One of the handsomest rooms in the Palace of Gonzague, as the Palace of
Nevers was now called, was known as the Hall of the Three Louis. It was
so called on account of the three life-sized portraits which it
contained. The first was the portrait of the late duke, Louis de Nevers,
in all the pride of that youth and joyousness which was so tragically
extinguished in the moat of Caylus. His fair hair fell about his
delicate, eager face; his left hand rested upon the hilt of the sword he
knew how to use so well; his right hand, perhaps in the pathos, perhaps
in the irony of the painter's intention, was pressed against his heart,
for Louis de Nevers had been a famous lover in his little day, but never
so true a lover as when he wooed and won the daughter of the hostile
house of Caylus. A heavy curtain by the side of the picture masked an
alcove sacred to the memory of Nevers.
Facing the portrait of the dead duke was the portrait of his successor,
of the present master of the house. Louis de Gonzague, in all other
things a contrast to Louis de Nevers, contrasted with him most
flagrantly in appearance. Against the fair, boyish face of Nevers you had
to set the saturnine Italianate countenance of Gonzague. The brilliancy
of Louis de Nevers was all external, bright as summer is bright, gay as
summer is gay, cheerful as summer is cheerful. The brilliancy of Louis de
Gonzague showed more sombrely, as melting gold flows in a crucible. No
one who saw the picture could fail to deny its physical beauty, but many
would deny it the instant, the appealing charm which caught at the heart
of the spectator with the first glance he gave to the canvas that
portrayed Louis de Nevers. In contrast, too, were the very garments of
the two men, for the dead duke affected light, airy, radiant
colors--clear blues, and clear pale-yellows, and delicate reds with
subtle emphasis of gold and silver; but the splendor of Gonzague's
apparel was sombre, like his beauty, with black for its dominant note,
and only deep wine-colored crimsons or fierce ambers to lighten its
solemnity.
The third picture, which was placed between Louis de Nevers and Louis de
Gonzague, was the portrait of Louis, not as he now looked, being King of
France in reality, but as he looked some seventeen years earlier, when
the cardinal was beginning his career, and when the peevishness of youth
had not soured into the yellow melancholy of the monarch of middle age.
It was in this room, consecrated to the memory of his dead friend, to the
honor of his living friend, and to the glory of his own existence, that
Louis de Gonzague loved to work. It was a proof of his well-balanced
philosophy that he found nothing to trouble him in the juxtaposition of
the three pictures. The great double doors at one end of the room served
to shut off a hall devoted for the most part to the private suppers which
it was Louis de Gonzague's delight to give to chosen friends of both
sexes, and when, as often happened, supper ended, and a choice company of
half-drunken women and wholly drunken men reeled through the open doors
into the room where the three Louis reigned, Gonzague, who himself kept
always sober, was no more than cynically amused by the contrast between
the noisy and careless crew who had invaded the chamber and the sinister
gravity with which the portraits of the three Louis regarded one
another.
The king himself, who sometimes since his freedom surreptitiously made
one at these merry gatherings, where a princely fortune and a more than
princely taste directed all that appealed to all appetites--the king
himself, coming flushed from one of these famous suppers into the sudden
coolness and quiet of the great room, would appear to be more impressed
than his host at the sudden sight of the three canvases. Then, in a voice
perhaps slightly unsteady, but still carrying in its flood the utterance
of a steady purpose, Louis of France would catch Louis de Gonzague by the
wrist, and, pointing to the bright, smiling image of Louis de Nevers,
would repeat for the twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time his
oath of vengeance against the assassin of his friend if ever that
assassin should come into his power. And hearing this oath for the
twentieth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time, Louis de Gonzague would
always smile his astute smile and incline his head gravely in sign of
sympathy with the king's feelings, and allow his fine eyes to be dimmed
for an instant with a suggestion of tears.
The room was an interesting room to any one curious as to the concerns of
the Prince de Gonzague for other reasons than the presence of the three
pictures, for to any one who knew anything about the arrangements of the
palace this room represented, as it were, a kind of debatable land
between the kingdom of Gonzague on the one side and the kingdom of Nevers
on the other. A door on the left communicated with the private apartments
of Louis de Gonzague. Cross the great room to the right, and you came to
a door communicating with the private apartments of Madame the Princess
de Gonzague. The Prince de Gonzague never passed the threshold of the
door that led to the princess's apartments. The Princess de Gonzague
never passed the threshold of the door that led to the prince's
apartments. Ever since their strange marriage the man and the woman had
lived thus apart; the man, on his part, always courteous, always
deferential, always tender, always ready to be respectfully affectionate,
and the woman, on her part, icily reserved, wrapped around in the
blackness of her widowhood, inexorably deaf to all wooing, immovably
resolute to be alone.
What rumor said was, for once, quite true. The young Duchess de Nevers,
on the night of her marriage to Prince Louis de Gonzague, had warned him
that if he attempted to approach her with the solicitations of a husband
she would take her life, and Louis de Gonzague, who, being an Italian,
was ardent, but who, being an Italian, was also very intelligent, saw
that the young wife-widow meant what she said and would keep her word,
and desisted discreetly from any attempt to play the husband. After all,
he had his consolations: he controlled the vast estates of his dead
friend and kinsman, and though he felt for the lady he had married a
certain animal attraction, which easily cooled as the years went on, his
passion for the wealth of Nevers was more pronounced than his passion for
the wife of Nevers, and he contented himself easily enough with the part
assigned to him by his wife in the tragi-comedy. Every day he requested,
very courteously, through Monsieur Peyrolles, permission to wait upon the
princess, and every day the princess, also through a servant, expressed
her regret that the state of her health would not allow her the pleasure
of receiving his highness. So it had been through the years since Louis
de Nevers was done to death in the moat of Caylus.
On the day after the fair at Neuilly, Louis de Gonzague was seated in the
room of the Three Louis busily writing at a table. By his side stood
Peyrolles, his gorgeous attire somewhat unpleasantly accentuating the
patent obsequiousness with which he waited upon his master's will. For a
while Gonzague's busy pen formed flowing Italian characters upon the page
before him. Presently he came to an end, reread his letter, shook over
the final writings some silver sand, then folded it and sealed it
leisurely. When he had done he spoke to Peyrolles:
"This letter is to go to his majesty. Send Doña Flora here. Stay! Who is
in the antechamber?"
Peyrolles answered with a bow: "The Chevalier Cocardasse and the
Chevalier Passepoil, monseigneur."