Kitabı oku: «Old Court Life in France, Volume II (of 2)», sayfa 11

"But is your Majesty so certain?"

"Certain? Ask me if I live!" exclaimed Louis with warmth. "But tell me what you mean. Speak, Duke, and speak quickly, for we may be interrupted."

"Well, Sire, some fairy, who I suppose watches over your interests, told me to wander over the château and examine the more private chambers. No one was by. Every one was in the garden with your Majesty to see the illuminations. At the end of a long gallery, in a distant part of the house, I came upon a boudoir – such a bijou of a room! – evidently belonging to Fouquet. On the walls hung the portraits of some of the fairest ladies of the Court. It is a hall of beauty, Sire."

"Go on," said Louis impatiently; "I understand."

"Among these beauties, Sire, was – well – there was the lady you honour with your special attentions – Madame la Duchesse – " and Saint-Aignan stopped, and again indicated La Vallière, who, unconscious of what was going on, sat near, her delicate cheek resting on her hand.

"You need mention no names, Saint-Aignan. I tell you, I understand," replied the King with evident irritation. "And pray what does it matter if you did find the portrait of that lady there? I see nothing in it at all remarkable. No hall of beauty would be complete without her likeness. Who were the other portraits?"

"Ah, Sire, that is precisely the point I am coming to. They were all portraits of ladies who are or have been the acknowledged mistresses of Fouquet. If Madame la Duchesse de – "

"I beg you again not to mention any names, Duke," broke in the King haughtily, a storm gathering on his brow.

"If that lady, Sire, had not resembled the others, why should she have been there?"

To this somewhat daring question Louis did not vouchsafe a reply. His countenance darkened into an expression of silent rage. His eyes glittered as he passed his hand over them. When he spoke there was doubt, anxiety, as well as anger in his voice and manner. "I am astonished, I confess," said he, speaking very deliberately. "I am quite at a loss to explain it. Her portrait is there, you say. It may be, Saint-Aignan. I cannot doubt your word, but – it is impossible that – " He paused, and his eyes rested on her guileless face.

"Sire, it is not for me to differ from your Majesty," rejoined Saint-Aignan, fearful lest he had injured himself in the King's opinion by his over-frankness; "your superior intellect and far-seeing judgment will unfold to you mysteries impervious to my grosser comprehension; but I repeat, in the boudoir of M. Fouquet I saw the portrait of Madame La Duchesse – I beg your Majesty's pardon – placed among those of ladies whose relations with him are more than equivocal."

"I will speak to the lady myself. She is ignorant of this, I venture my life," said Louis, his eyes again fixing themselves wistfully upon La Vallière. "In the meantime, Duke, I thank you for your zeal in my service. Now, remember, until our return to Fontainebleau silence– absolute silence – or I shall never forgive you." Louis placed his finger on his lip – Saint-Aignan, glad to end so perilous an interview, bowed, and immediately fell back among the crowd of courtiers who hovered about the King.

Louis's blood boiled within him. He had controlled himself in the presence of Saint-Aignan, but it was with the greatest difficulty he could any longer restrain his passion. He longed then and there to call in the musketeers, and arrest Fouquet on the spot. D'Artagnan and his followers were at hand; it would have been the work of an instant. At a loss what to do, and feeling the necessity for some expression of the violent rage he felt, he approached his mother, Anne of Austria, who was leaning back in her chair, absorbed in a deep reverie. She was only present at that dazzling fête in body – her mind was far away. To her the pomps and vanities of the world were become a mockery and a toil; she longed for the seclusion of the cloister.

"It is all over," whispered the King, and his voice grated huskily in her ear; "Fouquet will be arrested to-night."

"What has he done?" asked Anne of Austria.

"I have excellent reasons, my mother; besides, Fouquet may escape to Belle Isle – here I have him, I hold him!" and Louis, in his seat, shook his fist in his mother's face.

"You are strangely moved, Louis. I do not know your reasons, but I advise you, for the sake of your own dignity, to choose a more suitable moment than during a fête at which you are present in his own house."

"Every time is good to catch a traitor."

"Yes; but, my son, there is such a thing as decorum. The Superintendent has given you a superb fête, which you have accepted. You are under his roof; you cannot arrest him while you are his guest. It is out of the question."

"But, my mother, I have reasons of state."

"Then they must wait. What would the Court – what would France – say to such an act? Take care, my son, that those who may never know your justification do not condemn your act. Even you are not above public opinion."

Louis did not reply, but the Queen-mother perceived that her words had convinced him.

The Court returned to Fontainebleau in the same order as it came.

A lettre de cachet, dated the day after the fête, consigned Fouquet to the fortress of Pignerol. Louise de la Vallière was enabled to soothe his Majesty's suspicions, with regard to the portrait, by assuring him that if his indignation had been aroused, her feelings had been much more grossly outraged.

CHAPTER XIX.
DEATH AND POISON

"ANNE, daughter of Philip III., King of Spain, and Margaret of Austria, his wife, married to Louis XIII., King of France, surnamed the Just, mother of Louis XIV., surnamed Dieudonné, and of Philip of France, Duc d'Orléans, born September, 1601, died January, 1666."

These words stood at the head of a will which was signed "approved, Louis." Anne of Austria has stood before us from her fifteenth year until now; first, the golden-haired girl, next the prosecuted wife, then the stately regent, finally the devoted and conscientious mother. And now her time has come; she is dying at the Louvre. Her malady is a cancer in the breast, long concealed, now aggravated by the ignorance of quacks. Latterly it has become an open wound, the seat of intense suffering. Her daintily nurtured body and sensitive skin, which could not bear the touch of any but the finest and softest linen, the delicate habits of her daily life, her extreme refinement of mind and person (not common in those days even among princes), have come to this: "God punishes me in that body which I have too carefully tended," she said. But the Queen's mind had long been weaned from the world, her once lofty spirit schooled to the uses of adversity, and she bears her protracted sufferings with admirable meekness and resignation. Her face shrunken, drawn, and ashen, her frame bowed with intense pain rather than the weight of years, have lost all trace of their singular beauty; but the hands and arms are still white, plump, and shapely. To the last, her son Louis XIV. reverently kisses those taper fingers that had fondly entwined themselves among his clustering curls from boy to man. As long as that silvery voice could make itself heard, it was as a peacemaker and as a friend. When Maria Theresa, her niece, complained to her of the King's too apparent liaison with La Vallière, the dying Queen stroked her cheek, and comforted her, praying her to pardon the fire of youthful blood, and to remember that Louis, if erring, both loved and respected her. She reminded her, "that she [Maria Theresa] had at least a much happier lot than her own." Overcome by suffering during the long watches of the night, when she could not sleep, she weeps; as the tears roll down her wrinkled cheeks, Mademoiselle de Beauvais wipes them away with her handkerchief.

"I do not really weep, ma bonne," said the dying Queen; "these tears that I shed are forced from me by intense anguish; you know I never cry." The Archbishop d'Auch, seeing her condition, told her plainly that the doctor despaired of her life.

"I thank God," she answered. "Do not lament," added she, turning to her ladies, whose sobs caught her ear; "we must all die. I am still among you; when I am gone, then grieve for me, not yet."

Her son, Philippe d'Orléans, sat constantly beside her bed. While he was present she never allowed herself to utter a complaint, but when he left her, she turned to Madame de Motteville and said, "I suffer horribly. There is no single part of my whole body that is not rent with pain." Then raising her eyes to heaven she exclaimed, "Praised be God, it is His will, His will be done – I submit to it with all my heart; yes, with all my heart." Yet in this condition she took the liveliest interest in all that concerned her sons and the King of Spain, and caused every letter to be read aloud to her coming from Madrid. Two nights before her death she bade good-night to her children with a haste unusual to her. It was because she did not wish them to witness sufferings she could no longer conceal. As soon as they were gone she desired that the litany of the Passion should be chanted throughout the weary hours of the night. Now and then her groans interrupted the solemn office. When her women strove to mitigate her agony, she pushed them away, saying,

"My vile body is given up to the justice of God. I care not what becomes of it."

In the morning the King, of whom she was ever devotedly fond, and who warmly returned her love, remained many hours with her. That afternoon she grew worse. During the night her son Monsieur hid himself in the curtains of her bed, not to leave her, as she had earnestly desired he would do. The next morning, it was deemed advisable to administer extreme unction. The King and Queen, Monsieur d'Orléans, Madame his wife, and Mademoiselle de Montpensier were present. They went out to meet the Lord's body and to bear it to her. After she had communicated, a heavenly expression spread over her countenance, her eyes shone with unnatural brilliancy, and the colour returned to her cheeks.

"Observe my dear mother," whispered the King, who was standing at the foot of her bed, to Mademoiselle de Beauvais, "I never saw her look more beautiful." Then she called her children round her, and solemnly blessed them. These four, her two sons and their wives, knelt by her bedside. They kissed her hands and shed tears of a common grief. The curtains were then closed, that the Queen might take a little rest. When they were undrawn, the film of death had gathered on her eyes.

Beautiful Saint-Cloud, enfolded in softly undulating hills, its sheeny lawns and majestic avenues descending to the Seine, whose clear waters dance and ripple below in the soft spring light; – Saint-Cloud, with its dimpling uplands and lofty summits, on whose topmost verge stands what was once a Roman watch-tower, looking towards Lutetia, the ancient Paris, now a Grecian temple called the Lanterne de Diogène; Saint-Cloud, dense, leafy, forest-like; yonder a deep glen, in which the morning shadows lie; above, grassy meads of finest greensward, where the primrose and the cowslip, the anemone and the foxglove blossom under scattered groups of noble trees, gay with every shade of green, oaks yellow with new leaves; delicate beech and the soft foliage of the tufted elm; all rising out of a sea of paler tinted copsewood. Midway on the hill-side, the ground suddenly falls; and the woods melt into sculptured terraces, on which the spray of many fountains catch and reflect the morning sun. These terraces are again broken by a magnificent cascade, which dashes downwards, to be presently engulfed by the overhanging trees, before it falls into the river.

It is early summer. The air is full of perfume. The scent of new-made hay and the odour of dew-laden flowers are wafted from the terraces towards the palace, lying in the lowest lap of the hills, shut in by hanging gardens, its pillared portico basking in the sunshine.

From the days of Gondi, the Italian banker, the friend of Zametti, who was more than suspected of poisoning la belle Gabrielle – for both Gondi and Zametti had country houses there – Saint-Cloud was a fair and pleasant place. Hither came Catherine de' Medici to give great fêtes and banquets, and to visit such of her countrymen as lived near the palace, all of them skilful Italian Jews, dealing largely in money, with which they were ready to supply the royal coffers, – on exorbitant interest, be it well understood – who received her with Oriental magnificence, and dressed out height, the terrace, and garden with silken flags and embroidered banners, in the Italian style, to do her honour. Within the palace of Saint-Cloud was struck down Henry III., the last of Catherine's sons, the last prince of the royal house of Valois, by the hand of Jacques Clément, the Dominican. Here Henri Quatre was proclaimed king, and here, in due process of time, came to live the Duc d'Orléans, brother of Louis XIV. Philippe d'Orléans, once a peevish child, is now a soft, effeminate gentleman. In person he is the replica of the King, only in fainter colours; a water-colour sketch of an original design in oils. He lives among his favourites, whom the world stigmatises as gamblers and scoundrels, especially the Chevalier de Lorraine, who governs Monsieur despotically.

All the world (except her husband) adores the brilliant Henriette, Duchesse d'Orléans, his wife and cousin-german, who, with her mother, Henrietta Maria, suffered so much at the Louvre from poverty, that they lay in bed for warmth. Now, her brother, Charles II., sits on the throne of England, and she loves not to have the days of her adversity recalled. Henriette d'Orléans is not an absolute beauty. Like her mother, her features are irregular, and her mouth large, but her fresh English colouring tells well among the olive-complexioned ladies of the Court. She is tall, and eminently graceful. Her sunny smile, her ready wit, her joyous manners, win every heart she cares to gain. But, as we have seen, she can be both haughty and cruel. Once she had hoped to marry her elder cousin, the King; but the Mancini girls stepped in, and she was forced to content herself with his younger brother, Philip, whom she despises and dislikes.

Now matters have grown worse than ever between the spouses, for the Duke of Monmouth – illegitimate son of Charles II. by Lucy Waters – has come to Court, and does not conceal his admiration for his English relative, nor observe those precise rules of etiquette needful at the French Court. What makes matters worse is, that Madame, exasperated by her husband, is defiant, and publicly encourages his attentions. Monsieur, weak-headed and irritable, complains to everybody. He says he shall leave the Court, unless Madame conducts herself better. Madame rejoins that he only persecutes her because she happens to be aunt to the Duke of Monmouth. To spite Monsieur, she uses her influence with the King, and Monsieur's favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, – who whispers these tales about her into her husband's ear, – is packed off; exiled to the sea-girt fortress of the Château d'If, near Marseilles. This aggravates Monsieur, who treats Madame worse than ever. They have fresh quarrels every day, during one of which Monsieur calls Madame a "vaurienne." Even when they ride together in the King's coach, Monsieur must insult and taunt his wife. "He believes in astrology," he says, "and as his horoscope foretells he shall be the husband of many wives, and Madame looks ill, he hopes he shall soon have a change." At this rude speech Madame weeps, but says nothing. All this is very bad, and creates such a scandal that Louis interferes; he expostulates with his brother.

The King, to give Madame a little respite, appointed her at this time his ambassadress into England, to treat with her brother, Charles II. In her suite she carried the beautiful Bretonne, Louise de la Querouaille, who became afterwards so well known in this country as the Duchess of Portsmouth.

After a time Madame returns from England, blooming in health and joyous in spirits. She cannot bring herself even to affect common concern for the death of her mother, – poor broken-down Henrietta Maria, – who has just died from taking an overdose of opium. Monsieur refuses to meet his wife at Amiens, a public slight which nettled her exceedingly, especially as the Chevalier de Lorraine has returned from banishment, and is again at Saint-Cloud.

Madame is now twenty-six, and as strong and healthy as any young woman can be. Very early on a certain morning, in the first days of June, a page rides out of the park gates of Saint-Cloud in furious haste. He bears a message of life and death to the King, who is at Saint-Germain. He spurs his steed along the paved roads which lead from palace to palace, along the heights. The word he carries is —that Madame is dying. Never did messenger of evil cause such consternation. The King flies to Saint-Cloud; he loved the sweet princess. He is followed by the Queen, accompanied by la Grande Mademoiselle. When the royal coach draws up under the grand portico, Valtot, the Court doctor, is there to receive them. He says the illness of Madame is nothing but a violent attack of colic, and is of no consequence whatever. But this attack of colic had seized Madame so suddenly she could not bear to be carried to her own bed, but lay on a little couch in a recess of one of the reception-rooms. A very serious attack of colic, truly. When Maria Theresa enters, she finds Madame in convulsions; her long hair streaming over her face and pillow, her limbs cramped, her body contorted, her nightgown unfastened to relieve her breathing, her arms bare and hanging out of the sleeves, her face bearing every appearance of approaching death.

"You see what a state I am in," she whispers to the Queen between the paroxysms. "Save me, oh, save me – my sufferings are horrible!"

The Queen kisses her hand. Every one was affected. The King leans over her with the utmost affection.

"Surely," cries the King to Valtot, "you will not let her die without help?"

Except the royal party no one seems to care about her. Monsieur is quite indifferent. He laughs and talks in the very room where she is lying.

The end came soon. In a few hours, Madame died in horrible agony. Her corpse immediately turned black.

Louis XIV. is in his private closet at Saint-Germain. He is in his robe de chambre, and he has been weeping; three extraordinary events for the King, not to hold his usual levee, to wear his robe de chambre, and to weep.

A dreadful rumour has just reached him – the words poison and murder have passed from mouth to mouth about the Court. At last he has heard them. What! – his beloved sister-in-law, she who but two days before had danced with him in a ballet, dressed as Aurora; she – the pride of his Court, the cynosure of all eyes – poisoned! Oh, horrible! By whom was this poison given? By his brother? Impossible. By one of his disgraceful favourites whom Madame hated? The Chevalier de Lorraine, perhaps? Was he the murderer? The King cannot brook suspense or delay. He sends privately for Morel, the maître d'hôtel of his brother. Morel comes trembling; he guesses the reason of the summons.

"Morel," says the King in an unsteady voice, "I have sent for you to tell me the truth. Now, on pain of instant death, answer me. Who murdered my sister-in-law? Presume not to equivocate or to deceive me. Did the Duchess die by poison?"

"She did, your Majesty."

Louis shudders. "By whose order was it administered?"

"By the order of the Chevalier de Lorraine," answers Morel. "Poison was put into a cup of chicorée-water, the Duchess's usual beverage, by the hands of the Marquis d'Effiat. Before God, your Majesty, I am innocent of all save the knowledge of this crime."

Louis, seeing that Morel is about to cast himself on his knees before him, by a stern gesture forbade it. He then motions him to proceed.

"The Duchess, Sire, complained of thirst; soon after a cup of chicorée-water – the cup of porcelain, which her Highness always used – was presented; she drank its contents to the last drop. Soon after she was seized with convulsions. Your Majesty knows the rest."

There is a pause. "Tell me," asks Louis, speaking with a great effort, "tell me, had my brother – had the Duc d'Orléans any part in this crime?"

"I believe not, Sire," answers Morel, shaking from head to foot, for the King's looks are not reassuring. "They dared not trust him; he would have betrayed them. But it was believed that the death of Madame would not be – "

"Answer as I desire you, sir. Answer the questions I address to you, nothing more," interrupts the King, scowling at him, at the same time greatly relieved by hearing that his brother was not an accomplice. "I have heard what I want to know. I am satisfied. I will spare your life, wretched man," and he turns from Morel with disgust, "because you have spoken the truth; but you must leave France for ever. Remember, the honour of princes is in your hand, and that wherever you fly, their vengeance can pursue you. Therefore, be silent, if you value your life."

The King dared investigate no further; too foul a picture of his brother's life would have been revealed to public curiosity. The death of this charming, though frivolous princess, remained unavenged, her murderers unpunished, and she was soon forgotten in the dissipation of a Court where the Sovereign set an example of the most heartless egotism.

As for Monsieur, nothing daunted by the suspicions attached to his name, and although believed by many to have been a direct accomplice in Henriette's death, he determined to bring home a fresh wife to Saint-Cloud and the Palais Royal. This he did in the person of a German princess (ever the refuge of unfortunate royalty in search of wives), a formidable she-dragon rather, by name Charlotte de Bavière, a lady certainly well able to defend herself in case of need. What a contrast to the feminine, fascinating Henriette! Charlotte's autobiography remains to us, a lasting evidence of her coarseness of mind and of body. This is the opening page: —

"I am naturally rather melancholy. When anything annoys me, I have always an inflammation in my left side, as if I had a dropsy. Lying in bed is not at all my habit. As soon as I wake I must get up. I seldom take breakfast. If I do, I only eat bread and butter. I neither like chocolate, coffee, nor tea. Foreign drugs are my horror. I am entirely German in my habits, and relish nothing in the way of food but the cuisine of my own country. I can only eat soup made with milk, beer, or wine. As to bouillon, I detest it. If I eat any dish that contains it, I am ill directly, my body swells, and I am fearfully sick. Nothing but sausages and ham restore the tone of my stomach. I always wanted to be a boy," this extraordinary "Princess" continues, "and having heard that Marie Germain became one by continually jumping, I used to take such fearful leaps, that it is a miracle I did not break my neck a thousand times."

This was the mother of the Regent Orléans.

Charlotte de Bavière was walking one evening alone in the dusk through the almost interminable suite of rooms which encircled the four garden fronts of the Palais Royal. Many of these rooms had been constantly inhabited by her predecessor, Madame Henriette. It was stormy weather, and the gathering clouds were rapidly darkening what little daylight was left. The wind moaned among the branches of the trees without; it whistled through the rooms within, swaying the rich curtains to and fro. The shutters were not yet closed. The Duchess wandered on from room to room until she reached a remote apartment on the ground-floor, which had been much frequented by Madame Henriette – a garden pavilion opening by large windows and a flight of steps to a parterre. At this window Charlotte stood watching the clouds passing over the moon which had just risen, as they were drifted rapidly onwards, driven by the wind. How long she remained there she could never tell. All at once a slight sound behind her, like the rustling of drapery along the floor, caught her ear. She turned, and saw advancing from the door towards the spot where she stood a white figure, wearing the form of the late Duchess, her predecessor, Henriette of England. She knew her instantly from her portraits. What passed between these two – the dead and the living wife – never was told. Charlotte, all her life long, insisted on the perfect truth of this story, but would say nothing more. In time it came to be understood that some awful secret connected with the Orléans family, only to be known to the head of the house, was revealed by the phantom.