Between Two Kings

by Lawrence Ellsworth

  “You know, Sire, that I was called to Edinburgh by loyalists in 1650, during Cromwell’s expedition to Ireland, and I was crowned at Scone. A year later, after being wounded in one of the provinces he’d subjugated, Cromwell returned to come down upon us. To meet him in battle was my goal, to get out of Scotland my desire.”

  “But isn’t Scotland almost your native country?” asked the younger king.

  “Yes, but the Scots were cruel compatriots to me! Sire, they forced me to deny the religion of my fathers, and they hanged Lord Montrose, my most devoted servant, because he wouldn’t become a Covenanter.37 The poor martyr, offered a boon when he was dying, asked that his body should be cut into as many pieces as there were cities in Scotland, so that there might be proof of his loyalty everywhere, and as a result I couldn’t leave one town or enter another without passing some scrap of that body that had acted, fought, even breathed for me.

  “In a bold move, I dashed through Cromwell’s army and made it into England. The Protector then joined me in a strange race, with a crown for the goal. If I’d been able to get to London before him, doubtless the prize of the race would have been mine, but he caught up to me at Worcester. The Spirit of England had passed from us and into him. On September 3, 1651, the anniversary of the Battle of Dunbar, so fatal to the Scots, I was defeated, Sire. Two thousand men fell around me before I thought of retreating a step. Finally, I had to flee.

  “From then on, my life became a melodrama. With my pursuers close behind me, I cut off my hair and disguised myself as a woodcutter. A day spent hiding in the branches of a broad oak gave that tree the name of Royal Oak, which it bears to this day. My adventures in the county of Strafford, which I escaped with my host’s daughter riding pillion behind me, are still told around the fireside there, and became the subject of a ballad. One day I’ll write all this down, Brother, for the instruction of my brother kings.

  “I will say how, upon arriving at Mister Norton’s, I met a chaplain from the Court who watched me suspiciously as I played a game of bowls, and an old servant who recognized me and burst into tears, nearly betraying me out of loyalty rather than treachery. Finally, I’ll mention my terror—yes, Sire, my terror—when, at the house of Colonel Windham, the hostler who looked after our horses declared that they’d been shod in the north.”

  “How strange,” murmured Louis XIV, “that I never heard of any of this. I only knew that you’d embarked at Shoreham and then landed in Normandy.”

  “Oh!” lamented Charles. “Dear God above, if you allow it to happen that kings don’t hear one another’s stories, how can you expect them to help each other?”

  “But tell me, Brother,” continued Louis XIV, “how, having been treated so rudely in England, you can still hope for anything from that unhappy country and her rebellious people?”

  “Because, Sire, since the Battle of Worcester, everything has changed! Cromwell has died, after signing a treaty with France on which he dared to place his name above yours. He died on September 3, 1658—another anniversary to add to that date, after the battles of Worcester and Dunbar.”

  “His son succeeded him…”

  “But some men, Sire, may have a son without having an heir. Oliver Cromwell’s legacy was too great a burden for Richard Cromwell. Richard, who was neither Republican nor Royalist; Richard, who let his guards eat his lunch and his generals govern his state; Richard abdicated the Protectorate on May 25, 1659,38 a little over a year ago, Sire.

  “Since then England has been little more than a casino where everyone throws dice for my father’s crown. The two players still at the table are Lambert and Monck.* Well, Sire, it’s my turn! I’d like a seat at the game that’s being played on my royal cloak. A million, Sire, to corrupt one of these players and buy me an ally, or two hundred of your gentlemen to drive them from my palace of Whitehall, as Jesus chased the moneychangers from the temple.”

  “So,” replied Louis XIV, “you’ve come to ask of me…”

  “Your aid; not just what kings owe to one another, but no more than the duty between simple Christians; your aid, Sire, whether in money or men; your aid, Sire, and within a month, whether I pit Lambert against Monck, or Monck against Lambert, I’ll have reconquered my paternal inheritance without having cost my country a single guinea, or my subjects a drop of blood, because they’re now so sick of the fever of revolution, of protectorate and republic, that they ask nothing more than to fall safely asleep in the arms of royalty. Give me your aid, Sire, and I’ll owe my throne more to Your Majesty than to my father. My poor father, who paid dearly for the ruin of our house! You can see how desperate, how unhappy I am, Sire, since I blame my own father.”

  And the blood mounted in the pale face of Charles II, who put his head between his hands for a moment as if blinded by the flush of such filial blasphemy.

  The young king was as unhappy as his elder brother and squirmed in his seat, unable to find the words to respond. Finally, Charles II, to whom ten extra years gave a greater ability to master his emotions, regained his voice. “Sire,” he said, “your answer? I’m like the condemned awaiting his sentence. Must I die?”

  “My Brother,” the French prince replied to Charles II, “you ask me for a million, but I’ve never had even a quarter of that sum! I have nothing! I’m no more the King of France than you are King of England. I’m just a name, a figurehead dressed in velvet fleurs de lys, nothing more. I can see my own throne, but that’s the only advantage I have over Your Majesty. I have nothing and can do nothing.”

  “Is this true?” cried Charles II.

  “My Brother,” said Louis, lowering his voice, “I have suffered humiliations not even my poorest gentlemen would endure. If poor old La Porte were still here, he’d tell you how I slept in ragged sheets with holes big enough for my legs to pass through; how when I was older, and asked for my carriage, they brought me a vehicle half-gnawed by the rats of the coach house; how, when I asked for my dinner, they sent to the cardinal’s kitchen to see if there was any food for the king.

  “And today, today when I’m twenty-two years old, today when I’ve attained the age of royal majority, today when I should have the key to the treasury, the command of politics, the decision of peace or war, cast your eyes around and see what leavings they give me. I am abandoned, disdained, silenced, while across the way all is light, activity, and homage to power. There! There you see the real King of France, my Brother.”

  “The cardinal’s chambers?”

  “The cardinal’s, yes.”

  “Then, I am condemned, Sire.”

  Louis XIV said nothing.

  “Condemned is the word, for I will never plead with the one who left, to die of cold and hunger, my mother and my sister, the daughter and grand-daughter of Henri IV, saved only by Monsieur de Retz39 and the Parliament, who sent them wood and bread.”

  “To die!” murmured Louis XIV.

  “Why not?” continued the King of England. “Poor Charles II, grandson like you of Henri IV, Sire, having neither parliament nor Cardinal Retz to help him, will die of hunger as his mother and sister nearly did.”

  Louis frowned and tore at the lace of his cuffs. This futile fidgeting as he tried to mask his internal emotions struck King Charles, and he took the younger man’s hand. “Thank you, Brother,” he said. “You were frank with me, and that’s all I could ask of someone in your position.”

  “Sire,” said Louis XIV, suddenly raising his head, “you need a million in gold or two hundred gentlemen, isn’t that what you said?”

  “Sire, a million would do it.”

  “That’s not so much.”

  “Offered to one man, it’s quite a lot. Convictions have been bought for far less, and I’d be dealing with mere venality.”

  “And two hundred gentlemen—why, that’s hardly more than a company.”

  “Sire, there’s a tradition in our family that four men, just four French gentlemen devoted to my father,40 came this close to saving him, though he was condemne
d by parliament, guarded by an army, and in the middle of an angry nation.”

  “So, if I can find you a million, or two hundred gentlemen, you’ll be satisfied, and feel I’ve treated you as a true brother should?”

  “I’ll call you my savior, and when I regain my father’s throne, England, so long as I reign, shall be like a sister to France, as you have been a brother to me.”

  “Well, Brother!” said Louis, rising. “What you hesitated to ask of me, I will go ask for without hesitation! Though I’ve never asked such things for myself, I’ll ask them for you. I’ll go see the King of France—the other, the one who’s rich and powerful—and demand this million in gold or two hundred men. And then we’ll see!”

  “Oh!” cried Charles. “You’re a noble friend, Sire, a heart blessed by God! You save me, Brother, and if you ever need the life you hereby preserve, ask it of me!”

  “Not so loud, my Brother! Hush!” whispered Louis. “We don’t want to be overheard. We’re not yet at our goal. To ask Mazarin for money? Why, it’s like passing through the enchanted forest where each tree harbors a demon. There’s nothing harder in the world!”

  “But still, Sire, when it’s you who asks…”

  “I’ve already said that I never ask,” replied Louis with a hauteur that made the King of England go pale. When he saw Charles wilting like a wounded man, he quickly added, “Please pardon me, Brother—I don’t have a mother and sister who are suffering. Forgive me my pride, and I’ll pay for it with a sacrifice. I go now to see the cardinal. Wait for me, I beg. I will return.”

  X The Arithmetic of Monsieur de Mazarin

  While the king was traversing the corridors that led to the cardinal’s wing of the château, accompanied only by his valet, his officer of musketeers, breathing like a man who’d been holding his breath a long time, stepped out from the entry chamber which the king had thought empty. This little room was really part of the king’s bedchamber, separated by nothing but a thin partition. And this partition, which blocked only the eyes, did nothing to prevent the ears from hearing everything that passed within.

  So, there was no doubt but that this Lieutenant of Musketeers must have heard every word exchanged in His Majesty’s chamber. Warned in time by the king’s final words, the officer had exited into the antechamber ahead of him, to salute him as he passed and to watch him until he disappeared down the corridor.

  Once the king had disappeared, he shook his head in a way that belonged only to him, and said, in voice that forty years after leaving Gascony still retained its accent, “It’s a sad service for a sad king.” Then, these words pronounced, the lieutenant resumed his place in the armchair, extending his legs and closing his eyes like a man who intends to meditate or to sleep.

  During this short monologue and the arrangements that followed, while the king passed down the long corridors of the old château, a different kind of scene was playing out in the cardinal’s chambers. Mazarin had gone to bed suffering somewhat from the gout, but as he was a man of order who made use even of pain, he made his wakefulness into the humble servant of his work. Therefore, he’d had Bernouin,* his personal valet, bring him a small travel desk so he could write while lying in bed. But gout is not an adversary that gives in easily, and as every movement stabbed him with pain, he asked Bernouin, “Is Brienne still there?”

  “No, Monseigneur,” replied the valet de chambre. “Monsieur de Brienne,41 by your leave, has gone to bed. But if Your Eminence so desires we can always wake him.”

  “No, it isn’t worth it. Now let’s see. Damn these numbers!” And the cardinal gazed at nothing while counting on his fingers.

  “The numbers again?” said Bernouin. “Fine! If Your Eminence is going to return to his calculations, I can promise him a fine migraine in the morning. And Doctor Guénaud didn’t come with us.”

  “You’re right, Bernouin. Well, you’ll just have to stand in for Brienne, my friend. Really, though, I should have brought Monsieur Colbert.* That young man will go far, Bernouin, very far. Such orderly thinking!”

  “Maybe,” said the valet, “but personally I don’t like the face of your young man who will go far.”

  “Enough, Bernouin, enough. I didn’t ask for your opinion. Now sit here, take the pen, and write.”

  “Very well, Monseigneur. Where shall I write?”

  “There, under those two lines I drew across.”

  “Got it.”

  “Write: seven hundred sixty thousand livres.”

  “Done.”

  “In Lyons…” The cardinal seemed to hesitate.

  “In Lyons,” repeated Bernouin.

  “Three million nine hundred thousand livres.”

  “Fine, Monseigneur.”

  “In Bordeaux, seven million.”

  “Seven,” repeated Bernouin.

  “Ah, yes,” said the cardinal with a smile, “seven.” He sighed and resumed, “You understand, Bernouin, that this is all money there to be spent.”

  “Ohé, Monseigneur, whether it’s to be spent or saved is nothing to me, since none of these millions are mine.”

  “These are the king’s millions; this is the king’s money we’re counting. Can we get on with it? You always interrupt me!”

  “Seven million in Bordeaux.”

  “Yes, that’s right! In Madrid, four. I tell you whose money it is, Bernouin, because everyone is so foolish as to think I’m rolling in millions. I reject such nonsense! A minister has nothing of his own. Now, let’s continue: general receipts, seven million. Real estate, nine million. Got all that, Bernouin?”

  “Yes, Monseigneur.”

  “On the markets, six hundred thousand livres. Assorted properties, two million. Oh, I forgot—the furnishings of the various châteaux…”

  “Should I add the royal crown?” asked Bernouin.

  “No need for that, its inclusion is implied. Now, got everything, Bernouin?”

  “Yes, Monseigneur.”

  “And these sums…?”

  “Are all lined up in a column.”

  “Total them, Bernouin.”

  “Thirty-nine million two hundred and sixty thousand livres, Monseigneur.”

  “Agh!” spat the cardinal. “Still short of forty million!”

  Bernouin added the numbers again. “Yes, Monseigneur, short by seven hundred forty thousand livres.”

  Mazarin asked for the ledger and checked it over carefully. “Just the same,” said Bernouin, “thirty-nine million two hundred and sixty thousand livres is a nice round sum.”

  “Ah, Bernouin! But I wish the king had forty million for us.”

  “Didn’t Your Eminence say that all this money belongs to His Majesty?”

  “Absolutely, that couldn’t be clearer. But these thirty-nine million are spoken for, and well beyond.”

  Bernouin smiled to himself like a man who believes no more than he has to, meanwhile preparing the cardinal’s night medicine and fluffing his pillow.

  “Hmpf!” said Mazarin, once the valet had left the chamber. “Still less than forty million! Will I never achieve my goal of reaching forty-five? Who knows if I have enough time left to do it? I’m sinking fast, I’ll never make it. Still, maybe I can find two or three million in the pockets of our good friends the Spaniards. They plundered Peru, those people, and there must be some of that still around.”

  He was talking this way, focused on his figures and forgetting about his gout, which gave way to this most important of his preoccupations, when Bernouin, upset, suddenly burst back into his room. “Well?” demanded the cardinal. “What is it?”

  “The king! The king, Monseigneur!”

  “The king? How?” said Mazarin, stuffing the ledger under his covers. “The king here—and at this hour! I should think he’d been long abed. What is it?”

  Louis XIV heard these final words and saw the cardinal sitting up in surprise, for he came in at just that moment. “It’s nothing, Monsieur le Cardinal,” he said, “or at least nothing to alarm you; it’s
just an important discussion that I need to have with Your Eminence tonight, that’s all.”

  Mazarin immediately thought of the attention the king had paid to his remarks about Mademoiselle de Mancini and assumed the discussion had to be about that. That was reassuring, and he adopted a charming and receptive demeanor, which in turn reassured the young king. When Louis was seated, the cardinal said, “Sire, I should by rights listen to Your Majesty while standing, but the agony of my condition…”

  “No standing on ceremony between us, my dear Cardinal,” said Louis affectionately. “I’m not the king, just your pupil, as you know, and it’s doubly true this evening, as I come to you as a supplicant, a very humble supplicant both eager and hopeful.”

  Mazarin, seeing the color mounting in the king’s face, was confirmed in his first idea, which was that thoughts of love were behind these pretty words. But this time that cunning politician, wise though he was, had it wrong: this blush wasn’t caused by shy and youthful passion, but rather by the nervous rise of royal pride.

  Like a good uncle, Mazarin sought to facilitate the expected amorous confidence. “Speak, Sire,” he said, “and since Your Majesty will temporarily forget that I’m his subject and call me his tutor and teacher, I listen to Your Majesty with an open heart.”

  “Merci, Monsieur le Cardinal,” replied the king, “but what I have to say to Your Eminence is not on my own account.”

  “Too bad, Sire,” said the cardinal. “I’m just in the mood for Your Majesty to ask me for something important, even at personal sacrifice… but whatever you’ve come to ask me, I’m ready to gratify you by granting it, my dear Sire.”

  “Well, then! Here’s what it’s about,” said the king, his heart beating at a rate equaled only by that of his minister. “I just received a visit from my royal brother, the King of England.”

  Mazarin sprang up in bed as if he’d been jolted by a Leyden bottle or Voltaic battery, while an expression of surprise, or rather deep disappointment, was followed by such a flash of anger that even Louis XIV, novice diplomat though he was, could tell that the minister had expected him to say something else.