“She will protect me! She will come to my rescue! Ah! how truly the
abbé spoke when he said that one look might decide my life. Yes, those
eyes, so soft and gentle, that little mouth, both merry and sweet, that
little foot almost hidden under the _pompon_--Yes, here is my good
fairy!”
Thus thought the chevalier, almost aloud, as he returned to the inn.
Whence came this sudden hope? Did his youth alone speak, or had the
eyes of the marquise told a tale?
He passed the greater part of the night writing to Mademoiselle
d’Annebault such a letter as we heard read by Madame de Pompadour to
her lord.
To reproduce this letter would be a vain task. Excepting idiots, lovers
alone find no monotony in repeating the same thing over and over again.
At daybreak the chevalier went out and began roaming about, carrying
his dreams through the streets. It did not occur to him to have
recourse once more to the protecting abbé, and it would not be easy to
tell the reason which prevented his doing so. It was like a blending
of timidity and audacity, of false shame and romantic honor. And,
indeed, what would the abbé have replied to him, if he had told his
story of the night before? “You had the unique good fortune to pick up
this fan; did you know how to profit by it? What did the marquise say
to you?”
“Nothing.”
“You should have spoken to her.”
“I was confused; I had lost my head.”
“That was wrong; one must know how to seize an opportunity; but
this can be repaired. Would you like me to present you to Monsieur
So-and-so, one of my friends; or perhaps to Madame Such-a-one? That
would be still better. We will try and secure for you access to this
marquise who frightened you so, and then”--and so forth.
Now the chevalier little relished anything of this kind. It seemed to
him that, in telling his adventure, he would, so to speak, soil and mar
it. He said to himself that chance had done for him something unheard
of, incredible, and that it should remain a secret between himself
and Fortune. To confide this secret to the first comer was, to his
thinking, to rob it of its value, and to show himself unworthy of it.
“I went alone yesterday to the castle at Versailles,” thought he, “I
can surely go alone to Trianon?” This was, at the time, the abode of
the favorite.
Such a way of thinking might, and even should, appear extravagant
to calculating minds, who neglect no detail, and leave as little as
possible to chance; but colder mortals, if they were ever young,
and not everybody is so, even in youth, have known that strange
sentiment, both weak and bold, dangerous and seductive, which drags
us to our fate. One feels one’s self blind, and wishes to be so; one
does not know where one is going and yet walks on. The charm of the
thing consists in this recklessness and this very ignorance; it is the
pleasure of the artist in his dreams, of the lover spending the night
beneath the windows of his mistress; it is the instinct of the soldier;
it is, above all, that of the gamester.
The chevalier, almost without knowing it, had thus taken his way to
Trianon. Without being very _paré_, as they said in those days,
he lacked neither elegance nor that indescribable air which forbids a
chance lackey, meeting one, from daring to ask where one is going. It
was, therefore, not difficult for him, thanks to information he had
obtained at the inn, to reach the gate of the château--if one can so
call that marble _bonbonnière_, which has seen so many pleasures
and pains in bygone days. Unfortunately, the gate was closed, and a
stout Swiss wearing a plain coat was walking about, his hands behind
his back, in the inner avenue, like a person who is not expecting any
one.
“The King is here!” said the chevalier to himself, “or else the
marquise is away. Evidently, when the doors are closed, and valets
stroll about, the masters are either shut in or gone out.”
What was to be done? Full as he had been, a moment earlier, of courage
and confidence, he now felt, all at once, confused and disappointed.
The mere thought, “The King is here!” alone gave him more alarm than
those few words, on the night before: “The King is about to pass!” For
then he was but facing the unknown, and now he knew that icy stare,
that implacable, impassible majesty.
“Ah! Bon Dieu! What a figure I should cut if I were to be so mad as to
try and penetrate this garden, and find myself face to face with this
superb monarch, sipping his coffee beside a rivulet.”
At once the sinister shadow of the Bastille seemed to fall before
the poor lover; instead of the charming image that he had retained
of the marquise and her smile, he saw dungeons, cells, black bread,
questionable water; he knew the story of Latude, thirty years an inmate
of the Bastille. Little by little his hope seemed to be taking to
itself wings.
“And yet,” he again said to himself, “I am doing no harm, nor the King
either. I protest against an injustice; but I never wrote or sang
scurrilous songs. I was so well received at Versailles yesterday,
and the lackeys were so polite! What am I afraid of? Of committing a
blunder? I shall make many more which will repair this one.”
He approached the gate and touched it with his finger. It was not quite
closed. He opened it, and resolutely entered.
The gatekeeper turned round with a look of annoyance.
“What are you looking for? Where are you going?”
“I am going to Madame de Pompadour.”
“Have you an audience?”
“Yes.”
“Where is your letter?”
He was no longer the “marquis” of the night before, and, this time,
there was no Duc d’Aumont. The chevalier lowered his eyes sadly, and
noticed that his white stockings and Rhinestone buckles were covered
with dust. He had made the mistake of coming on foot, in a region where
no one walked. The gatekeeper also bent his eyes, and scanned him, not
from head to foot, but from foot to head. The dress seemed neat enough,
but the hat was rather askew, and the hair lacked powder.
“You have no letter. What do you wish?”
“I wish to speak to Madame de Pompadour.”
“Really! And you think this is the way it is done?”
“I know nothing about it. Is the King here?”
“Perhaps. Go about your business and leave me alone.”
The chevalier did not wish to lose his temper, but, in spite of
himself, this insolence made him turn pale.
“I sometimes have told a lackey to go away,” he replied, “but a lackey
never said so to me.”
“Lackey! I a lackey?” exclaimed the enraged gatekeeper.
“Lackey, doorkeeper, valet, or menial, I care not, and it matters
little.”
The gatekeeper made a step toward the chevalier with clenched fists and
face aflame. The chevalier, brought to himself by the appearance of a
threat, lifted the handle of his sword slightly.
“Take care, fellow,” said he, “I am a gentleman, and it would cost me
but thirty-six livres to put a boor like you under ground.”
“If you are a nobleman, monsieur, I belong to the King; I am only doing
my duty; so do not think--”
At this moment the flourish of a hunting-horn sounding from the Bois
de Satory was heard afar, and lost itself in the echo. The chevalier
allowed his sword to drop into its scabbard, no longer thinking of the
interrupted quarrel.
“I declare,” said he, “it is the King starting for the hunt! Why did
you not tell me that before?”
“That has nothing to do with me, nor with you either.”
“Listen to me, my good man. The King is not here; I have no letter, I
have no audience. Here is some money for you; let me in.”
He drew from his pocket several pieces of gold. The gatekeeper scanned
him anew with a superb contempt.
“What is that?” said he, disdainfully. “Is it thus you seek to
penetrate into a royal dwelling? Instead of making you go out, take
care I don’t lock you in.”
“_You_--you valet!” said the chevalier, getting angry again and
once more seizing his sword.
“Yes, I,” repeated the big man. But during this conversation, in which
the historian regrets to have compromised his hero, thick clouds had
darkened the sky; a storm was brewing. A flash of lightning burst
forth, followed by a violent peal of thunder, and the rain began to
fall heavily. The chevalier, who still held his gold, saw a drop of
water on his dusty shoe as large as a crown piece.
“Peste!” said he, “let us find shelter. It would never do to get wet.”
He turned nimbly toward the den of Cerberus, or, if you please, the
gatekeeper’s lodge. Once in there, he threw himself unceremoniously
into the big armchair of the gatekeeper himself.
“Heavens! How you annoy me!” said he, “and how unfortunate I am! You
take me for a conspirator, and you do not understand that I have in my
pocket a petition for his Majesty! If I am from the country, you are
nothing but a dolt.”
The gatekeeper, for answer, went to a corner to fetch his halberd, and
remained standing thus with the weapon in his fist.
“When are you going away?” he cried out in a stentorian voice.
The quarrel, in turn forgotten and taken up again, seemed this time to
be becoming quite serious, and already the gatekeeper’s two big hands
trembled strangely on his pike;--what was to happen? I do not know.
But, suddenly turning his head--“Ah!” said the chevalier, “who comes
here?”
A young page mounted on a splendid horse (not an English one;--at that
time thin legs were not the fashion) came up at full speed. The road
was soaked with rain; the gate was but half open. There was a pause;
the keeper advanced and opened the gate. The page spurred his horse,
which had stopped for the space of an instant; it tried to resume its
gait, but missed its footing, and, slipping on the damp ground, fell.
It is very awkward, almost dangerous, to raise a fallen horse. A
riding-whip is of no use. The kicking of the beast, which is doing
its best, is extremely disagreeable, especially when one’s own leg is
caught under the saddle.
The chevalier, however, came to the rescue without thinking of these
inconveniences, and set about it so cleverly that the horse was soon
raised and the rider freed. But the latter was covered with mud and
could scarcely limp along.
Carried as well as might be to the gatekeeper’s lodge and seated in his
turn in the big armchair, “Sir,” said he to the chevalier, “you are
certainly a nobleman. You have rendered me a great service, but you
can render me a still greater one. Here is a message from the King for
Madame la Marquise, and this message is very urgent, as you see, since
my horse and I, in order to go faster, almost broke our necks. You
understand that, wounded as I am, with a lame leg, I could not deliver
this paper. I should have, in order to do so, to be carried myself.
Will you go there in my stead?”
At the same time he drew from his pocket a large envelope ornamented
with gilt arabesques and fastened with the royal seal.
“Very willingly, sir,” replied the chevalier, taking the envelope.
And, nimble and light as a feather, he set out at a run and on the tips
of his toes.
V
When the chevalier arrived at the château he found another doorkeeper
in front of the peristyle:
“By the King’s order,” said the young man, who this time no longer
feared halberds, and, showing his letter, he passed gaily between half
a dozen lackeys.
A tall usher, planted in the middle of the vestibule, seeing the order
and the royal seal, gravely inclined himself, like a poplar bent by the
wind--then, smiling, he touched with one of his bony fingers the corner
of a piece of paneling.
A little swinging door, masked by tapestry, at once opened as if of
its own accord. The bony man made an obsequious sign, the chevalier
entered, and the tapestry, which had been drawn apart, fell softly
behind him.
A silent valet introduced him into a drawing-room, then into a
corridor, in which there were two or three closed doors, then at last
into a second drawing-room, and begged him to wait a moment.
“Am I here again in the château of Versailles?” the chevalier asked
himself. “Are we going to begin another game of hide-and-seek?”
Trianon was, at that time, neither what it is now nor what it had been.
It has been said that Madame de Maintenon had made of Versailles an
oratory, and Madame de Pompadour a boudoir. It has also been said of
Trianon that _ce petit château de porcelaine_ was the boudoir of
Madame de Montespan. Be that as it may, concerning these boudoirs,
it appears that Louis XV put them everywhere. This or that gallery,
which his ancestor walked majestically, was then divided oddly into an
infinity of apartments. There were some of every color, and the King
went fluttering about in all these gardens of silk and velvet.
“Do you think my little furnished apartments are in good taste?” he one
day asked the beautiful Comtesse de Sérrant.
“No,” said she, “I would have them in blue.”
As blue was the King’s color, this answer flattered him.
At their next meeting, Madame de Sérrant found the salon upholstered in
blue, as she had wished it.
That in which the chevalier now found himself alone was neither blue
nor pink, it was all mirrors. We know how much a pretty woman with a
lovely figure gains by letting her image repeat itself in a thousand
aspects. She bewilders, she envelops, so to speak, him whom she desires
to please. To whatever side he turns, he sees her. How can he avoid
being charmed? He must either take to flight or own himself conquered.
The chevalier looked at the garden, too. There, behind, the bushes
and labyrinths, the statues and the marble vases, that pastoral style
which the marquise was about to introduce, and which, later on, Madame
Du Barry and Marie Antoinette were to push to such a high degree of
perfection, was beginning to show itself. Already there appeared the
rural fantasies where the _blasé_ conceits were disappearing.
Already the puffing tritons, the grave goddesses, and the learned
nymphs, the busts with flowing wigs, frozen with horror in their wealth
of verdure, beheld an English garden rise from the ground, amid the
wondering trees. Little lawns, little streams, little bridges, were
soon to dethrone Olympus to replace it by a dairy, strange parody of
nature, which the English copy without understanding--very child’s
play, for the nonce the pastime of an indolent master who tried in vain
to escape the ennui of Versailles while remaining at Versailles itself.
But the chevalier was too charmed, too enraptured at finding himself
there for a critical thought to present itself to his mind. He was,
on the contrary, ready to admire everything, and was indeed admiring,
twirling his missive between his fingers as a rustic does his hat, when
a pretty waiting-maid opened the door, and said to him softly:
“Come, monsieur.”
He followed her, and after having once more passed through several
corridors which were more or less mysterious, she ushered him into a
large apartment where the shutters were half-closed. Here she stopped
and seemed to listen.
“Still at hide-and-seek!” said the chevalier to himself. However,
at the end of a few moments, yet another door opened, and another
waiting-maid, who seemed to be even prettier than the first, repeated
to him in the same tone the same words:
“Come, monsieur.”
If he had been the victim of one kind of emotion at Versailles, he was
subject to another, and still deeper feeling now, for he stood on
the threshold of the temple in which the divinity dwelt. He advanced
with a palpitating heart. A soft light, slightly veiled by thin,
gauze curtains, succeeded obscurity; a delicious perfume, almost
imperceptible, pervaded the air around him; the waiting-maid timidly
drew back the corner of a silk portière, and, at the end of a large
chamber furnished with elegant simplicity, he beheld the lady of the
fan--the all-powerful marquise.
She was alone, seated before a table, wrapped in a dressing-gown, her
head resting on her hand, and, seemingly, deeply preoccupied. On seeing
the chevalier enter, she rose with a sudden and apparently involuntary
movement.
“You come on behalf of the King?”
The chevalier might have answered, but he could think of nothing better
than to bow profoundly while presenting to the marquise the letter
which he brought her. She took it, or rather seized upon it, with
extreme eagerness. Her hands trembled on the envelope as she broke the
seal.
This letter, written by the King’s hand, was rather long. She devoured
it at first, so to speak, with a glance, then she read it greedily,
with profound attention, with wrinkled brow and tightened lips. She was
not beautiful thus, and no longer resembled the magic apparition of the
_petit foyer_. When she reached the end, she seemed to reflect.
Little by little her face, which had turned pale, assumed a faint color
(at this hour she did not wear rouge), and not only did she regain that
graceful air which habitually belonged to her, but a gleam of real
beauty illumined her delicate features; one might have taken her cheeks
for two rose-leaves. She heaved a little sigh, allowed the letter to
fall upon the table, and, turning toward the chevalier, said, with the
most charming smile:
“I kept you waiting, monsieur, but I was not yet dressed, and, indeed,
am hardly so even now. That is why I was forced to get you to come
through the private rooms, for I am almost as much besieged here as
though I were at home. I would like to answer the King’s note. Would it
be too much trouble to you to do an errand for me?”
This time he _must_ speak; the chevalier had had time to regain a
little courage:
“Alas! madame,” said he, sadly, “you confer a great favor on me, but,
unfortunately, I can not profit by it.”
“Why not?”
“I have not the honor to belong to his Majesty.”
“How, then, did you come here?”
“By chance; I met on my way a page who had been thrown and who begged
me--”
“How ‘thrown’?” repeated the marquise, bursting out laughing. She
seemed so happy at this moment that gaiety came to her without an
effort.
“Yes, madame, he fell from his horse at the gate. I luckily found
myself there to help him to rise, and, as his dress was very much
disordered, he begged me to take charge of his message.”
“And by what chance did you find yourself there?”
“Madame, it was because I had a petition to present to his Majesty.”
“His Majesty lives at Versailles.”
“Yes, but you live here.”
“Oh! So it is you who wished to entrust me with a message.”
“Madame, I beg you to believe--”
“Do not trouble yourself, you are not the first. But why do you address
yourself to me? I am but a woman--like any other.”
As she uttered these words with a somewhat ironical air, the marquise
threw a triumphant look upon the letter she had just read.
“Madame,” continued the chevalier, “I have always heard that men
exercise power, and that women--”
“Guide it, eh? Well, monsieur, there is a queen of France.”
“I know it, madame; that is how it happened that I found myself
_here_ this morning.”
The marquise was more than accustomed to such compliments, though they
were generally made in a whisper; but, in the present circumstances,
this appeared to be quite singularly gratifying to her.
“And on what faith,” said she, “on what assurance, did you believe
yourself able to penetrate as far as this? For you did not count, I
suppose, upon a horse’s falling on the way.”
“Madame, I believed--I hoped--”
“What did you hope?”
“I hoped that chance--might make--”
“Chance again! Chance is apparently one of your friends; but I warn you
that if you have no other, it is a sad recommendation.”
Perhaps offended Chance wished to avenge herself for this irreverence,
for the chevalier, whom these few questions had more and more troubled,
suddenly perceived, on the corner of the table, the identical fan that
he had picked up the night before. He took it, and, as on the night
before, presented it to the marquise, bending the knee before her.
“Here, madame,” he said to her, “is the only friend that could plead
for me--”
The marquise seemed at first astonished, and hesitated a moment,
looking now at the fan, now at the chevalier.
“Ah! you are right,” she said at last, “it is you, monsieur! I
recognize you. It is you whom I saw yesterday, after the play, as
I went by with M. de Richelieu. I let my fan drop, and you ‘found
yourself there,’ as you were saying.”
“Yes, madame.”
“And very gallantly, as a true chevalier, you returned it to me. I did
not thank you, but I was sure, all the same, that he who knows how to
pick up a fan with such grace would also know, at the right time, how
to pick up the glove. And we are not ill-pleased at that, we women.”
“And it is but too true, madame; for, on reaching here just now, I
almost had a duel with the gatekeeper.”
“Mercy on us!” said the marquise, once more seized with a fit of
gaiety. “With the gatekeeper! And what about?”
“He would not let me come in.”
“That would have been a pity! But who are you, monsieur? And what is
your request?”
“Madame, I am called the Chevalier de Vauvert. M. de Biron had asked in
my behalf for a cornetcy in the Guards.”
“Oh! I remember now. You come from Neauflette; you are in love with
Mademoiselle d’Annebault--”
“Madame, who could have told you?”
“Oh! I warn you that I am much to be feared. When memory fails me, I
guess. You are a relative of the Abbé de Chauvelin, and were refused on
that account; is not that so? Where is your petition?”
“Here it is, madame; but indeed I can not understand--”
“Why need you understand? Rise and lay your paper on the table. I am
going to answer the King’s letter; you will take him, at the same time,
your request and my letter.”
“But, madame, I thought I had mentioned to you--”
“You will go. You entered here on the business of the King, is not that
true? Well, then, you will enter there in the business of the Marquise
de Pompadour, lady of the palace to the Queen.”
The chevalier bowed without a word, seized with a sort of stupefaction.
The world had long known how much talk, how many ruses and intrigues,
the favorite had brought to bear, and what obstinacy she had shown to
obtain this title, which in reality brought her nothing but a cruel
affront from the Dauphin. She had longed for it for ten years; she
willed it, and she had succeeded. So M. de Vauvert, whom she did not
know, although she knew of his love, pleased her as a bearer of happy
news.
Immovable, standing behind her, the chevalier watched the marquise
as she wrote, first, with all her heart--with passion--then with
reflection, stopping, passing her hand under her little nose, delicate
as amber. She grew impatient: the presence of a witness disturbed her.
At last she made up her mind and drew her pen through something; it
must be owned that after all it was but a rough draft.
Opposite the chevalier, on the other side of the table, there glittered
a fine Venetian mirror. This timid messenger hardly dared raise his
eyes. It would, however, have been difficult not to see in this mirror,
over the head of the marquise, the anxious and charming face of the new
lady of the palace.
“How pretty she is!” thought he; “it is a pity that I am in love with
somebody else; but Athénaïs is more beautiful, and moreover it would be
on my part such a horrible disloyalty.”
“What are you talking about?” said the marquise. The chevalier, as was
his wont, had thought aloud without knowing it. “What are you saying?”
“I, madame? I am waiting.”
“There; that is done,” the marquise went on, taking another sheet of
paper; but at the slight movement she had made in turning around the
dressing-gown had slipped on her shoulder.
Fashion is a strange thing. Our grandmothers thought nothing of going
to court in immense robes exposing almost the entire bosom, and it was
by no means considered indecent; but they carefully hid the back of
their necks, which the fine ladies of to-day expose so freely in the
balcony of the opera. This is a newly invented beauty.
On the frail, white, dainty shoulder of Madame de Pompadour there
was a little black mark that looked like a fly floating in milk.
The chevalier, serious as a giddy boy who is trying to keep his
countenance, looked at the mark, and the marquise, holding her pen in
the air, looked at the chevalier in the mirror.
In that mirror a rapid glance was exchanged, which meant to say on the
one side, “You are charming,” and on the other, “I am not sorry for it.”
However, the marquise readjusted her dressing-gown.
“You are looking at my beauty-spot?”
“I am not looking, madame; I see and I admire.”
“Here is my letter; take it to the King with your petition.”
“But, madame--”
“Well?”
“His Majesty is hunting; I have just heard the horn in the wood of
Satory.”
“That is true. I did not think of it. Well, to-morrow. The day after;
it matters little. No, immediately. Go. You will give that to Lebel.
Good-by, monsieur. Try and remember the beauty-spot you have just
seen; the King alone in the whole kingdom has seen it; and as for your
friend, Chance, tell her, I beg of you, to take care and not chatter
to herself so loud, as she did just now. Farewell, chevalier.”
She touched a little bell, then, lifting a flood of laces upon her
sleeve, held out to the young man her bare arm. He once more bent low,
and with the tips of his lips scarcely brushed the rosy nails of the
marquise. She saw no impoliteness in it--far from it--but, perhaps, a
little too much modesty.
At once the little waiting-maids reappeared (the big ones were not yet
up), and, standing behind them, like a steeple in the middle of a flock
of sheep, the bony man, still smiling, was pointing the way.