The queen-mother was in the bedroom at the Palais Royal, with Madame
de Motteville and Senora Molina. King Louis, who had been impatiently
expected the whole day, had not made his appearance; and the queen, who
was growing impatient, had often sent to inquire about him. The moral
atmosphere of the court seemed to indicate an approaching storm;
the courtiers and the ladies of the court avoided meeting in the
ante-chambers and the corridors in order not to converse on compromising
subjects. Monsieur had joined the king early in the morning for a
hunting-party; Madame remained in her own apartment, cool and distant
to every one; and the queen-mother, after she had said her prayers
in Latin, talked of domestic matters with her two friends in pure
Castilian. Madame de Motteville, who understood the language perfectly,
answered her in French. When the three ladies had exhausted every form
of dissimulation and of politeness, as a circuitous mode of expressing
that the king’s conduct was making the queen and the queen-mother pine
away through sheer grief and vexation, and when, in the most guarded
and polished phrases, they had fulminated every variety of imprecation
against Mademoiselle de la Vallière, the queen-mother terminated
her attack by an exclamation indicative of her own reflections and
character. “_Estos hijos!_” said she to Molina--which means, “These
children!” words full of meaning on a mother’s lips--words full of
terrible significance in the mouth of a queen who, like Anne of Austria,
hid many curious secrets in her soul.
“Yes,” said Molina, “children, children! for whom every mother becomes a
sacrifice.”
“Yes,” replied the queen; “a mother sacrifices everything, certainly.”
She did not finish her phrase; for she fancied, when she raised her eyes
towards the full-length portrait of the pale Louis XIII., that light
once more flashed from her husband’s dull eyes, and his nostrils
grew livid with wrath. The portrait seemed animated by a living
expression--speak it did not, but it seemed to threaten. A profound
silence succeeded the queen’s last remark. La Molina began to turn over
ribbons and laces on a large work-table. Madame de Motteville, surprised
at the look of mutual intelligence which had been exchanged between the
confidant and her mistress, cast down her eyes like a discreet woman,
and pretending to be observant of nothing that was passing, listened
with the utmost attention to every word. She heard nothing, however, but
a very insignificant “hum” on the part of the Spanish duenna, who was
the incarnation of caution--and a profound sigh on that of the queen.
She looked up immediately.
“You are suffering?” she said.
“No, Motteville, no; why do you say that?”
“Your majesty almost groaned just now.”
“You are right; I did sigh, in truth.”
“Monsieur Valot is not far off; I believe he is in Madame’s apartment.”
“Why is he with Madame?”
“Madame is troubled with nervous attacks.”
“A very fine disorder, indeed! There is little good in M. Valot being
there, when a very different physician would quickly cure Madame.”
Madame de Motteville looked up with an air of great surprise, as she
replied, “Another doctor instead of M. Valot?--whom do you mean?”
“Occupation, Motteville, occupation. If any one is really ill, it is my
poor daughter.”
“And your majesty, too.”
“Less so this evening, though.”
“Do not believe that too confidently, madame,” said De Motteville. And,
as if to justify her caution, a sharp, acute pain seized the queen,
who turned deadly pale, and threw herself back in the chair, with
every symptom of a sudden fainting fit. Molina ran to a richly gilded
tortoise-shell cabinet, from which she took a large rock-crystal bottle
of scented salts, and held it to the queen’s nostrils, who inhaled it
wildly for a few minutes, and murmured:
“It is hastening my death--but Heaven’s will be done!”
“Your majesty’s death is not so near at hand,” added Molina, replacing
the smelling-bottle in the cabinet.
“Does your majesty feel better now?” inquired Madame de Motteville.
“Much better,” returned the queen, placing her finger on her lips, to
impose silence on her favorite.
“It is very strange,” remarked Madame de Motteville, after a pause.
“What is strange?” said the queen.
“Does your majesty remember the day when this pain attacked you for the
first time?”
“I remember only that it was a grievously sad day for me, Motteville.”
“But your majesty did not always regard that day as a sad one.”
“Why?”
“Because three and twenty years ago, on that very day, his present
majesty, your own glorious son, was born at the very same hour.”
The queen uttered a loud cry, buried her face in her hands, and seemed
utterly prostrated for some minutes; but whether from recollections
which arose in her mind, or from reflection, or even with sheer pain,
was doubtful. La Molina darted a look at Madame de Motteville, so full
of bitter reproach, that the poor woman, perfectly ignorant of
its meaning, was in her own exculpation on the point of asking an
explanation, when, suddenly, Anne of Austria arose and said, “Yes, the
5th of September; my sorrow began on the 5th of September. The greatest
joy, one day; the deepest sorrow the next;--the sorrow,” she added, “the
bitter expiation of a too excessive joy.”
And, from that moment, Anne of Austria, whose memory and reason seemed
to be suspended for the time, remained impenetrable, with vacant look,
mind almost wandering, and hands hanging heavily down, as if life had
almost departed.
“We must put her to bed,” said La Molina.
“Presently, Molina.”
“Let us leave the queen alone,” added the Spanish attendant.
Madame de Motteville rose; large tears were rolling down the queen’s
pallid face; and Molina, having observed this sign of weakness, fixed
her black vigilant eyes upon her.
“Yes, yes,” replied the queen. “Leave us, Motteville; go.”
The word “us” produced a disagreeable effect upon the ears of the
French favorite; for it signified that an interchange of secrets, or of
revelations of the past, was about to be made, and that one person was
_de trop_ in the conversation which seemed likely to take place.
“Will Molina, alone, be sufficient for your majesty to-night?” inquired
the French woman.
“Yes,” replied the queen. Madame de Motteville bowed in submission, and
was about to withdraw, when suddenly an old female attendant, dressed
as if she had belonged to the Spanish court of the year 1620, opened
the door, and surprised the queen in her tears. “The remedy!” she cried,
delightedly, to the queen, as she unceremoniously approached the group.
“What remedy?” said Anne of Austria.
“For your majesty’s sufferings,” the former replied.
“Who brings it?” asked Madame de Motteville, eagerly; “Monsieur Valot?”
“No; a lady from Flanders.”
“From Flanders? Is she Spanish?” inquired the queen.
“I don’t know.”
“Who sent her?”
“M. Colbert.”
“Her name?”
“She did not mention it.”
“Her position in life?”
“She will answer that herself.”
“Who is she?”
“She is masked.”
“Go, Molina; go and see!” cried the queen.
“It is needless,” suddenly replied a voice, at once firm and gentle in
its tone, which proceeded from the other side of the tapestry hangings;
a voice which made the attendants start, and the queen tremble
excessively. At the same moment, a masked female appeared through the
hangings, and, before the queen could speak a syllable she added, “I
am connected with the order of the Beguines of Bruges, and do, indeed,
bring with me the remedy which is certain to effect a cure of your
majesty’s complaint.” No one uttered a sound, and the Beguine did not
move a step.
“Speak,” said the queen.
“I will, when we are alone,” was the answer.
Anne of Austria looked at her attendants, who immediately withdrew. The
Beguine, thereupon, advanced a few steps towards the queen, and bowed
reverently before her. The queen gazed with increasing mistrust at
this woman, who, in her turn, fixed a pair of brilliant eyes upon her,
through her mask.
“The queen of France must, indeed, be very ill,” said Anne of Austria,
“if it is known at the Beguinage of Bruges that she stands in need of
being cured.”
“Your majesty is not irremediably ill.”
“But tell me how you happen to know I am suffering?”
“Your majesty has friends in Flanders.”
“Since these friends, then, sent you, mention their names.”
“Impossible, madame, since your majesty’s memory has not been awakened
by your heart.”
Anne of Austria looked up, endeavoring to discover through the
mysterious mask, and this ambiguous language, the name of her companion,
who expressed herself with such familiarity and freedom; then, suddenly,
wearied by a curiosity which wounded every feeling of pride in her
nature, she said, “You are ignorant, perhaps, that royal personages are
never spoken to with the face masked.”
“Deign to excuse me, madame,” replied the Beguine, humbly.
“I cannot excuse you. I may, possibly, forgive you, if you throw your
mask aside.”
“I have made a vow, madame, to attend and aid all afflicted and
suffering persons, without ever permitting them to behold my face. I
might have been able to administer some relief to your body and to your
mind, too; but since your majesty forbids me, I will take my leave.
Adieu, madame, adieu!”
These words were uttered with a harmony of tone and respect of manner
that disarmed the queen of all anger and suspicion, but did not remove
her feeling of curiosity. “You are right,” she said; “it ill-becomes
those who are suffering to reject the means of relief Heaven sends them.
Speak, then; and may you, indeed, be able, as you assert, to administer
relief to my body--”
“Let us first speak a little of the mind, if you please,” said the
Beguine--“of the mind, which, I am sure, must also suffer.”
“My mind?”
“There are cancers so insidious in their nature that their very
pulsations cannot be felt. Such cancers, madame, leave the ivory
whiteness of the skin unblemished, and putrefy not the firm, fair flesh,
with their blue tints; the physician who bends over the patient’s
chest hears not, though he listens, the insatiable teeth of the disease
grinding onward through the muscles, and the blood flows freely on; the
knife has never been able to destroy, and rarely, even temporarily, to
disarm the rage of these mortal scourges,--their home is in the mind,
which they corrupt,--they gnaw the whole heart until it breaks. Such,
madame, are the cancers fatal to queens; are you, too, free from their
scourge?”
Anne slowly raised her arm, dazzling in its perfect whiteness, and pure
in its rounded outlines as it was in the time of her earlier days.
“The evils to which you allude,” she said, “are the condition of the
lives of the high in rank upon earth, to whom Heaven has imparted mind.
When those evils become too heavy to be borne, Heaven lightens their
burdens by penitence and confession. Thus, only, we lay down our burden
and the secrets that oppress us. But, forget not that the same gracious
Heaven, in its mercy, apportions to their trials the strength of the
feeble creatures of its hand; and my strength has enabled me to bear my
burden. For the secrets of others, the silence of Heaven is more than
sufficient; for my own secrets, that of my confessor is enough.”
“You are as courageous, madame, I see, as ever, against your enemies.
You do not acknowledge your confidence in your friends?”
“Queens have no friends; if you have nothing further to say to me,--if
you feel yourself inspired by Heaven as a prophetess--leave me, I pray,
for I dread the future.”
“I should have supposed,” said the Beguine, resolutely, “that you would
rather have dreaded the past.”
Hardly had these words escaped her lips, than the queen rose up proudly.
“Speak,” she cried, in a short, imperious tone of voice; “explain
yourself briefly, quickly, entirely; or, if not--”
“Nay, do not threaten me, your majesty,” said the Beguine, gently; “I
came here to you full of compassion and respect. I came here on the part
of a friend.”
“Prove that to me! Comfort, instead of irritating me.”
“Easily enough, and your majesty will see who is friendly to you. What
misfortune has happened to your majesty during these three and twenty
years past--”
“Serious misfortunes, indeed; have I not lost the king?”
“I speak not of misfortunes of _that_ kind. I wish to ask you, if, since
the birth of the king, any indiscretion on a friend’s part has caused
your majesty the slightest serious anxiety, or distress?”
“I do not understand you,” replied the queen, clenching her teeth in
order to conceal her emotion.
“I will make myself understood, then. Your majesty remembers that the
king was born on the 5th of September, 1638, at a quarter past eleven
o’clock.”
“Yes,” stammered out the queen.
“At half-past twelve,” continued the Beguine, “the dauphin, who had been
baptized by Monseigneur de Meaux in the king’s and your own presence,
was acknowledged as the heir of the crown of France. The king then went
to the chapel of the old Chateau de Saint-Germain, to hear the _Te Deum_
chanted.”
“Quite true, quite true,” murmured the queen.
“Your majesty’s conferment took place in the presence of Monsieur, his
majesty’s late uncle, of the princes, and of the ladies attached to
the court. The king’s physician, Bouvard, and Honore, the surgeon, were
stationed in the ante-chamber; your majesty slept from three o’clock
until seven, I believe.”
“Yes, yes; but you tell me no more than every one else knows as well as
you and myself.”
“I am now, madame, approaching that which very few persons are
acquainted with. Very few persons, did I say, alas! I might say two
only, for formerly there were but five in all, and, for many years
past, the secret has been well preserved by the deaths of the principal
participators in it. The late king sleeps now with his ancestors;
Perronnette, the midwife, soon followed him; Laporte is already
forgotten.”
The queen opened her lips as though to reply; she felt, beneath her
icy hand, with which she kept her face half concealed, the beads of
perspiration on her brow.
“It was eight o’clock,” pursued the Beguine; “the king was seated at
supper, full of joy and happiness; around him on all sides arose wild
cries of delight and drinking of healths; the people cheered beneath
the balconies; the Swiss guards, the musketeers, and the royal guards
wandered through the city, borne about in triumph by the drunken
students. Those boisterous sounds of general joy disturbed the dauphin,
the future king of France, who was quietly lying in the arms of Madame
de Hausac, his nurse, and whose eyes, as he opened them, and stared
about, might have observed two crowns at the foot of his cradle.
Suddenly your majesty uttered a piercing cry, and Dame Perronnette
immediately flew to your bedside. The doctors were dining in a room at
some distance from your chamber; the palace, deserted from the frequency
of the irruptions made into it, was without either sentinels or guards.
The midwife, having questioned and examined your majesty, gave a sudden
exclamation as if in wild astonishment, and taking you in her arms,
bewildered almost out of her senses from sheer distress of mind,
dispatched Laporte to inform the king that her majesty the queen-mother
wished to see him in her room. Laporte, you are aware, madame, was a man
of the most admirable calmness and presence of mind. He did not approach
the king as if he were the bearer of alarming intelligence and wished
to inspire the terror he himself experienced; besides, it was not a
very terrifying intelligence which awaited the king. Therefore, Laporte
appeared with a smile upon his lips, and approached the king’s chair,
saying to him--‘Sire, the queen is very happy, and would be still more
so to see your majesty.’ On that day, Louis XIII. would have given
his crown away to the veriest beggar for a ‘God bless you.’ Animated,
light-hearted, and full of gayety, the king rose from the table,
and said to those around him, in a tone that Henry IV. might have
adopted,--‘Gentlemen, I am going to see my wife.’ He came to your
beside, madame, at the very moment Dame Perronnette presented to him a
second prince, as beautiful and healthy as the former, and said--‘Sire,
Heaven will not allow the kingdom of France to fall into the female
line.’ The king, yielding to a first impulse, clasped the child in his
arms, and cried, ‘Oh, Heaven, I thank Thee!’”
At this part of her recital, the Beguine paused, observing how intensely
the queen was suffering; she had thrown herself back in her chair, and
with her head bent forward and her eyes fixed, listened without seeming
to hear, and her lips moving convulsively, either breathing a prayer to
Heaven or imprecations on the woman standing before her.
“Ah! I do not believe that, if, because there could be but one dauphin
in France,” exclaimed the Beguine, “the queen allowed that child to
vegetate, banished from his royal parents’ presence, she was on that
account an unfeeling mother. Oh, no, no; there are those alive who have
known and witnessed the passionate kisses she imprinted on that innocent
creature in exchange for a life of misery and gloom to which state
policy condemned the twin brother of Louis XIV.”
“Oh! Heaven!” murmured the queen feebly.
“It is admitted,” continued the Beguine, quickly, “that when the king
perceived the effect which would result from the existence of two sons,
equal in age and pretensions, he trembled for the welfare of France,
for the tranquillity of the state; and it is equally well known that
Cardinal de Richelieu, by the direction of Louis XIII., thought over
the subject with deep attention, and after an hour’s meditation in his
majesty’s cabinet, he pronounced the following sentence:--‘One prince
means peace and safety for the state; two competitors, civil war and
anarchy.’”
The queen rose suddenly from her seat, pale as death, and her hands
clenched together:
“You know too much,” she said, in a hoarse, thick voice, “since you
refer to secrets of state. As for the friends from whom you have
acquired this secret, they are false and treacherous. You are their
accomplice in the crime which is being now committed. Now, throw aside
your mask, or I will have you arrested by my captain of the guards. Do
not think that this secret terrifies me! You have obtained it, you shall
restore it to me. Never shall it leave your bosom, for neither your
secret nor your own life belong to you from this moment.”
Anne of Austria, joining gesture to the threat, advanced a couple of
steps towards the Beguine.
“Learn,” said the latter, “to know and value the fidelity, the honor,
and secrecy of the friends you have abandoned.” And, then, suddenly she
threw aside her mask.
“Madame de Chevreuse!” exclaimed the queen.
“With your majesty, the sole living _confidante_ of the secret.”
“Ah!” murmured Anne of Austria; “come and embrace me, duchesse. Alas!
you kill your friend in thus trifling with her terrible distress.”
And the queen, leaning her head upon the shoulder of the old duchesse,
burst into a flood of bitter tears. “How young you are--still!” said the
latter, in a hollow voice; “you can weep!”