reality to get closer to the cardinal. “My Aunt Madame,” he said, in a laughing undertone, “my geography tutor never informed me that Blois was at such a prodigious distance from Paris.”

  “How so, my Nephew?” asked Madame.

  “Because it seems it takes several years for fashion to travel that distance. Look at these young ladies.”

  “Well! I know them all.”

  “Some of them are pretty.”

  “Don’t say that too loudly, my Nephew, or you’ll drive them to distraction.”

  “Patience, my dear Aunt,” said the king, smiling, “for the second part of my sentence outweighs the first. Because, my dear Aunt, some of them seem positively old and ugly, thanks to their ten-years-out-of-date fashions.”

  “But, Sire, Blois is no more than five days from Paris.”

  “Oh?” said the king. “Then that’s, let’s see, two years behind for each day.”

  “You really think it’s that bad? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Look here, Aunt,” said Louis XIV, still approaching Mazarin under the pretense of leading Madame toward someone else. “Look, past this ancient jewelry and these pretentious coiffures, look at the elegance of this simple white dress. This must be one of my mother’s maids of honor, though I don’t know her. Look at her artless finesse and graceful posture. There’s no comparison: here is a lady, while these others are just mannequins.”

  “My dear Nephew,” replied Madame, laughing, “permit me to tell you that this time your keen senses have failed you. This young woman is no Parisian, but a native of Blois.”

  “Really, Aunt?” replied the king, skeptically.

  “Come here, Louise,” said Madame.

  And the girl whom we’ve already met under this name approached, timid, blushing, eyes dropping under the royal gaze.

  “Mademoiselle Louise-Françoise de La Baume Le Blanc, daughter of the Marquis de La Vallière,” said Madame ceremoniously to the king.

  The young lady bowed with such grace despite being intimidated by the royal presence that the king, watching her, actually missed a few words of the conversation between the cardinal and Monsieur.

  “Stepdaughter,” continued Madame, “of Monsieur de Saint-Rémy, my maître d’hôtel, who oversaw the creation of that excellent truffled turkey that Your Majesty seemed to enjoy so well.”
>
  There was nothing that grace, beauty, and youth could do to overcome a vulgar association like that. The king smirked. Whether Madame meant her words as a pleasantry, or was merely naïve, the connection annihilated anything Louis might have found charming or poetic in the young woman. For Madame, and therefore at that moment for the king, Mademoiselle de La Vallière was nothing but the stepdaughter of a man who saw to the preparation of truffled turkeys.

  But such is the nature of princes. The gods were much the same on Olympus, and no doubt Diana and Venus were just as condescending when they spoke of the beauty of the poor mortals Alcmene and Io, if they deigned to address the subject while taking nectar and ambrosia at Jupiter’s table.

  Fortunately, Louise had bent so low that she didn’t hear Madame’s remarks or see the king’s smile. Indeed, if the poor child, the only one of all her companions with the natural good taste to dress in white, had heard Madame’s words and seen the king’s cold sneer, her delicate dove’s heart would have stopped and she’d have died on the spot. Even Montalais herself, with all her ingenuity and ambition, wouldn’t have tried to recall her to life, for ridicule is the death of everything, even beauty.

  But fortunately, as we said, Louise, whose ears were ringing and whose gaze was averted, Louise saw and heard nothing, and the king, preoccupied with the cardinal’s conversation, hastened to move on. He arrived just as Mazarin concluded with, “Marie, like her sisters, is bound for Brouage. I had them follow the opposite bank of the Loire from us, and if they obey my instructions, I calculate they should be across from Blois tomorrow morning.”

  These words were pronounced with that tact, that precision, and that mastery of tone that made Signor Giulio Mazarini the world’s greatest comic actor. As a result, the words struck right to the heart of Louis XIV—as the cardinal, turning at the sound of His Majesty’s approaching footsteps, could see from the effect on his pupil’s face, a subtle reddening that was nonetheless noted by the eye of His Eminence.