THE FALL OF THE DICE
THE excitement was rather increased than diminished by the report of
the King’s recovery. Indeed, throughout, men’s and women’s thoughts
were absorbed far more feverishly with the fortunes of Madame de
Pompadour than with those of Louis himself. A palace revolution was
what was desired, vengeance on the woman who had threatened to become
dictator, a happy return to the old order; and the King’s illness was
only important as the extraordinary miracle which would accomplish what
was so passionately prayed for. The noble gentlemen and ladies spent
the next hour in agitating suspense. And when it was reported that the
King had rallied so marvellously as to be out of bed, to eat and to
talk, the high hopes sank. Another miracle had supervened to undo the
work of the first.
“A fig for miracles,” said Pontchartrain. “Voltaire and the
philosophers are right; they are either stupid, useless, or
meaningless. We can get on so much better without them.”
The “saints” of the circle in the Queen’s antechamber were
inexpressibly shocked. And they sighed at the inscrutable and
irritating way in which things in this world were ordered by Providence.
“Your theology, my dear Duke, savours of _bourgeois_ vulgarity and
ignorance. Heaven will only help those who help themselves. That woman
must be ruined before the King is well enough to become insane again.
If we can only drive her from the palace to-day she will never return.”
“And,” Mont Rouge added significantly, “there is a pleasant pit into
which we can drive her. The fall will break her charming neck.” He
began to explain very earnestly his scheme, which was listened to with
the most eager attention.
“We have her,” he wound up, triumphantly. “I shall not spend the winter
at Mont Rouge.”
The next news was very inspiriting. The King, on the advice of his
physicians, was to leave Versailles for Rambouillet, where change of
air and, presently, some of his favourite hunting would completely
restore his health. He was to leave that afternoon, accompanied only by
his confessor, his physician, and half a dozen servants.
“Poor fellow,” commented Pontchartrain, “how bored he will be. I
suppose they left out his wife because there are limits to what
husbands can endure. You agree, _ma mignonne_?” He kissed his Duchess’s
hands.
“Yes, because there are no limits, _mon cher_,” she retorted, “to what
wives must endure.”
“Ah, we shall make you a vulgar and ignorant philosopher yet, _chère
amie_. And, as His Majesty said to the grisette, yours is an education
which promises me infinite amusement.”
But the best part of the new information had still to come. Madame
de Pompadour had tried again to see the King, but His Majesty had
listened to his confessor’s warning and refused. The doctors, too,
had forbidden any such interviews. The King must on no account be
excited or annoyed. Physicians and priests alike had their cue from the
ministers; and the King, subject all his life to fits of gloomy remorse
and superstition, was again ready, after his illness, to listen to the
solemn remonstrances from the Church on his evil life. Nor did the
Court know that the memory of the apparition, which had been the cause
of his collapse, had played its part in strengthening his determination
to free himself of Madame de Pompadour.
“She, too, must leave Versailles,” St. Benôit urged. “Mont Rouge has
shown us how we can complete the victory once we have driven her out.
When the King returns from Rambouillet he must find her fled and
then--” He and they all smiled. As soon as the King could bear exciting
news there would be exciting news for him with a vengeance.
Denise had so far listened in silence. She now made a suggestion. “Can
we not frighten her away?” she said. “If she could be persuaded her
life is in danger, once the King has left the palace, she will go of
her own accord. I am quite ready to see her and tell her so.”
For Denise was still haunted by the desire, through some act of
self-sacrifice,--and to visit Madame de Pompadour would be a painful
humiliation,--to atone for what her conscience called treachery in the
past to the cause. And if only the Pompadour would leave, André would
be really free from her baleful influence and even now might be saved
against himself.
“It is not necessary, Mademoiselle,” the Chevalier said. “I have just
come from Madame’s salon.” The company that had welcomed his noiseless
entry waited breathlessly. “I think I have convinced her she had better
leave Versailles this very afternoon.”
Denise joined heartily in the sigh of relief. But the Chevalier’s next
sentence was disquieting. “The Vicomte de Nérac,” he said, “is now in
audience with the King.”
What did that mean? Had the King sent for him? He was strong enough
to see him? Had the doctors permitted it? Were the ministers and
the confessor to be present? The Chevalier could not answer these
questions. But he could vouch for the fact, as the Vicomte had himself
told him half an hour ago of the royal summons.
“More than ever the grisette must leave,” the Abbé de St. Victor
pronounced. “Else the Vicomte will be her agent and effect a
reconciliation.”
Mont Rouge and the Duke de Pontchartrain were holding an earnest
conversation in whispers with the Chevalier. What the Chevalier said
clearly gave them great satisfaction, and Mont Rouge studied with
ill-concealed joy a paper which looked like a plan that the Chevalier
had produced.
“The time has come for the dice,” Mont Rouge said decisively. With the
help of the Duke he cleared a table and laid out on it four dice-boxes.
“The ladies will throw as well as the gentlemen?” asked the Comtesse
des Forges. She was looking meaningly at Mont Rouge.
“It is hardly necessary,” the Duke said carelessly. “But if one lady be
good enough to take her chance then all must. What do you say, ladies?”
“I am always unlucky,” remarked the Duchess, “so I will take my chance.”
“And you, Marquise?” the Duke turned deferentially to Denise. Mont
Rouge took up one of the dice-boxes and began to rattle it noisily.
Had his courage not been beyond reproach, a close observer might have
thought he was at that moment very nervous. The Comtesse des Forges was
yawning at her beautiful face in the mirror.
Before Denise could reply, André was seen standing on the threshold. A
cold air seemed at once to blow over the room. No one offered a word
of greeting, and the conversation proceeded just as if a lackey had
entered. The Chevalier, indeed, went so far as to bow haughtily and
to leave the room with the air of a man who found André’s presence an
intolerable intrusion. Denise alone marked how pale André was and how
his dark eyes burned. A choking sensation, as if her heart had ceased
to beat, mastered her.
“I am sure,” André said very slowly and distinctly, “it will interest
you ladies and gentlemen to know that I have ceased to be Captain of
the Queen’s Guards, by His Majesty’s commands.” A rustle of skirts, a
suppressed exclamation, a snuff-box dropped, showed in the dead silence
the emotion this news had produced. “I am ordered,” André continued,
“to retire to Nérac until His Majesty is pleased to change his mind. My
congratulations, ladies and gentlemen. You desired and plotted my ruin.
You have achieved it.”
The curtain dropped. “And you, Marquise?” repeated the Duke,
imperturbably, holding out a dice-box to Denise as if nothing had
interrupted the conversation.
Denise saw all the flushed faces, the joy, the banished fears. Too
late! Too late! She could not save André. No, but perhaps she could
still punish the woman who had seduced and ruined the man she loved.
“Of course I will gladly take my chance,” she answered, in a voice of
reckless revolt.
André was pacing down the gallery. No one could have taken him for a
ruined man, for aught than a proud officer in the Chevau-légers de la
Garde, a Croix de St. Louis, and a Cordon Bleu. Though he knew that
fate had at last smitten him down, the bitterest thought in his mind
was that in a few hours Madame de Pompadour would be flying, too, from
Versailles. The twelve hours would run out; she would never see him
again.
“So it is Nérac after all?”
André started. The Chevalier was at his elbow. “No,” he answered, “it
will not be Nérac.”
“The best swordsman in France will, to be sure, take a lot of killing,”
the young man retorted lightly.
The flash in André’s eye showed with what true sympathy the Chevalier
had divined his meaning.
“Well, Vicomte, let us say adieu. We shall not meet again in
Versailles, nor elsewhere, I fancy.” Behind the tone of raillery peeped
out a strange, almost tragic, gravity.
They shook hands in silence; had, in fact, separated a few paces when
the Chevalier added carelessly, “There was a wench asking for you in
the stables--Yvonne or some such name--I couldn’t make out what it was
all about, but she seemed distressed at not getting word with you.
Pardon my mentioning such a trifle.” He hurried away.
Yvonne! André halted dead. Yvonne! Name of St. Denys, what did that
mean? For a moment he wavered as if he hoped against hope that Denise
might appear. Then his spurs rang out on the polished floor. He was
hurrying to the stables.
The Chevalier went back to the antechamber.
“Only two,” Mont Rouge was saying, as he entered the room, “only two
threw sixes, two ladies curiously enough, the Comtesse des Forges and
the Marquise de Beau Séjour.”
“How stupid,” yawned the Comtesse. “Must we throw again? Or, perhaps,
Mademoiselle Denise will kindly withdraw and leave me victor?”
“No, no,” protested Mont Rouge, “the cast of the dice must be fairly
played out; I insist.” And the company unanimously agreed with him.
“Oh, very well.” The Comtesse shrugged her shoulders. “Comte, you shall
throw for me this time.”
Mont Rouge took up one of the dice-boxes which he had been fingering
for some minutes.
“And will the Marquise permit me to throw for her,” inquired the
Chevalier.
Denise assented with a nod. But the suggestion did not seem to please
the Comtesse. A gleam of vindictive malevolence lingered under her
heavy lids, but a glance from Mont Rouge reassured her.
The Chevalier advanced and threw a four and a three. Mont Rouge, the
company standing round and watching eagerly, threw carelessly enough a
two and a one.
“Bungler!” cried the Comtesse, “you have lost.”
“I did my best,” Mont Rouge answered, looking into her eyes, and he
added in a whisper, “my best for you. You have lost, but I have won.”
The Comtesse put her hand warningly on her lips. Her gaze lingered on
Denise, pale and calm, accepting her victory as the inevitable will of
fate. “My congratulations, Mademoiselle,” she said in the silky tones
with which women preface the insult of a kiss to their most-feared
rival.
“I will accept them to-morrow,” Denise answered, “when I have done my
duty.”
While the company were chattering gaily the Chevalier carelessly and
unnoticed took up the dice, first the four and the three he had thrown
for Denise, and then the two and the one thrown by Mont Rouge, which
were still lying on the table. As he put back the two and the one into
the box which belonged to Mont Rouge he smiled. He had detected these
two were loaded, yet curiously enough he said nothing. Indeed, the
discovery seemed to give him positive pleasure, and he rallied the
Comtesse des Forges for a good half-hour, till her husband stammered
with rage and Mont Rouge was sulky with jealousy.
Just as the company were breaking up a sweating horse dashed into the
stables of the palace. André flung himself from the saddle. He had
ridden from “The Cock with the Spurs of Gold” at a break-neck gallop
and his spurs were red. He now hurried off to Madame de Pompadour’s
salon, bursting in from the secret staircase.
Madame gave him one look. “Begone! quick, hussy,” she cried to the maid
who was packing. The scared girl fled from the room.
“Well?” Madame held out her arms in awful suspense.
“Is the secret despatch,” André panted, “still in your keeping?”
“Yes, yes, what of it?”
He sat down and wiped his face. “Ah! thank God!” he muttered.
Madame kneeled down beside him. “What is it?” she asked, in a caressing
voice, “does the King want it?”
“The King has already left Versailles; he is now on his way to
Rambouillet.”
A cry of despair was wrung from her. “Then I am indeed ruined,” she
moaned. “You have come to tell me so. Ah!” she sobbed, her head in her
hands on his knees.
“No,” he raised her up. “I have come to save you.”
She stared at him stupefied, incredulous.
“Yes, Madame. You must leave Versailles at once, but you must go to
Rambouillet.”
“You are mad or drunk.” She pushed him away angrily.
“No-no.” He almost forced her into a seat and began to talk rapidly
and with intense conviction. Madame listened at first sullenly, then
gradually became interested, then excited; the lights began to blaze in
her eyes, the colour rose in her cheeks. She interrupted sharply with
questions. When André had finished she sat thinking.
“By God! I will do it.” She had sprung to her feet. She was once again
the Queen of Love, unconquerable, immortal. “I can do it and I will.”
“Leave the rest to me, Madame,” André said.
She put a hand to his shoulder. “And your reward?” She was wooing him
unconsciously, as she wooed all men.
“I will ask for it when I have succeeded.”
“And you shall have it. I promise.”
An hour later the Palace heard with rapture that Madame de Pompadour
had fled to Paris, in such fear for her life that she had not had time
to take even her jewels with her. Her household was to follow her as
soon as possible. In the Queen’s antechamber the joy was inexpressible.
A third miracle! a third miracle! The grisette had vanished. Ah! If she
returned now to one of the King’s castles it would be to the Bastille,
not Versailles.