Produced by David Widger.
*THE MARQUISE DE GANGES*
_By_
*Alexandre Dumas, Pere*
_From the set of Eight Volumes of "Celebrated Crimes"_
1910
CONTENTS
*THE MARQUISE DE GANGES--1657*
*THE MARQUISE DE GANGES--1657*
Toward the close of the year 1657, a very plain carriage, with no arms
painted on it, stopped, about eight o'clock one evening, before the door
of a house in the rue Hautefeuille, at which two other coaches were
already standing. A lackey at once got down to open the carriage door;
but a sweet, though rather tremulous voice stopped him, saying, "Wait,
while I see whether this is the place."
Then a head, muffled so closely in a black satin mantle that no feature
could be distinguished, was thrust from one of the carriage windows, and
looking around, seemed to seek for some decisive sign on the house
front. The unknown lady appeared to be satisfied by her inspection, for
she turned back to her companion.
"It is here," said she. "There is the sign."
As a result of this certainty, the carriage door was opened, the two
women alighted, and after having once more raised their eyes to a strip
of wood, some six or eight feet long by two broad, which was nailed
above the windows of the second storey, and bore the inscription,
"Madame Voison, midwife," stole quickly into a passage, the door of
which was unfastened, and in which there was just so much light as
enabled persons passing in or out to find their way along the narrow
winding stair that led from the ground floor to the fifth story.
The two strangers, one of whom appeared to be of far higher rank than
the other, did not stop, as might have been expected, at the door
corresponding with the inscription that had guided them, but, on the
contrary, went on to the next floor.
Here, upon the landing, was a kind of dwarf, oddly dressed after the
fashion of sixteenth-century Venetian buffoons, who, when he saw the two
women coming, stretched out a wand, as though to prevent them from going
farther, and asked what they wanted.
"To consult the spirit," replied the woman of the sweet and tremulous
voice.
"Come in and wait," returned the dwarf, lifting a panel of tapestry and
ushering the two women into a waiting-room.
The women obeyed, and remained for about half an hour, seeing and
hearing nothing. At last a door, concealed by the tapestry, was suddenly
opened; a voice uttered the word "Enter," and the two women were
introduced into a second room, hung with black, and lighted solely by a
three-branched lamp that hung from the ceiling. The door closed behind
them, and the clients found themselves face to face with the sibyl.
She was a woman of about twenty-five or twenty-six, who, unlike other
women, evidently desired to appear older than she was. She was dressed
in black; her hair hung in plaits; her neck, arms, and feet were bare;
the belt at her waist was clasped by a large garnet which threw out
sombre fires. In her hand she held a wand, and she was raised on a sort
of platform which stood for the tripod of the ancients, and from which
came acrid and penetrating fumes; she was, moreover, fairly handsome,
although her features were common, the eyes only excepted, and these, by
some trick of the toilet, no doubt, looked inordinately large, and, like
the garnet in her belt, emitted strange lights.
When the two visitors came in, they found the soothsayer leaning her
forehead on her hand, as though absorbed in thought. Fearing to rouse
her from her ecstasy, they waited in silence until it should please her
to change her position. At the end of ten minutes she raised her head,
and seemed only now to become aware that two persons were standing
before her.
"What is wanted of me again?" she asked, "and shall I have rest only in
the grave?"
"Forgive me, madame," said the sweet-voiced unknown, "but I am wishing
to know----"
"Silence!" said the sibyl, in a solemn voice. "I will not know your
affairs. It is to the spirit that you must address yourself; he is a
jealous spirit, who forbids his secrets to be shared; I can but pray to
him for you, and obey his will."
At these words, she left her tripod, passed into an adjoining room, and
soon returned, looking even paler and more anxious than before, and
carrying in one hand a burning chafing dish, in the other a red paper.
The three flames of the lamp grew fainter at the same moment, and the
room was left lighted up only by the chafing dish; every object now
assumed a fantastic air that did not fail to disquiet the two visitors,
but it was too late to draw back.
The soothsayer placed the chafing dish in the middle of the room,
presented the paper to the young woman who had spoken, and said to her--
"Write down what you wish to know."
The woman took the paper with a steadier hand than might have been
expected, seated herself at a table, and wrote:--
"Am I young? Am I beautiful? Am I maid, wife, or widow? This is for the
past.
"Shall I marry, or marry again? Shall I live long, or shall I die young?
This is for the future."
Then, stretching out her hand to the soothsayer, she asked--
"What am I to do now with this?"
"Roll that letter around this ball," answered the other, handing to the
unknown a little ball of virgin wax. "Both ball and letter will be
consumed in the flame before your eyes; the spirit knows your secrets
already. In three days you will have the answer."
The unknown did as the sibyl bade her; then the latter took from her
hands the ball and the paper in which it was wrapped, and went and threw
both into the chafing pan.
"And now all is done as it should be," said the soothsayer. "Comus!"
The dwarf came in.
"See the lady to her coach."
The stranger left a purse upon the table, and followed Comus. He
conducted her and her companion, who was only a confidential maid, down
a back staircase, used as an exit, and leading into a different street
from that by which the two women had come in; but the coachman, who had
been told beforehand of this circumstance, was awaiting them at the
door, and they had only to step into their carriage, which bore them
rapidly away in the direction of the rue Dauphine.
Three days later, according to the promise given her, the fair unknown,
when she awakened, found on the table beside her a letter in an
unfamiliar handwriting; it was addressed "To the beautiful Provencale,"
and contained these words--
"You are young; you are beautiful; you are a widow. This is for the
present.
"You will marry again; you will die young, and by a violent death. This
is for the future.
"THE SPIRIT."
The answer was written upon a paper like that upon which the questions
had been set down.
The marquise turned pale and uttered a faint cry of terror; the answer
was so perfectly correct in regard to the past as to call up a fear that
it might be equally accurate in regard to the future.
The truth is that the unknown lady wrapped in a mantle whom we have
escorted into the modern sibyl's cavern was no other than the beautiful
Marie de Rossan, who before her marriage had borne the name of
Mademoiselle de Chateaublanc, from that of an estate belonging to her
maternal grandfather, M. Joannis de Nocheres, who owned a fortune of
five to six hundred thousand livres. At the age of thirteen--that is to
say, in 1649--she had married the Marquis de Castellane, a gentleman of
very high birth, who claimed to be descended from John of Castille, the
son of Pedro the Cruel, and from Juana de Castro, his mistress. Proud of
his young wife's beauty, the Marquis de Castellane, who was an officer
of the king's galleys, had hastened to present her at court. Louis XIV,
who at the time of her presentation was barely twenty years old, was
struck by her enchanting face, and to the great despair of the famous
beauties of the day danced with her three times in one evening. Finally,
as a crowning touch to her reputation, the famous Christina of Sweden,
who was then at the French court, said of her that she had never, in any
of the kingdoms through which she had passed, seen anything equal to
"the beautiful Provencale." This praise had been so well received, that
the name of "the beautiful Provencale" had clung to Madame de
Castellane, and she was everywhere known by it.
This favour of Louis XIV and this summing up of Christina's had been
enough to bring the Marquise de Castellane instantly into fashion; and
Mignard, who had just received a patent of nobility and been made
painter to the king, put the seal to her celebrity by asking leave to
paint her portrait. That portrait still exists, and gives a perfect
notion of the beauty which it represents; but as the portrait is far
from our readers' eyes, we will content ourselves by repeating, in its
own original words, the one given in 1667 by the author of a pamphlet
published at Rouen under the following title: True and Principal
Circumstances of the Deplorable Death of Madame the Marquise de Ganges:
[Note: It is from this pamphlet, and from the Account of the Death of
Madame the Marquise de Ganges, formerly Marquise de Castellane, that we
have borrowed the principal circumstances of this tragic story. To these
documents we must add--that we may not be constantly referring our
readers to original sources--the Celebrated Trials by Guyot de Pitaval,
the Life of Marie de Rossan, and the Lettres galantes of Madame
Desnoyers.]
"Her complexion, which was of a dazzling whiteness, was illumined by not
too brilliant a red, and art itself could not have arranged more
skilfully the gradations by which this red joined and merged into the
whiteness of the complexion. The brilliance of her face was heightened
by the decided blackness of her hair, growing, as though drawn by a
painter of the finest taste, around a well proportioned brow; her large,
well opened eyes were of the same hue as her hair, and shone with a soft
and piercing flame that rendered it impossible to gaze upon her
steadily; the smallness, the shape, the turn of her mouth, and, the
beauty of her teeth were incomparable; the position and the regular
proportion of her nose added to her beauty such an air of dignity, as
inspired a respect for her equal to the love that might be inspired by
her beauty; the rounded contour of her face, produced by a becoming
plumpness, exhibited all the vigour and freshness of health; to complete
her charms, her glances, the movements of her lips and of her head,
appeared to be guided by the graces; her shape corresponded to the
beauty of her face; lastly, her arms, her hands, her bearing, and her
gait were such that nothing further could be wished to complete the
agreeable presentment of a beautiful woman."
[Note: All her contemporaries, indeed, are in agreement as to her
marvellous beauty; here is a second portrait of the marquise, delineated
in a style and manner still more characteristic of that period:--
"You will remember that she had a complexion smoother and finer than a
mirror, that her whiteness was so well commingled with the lively blood
as to produce an exact admixture never beheld elsewhere, and imparting
to her countenance the tenderest animation; her eyes and hair were
blacker than jet; her eyes, I say, of which the gaze could scarce, from
their excess of lustre, be supported, which have been celebrated as a
miracle of tenderness and sprightliness, which have given rise, a
thousand times, to the finest compliments of the day, and have been the
torment of many a rash man, must excuse me, if I do not pause longer to
praise them, in a letter; her mouth was the feature of her face which
compelled the most critical to avow that they had seen none of equal
perfection, and that, by its shape, its smallness, and its brilliance,
it might furnish a pattern for all those others whose sweetness and
charms had been so highly vaunted; her nose conformed to the fair
proportion of all her features; it was, that is to say, the finest in
the world; the whole shape of her face was perfectly round, and of so
charming a fullness that such an assemblage of beauties was never before
seen together. The expression of this head was one of unparalleled
sweetness and of a majesty which she softened rather by disposition than
by study; her figure was opulent, her speech agreeable, her step noble,
her demeanour easy, her temper sociable, her wit devoid of malice, and
founded upon great goodness of heart."]
It is easy to understand that a woman thus endowed could not, in a court
where gallantry was more pursued than in any other spot in the world,
escape the calumnies of rivals; such calumnies, however, never produced
any result, so correctly, even in the absence of her husband, did the
marquise contrive to conduct herself; her cold and serious conversation,
rather concise than lively, rather solid than brilliant, contrasted,
indeed, with the light turn, the capricious and fanciful expressions
employed by the wits of that time; the consequence was that those who
had failed to succeed with her, tried to spread a report that the
marquise was merely a beautiful idol, virtuous with the virtue of a
statue. But though such things might be said and repeated in the absence
of the marquise, from the moment that she appeared in a drawing-room,
from the moment that her beautiful eyes and sweet smile added their
indefinable expression to those brief, hurried, and sensible words that
fell from her lips, the most prejudiced came back to her and were forced
to own that God had never before created anything that so nearly touched
perfection.
She was thus in the enjoyment of a triumph that backbiters failed to
shake, and that scandal vainly sought to tarnish, when news came of the
wreck of the French galleys in Sicilian waters, and of the death of the
Marquis de Castellane, who was in command. The marquise on this
occasion, as usual, displayed the greatest piety and propriety: although
she had no very violent passion for her husband, with whom she had spent
scarcely one of the seven years during which their marriage had lasted,
on receipt of the news she went at once into retreat, going to live with
Madame d'Ampus, her mother-in-law, and ceasing not only to receive
visitors but also to go out.
Six months after the death of her husband, the marquise received letters
from her grandfather, M. Joannis de Nocheres, begging her to come and
finish her time of mourning at Avignon. Having been fatherless almost
from childhood, Mademoiselle de Chateaublanc had been brought up by this
good old man, whom she loved dearly; she hastened accordingly to accede
to his invitation, and prepared everything for her departure.
This was at the moment when la Voisin, still a young woman, and far from
having the reputation which she subsequently acquired, was yet beginning
to be talked of. Several friends of the Marquise de Castellane had been
to consult her, and had received strange predictions from her, some of
which, either through the art of her who framed them, or through some
odd concurrence of circumstances, had come true. The marquise could not
resist the curiosity with which various tales that she had heard of this
woman's powers had inspired her, and some days before setting out for
Avignon she made the visit which we have narrated. What answer she
received to her questions we have seen.
The marquise was not superstitious, yet this fatal prophecy impressed
itself upon her mind and left behind a deep trace, which neither the
pleasure of revisiting her native place, nor the affection of her
grandfather, nor the fresh admiration which she did not fail to receive,
could succeed in removing; indeed, this fresh admiration was a weariness
to the marquise, and before long she begged leave of her grandfather to
retire into a convent and to spend there the last three months of her
mourning.
It was in that place, and it was with the warmth of these poor
cloistered maidens, that she heard a man spoken of for the first time,
whose reputation for beauty, as a man, was equal to her own, as a woman.
This favourite of nature was the sieur de Lenide, Marquis de Ganges,
Baron of Languedoc, and governor of Saint-Andre, in the diocese of Uzes.
The marquise heard of him so often, and it was so frequently declared to
her that nature seemed to have formed them for each other, that she
began to allow admission to a very strong desire of seeing him.
Doubtless, the sieur de Lenide, stimulated by similar suggestions, had
conceived a great wish to meet the marquise; for, having got M. de
Nocheres who no doubt regretted her prolonged retreat--to entrust him
with a commission for his granddaughter, he came to the convent parlour
and asked for the fair recluse. She, although she had never seen him,
recognised him at the first glance; for having never seen so handsome a
cavalier as he who now presented himself before her, she thought this
could be no other than the Marquis de Ganges, of whom people had so
often spoken to her.
That which was to happen, happened: the Marquise de Castellane and the
Marquis de Ganges could not look upon each other without loving. Both
were young, the marquis was noble and in a good position, the marquise
was rich; everything in the match, therefore, seemed suitable: and
indeed it was deferred only for the space of time necessary to complete
the year of mourning, and the marriage was celebrated towards the
beginning of the year 1558. The marquis was twenty years of age, and the
marquise twenty-two.
The beginnings of this union were perfectly happy; the marquis was in
love for the first time, and the marquise did not remember ever to have
been in love. A son and a daughter came to complete their happiness. The
marquise had entirely forgotten the fatal prediction, or, if she
occasionally thought of it now, it was to wonder that she could ever
have believed in it. Such happiness is not of this world, and when by
chance it lingers here a while, it seems sent rather by the anger than
by the goodness of God. Better, indeed, would it be for him who
possesses and who loses it, never to have known it.
The Marquis de Ganges was the first to weary of this happy life. Little
by little he began to miss the pleasures of a young man; he began to
draw away from the marquise and to draw nearer to his former friends. On
her part, the marquise, who for the sake of wedded intimacy had
sacrificed her habits of social life, threw herself into society, where
new triumphs awaited her. These triumphs aroused the jealousy of the
marquis; but he was too much a man of his century to invite ridicule by
any manifestation; he shut his jealousy into his soul, and it emerged in
a different form on every different occasion. To words of love, so sweet
that they seemed the speech of angels, succeeded those bitter and biting
utterances that foretell approaching division. Before long, the marquis
and the marquise only saw each other at hours when they could not avoid
meeting; then, on the pretext of necessary journeys, and presently
without any pretext at all, the marquis would go away for three-quarters
of a year, and once more the marquise found herself widowed. Whatever
contemporary account one may consult, one finds them all agreeing to
declare that she was always the same--that is to say, full of patience,
calmness, and becoming behaviour--and it is rare to find such a
unanimity of opinion about a young and beautiful woman.
About this time the marquis, finding it unendurable to be alone with his
wife during the short spaces of time which he spent at home, invited his
two brothers, the chevalier and the abbe de Ganges, to come and live
with him. He had a third brother, who, as the second son, bore the title
of comte, and who was colonel of the Languedoc regiment, but as this
gentleman played no part in this story we shall not concern ourselves
with him.
The abbe de Ganges, who bore that title without belonging to the Church,
had assumed it in order to enjoy its privileges: he was a kind of wit,
writing madrigals and 'bouts-rimes' [Bouts-rimes are verses written to a
given set of rhymes.] on occasion, a handsome man enough, though in
moments of impatience his eyes would take a strangely cruel expression;
as dissolute and shameless to boot, as though he had really belonged to
the clergy of the period.
The chevalier de Ganges, who shared in some measure the beauty so
profusely showered upon the family, was one of those feeble men who
enjoy their own nullity, and grow on to old age inapt alike for good and
evil, unless some nature of a stronger stamp lays hold on them and drags
them like faint and pallid satellites in its wake. This was what befell
the chevalier in respect of his brother: submitted to an influence of
which he himself was not aware, and against which, had he but suspected
it, he would have rebelled with the obstinacy of a child, he was a
machine obedient to the will of another mind and to the passions of
another heart, a machine which was all the more terrible in that no
movement of instinct or of reason could, in his case, arrest the impulse
given.
Moreover, this influence which the abbe had acquired over the chevalier
extended, in some degree also, to the marquis. Having as a younger son
no fortune, having no revenue, for though he wore a Churchman's robes he
did not fulfil a Churchman's functions, he had succeeded in persuading
the marquis, who was rich, not only in the enjoyment of his own fortune,
but also in that of his wife, which was likely to be nearly doubled at
the death of M. de Nocheres, that some zealous man was needed who would
devote himself to the ordering of his house and the management of his
property; and had offered himself for the post. The marquis had very
gladly accepted, being, as we have said, tired by this time of his
solitary home life; and the abbe had brought with him the chevalier, who
followed him like his shadow, and who was no more regarded than if he
had really possessed no body.
The marquise often confessed afterwards that when she first saw these
two men, although their outward aspect was perfectly agreeable, she felt
herself seized by a painful impression, and that the fortune-teller's
prediction of a violent death, which she had so long forgotten, gashed
out like lightning before her eyes. The effect on the two brothers was
not of the same kind: the beauty of the marquise struck them both,
although in different ways. The chevalier was in ecstasies of
admiration, as though before a beautiful statue, but the impression that
she made upon him was that which would have been made by marble, and if
the chevalier had been left to himself the consequences of this
admiration would have been no less harmless. Moreover, the chevalier did
not attempt either to exaggerate or to conceal this impression, and
allowed his sister-in-law to see in what manner she struck him. The
abbe, on the contrary, was seized at first sight with a deep and violent
desire to possess this woman--the most beautiful whom he had ever met;
but being as perfectly capable of mastering his sensations as the
chevalier was incapable, he merely allowed such words of compliment to
escape him as weigh neither with him who utters nor her who hears them;
and yet, before the close of this first interview, the abbe had decided
in his irrevocable will that this woman should be his.
As for the marquise, although the impression produced by her two
brothers-in-law could never be entirely effaced, the wit of the abbe, to
which he gave, with amazing facility, whatever turn he chose, and the
complete nullity of the chevalier brought her to certain feelings of
less repulsion towards them: for indeed the marquise had one of those
souls which never suspect evil, as long as it will take the trouble to
assume any veil at all of seeming, and which only recognise it with
regret when it resumes its true shape.
Meanwhile the arrival of these two new inmates soon spread a little more
life and gaiety through the house. Furthermore; greatly to the
astonishment of the marquise, her husband, who had so long been
indifferent to her beauty, seemed to remark afresh that she was too
charming to be despised; his words accordingly began little by little to
express an affection that had long since gradually disappeared from
them. The marquise had never ceased to love him; she had suffered the
loss of his love with resignation, she hailed its return with joy, and
three months elapsed that resembled those which had long ceased to be
more to the poor wife than a distant and half-worn-out memory.
Thus she had, with the supreme facility of youth, always ready to be
happy, taken up her gladness again, without even asking what genius had
brought back to her the treasure which she had thought lost, when she
received an invitation from a lady of the neighbourhood to spend some
days in her country house. Her husband and her two brothers-in-law,
invited with her, were of the party, and accompanied her. A great
hunting party had been arranged beforehand, and almost immediately upon
arriving everyone began to prepare for taking part in it.
The abbe, whose talents had made him indispensable in every company,
declared that for that day he was the marquise's cavalier, a title which
his sister-in-law, with her usual amiability, confirmed. Each of the
huntsmen, following this example, made choice of a lady to whom to
dedicate his attentions throughout the day; then, this chivalrous
arrangement being completed, all present directed their course towards
the place of meeting.
That happened which almost always happens the dogs hunted on their own
account. Two or three sportsmen only followed the dogs; the rest got
lost. The abbe, in his character of esquire to the marquise, had not
left her for a moment, and had managed so cleverly that he was alone
with her--an opportunity which he had been seeking for a month
previously with no less care--than the marquise had been using to avoid
it. No sooner, therefore, did the marquise believe herself aware that
the abbe had intentionally turned aside from the hunt than she attempted
to gallop her horse in the opposite direction from that which she had
been following; but the abbe stopped her. The marquise neither could nor
would enter upon a struggle; she resigned herself, therefore, to hearing
what the abbe had to say to her, and her face assumed that air of
haughty disdain which women so well know how to put on when they wish a
man to understand that he has nothing to hope from them. There was an
instant's silence; the abbe was the first to break it.
"Madame," said he, "I ask your pardon for having used this means to
speak to you alone; but since, in spite of my rank of brother-in-law,
you did not seem inclined to grant me that favour if I had asked it, I
thought it would be better for me, to deprive you of the power to refuse
it me."
"If you have hesitated to ask me so simple a thing, monsieur," replied
the marquise, "and if you have taken such precautions to compel me to
listen to you, it must, no doubt, be because you knew beforehand that
the words you had to say to me were such as I could not hear. Have the
goodness, therefore, to reflect, before you open this conversation, that
here as elsewhere I reserve the right--and I warn you of it--to
interrupt what you may say at the moment when it may cease to seem to me
befitting."
"As to that, madame," said the abbe, "I think I can answer for it that
whatever it may please me to say to you, you will hear to the end; but
indeed the matters are so simple that there is no need to make you
uneasy beforehand: I wished to ask you, madame, whether you have
perceived a change in the conduct of your husband towards you."
"Yes, monsieur," replied the marquise, "and no single day has passed in
which I have not thanked Heaven for this happiness."
"And you have been wrong, madame," returned the abbe, with one of those
smiles that were peculiar to himself; "Heaven has nothing to do with it.
Thank Heaven for having made you the most beautiful and charming of
women, and that will be enough thanksgiving without despoiling me of
such as belong to my share."
"I do not understand you, monsieur," said the marquise in an icy tone.
"Well, I will make myself comprehensible, my dear sister-in-law. I am
the worker of the miracle for which you are thanking Heaven; to me
therefore belongs your gratitude. Heaven is rich enough not to rob the
poor."
"You are right, monsieur: if it is really to you that I owe this return,
the cause of which I did not know, I will thank you in the first place;
and then afterwards I will thank Heaven for having inspired you with
this good thought."
"Yes," answered the abbe, "but Heaven, which has inspired me with a good
thought, may equally well inspire me with a bad one, if the good thought
does not bring me what I expect from it."
"What do you mean, monsieur?"
"That there has never been more than one will in the family, and that
will is mine; that the minds of my two brothers turn according to the
fancy of that will like weathercocks before the wind, and that he who
has blown hot can blow cold."
"I am still waiting for you to explain yourself, monsieur."
"Well, then, my dear sister-in-law, since you are pleased not to
understand me, I will explain myself more clearly. My brother turned
from you through jealousy; I wished to give you an idea of my power over
him, and from extreme indifference I have brought him back, by showing
him that he suspected you wrongly, to the ardours of the warmest love.
Well, I need only tell him that I was mistaken, and fix his wandering
suspicions upon any man whatever, and I shall take him away from you,
even as I have brought him back. I need give you no proof of what I say;
you know perfectly well that I am speaking the truth."
"And what object had you, in acting this part?"
"To prove to you, madame, that at my will I can cause you to be sad or
joyful, cherished or neglected, adored or hated. Madame, listen to me: I
love you."
"You insult me, monsieur!" cried the marquise, trying to withdraw the
bridle of her horse from the abbe's hands.
"No fine words, my dear sister-in-law; for, with me, I warn you, they
will be lost. To tell a woman one loves her is never an insult; only
there are a thousand different ways of obliging her to respond to that
love. The error is to make a mistake in the way that one employs--that
is the whole of the matter."
"And may I inquire which you have chosen?" asked the marquise, with a
crushing smile of contempt.
"The only one that could succeed with a calm, cold, strong woman like
you, the conviction that your interest requires you to respond to my
love."
"Since you profess to know me so well," answered the marquise, with
another effort, as unsuccessful as the former, to free the bridle of her
horse, "you should know how a woman like me would receive such an
overture; say to yourself what I might say to you, and above all, what I
might say to my husband."
The abbe smiled.
"Oh, as to that," he returned, "you can do as you please, madame. Tell
your husband whatever you choose; repeat our conversation word for word;
add whatever your memory may furnish, true or false, that may be most
convincing against me; then, when you have thoroughly given him his cue,
when you think yourself sure of him, I will say two words to him, and
turn him inside out like this glove. That is what I had to say to you,
madame I will not detain you longer. You may have in me a devoted friend
or a mortal enemy. Reflect."
At these words the abbe loosed his hold upon the bridle of the
marquise's horse and left her free to guide it as she would. The
marquise put her beast to a trot, so as to show neither fear nor haste.
The abbe followed her, and both rejoined the hunt.
The abbe had spoken truly. The marquise, notwithstanding the threat
which she had made, reflected upon the influence which this man had over
her husband, and of which she had often had proof she kept silence,
therefore, and hoped that he had made himself seem worse than he was, to
frighten her. On this point she was strangely mistaken.
The abbe, however, wished to see, in the first place, whether the
marquise's refusal was due to personal antipathy or to real virtue. The
chevalier, as has been said, was handsome; he had that usage of good
society which does instead of mind, and he joined to it the obstinacy of
a stupid man; the abbe undertook to persuade him that he was in love
with the marquise. It was not a difficult matter. We have described the
impression made upon the chevalier by the first sight of Madame de
Ganges; but, owing beforehand the reputation of austerity that his
sister-in-law had acquired, he had not the remotest idea of paying court
to her. Yielding, indeed, to the influence which she exercised upon all
who came in contact with her, the chevalier had remained her devoted
servant; and the marquise, having no reason to mistrust civilities which
she took for signs of friendliness, and considering his position as her
husband's brother, treated him with less circumspection than was her
custom.
The abbe sought him out, and, having made sure they were alone, said,
"Chevalier, we both love the same woman, and that woman is our brother's
wife; do not let us thwart each other: I am master of my passion, and
can the more easily sacrifice it to you that I believe you are the man
preferred; try, therefore, to obtain some assurance of the love which I
suspect the marquise of having for you; and from the day when you reach
that point I will withdraw, but otherwise, if you fail, give up your
place civilly to me, that I may try, in my turn, whether her heart is
really impregnable, as everybody says."
The chevalier had never thought of the possibility of winning the
marquise; but from the moment in which his brother, with no apparent
motive of personal interest, aroused the idea that he might be beloved,
every spark of passion and of vanity that still existed in this
automaton took fire, and he began to be doubly assiduous and attentive
to his sister-in-law. She, who had never suspected any evil in this
quarter, treated the chevalier at first with a kindliness that was
heightened by her scorn for the abbe. But, before long, the chevalier,
misunderstanding the grounds of this kindliness, explained himself more
clearly. The marquise, amazed and at first incredulous, allowed him to
say enough to make his intentions perfectly clear; then she stopped him,
as she had done the abbe, by some of those galling words which women
derive from their indifference even more than from their virtue.
At this check, the chevalier, who was far from possessing his brother's
strength and determination, lost all hope, and came candidly to own to
the latter the sad result of his attentions and his love. This was what
the abbe had awaited, in the first place for the satisfaction of his own
vanity, and in the second place for the means of carrying out his
schemes. He worked upon the chevalier's humiliation until he had wrought
it into a solid hatred; and then, sure of having him for a supporter and
even for an accomplice, he began to put into execution his plan against
the marquise.
The consequence was soon shown in a renewal of alienation on the part of
M. de Ganges. A young man whom the marquise sometimes met in society,
and to whom, on account of his wit, she listened perhaps a little more
willingly than to others, became, if not the cause, at least the excuse
of a fresh burst of jealousy. This jealousy was exhibited as on previous
occasions, by quarrels remote from the real grievance; but the marquise
was not deceived: she recognised in this change the fatal hand of her
brother-in-law. But this certainty, instead of drawing her towards him,
increased her repulsion; and thenceforward she lost no opportunity of
showing him not only that repulsion but also the contempt that
accompanied it.
Matters remained in this state for some months. Every day the marquise
perceived her husband growing colder, and although the spies were
invisible she felt herself surrounded by a watchfulness that took note
of the most private details of her life. As to the abbe and the
chevalier, they were as usual; only the abbe had hidden his hate behind
a smile that was habitual, and the chevalier his resentment behind that
cold and stiff dignity in which dull minds enfold themselves when they
believe themselves injured in their vanity.
In the midst of all this, M. Joannis de Nocheres died, and added to the
already considerable fortune of his granddaughter another fortune of
from six to seven hundred thousand livres.
This additional wealth became, on accruing to the marquise, what was
then called, in countries where the Roman law prevailed, a 'paraphernal'
estate that is to say that, falling in, after marriage? it was not
included in the dowry brought by the wife, and that she could dispose
freely both of the capital and the income, which might not be
administered even by her husband without a power of attorney, and of
which she could dispose at pleasure, by donation or by will. And in
fact, a few days after the marquise had entered into possession of her
grandfather's estate, her husband and his brothers learned that she had
sent for a notary in order to be instructed as to her rights. This step
betokened an intention of separating this inheritance from the common
property of the marriage; for the behaviour of the marquis towards his
wife--of which within himself he often recognised the injustice--left
him little hope of any other explanation.
About this time a strange event happened. At a dinner given by the
marquise, a cream was served at dessert: all those who partook of this
cream were ill; the marquis and his two brothers, who had not touched
it, felt no evil effects. The remainder of this cream, which was
suspected of having caused illness to the guests, and particularly to
the marquise, who had taken of it twice, was analysed, and the presence
of arsenic in it demonstrated. Only, having been mixed with milk, which
is its antidote, the poison had lost some of its power, and had produced
but half the expected effect. As no serious disaster had followed this
occurrence, the blame was thrown upon a servant, who was said to have
mistaken arsenic for sugar, and everybody forgot it, or appeared to
forget it.
The marquis, however, seemed to be gradually and naturally drawing
nearer again to his wife; but this time Madame de Ganges was not
deceived by his returning kindness. There, as in his alienation, she saw
the selfish hand of the abbe: he had persuaded his brother that seven
hundred thousand livres more in the house would make it worth while to
overlook some levities of behaviour; and the marquis, obeying the
impulse given, was trying, by kind dealing, to oppose his wife's still
unsettled intention of making a will.
Towards the autumn there was talk of going to spend that season at
Ganges, a little town situated in Lower Languedoc, in the diocese of
Montpellier, seven leagues from that town, and nineteen from Avignon.
Although this was natural enough, since the marquis was lord of the town
and had a castle there, the marquise was seized by a strange shudder
when she heard the proposal. Remembrance of the prediction made to her
returned immediately to her mind. The recent and ill explained attempt
to poison her, too, very naturally added to her fears.
Without directly and positively suspecting her brothers-in-law of that
crime, she knew that in them she had two implacable enemies. This
journey to a little town, this abode in a lonely castle, amid new,
unknown neighbours, seemed to her of no good omen; but open opposition
would have been ridiculous. On what grounds, indeed, could she base
resistance? The marquise could only own her terrors by accusing her
husband and her brothers-in-law. And of what could she accuse them? The
incident of the poisoned cream was not a conclusive proof. She resolved
accordingly to lock up all her fears in her heart, and to commit herself
to the hands of God.
Nevertheless, she would not leave Avignon without signing the will which
she had contemplated making ever since M. de Nocheres' death. A notary
was called in who drew up the document. The Marquise de Ganges made her
mother, Madame de Rossan, her sole inheritor, and left in her charge the
duty of choosing between the testatrix's two children as to which of
them should succeed to the estate. These two children were, one a boy of
six years old, the other a girl of five. But this was not enough for the
marquise, so deep was her impression that she would not survive this
fatal journey; she gathered together, secretly and at night, the
magistrates of Avignon and several persons of quality, belonging to the
first families of the town, and there, before them, verbally at first,
declared that, in case of her death, she begged the honourable witnesses
whom she had assembled on purpose, not to recognise as valid, voluntary,
or freely written anything except the will which she had signed the day
before, and affirmed beforehand that any later will which might be
produced would be the effect of fraud or of violence. Then, having made
this verbal declaration, the marquise repeated it in writing, signed the
paper containing it, and gave the paper to be preserved by the honour of
those whom she constituted its guardians. Such a precaution, taken with
such minute detail, aroused the lively curiosity of her hearers. Many
pressing questions were put to the marquise, but nothing could be
extracted from her except that she had reasons for her action which she
could not declare. The cause of this assemblage remained a secret, and
every person who formed part of it promised the marquise not to reveal
it.
On the next day, which was that preceding her departure for Ganges, the
marquise visited all the charitable institutions and religious
communities in Avignon; she left liberal alms everywhere, with the
request that prayers and masses should be said for her, in order to
obtain from God's grace that she should not be suffered to die without
receiving the sacraments of the Church. In the evening, she took leave
of all her friends with the affection and the tears of a person
convinced that she was bidding them a last farewell; and finally she
spent the whole night in prayer, and the maid who came to wake her found
her kneeling in the same spot where she, had left her the night before.
The family set out for Ganges; the journey was performed without
accident. On reaching the castle, the marquise found her mother-in-law
there; she was a woman of remarkable distinction and piety, and her
presence, although it was to be but temporary, reassured the poor
fearful marquise a little. Arrangements had been made beforehand at the
old castle, and the most convenient and elegant of the rooms had been
assigned to the marquise; it was on the first floor, and looked out upon
a courtyard shut in on all sides by stables.
On the first evening that she was to sleep here, the marquise explored
the room with the greatest attention. She inspected the cupboards,
sounded the walls, examined the tapestry, and found nothing anywhere
that could confirm her terrors, which, indeed, from that time began to
decrease. At the end of a certain time; however, the marquis's mother
left Ganges to return to Montpellier. Two, days after her departure, the
marquis talked of important business which required him to go back to
Avignon, and he too left the castle. The marquise thus remained alone
with the abbe, the chevalier, and a chaplain named Perette, who had been
attached for five-and-twenty years to the family of the marquis. The
rest of the household consisted of a few servants.
The marquise's first care, on arriving at the castle, had been to
collect a little society for herself in the town. This was easy: not
only did her rank make it an honour to belong to her circle, her kindly
graciousness also inspired at first-sight the desire of having her for a
friend. The marquise thus endured less dulness than she had at first
feared. This precaution was by no means uncalled for; instead of
spending only the autumn at Ganges, the marquise was obliged, in
consequence of letters from her husband, to spend the winter there.
During the whole of this time the abbe and the chevalier seemed to have
completely forgotten their original designs upon her, and had again
resumed the conduct of respectful, attentive brothers. But with all
this, M. de Ganges remained estranged, and the marquise, who had not
ceased to love him, though she began to lose her fear, did not lose her
grief.
One day the abbe entered her room suddenly enough to surprise her before
she had time to dry her tears; the secret being thus half surprised, he
easily obtained a knowledge of the whole. The marquise owned to him that
happiness in this world was impossible for her so long as her husband
led this separate and hostile life. The abbe tried to console her; but
amid his consolations he told her that the grief which she was suffering
had its source in herself; that her husband was naturally wounded by her
distrust of him--a distrust of which the will, executed by her, was a
proof, all the more humiliating because public, and that, while that
will existed, she could expect no advances towards reconciliation from
her husband. For that time the conversation ended there.
Some days later, the abbe came into the marquise's room with a letter
which he had just received from his brother. This letter, supposed
confidential, was filled with tender complaints of his wife's conduct
towards him, and showed, through every sentence, a depth of affection
which only wrongs as serious as those from which the marquis considered
himself to be feeling could counterbalance. The marquise was, at first,
very much touched by this letter; but having soon reflected that just
sufficient time had elapsed since the explanation between herself and
the abbe for the marquis to be informed of it, she awaited further and
stronger proofs before changing her mind.
From day to day, however, the abbe, under the pretext of reconciling the
husband and wife, became more pressing upon the matter of the will, and
the marquise, to whom this insistence seemed rather alarming, began to
experience some of her former fears. Finally, the abbe pressed her so
hard as to make her reflect that since, after the precautions which she
had taken at Avignon, a revocation could have no result, it would be
better to seem to yield rather than irritate this man, who inspired her
with so great a fear, by constant and obstinate refusals. The next time
that he returned to the subject she accordingly replied that she was
ready to offer her husband this new proof of her love if it would bring
him back to her, and having ordered a notary to be sent for, she made a
new will, in the presence of the abbe and the chevalier, and constituted
the marquis her residuary legatee. This second instrument bore date the
5th of May 1667. The abbe and the chevalier expressed the greatest joy
that this subject of discord was at last removed, and offered themselves
as guarantees, on their brother's behalf, of a better future. Some days
were passed in this hope, which a letter from the marquis came to
confirm; this letter at the same time announced his speedy return to
Ganges.
On the 16th of May; the marquise, who for a month or two had not been
well, determined to take medicine; she therefore informed the chemist of
what she wanted, and asked him to make her up something at his
discretion and send it to her the next day. Accordingly, at the agreed
hour in the morning, the draught was brought to the marquise; but it
looked to her so black and so thick that she felt some doubt of the
skill of its compounder, shut it up in a cupboard in her room without
saying anything of the matter, and took from her dressing-case some
pills, of a less efficacious nature indeed, but to which she was
accustomed, and which were not so repugnant to her.