“What we should look for now, my dear, is horses to get us away from
this sad affair. For one, I am retiring into the provinces, to spend
Christmas at my venerable father’s chateau at Beaujolais, where I shall
be more comfortable than in the King’s prison of the Bastile. And I
most strongly advise you to imitate me.”
“No,” Florian said, gently, “these are but the first fruits of the
attainment of my desire. For, as you remind me, Antoine, Christmas
approaches, and I have still unfinished business at court.”
_13._
_Débonnaire_
Thereafter Florian went to the Duke of Orléans, with two motives. One
was the obvious necessity of obtaining a pardon for having killed
the Chevalier: Florian’s other motive was the promise given to brown
Janicot that he should have for his Christmas present, upon this day of
the winter solstice, the life of the greatest man in the kingdom. The
greatest man in the kingdom, undoubtedly, was Philippe of Orléans, the
former Regent, now prime minister, and the next heir to the throne. The
King was nobody in comparison: besides, the King was not a man but a
child of thirteen. One must be logical. Florian regretted the loss of
his friend, for he was unfeignedly fond of Orléans, but a promise once
given by a Puysange was not to be evaded.
He must get the pardon first. Florian foresaw that the granting
of a pardon out of hand for his disastrous duel would seem to the
Duke of Orléans an action liable to involve the prime minister in
difficulties. Florian thought otherwise, in the light of his firm
belief that to-morrow Orléans would be oblivious of all earthly
affairs, but this was not an argument which Florian could tactfully
employ. Rather, he counted upon the happy fact that Florian’s services
in the past were not benefits which any reflective statesman would
care to ignore. Yes, the pardon would certainly be forthcoming,
Florian assured himself, this afternoon, as he rode forth in his great
gilded coach, for his last chat, as he rather vexedly reflected, with
all-powerful Philippe of Orléans, whom people called Philippe the
Débonnaire.
“So!” said the minister, when they had embraced, “so, they tell me that
you have married again, and that you killed your brother this morning.
I am not pleased with you, Florian. These escapades will come to no
good end.”
“Ah, monseigneur, but I like to take a wife occasionally, whereas you
prefer always to borrow one. It is merely a question of taste, about
which we need not quarrel. As to this duel, I lamented the necessity,
your highness, as much as anybody. But these meddling women—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” replied Orléans, “your sister-in-law talks too
much. In fact, as I recall it, she talks even in her sleep.”
“Monseigneur, and will you never learn discretion?”
“I am discreet enough, in any event, to look upon fratricide rather
seriously. So I am sending you to the Bastile for a while, Florian, and
indeed the lettre de cachet ordering your imprisonment was made out an
hour ago.”
Florian at this had out the small gold box upon whose lid was painted
a younger and far more amiable looking Orléans than frowned here in
the flesh,—in a superfluity of flesh,—and Florian took snuff. It was
always a good way of gaining time for reflection. Wine and cakes were
set ready upon the little table. Philippe was probably expecting some
woman. There had been no lackeys in the corridor which led to this
part of the château. Philippe always sent them away when any of his
women were to come in the day-time. Yes, one was quite alone with this
corpulent, black-browed and purple-faced Philippe, in this quiet room,
which was like a great gilded shell of elaborately carved woodwork,
and which had bright panels everywhere, upon the walls and the
ceiling, representing, very explicitly indeed, The Triumphs of Love.
Such solitude was uncommonly convenient; and one might speak without
reticence.
Florian put up his snuff-box, dusted his finger-tips, and said: “I
regret to oppose you in anything, monseigneur, but for me to go to
prison would be inconvenient just now. I have important business at the
Feast of the Wheel to-morrow night.”
Since Philippe had lost the sight of his left eye he cocked his
head like a huge bird whenever he looked at you intently. “You had
best avoid these sorceries, Florian. I have not yet forgotten that
fiend whom your accursed lieutenant evoked for us in the quarries of
Vaugirard—” Orléans paused. He said in a while, “Before that night and
that vision of my uncle’s death-bed, I was less ambitious, Florian, and
more happy.”
“Ah, yes, poor old Mirepoix!” said Florian, smiling. “What a
preposterous fraud he was, with his absurd ventriloquism and stuffed
crocodiles and magic lanterns! However, he foretold very precisely
indeed the extraordinary series of events which would leave you the
master of this kingdom: and I had not the heart to see the faithful
fellow exposed as an ignoramus who talked nonsense. So I was at some
pains to help his prophesying come true, and to make you actually the
only surviving male relative at the old King’s death-bed.”
“Let us speak,” said Orléans, with a vexed frown, “of cheerier matters.
Now, in regard to your imprisonment—”
“I was coming to your notion of a merry topic. This visit to the
Feast of the Wheel is about a family matter, your highness, and is
imperative. So I must keep my freedom for the while: and I must ask, in
place of a lettre de cachet, a pardon in full.”
“Instead, Florian, let us have fewer ‘musts’ and more friendliness in
this affair.” Orléans now put his arm about Florian. “Come, I will put
off your arrest until the day after to-morrow; you shall spend the
night here, my handsome pouting Florian; and you shall be liberated at
the end of one little week in the Bastile.”
Florian released himself, rather petulantly. “Pardieu! but I entreat
you to reserve these endearments for your bed-chamber! No, you must
find some other playfellow for to-night. And I really cannot consent to
be arrested, for it would quite spoil my Christmas.”
Orléans, rebuffed, said only, “But if I continue to ignore your
misbehaviors, people will talk.”
“That is possible, your highness. It is certain that, under arrest, I
also would become garrulous.”
“Ah! and of what would you discourse?”
Florian looked for a while at his red-faced friend beyond the
red-topped writing-table.
Florian said: “I would talk of the late Dauphin’s death, monseigneur;
of the death of the Duc de Bourgogne; of the death of the little Duc
de Bretagne; and of the death of the Duc de Berri. I would talk of
those inexplicable fatal illnesses among your kinsmen which of a sudden
made you, who were nobody of much consequence, the master of France and
the next heir to the throne.”
Orléans said nothing for a time. Speaking, his voice was quiet, but
a little hoarse. “It is perhaps as well for you, my friend, that my
people have been dismissed. Yes, I am expecting Madame de Phalaris,
who is as yet amusingly shame-faced about her adulteries. So there is
nobody about, and we may speak frankly. With frankness, then, I warn
you that it is not wholesome to threaten a prince of the blood, and
that if you continue in this tone you may not long be permitted to talk
anywhere, not even in one of the many prisons at my disposal.”
“Ah, your highness, let us not speak of my death, for it is a death
which you would deplore.”
“Would I deplore your death?” Orléans’ head was now cocked until it
almost lay upon his left shoulder. “It is a fact of which I am not
wholly persuaded.”
“Monseigneur, mere self-respect demands that one’s death should rouse
some grief among one’s friends. So I have made certain that your grief
would be inevitable and deep. For I am impatient of truisms—”
“And what have truisms to do with our affair?”
“The statement that dead men tell no tales, your highness, is a truism.”
“Yes, and to be candid, Florian, it is that particular truism of which
I was just thinking.”
“Well, it is this particular truism I have elected to deride. My
will is made, the disposing of my estate is foreordered, and every
legacy enumerated. One of these legacies is in the form of a written
narrative: it is not a romance, it is an entirely veracious chronicle,
dealing with the last hours of four of your kinsmen; and it is
bequeathed to a fifth kinsman, to your cousin, the Duc de Bourbon.
Should I die in one of your prisons, monseigneur,—a calamity which I
perceive to be already fore-shadowed in your mind,—that paper would go
to him.”
The Duke of Orléans considered this. There had been much whispering;
mobs in the street had shouted, “Burn the poisoner!” when Orléans
passed: but this was different. Once Bourbon had half the information
which Florian de Puysange was able to give, there would be of course
no question of burning Orléans, since one does not treat a prince of
the blood like fuel: but there would be no doubt, either, of his swift
downfall nor of his subsequent death by means of the more honorable ax.
Orléans knew all this. Orléans also knew Florian. In consequence
Orléans asked, “Is what you tell me the truth?”
“Faith of a gentleman, monseigneur!”
Orléans sighed. “It is a pity. By contriving this conditional
post-mortem sort of confession to the devil-work you prompted, you
have contrived an equally devilish safeguard. Yes, if you are telling
the truth, for me to have you put out of the way would be injudicious.
And you do tell the truth, confound you! Broad-minded as you are in
many ways, Florian, you are a romantic, and I have never known you to
break your given word or to voice any purely utilitarian lie. You are
positively queer about that.”
“I confess it,” said Florian, frankly. “Puysange lies only for
pleasure, never for profit. But what do my foibles matter? Let us
be logical about this! What does anything matter except the plain
fact that we are useful to each other? I do not boast, but I think
you have found me efficient. You needed only a precipitating of the
inevitable, a little hastening here and there of natural processes,
to give you your desires. Well, four of these accelerations have been
brought about through the recipes of a dear old friend of mine, through
invaluable recipes which have made you the master of this kingdom. It
is now always within your power, without any real trouble, to remove
the scrofulous boy whose living keeps you from being even in title
King of France. Yes, I think I have helped you. Some persons would in
my position be exigent. But all I ask is your name written upon a bit
of paper. I will even promise you that your mercifulness shall create
no adverse comment, and that to-morrow people shall be talking of
something quite different.”
And Florian smiled ingratiatingly, the while that he fingered what
was in his waistcoat pocket, and reflected that all France would very
certainly have more than enough to talk about to-morrow.
“This dapper imp, in his eternal bottle-green and silver, will be the
ruin of me,” Orléans observed. But he had already drawn a paper from
the top drawer: and he filled it in, and signed it, and he pushed it
across the red-topped writing-table, toward Florian.
“I thank you, monseigneur, for this favor,” said Florian, then, “and I
long to repay it by making you King of France. Let us drink to Philippe
the Seventh!”
“No,” said Orleans,—“let us drink if you will, but i have no thirst for
kingship. I play with the idea, of course. To be a king sounds well,
and I once thought—But it would give me no more than I already have of
endless nuisances to endure. As matters stand, I can make shift with
the discomforts of being a great personage, because I know that I can,
whenever I like, lay aside my greatness. I can at will become again a
private person, and I can find a host of fools eager to fill my place.
But from the throne there is no exit save into the vaults of St. Denis.
So I procrastinate, I play with the idea of putting the boy out of the
way, but I do nothing definite until to-morrow.”
“There are many adages that speak harshly of procrastination,” said
Florian, as he poured and, with his back to Orléans, flavored the wine
which was set ready. “Logic is a fine thing, monseigneur: and logic
informs me that no man is sure of living until to-morrow.”
“But it is no fun being a great personage,” Orléans lamented, as he
took the tall, darkly glowing glass. “I have had my bellyful of it: and
I find greatness rather thin fare. I am master of France, indeed I may
with some show of reason claim to be master of Europe. I used to think
it would be pleasant to rule kingdoms; but you may take my word for
it, Florian, the game is not worth the candle. There are times,” said
Orléans, as lazily he sipped the wine which Florian had just seasoned,
“there are times when I wish I were dead and done with it all.”
“That, your highness, will come soon enough.”
“Yes, but do you judge what I have to contend with.” Orléans launched
into a bewailing of his political difficulties. Florian kept a polite
pose of attention, without exactly listening to these complaints about
Parliament’s obstinacy, about Alberoni’s and Villeroy’s plottings in
their exile, about the sly underminings of Fréjus, about what the
legitimated princes were planning now, about Bourbon, about Noailles,
about the pig-headedness of the English Pretender, about the empty
Treasury—Of these things Philippe was talking, in a jumble of words
without apparent end or meaning. But Florian thought of a circumstance
unrelated to any of these matters, with a sort of awed amusement.
“All this to make a maniac of me,” the minister went on, “and with
what to balance it? Anything I choose to ask for, of course. But
then, Florian, what the deuce is there in life for one to ask for at
forty-nine? I was once a joyous glutton: now I have to be careful
of my digestion. I used to stay drunk for weeks: now one night of
virtually puritanic debauchery leaves me a wreck to be patched up by
physicians who can talk about nothing but apoplexy. Women no longer
rouse any curiosity. I know so well what their bodies are like that
an investigation is tautology: and half the time I go to bed with
no inclination to do anything but sleep. Not even my daughters,
magnificent women that you might think them—”
“I know,” said Florian, with a reminiscent smile.
“—Not even they are able to amuse me any more. No, my friend, I
candidly voice my opinion that there is nothing in life which
possession does not discover to be inadequate: we are cursed with
a tyrannous need for what life does not afford: and we strive for
various prizes, saying ‘Happiness is there,’ when in point of fact it
is nowhere. They who fail in their endeavors have still in them the
animus of desire: but the man who attains his will cohabits with an
assassin, for, having it, he perceives that he does not want it; and
desire is dead in him, and the man too is dead. No, Florian, be advised
by me; and do you avoid greatness as you should—and by every seeming do
not,—the devil!”
So Philippe d’Orléans also, thought Florian, had got what he wanted,
only to find it a damnable nuisance. Probably all life was like that.
Over-high and over-earnest desires were inadvisable. It was a sort of
comfort to reflect that poor Philippe at least would soon be through
with his worries.
A bell rang; and Florian, rising, said: “I shall heed your advice,
monseigneur—But that bell perhaps announces an arrival about which I
should remain in polite ignorance?”
“Yes, it is Madame de Phalaris. We are to try what Aretino and Romano
can suggest for our amusement, before I go up to my hour’s work with
the King. So be off with you through the private way, for it is a very
modest little bitch.”
Florian passed through the indicated door, but he did not quite close
it. Instead, he waited there, and he saw the entrance of charming tiny
Madame de Phalaris, whom Orléans greeted with tolerable ardor.
“So you have come at last, you delicious rogue, to end my expounding of
moral sentiments. And with what fairy tale, bright-eyed Sapphira, will
you explain your lateness?”
“Indeed, your highness,” said the lady, who had learned that in these
encounters the Duke liked to be heartened with some gambit of free
talk, “indeed, your question reminds me that only last night I heard
the most diverting fairy tale. But it is somewhat—”
“Yes?” said the Duke.
“I mean, that it is rather—”
“But I adore that especial sort of fairy story,” he announced. “So of
course we must have it, and equally of course we must spare our mutual
blushes.”
Thus speaking, Orléans sat at her feet, and leaned back his head
between her knees, so that neither could see the face of the other.
Her lithe white fingers stroked his cheeks, caressing those great
pendulous red jaws: and her sea-green skirts, flowered with a pattern
of slender vines, were spread like billows to each side of him.
“There was once,” the lady began, “a king and a queen—”
“I know the tale,” Orléans said,—“they had three sons. And the two
elder failed in preposterous quests, but the third prince succeeded in
everything, and he was damnably bored by everything. I know the tale
only too well—”
He desisted from speaking. But he was making remarkable noises.
“Highness—!” cried Madame de Phalaris.
She had risen in alarm; and as she rose, the Duke’s head fell to the
crimson-covered footstool at her feet. He did not move, but lay quite
still, staring upward, and his foreshortened face, as Florian saw it,
was of a remarkable shade of purple among the elaborate dark curls of
Orléans’ peruke.
There was for a moment utter silence. You heard only the gilded clock
upon the red chimney-piece. Then Madame de Phalaris screamed.
Nobody replied. She rang wildly at the bell-cord beside the
writing-table. You could hear a remote tinkling, but nothing else. The
shaking woman lifted fat Orléans, and propped him against the chair in
which she had just been sitting. Philippe of Orléans sprawled thus,
more drunken looking than Florian had ever seen him in life: the
corpse was wholly undignified. The head of him whom people had called
Philippe the Débonnaire had fallen sideways, so that his black peruke
was pushed around and hid a third of his face. The left eye, the eye
with which Philippe had for years seen nothing, yet leered at the woman
before him. She began again to scream. She ran from the room, and
Florian could now just hear her as she ran, still screaming, about the
corridors in which she could find nobody. It sounded like the squeaking
of a frightened rat.
Florian came forward without hurry, for there was no pressing need of
haste. Florian quite understood that Orléans had dismissed all his
attendants, so that Madame de Phalaris might come to him unobserved:
her husband was a notionary man. After a little amorous diversion with
the lady, Orléans had meant to go up that narrow staircase yonder, for
an hour’s work with the young King. It was odd to reflect that poor
Philippe would never go to the King nor to any woman’s bed, not ever
any more; odd, too, that anyone could be thus private in this enormous
château wherein lived several thousand persons. At all events, this
privacy was uncommonly convenient.
So Florian reflected for an instant, after his usual fashion of fond
lingering upon what life afforded of the quaint. It was certainly very
quaint that history should be so plastic. He had, with no especial
effort or discomfort, with no real straining of his powers, changed the
history of all Europe when he transferred this famous kingdom of France
and the future of France from the keeping of Philippe to guardians
more staid. Probably Monsieur de Bourbon would be the next minister.
But whoever might be minister in name, the Bishop of Fréjus, the young
King’s preceptor, would now be the actual master of everything. Well,
to have taken France from a debauchee like this poor staring gaping
Philippe here,—Florian abstractedly straightened the thing’s peruke,—to
give control of France to such an admirable prelate as André de Fleury
was in all a praiseworthy action. It was a logical action.
Then Florian performed unhurriedly the rite which was necessary, and
there was a sign that Janicot accepted his Christmas present. It was
not a pleasant sign to witness, nor did they who served Janicot appear
to be squeamish. After this came two hairy persons, not unfamiliar
to Florian, and these two removed as much as their master desired of
Philippe d’Orléans. They answered, too, in a fashion no whit less
impressive because of their not speaking, the questions which Florian
put as to the proper manner of his coming to Janicot and the Feast
of the Wheel. Then they were not in this room: and Florian, somewhat
shaken, also went from this room, not as they had gone but by way of
the little private door.
It was a full half-hour, Florian learned afterward, before Madame de
Phalaris returned with a cortége of lackeys and physicians. These last
attempted to bleed Duke Philippe, but found their endeavors wasted:
La Tophania’s recipes were reliable, and to all appearance he had for
some while been dead of apoplexy. The obscene toy discovered, hanging
about his neck, when they went to undress him, surprised nobody: the
Duke had affected these oddities. When the physicians made yet other
discoveries, a trifle later, they flutteringly agreed this death must,
without any further discussion, be reported to have arisen from natural
causes. “Monsieur d’Orléans,” said one of them, jesting with rather
gray lips, “has died assisted by his usual confessor.”
Florian had of course not needed to amass good precedents for putting
out of life anybody who was to all intents a reigning monarch. As
he glanced back at history, this seemed to him almost the favorite
avocation of estimable persons. So, as Florian rode leisurely away
in his great gilded coach, leaving behind him the second fruits of
the attainment of his desire, if he lazily afforded a sidethought
to Marcus Brutus and Jacques Clément and Aristogeiton and Ehud the
Benjaminite, and to a few other admirable assassins of high potentates,
it was through force of habit rather than any really serious
consideration. For the important thing to be considered now was how to
come by the sword Flamberge, for which Florian had, that day, paid.
_14._
_Gods in Decrepitude_
Not one of the ambiguous guardians of the place in any way molested
Florian in that journey through which he hoped to win the sword
Flamberge. His bearing, which combined abstraction with a touch of
boredom, discouraged any advances from phantoms, and made fiends
uneasily suspect this little fellow in bottle-green and silver to be
one of those terrible magicians who attend Sabbats only when they are
planning to kidnap with strong conjurations some luckless fiend to
slave for them at unconscionable tasks. That sort of person a shrewd
fiend gives a wide berth: and certainly nobody who was not an adept
at magic would have dared venture hereabouts, upon this night of all
nights in the year, the guardians reasoned, without considering that
this traveler might be a Puysange. So Florian passed to the top of the
hill, without any molestation, in good time for the beginning of the
Feast of the Wheel.
When Florian came quietly through the painted gate, the Master was
already upon the asherah stone receiving homage. The place was well
lighted with torches which flared bluishly as they were carried about
by creatures that had the appearance of huge dark-colored goats:
each of these goats bore two torches, the first being fixed between
its horns, and the second inserted in another place. Florian stood
aside, and watched these venerable rites of unflinching osculation
and widdershins movings and all the rest of the ritual. One respected
of course the motives which took visible form in these religious
ceremonies, but the formulæ seemed to Florian rather primitive.