THE TEMPTER.
"My prince," said Aramis, turning in the carriage toward his companion,
"weak creature as I am, so unpretending in genius, so low in the scale
of intelligent beings, it has never yet happened to me to converse with
a man without penetrating his thoughts through that living mask which
has been thrown over our mind, in order to retain its expression. But
to-night, in this darkness, in the reserve which you maintain, I can
read nothing on your features, and something tells me I shall have great
difficulty in wresting from you a sincere declaration. I beseech you,
then, not for love of me, for subjects should never weigh as anything in
the balance which princes hold, but for love of yourself, to retain
every syllable, every inflexion which, under our present grave
circumstances, will all have a sense and value as important as any ever
uttered in the world."
"I listen," repeated the young prince, "decidedly, without either
eagerly seeking or fearing anything you are about to say to me." And he
buried himself still deeper in the thick cushions of the carriage,
trying to deprive his companion not only of the sight of him, but even
of the very idea of his presence.
Black was the darkness which fell wide and dense from the summits of the
intertwining trees. The carriage, covered in by this vast roof, would
not have received a particle of light, not even if a ray could have
struggled through the wreaths of mist which were rising in the avenue of
the wood.
"Monseigneur," resumed Aramis, "you know the history of the government
which to-day controls France. The king issued from an infancy imprisoned
like yours, obscure as yours, and confined as yours; only, instead of
ending, like yourself, this slavery in a prison--this obscurity in
solitude--these straitened circumstances in concealment, he was fain to
bear all these miseries, humiliations, and distresses, in full daylight,
under the pitiless sun of royalty; or an elevation so flooded with
light, where every stain appears a miserable blemish, and every glory a
stain. The king has suffered; it rankles in his mind: and he will avenge
himself. He will be a bad king. I say not that he will pour out blood,
like Louis XI., or Charles IX.; for he has no mortal injuries to avenge;
but he will devour the means and substance of his people; for he has
himself undergone wrongs in his own interest and money. In the first
place, then, I quite acquit my conscience, when I consider openly the
merits and faults of this prince; and if I condemn him, my conscience
absolves me."
Aramis paused. It was not to listen if the silence of the forest
remained undisturbed, but it was to gather up his thoughts from the very
bottom of his soul--to leave the thoughts he had uttered sufficient time
to eat deeply into the mind of his companion.
"All that Heaven does, Heaven does well," continued the bishop of
Vannes; "and I am so persuaded of it, that I have long been thankful to
have been chosen depositary of the secret which I have aided you to
discover. To a just Providence was necessary an instrument, at once
penetrating, persevering, and convinced, to accomplish a great work. I
am this instrument. I possess penetration, perseverance, conviction; I
govern a mysterious people who has taken for its motto the motto of God,
'_Patiens quia æternus_.'" The prince moved. "I divine, monseigneur, why
you are raising your head, and are surprised at the people I have under
my command. You did not know you were dealing with a king--oh!
monseigneur, king of a people very humble, much disinherited: humble,
because they have no force save when creeping; disinherited, because
never, almost never in this world, do my people reap the harvest they
sow, nor eat the fruit they cultivate. They labor for an abstract idea;
they heap together all the atoms of their power to form one man; and
round this man, with the sweat of their labor, they create a misty halo,
which his genius shall, in turn, render a glory gilded with the rays of
all the crowns in Christendom. Such is the man you have beside you,
monseigneur. It is to tell you that he has drawn you from the abyss for
a great purpose, and that he desires, for this sublime purpose, to raise
you above the powers of the earth--above himself."
The prince lightly touched Aramis' arm. "You speak to me," he said, "of
that religious order whose chief you are. For me, the result of your
words is, that the day you desire to hurl down the man you shall have
raised, the event will be accomplished; and that you will keep under
your hand your creation of yesterday."
"Undeceive yourself, monseigneur," replied the bishop. "I should not
take the trouble to play this terrible game with your royal highness, if
I had not a double interest in gaining it. The day you are elevated, you
are elevated forever; you will overturn the footstool as you rise, and
will send it rolling so far that not even the sight of it will ever
again recall to you its right to gratitude."
"Oh, monsieur!"
"Your movement, monseigneur, arises from an excellent disposition. I
thank you. Be well assured, I aspire to more than gratitude! I am
convinced that, when arrived at the summit, you will judge me still more
worthy to be your friend: and then, monseigneur, we two will do such
great deeds that ages hereafter shall long speak of them."
"Tell me plainly, monsieur--tell me without disguise--what I am to-day,
and what you aim at my being to-morrow."
"You are the son of King Louis XIII., brother of Louis XIV., natural and
legitimate heir to the throne of France. In keeping you near him, as
Monsieur has been kept--Monsieur your younger brother--the king reserved
to himself the right of being legitimate sovereign. The doctors only
could dispute his legitimacy. But the doctors always prefer the king who
is, to the king who is not. Providence has willed that you should be
persecuted; and this persecution to-day consecrates you king of France.
You had then a right to reign, seeing that it is disputed; you had a
right to be proclaimed, seeing that you have been concealed; and you
possess royal blood, since no one has dared to shed yours, as your
servants' has been shed. Now see, then, what this Providence, which you
have so often accused of having in every way thwarted you, has done for
you. It has given you the features, figure, age, and voice of your
brother; and the very causes of your persecution are about to become
those of your triumphant restoration. To-morrow, after to-morrow--from
the very first, regal phantom, living shade of Louis XIV., you will sit
upon his throne, whence the will of Heaven, confided in execution to the
arm of man, will have hurled him, without hope of return."
"I understand," said the prince, "my brother's blood will not be shed,
then."
"You will be sole arbiter of his fate."
"The secret of which they made an evil use against me?"
"You will employ it against him. What did he do to conceal it? He
concealed you. Living image of himself, you will defeat the conspiracy
of Mazarin and Anne of Austria. You, my prince, will have the same
interest in concealing him, who will, as a prisoner, resemble you, as
you will resemble him as king."
"I fall back on what I was saying to you. Who will guard him?"
"Who guarded you?"
"You know this secret--you have made use of it with regard to myself.
Who else knows it?"
"The queen-mother and Madame de Chevreuse."
"What will they do?"
"Nothing, if you choose."
"How is that?"
"How can they recognize you, if you act in a manner that no one can
recognize you?"
"'Tis true: but there are grave difficulties."
"State them, prince."
"My brother is married; I cannot take my brother's wife."
"I will cause Spain to consent to a divorce; it is in the interest of
your new policy; it is human morality. All that is really noble and
really useful in this world will find its account therein."
"The imprisoned king will speak."
"To whom do you think he should speak--to the walls?"
"You mean, by walls, the men in whom you put confidence."
"If need be, yes. And besides, your royal highness--"
"Besides?"
"I was going to say that the designs of Providence do not stop on such a
fair road. Every scheme of this caliber is completed by its results,
like a geometrical calculation. The king, in prison, will not be for you
the cause of embarrassment that you have been for the king enthroned.
His soul is naturally proud and impatient; it is, moreover, disarmed and
enfeebled, by being accustomed to honors, and by the license of supreme
power. The same Providence which has willed that the concluding step in
the geometrical calculation I have had the honor of describing to your
royal highness should be your accession to the throne, and the
destruction of him who is hurtful to you, has also determined that the
conquered one shall soon end both his own and your sufferings.
Therefore, his soul and body have been adapted for but a brief agony.
Put into prison as a private individual, left alone with your doubts,
deprived of everything, you have exhibited a solid, enduring principle
of life, in withstanding all this. But your brother, a captive,
forgotten, and in bonds, will not long-endure the calamity; and Heaven
will resume his soul at the appointed time--that is to say, _soon_."
At this point in Aramis' gloomy analysis, a bird of night uttered from
the depths of the forest that prolonged and plaintive cry which makes
every creature tremble.
"I will exile the deposed king," said Philippe, shuddering; "'twill be
more humane."
"The king's good pleasure will decide the point," said Aramis. "But has
the problem been well put? Have I brought out the solution according to
the wishes or the foresight of your royal highness?"
"Yes, monsieur, yes; you have forgotten nothing--except, indeed, two
things."
"The first?"
"Let us speak of it at once, with the same frankness we have already
conversed in. Let us speak of the causes which may bring about the ruin
of all the hopes we have conceived. Let us speak of the risks we are
running."
"They would be immense, infinite, terrific, insurmountable, if, as I
have said, all things did not concur in rendering them of absolutely no
account. There is no danger either for you or for me, if the constancy
and intrepidity of your royal highness are equal to that perfection of
resemblance to your brother which nature has bestowed upon you. I repeat
it, there are no dangers, only obstacles; a word, indeed, which I find
in all languages, but have always ill-understood, and, were I king,
would have obliterated as useless and absurd."
"Yes, indeed, monsieur; there is a very serious obstacle, an
insurmountable danger, which you are forgetting."
"Ah!" said Aramis.
"There is conscience, which cries aloud; remorse, which never dies."
"True, true," said the bishop; "there is a weakness of heart of which
you remind me. You are right, too, for that indeed is an immense
obstacle. The horse afraid of the ditch leaps into the middle of it, and
is killed! The man who tremblingly crosses his sword with that of
another leaves loopholes, whereby his enemy has him in his power."
"Have you a brother?" said the young man to Aramis.
"I am alone in the world," said the latter, with, a hard, dry voice.
"But, surely, there is some one in the world whom you love;" added
Philippe.
"No one!--Yes, I love you."
The young man sunk into so profound a silence that the mere sound of his
respiration seemed like a roaring tumult for Aramis. "Monseigneur" he
resumed, "I have not said all I have to say to your royal highness; I
have not offered you all the salutary counsels and useful resources
which I have at my disposal. It is useless to flash bright visions
before the eyes of one who seeks and loves darkness; useless, too, is it
to let the magnificence of the cannon's roar be heard in the ears of one
who loves repose and the quiet of the country. Monseigneur, I have your
happiness spread out before me in my thoughts; listen to my words;
precious they indeed are, in their import and their sense, for you who
look with such tender regard upon the bright heavens, the verdant
meadows, the pure air. I know a country instinct with delights of every
kind, an unknown paradise, a secluded corner of the world--where alone,
unfettered and unknown, in the thick covert of the woods, amid flowers,
and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the misery that human
folly has so recently allotted you. Oh! listen to me, my prince. I do
not jest. I have a heart, and mind, and soul, and can read to the depths
of your own. I will not take you, incomplete for your task, in order to
cast you into the crucible of my own desires, or my caprice, or my
ambition. Everything or nothing. You are chilled and galled, sick at
heart, almost overcome by the excess of emotion, which but one hour's
liberty has produced in you. For me, that is a certain and unmistakable
sign that you do not wish to continue at liberty. Would you prefer a
more humble life, a life more suited to your strength? Heaven is my
witness, that I wish your happiness to be the result of the trial to
which I have exposed you."
"Speak, speak," said the prince, with a vivacity which did not escape
Aramis.
"I know," resumed the prelate, "in the Bas-Poiton, a canton, of which no
one in France suspects the existence. Twenty leagues of country is
immense, is it not? Twenty leagues, monseigneur, all covered with water
and herbage, and reeds of the most luxuriant nature; the whole studded
with islands covered with woods of the densest foliage. These large
marshes, covered with reeds as with a thick mantle, sleep silently and
calmly beneath the sun's soft and genial rays. A few fishermen with
their families indolently pass their lives away there, with their large
rafts of poplars and alders, the flooring formed of reeds, and the roof
woven out of thick rushes. These barks, these floating-houses, are
wafted to and fro by the changing winds. Whenever they touch a bank, it
is but by chance; and so gently, too, that the sleeping fisherman is not
awakened by the shock. Should he wish to land, it is merely because he
has seen a large flight of land-rails or plovers, of wild ducks, teal,
widgeon, or woodcocks, which fall an easy prey to his nets or his gun.
Silver shad, eels, greedy pike, red and gray mullet, fall in masses into
his nets; he has but to choose the finest and largest, and return the
others to the waters. Never yet has the foot of man, be he soldier or
simple citizen, never has any one, indeed, penetrated into that
district. The sun's rays there are soft and tempered; in plots of solid
earth, whose soil is rich and fertile, grows the vine, which nourishes
with its generous juice its black and white grapes. Once a week, a boat
is sent to fetch the bread which has been baked at an oven--the common
property of all. There, like the seigneurs of early days--powerful
because of your dogs, your fishing-lines, your guns, and your beautiful
reed-built house, would you live, rich in the produce of the chase, in
the plenitude of perfect security. There would years of your life roll
away, at the end of which, no longer recognizable, for you would have
been perfectly transformed, you would have succeeded in acquiring a
destiny accorded to you by Heaven.
"There are a thousand pistoles in this bag, monseigneur--more, far more,
than sufficient to purchase the whole marsh of which I have spoken; more
than enough to live there as many years as you have days to live; more
than enough to constitute you the richest, the freest, and the happiest
man in the country. Accept it, as I offer it you--sincerely, cheerfully.
Forthwith, without a moment's pause, I will unharness two of my horses,
which are attached to the carriage yonder, and they, accompanied by my
servant--my deaf and dumb attendant--shall conduct you--traveling
throughout the night, sleeping during the day--to the locality I have
mentioned; and I shall, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing that
I have rendered to my prince the service that he himself most preferred.
I shall have made one man happy; and Heaven for that will hold me in
better account than if I had made one man powerful; for that is far more
difficult. And now, monseigneur, your answer to this proposition? Here
is the money. Nay, do not hesitate. At Poiton, you can risk nothing,
except the chance of catching the fevers prevalent there; and even of
them, the so-called wizards of the country may cure you, for the sake of
your pistoles. If you play the other game, you run the chance of being
assassinated on a throne, or of being strangled in a prison. Upon my
soul, I assure you, now I begin to compare them together, I should
hesitate which of the two I should accept."
"Monsieur," replied the young prince, "before I determine, let me alight
from this carriage, walk on the ground, and consult that still voice
within me, which Heaven bids address us all. Ten minutes is all I ask,
and then you shall have your answer."
"As you please, monseigneur," said Aramis, bending before him with
respect; so solemn and august in its tone and address had been the voice
which had just spoken.