THE MONTMIRAILS
Ladies first. Let us identify the pretty little girl in the gardens of
Versailles, who answered to the name of Cerise, before we account for the
presence of George Hamilton the page.
It is a thing well understood—it is an arrangement universally conceded
in France—that marriages should be contracted on principles of practical
utility, rather than on the vague assumption of a romantic and unsuitable
preference. It was therefore with tranquil acquiescence, and feelings
perfectly under control, that Thérèse de la Fierté, daughter of a line of
dukes, found herself taken out of a convent and wedded to a chivalrous
veteran, who could scarcely stand long enough at the altar, upon his
well-shaped but infirm old legs, to make the necessary responses for
the conversion of the beautiful _brunette_ over against him into Madame
la Marquise de Montmirail. The bridegroom was indeed infinitely more
agitated than the bride. He had conducted several campaigns; he was a
Marshal of France; he had even been married before, to a remarkably
plain person, who adored him; he had undergone the necessary course of
gallantry inflicted on men of his station at the Court and in the society
to which he belonged; nevertheless, as he said to himself, he felt like
a recruit in his first “affair” when he encountered the plunging fire of
those black eyes, raking him front, and flanks, and centre, from under
the bridal wreath and its drooping white lace veil.
Thérèse had indeed, in right of her mother, large black eyes as well as
large West Indian possessions; and her light-haired rivals were good
enough to attribute the rich radiance of her beauty to a stain of negro
blood somewhere far back in that mother’s race.
Nevertheless, the old Marquis de Montmirail was really over head and ears
in love with his brilliant bride. That he should have indulged her in
every whim and every folly was but reasonably to be expected, but that
_she_ should always have shown for _him_ the warm affection of a wife,
tempered by the deference and respect of a daughter, is only another
instance, added to the long score on record of woman’s sympathy and right
feeling when treated with gentleness and consideration.
Not even at Court did Madame de Montmirail give a single opportunity
to the thousand tongues of scandal during her husband’s lifetime; she
was indeed notorious for sustaining the elaborate homage and tedious
admiration of majesty itself, without betraying, by the flutter of
an eyelash, that ambition was roused or vanity gratified during the
ordeal. It seemed that she cared but for three people in the world. The
chivalrous old wreck who had married her, and who was soon compelled to
move about in a wheeled chair; the lovely little daughter born of their
union, who inherited much of her mother’s effective beauty with the
traditional grace and delicate complexion of the handsome Montmirails, a
combination that had helped to distinguish her by the appropriate name
of Cerise, and the young Abbé Malletort, a distant cousin of her own,
as remarkable for shrewd intellect and utter want of sentiment as for
symmetry of figure and signal ugliness of face. The _Grand Monarque_
was not famous for consideration towards the nobles of his household.
Long after the Marquis de Montmirail had commenced taking exercise on
his own account in a chair, the king commanded his attendance at a
shooting-party, kept him standing for three-quarters of an hour on damp
grass, under heavy rain, and dismissed him with a pompous compliment, and
an attack of gout driven upwards into the region of the stomach. The old
courtier knew he had got his death-blow. The old soldier faced it like an
officer of France. He sent for Madame la Marquise, and complimented her
on her _coiffure_ before proceeding to business. He apologised for the
pains that took off his attention at intervals, and bowed her out of the
room, more than once, when the paroxysms became unbearable. The Marquise
never went further than the door, where she fell on her knees in the
passage and wept. He explained clearly enough how he had bequeathed to
her all that was left of his dilapidated estates. Then he sent his duty
to the king, observing that “He had served his Majesty under fire often,
but never under water till now. He feared it was the last occasion of
presenting his homage to his sovereign.” And so, asking for Cerise, who
was brought in by her weeping mother, died brave and tranquil, with his
arm round his child and a gold snuff-box in his hand.
Ladies cannot be expected to sorrow as inconsolably for a mate of seventy
as for one of seven-and-twenty, but the Marquise de Montmirail grieved
very honestly, nevertheless, and mourned during the prescribed period,
with perhaps even more circumspection than had she lost a lover as well
as, or instead of, a husband. Wagers were laid at Court that she would
marry again within a year; yet the year passed by and Madame had not
so much as seen anybody but her child and its _bonne_. Even Malletort
was excluded from her society, and that versatile ecclesiastic, though
pluming himself on his knowledge of human nature, including its most
inexplicable half, was obliged to confess he was at a loss!
“_Peste!_” he would observe, taking a pinch of snuff, and flicking the
particles delicately off his ruffles, “was not the sphinx a woman? At
least down to the waist. So, I perceive, is the Marquise. What would you
have? There is a clue to every labyrinth, but it is not always worth
while to puzzle it out!”
After a time, when the established period for seclusion had expired, the
widow, more beautiful than ever, made her appearance once more at Court.
That she loved admiration there could not now be the slightest doubt, and
the self-denial became at length apparent with which she had declined
it during her husband’s lifetime, that she might not wring his kind old
heart. So, in all societies—at balls, at promenades, at concerts—at
solemn attendances on the king, at tedious receptions of princes
and princesses, dukes and duchesses, sons and daughters of majesty,
legitimate or otherwise—she accepted homage with avidity, and returned
compliment for compliment, and gallantry for gallantry, with a coquetry
perfectly irresistible. But this was all: the first step was fatal taken
by an admirer across that scarce perceptible boundary which divides the
gold and silver grounds, the gaudy flower-beds of flattery from the
sweet wild violet banks of love. The first tremble of interest in his
voice, the first quiver of diffidence in his glance, was the signal for
dismissal.
Madame de Montmirail knew neither pity nor remorse. She had the softest
eyes, the smoothest skin, the sweetest voice in the bounds of France, but
her heart was declared by all to be harder than the very diamonds that
became her so well. Nor, though she seldom missed a chance of securing
smiles and compliments, did she seem inclined to afford opportunity
for advances of a more positive kind. Cerise was usually in her arms,
or on her lap; and suitors of every time must have been constrained to
admit that there is no _duenna_ like a daughter. Besides, the child’s
beauty was of a nature so different from her mother’s, that the most
accomplished coxcomb found it difficult to word his admiration of
mademoiselle so as to infer a yet stronger approval of madame herself.
The slightest blunder, too, was as surely made public as it was quickly
detected. The Marquise never denied herself or her friends an opportunity
for a laugh, and her sarcasm was appropriate as pitiless; so to become
a declared admirer of Madame de Montmirail required a good deal of that
courage which is best conveyed by the word _sang-froid_.
And even for those reckless spirits, who neither feared the mother’s wit
nor respected the daughter’s presence, there was yet another difficulty
to encounter in the person of the child’s _bonne_, a middle-aged
quadroon to whom Cerise was ardently attached, and who never left her
mistress’s side when not employed in dressing or undressing her charge.
This faithful retainer, originally a slave on the La-Fierté estates,
had passed—with lands, goods, and chattels—into the possession of the
Marquise after the death of her mother, the duchess, who was said to
have a black drop of blood in her veins, and immediately transferred her
fidelity and affections to her present owner. She was a large, strong
woman, with the remains of great beauty. Her age might be anything under
fifty; and she was known at Court as “The Mother of Satan,” a title she
accepted with considerable gratification, and much preferred to the
sweeter-sounding name of Célandine, by which she was called on the West
Indian estate and in the family of her proprietors.
Notwithstanding her good looks, there was something about Célandine that
made her an object of dread to her fellow-servants, whether slaves or
free. The woman’s manner was scowling and suspicious, she suffered from
long fits of despondency; she muttered and gesticulated to herself; she
walked about during the night, when the rest of the household were in
bed. Altogether she gave occasion, by her behaviour, to those detractors
who affirmed that, whether his _mother_ or not, there was no doubt she
was a faithful worshipper of Satan.
In the island whence she came, and among the kindred people who had
brought with them from Africa their native barbarism and superstitions,
the dark rites of Obi were still sedulously cultivated, as the magic
power of its votaries was implicitly believed. The three-fourths of white
blood in the veins of Célandine had not prevented her, so they said,
from becoming a priestess of that foul order; and the price paid for her
impious exaltation was differently estimated, according to the colour of
those who discussed the revolting and mysterious question, even amongst
the French domestics of Madame de Montmirail, and in so practical an age
as the beginning of the eighteenth century. The quadroon, finding herself
shunned by her equals, was drawn all the closer to her mistress and her
little charge.
Such was the woman who pushed her way undaunted through the crowd of
courtiers now thronging the Grand Alley at Versailles, eliciting no
small share of attention by the gorgeousness of her costume; the scarlet
shawl she had bound like a turban round her head, the profusion of gold
ornaments that serpentined about her neck and arms, together with the
glaring pattern of white and orange conspicuous on her dress, till she
reached the secluded corner where Cerise was sitting with her broken
daisy-chain and her attendant page, as she had been left by the king.
The quadroon’s whole countenance brightened into beauty when she
approached her darling, and the child bounding up to meet her, ran into
her arms with a cry of delight that showed their attachment was mutual.
George, extremely proud of his commission, volunteered to guide them to
the spot whence, as directed, they could witness the progress of the
king’s dinner, and the strangely-matched trio proceeded through the now
decreasing crowd, to all appearance perfectly satisfied with each other.
They had already taken up their position opposite the window which his
Majesty had indicated, and were in full enjoyment of the thrilling
spectacle he had promised them, namely, a little old man in a wig, served
by half-a-dozen servants at once, and eating to repletion, when Cerise,
who clung to Célandine’s hand, hid her face in the _bonne’s_ gown, to
avoid the gaze of two gentlemen who were staring at her with every mark
of approval. “What is it, my cherished one?” said the quadroon, in tender
accents. “Who dares frighten my darling?” But the fierce voice changed
into coaxing tones when the _bonne_ recognised a familiar face in one of
her charge’s unwelcome admirers.
“Why, it’s _Monsieur l’Abbé_! Surely you know _Monsieur l’Abbé_! Come,
be a good child, then; make _Monsieur l’Abbé_ a reverence, and wish him
good-day!”
But Cerise persistently declined any friendly overtures whatever to
_Monsieur l’Abbé_; hanging her head and turning her toes in most
restively; so the three passed on to witness the process of eating as
performed by _Louis le Grand_; and _Monsieur l’Abbé_, crumpling his
extremely plain features into a sneer, observed his companion, “It is
droll enough, Florian, children never take to me, though I make my way as
well as another with grown-up people. They seem to mistrust me from the
first. Can it be because I am so very ugly?”
The other smiled deprecatingly. “Good looks,” said he, “have nothing to
do with it. Children are like their elders—they hate intellect because
they fear it. Oh, Malletort! had I the beauty of Absalom, I would give
it all willingly to possess your opportunities and your powers of using
them!”
“Thank you,” replied Malletort, looking gratified in spite of himself
at the compliment, but perhaps envying in his secret heart the outward
advantages which his friend seemed so little to appreciate.
Florian de St. Croix, just on the verge of manhood, was as handsome
a youth as might be met with amongst the thousand candidates for the
priesthood, of whom he was one of the most sanguine and enthusiastic.
Not even the extreme plainness of his dress, appropriate to the sacred
calling he was about to enter—not even his close-cut hair and pallid hue,
result of deep thought and severe application—could diminish the beauty
of his flashing eyes, his clear-cut features, and high, intellectual
forehead, that denoted ideality and self-sacrifice as surely as the sweet
womanly mouth betrayed infirmity of purpose and fatal subservience to the
affections. His frame, though slender, was extremely wiry and muscular;
cast, too, in the mould of an Apollo. No wonder there was a shadow of
something like jealousy on his companion’s shrewd, ugly face, while he
regarded one so superior in external advantages to himself.
The Abbé Malletort was singular in this respect. He possessed the rare
faculty of appreciating events and individuals at their real value. He
boasted that he had no prejudices, and especially prided himself on the
accuracy with which he predicted the actions of his fellow-creatures by
the judgment he had formed of their characters. He made no allowance for
failure, as he gave no credit to success. Men, with him, were capable
or useless only as they conquered or yielded in the great struggle of
life. Systems proved good or bad simply according to their results. The
Abbé professed to have no partialities, no feelings, no veneration, and
no affections. He had entered the Church as a mere matter of calculation
and convenience. Its prizes, like those of the army, were open to
intellect and courage. If the priest’s outward conduct demanded more of
moderation and self-restraint, on the other hand the fasts and vigils of
Rome were less easily enforced than the half-rations of a march or the
night-watches of an outpost.
Moreover, the tonsure in those days might be clipped (not close enough
to draw attention) from a skull that roofed the teeming brain of a
politician; and, indeed, the Church of Rome not only permitted but
encouraged the assumption of secular power by her votaries, so that
the most important and lucrative posts of the empire were as open
to Abbé and Cardinal as to a Colonel of the Body-guard or a Marshal
of France; while the soldier’s training fitted him far less than the
priest’s to countermine the subtleties of diplomacy or unravel the
intricacies of finance. There remained, then, but the vow of celibacy to
swallow, and, in truth, the vow of celibacy suited Malletort admirably
well. Notwithstanding his ugly face, he was an especial favourite with
women, on whom his ready wit, his polished manners, and, above all,
his imperturbable coolness, made a pleasing impression. They liked him
none the less that his reputed hardness of heart and injustice towards
themselves were proverbial. While, as for his plain features, why, to
quote the words of Ninon de l’Enclos, who ought to have been a good judge
in such matters, “A man’s want of beauty is of small account if he be not
deficient in other amiable qualities, for there is no conquest without
the affections, and what mole can be so blind as a woman in love?”