THE CAVALIER
One day, the Marquis was sauntering by the banks of the grand canal, at
Versailles, in melancholy meditation, and thinking, sadly, that he had
been abandoned by his mysterious protectress. He had come from the
riding-school, and his riding costume set off wonderfully the elegance
of his figure. It consisted of a green coat trimmed with rich gold lace,
scarlet breeches, a vest of the same color, and high boots of shining
black morocco, the tops of which hung loosely upon knee-pieces of fine
cambric. At a little distance from him, Létorière saw a middle-aged
horseman, who was vainly striving to make his beast pass a marble
pedestal.
Two persons witnessed this contest; one, a man of fifty to sixty years,
dressed in a coat of pearl-gray taffeta and silk small-clothes of the
same color, had a countenance at once handsome, noble, and benevolent.
He leaned on the arm of an older man, quite small, slightly stooping,
superbly dressed in the old fashion of the Regency, and whose pale face
was furrowed with deep wrinkles.
The more simply dressed of the two said to the other, pointing to
Létorière:
"What a charming face! what a pretty figure! I never saw anything more
enchanting. . . . Did you, marshal?"
"Hum . . . hum . . ." said the latter, with a dry cough; "that litt'
gent'l'm'n? he's well 'nough . . . but he's as awkward as a sprinkler of
holy water,"--answered the Duke de Richelieu, who had preserved the old
vulgar manner of clipping his words, so much in vogue among the _roués_
of the Regency. . .
"He? with his pretty face? he would make a nice sprinkler of holy water
to saints of your stamp!" said the other, smiling maliciously.
The horse was still obstinate; the rider, weary of gentle measures, used
in turn the whip and spur, but with no results save kicks and fearful
plunges.
Gradually, M. de Richelieu and his companion approached the Marquis.
Seeing two gentlemen of venerable appearance coming towards him,
Létorière respectfully saluted them.
"Well! young man . . . which has the right in this discussion, the man
or the horse?" said the friend of M. de Richelieu.
"Faith! I hardly know, sir! the rider reasons with blows of his whip,
and the beast replies by kicks. Such a conversation can be carried on
for some time."
This answer, spoken without too much assurance, but with all the
confident gayety of youth, made the questioner smile.
"You speak of it very nonchalantly, my young master . . . I should like
very well to see you in the place of that horseman . . . you probably do
not know that this is a mare of Ukraine. She came from Germany, and is a
veritable demon . . . one that La Guérinière himself has not been able
to master."
"If I were in that horseman's place, sir, I might perhaps be not more
able, but more lucky," resolutely replied the Marquis.
"Truly! Well, will you try? Will you mount Barbara?"
"The mare is so beautiful . . . so proud . . . notwithstanding her
viciousness . . . that I accept with all my heart, sir; and besides, the
grass is so green that one need not desire a better carpet to fall
upon," answered Létorière joyously.
"I have a horrible fear that he will break his neck," said the companion
of M. de Richelieu in a whisper.
"With such a pretty face, so frolicsome and so captivating, one need
fear neither horses, nor men, nor women, and if he should fall . . . one
never falls alone . . . I have faith in him . . . he has a very enticing
air." . . .
"Hullo! St. Clair," said the other, addressing the groom, "don't
stubbornly persevere any longer; get down from the horse. . . . This
young gentleman desires a lesson, and you can give it to him," he added,
laughing.
St. Clair obeyed the order, and got off the horse.
Létorière, a little displeased at the last words of the unknown,
replied to him with respectful firmness:
"I will always receive with pleasure or with resignation any lesson
which I ask for, or which I deserve, sir; but here I do not find myself
in either one of these cases."
The unknown and M. de Richelieu looked at each other, suppressing a
great desire to laugh.
"You must take care," said the Marshal softly, "he looks like a famous
fighter!"
"You'll see that he will challenge me--and before you, the senior of the
Marshals of France, the President of the tribunal of honor"--said the
other;--and he added, regarding the Marquis with a very serious air:
"You take it with a high hand, my young master!"
"God bless me! I take it as I must, sir," cried Létorière, resolutely
setting his hand on his hip.
At this bravado, M. de Richelieu and the unknown burst out laughing, and
the Marquis began to feel very much irritated, when St. Clair, who had
not dismounted from the horse without difficulty, approached, hat in
hand, and said to the gentleman clothed in gray:
"Sire, nothing can be done with that mare."
"The King!" cried the Marquis in confusion, and he knelt and bowed his
head with a repentant air.
"By St. Louis, my young friend," said Louis XV., smiling, "I have seen
the time when you would remind us that all gentlemen are our peers, and
that in the old times a chevalier could cross lances with a king."
"Ah, Sire! pardon . . . pardon." . . .
"Come! rise, rise, my gentle knight," . . . and by a movement full of
that majestic grace that this most amiable and most graceful of kings
exhibited, in even the most trifling acts, he touched slightly, with the
tip of his finger, Létorière's cheek, who, still on his knee, kissed
this beautiful royal hand with profound veneration.
Létorière arose, his forehead suffused with a charming blush, his
beautiful black eyes moist with tears, so profoundly was he touched with
the ineffable kindness of his sovereign.
This emotion, so pure, so youthful and so naïve, struck Louis XV.
delightfully. The most adroit flattery could not have effected this
favorable impression.
"What is your name, my child?" he asked, regarding the Marquis with
interest.
"Charles-Louis de Vighan, Marquis of Létorière, Sire."
"You are from Xaintonge," said the king, who knew wonderfully well the
genealogy of his nobility.
"But you have deposited your titles," added he. "You ought to be
presented to me. Why have you not been?"
"Sire, I await the return of M. the Count of Appreville, my relative, to
have that honor." . . .
"Marshal Richelieu, will you act as sponsor?" said the king, addressing
the duke, who replied by a respectful gesture.
"That's right!" said the king. . . . "I do not forget, my child, that
you have almost censured St. Clair . . . you must make him some amends.
. . . Are you bold enough to encounter Barbara?" And the king pointed to
the mare, who, held by the bridle, still kicked and pranced,
notwithstanding the threats and caresses of the groom. "Are you not
afraid of this fiery beast?"
"I fear but one thing, Sire: it is to show myself unworthy of the
eminent grace with which the king deigns to honor me in ordering me to
mount a horse in his presence."
"Is he not charming? He answers with such perfect grace . . . with such
exquisite tact," . . . said the king to M. de Richelieu, while
Létorière, his heart palpitating with emotion, approached the
redoubtable Barbara.
"The king has told me sometimes that I'm a connoisseur of faces. Yes,
yes, I can predict to the king that before six months this young falcon
will have taken flight,--and then, beware of him;--there'll be a great
flutter among the doves, I'll answer for it."
"Your example will have been of great service to him," said the king,
smiling; then suddenly crying out with fright: "Ah, the unhappy child!
he will kill himself. . . . St. Clair has given up the reins, and the
cursed mare will not let him approach her. . . . What kicks . . . what
plunges. . . . She is a devil to mount . . . St. Clair, why did you not
hold her while he mounted?"
"Sire," said the old groom in a peevish tone, "the gentleman told me
that he would manage the affair himself . . ."
"And by Heaven, he does manage it" . . . said the king with
astonishment;--"see there, marshal! on my word . . . he has bewitched
her! . . . See how he approaches her, and she does not budge. . . . He
caresses her, and the beast does not answer him with a bite, or a kick.
. . . What do you say to that, St. Clair?"
"Sire, I say . . . I say . . . I say that I don't understand it at all.
. . . Ordinarily she can only be mounted by the aid of the nose-twister,
she is so skittish and wild." . . .
"Now see him in the saddle . . . faith! . . . he is wonderful . . . full
of grace and agility. . . . What do you say to it Richelieu? What do you
say, St. Clair?" said the king, whose whole face was radiant with
pleasure at seeing the prowess of his young _protégé._
"Faith! I should say to the king that the boy, young as he is, is an
accomplished horseman,--but he must possess some charm to have quieted
the villainous kicker," . . . replied the marshal.
"One cannot say, Sire, that the posture of the gentleman is absolutely
bad," said old St. Clair. "He sits firm; his body and limbs are well
poised, and he seems to have a hand at once light and steady". . .
"And what the devil do you want more?" said the king; "but let us
see . . . will she pass before the marble statue which so frightened her
before? . . . No . . . no . . . she refuses--what bounds! Ah! poor boy!"
. . .
"He seems screwed to her back. She'll have to give in," cried the
marshal; "and with his little figure. He must be strong as Hercules."
"Monseigneur well knows that there is no great skill in keeping one's
seat while a horse rears . . . the science is in foreseeing and
preventing the rearing," rejoined St. Clair.
"Even in that case you ought to be satisfied. Look! look, see how she
passes the statue . . . as easy, as comfortably as an old hack. Well
done! is he a sorcerer?" cried Louis XV., looking with astonishment at
the marshal and St. Clair, not less surprised than himself.
Létorière, having made the mare pass and repass several times before,
the statue which had at first so much frightened her, approached the
king: the Marquis held his hat in his right hand, and with the left he
patted Barbara, who tossed her head and champed her bit with a most
coquettish air; one would have said she was proud of the light weight
she carried. The face of the young gentleman, still animated by the
exercise, and the proud joy of having succeeded so well in presence of
the king, was resplendent with brightness and beauty.
Seeing his _protégé_ so handsome, so radiant and so young, Louis XV.
regarded him with the tender and melancholy interest which men advanced
in age, or satiated with pleasure, often feel in contemplating the
confident joy, the simple ardor of youth.
This excellent prince felt himself happy in the power, by a generous
caprice, open to this youth a future as brilliant as a fairy tale. "It
is sometimes good to be a king," said he to M. de Richelieu, with
involuntary emotion.
The old marshal, before answering, appeared to interrogate the
expression of the prince, in order to penetrate the sense of this
exclamation, which he did not comprehend. All was dead in this heart
worn out by a narrow but unbridled ambition, and hardened by a cruel
egotism. Incapable of seizing the meaning of the king, the marshal
replied by a courtly insipidity:
"If it is sometimes good to be a king, Sire, it is always good to be the
subject of your majesty."
Louis XV. smiled with a polite, frigid air, and replied: "It is pleasant
to find one's self so well understood." Then addressing Létorière, who
awaited his orders: "Well, my child, tell me, how have you conquered so
quickly and easily this unconquerable creature?"
"Your majesty told me that this animal came from Germany; knowing that
the Germans talk much to their horses, and that they drive them almost
as much by the voice as by the hand or the spur, I spoke German to her.
Recognizing, undoubtedly, a language to which she was accustomed, she
almost immediately became calm."
"He is right. Nothing is more simple . . . don't you see, St.
Clair?" . . . said the king.
"Yes, Sire," timidly replied Létorière, throwing a glance on the old
St. Clair, who appeared profoundly humiliated; "yes, Sire, nothing is
more simple when one speaks German" . . .
This almost bold answer was dictated by a sentiment so delicate and
generous, that Louis XV., greatly moved, cried: "Well, very well, my
child . . . you are right . . . if my old St. Clair had known how to
speak German, he would have done as you did; . . . but as he is too old
to learn that now, and as Barbara does not appear to have any taste for
the French language, keep this mare . . . Marquis of Létorière, the
King gives her to you."
The Marquis bowed respectfully . . .
"Richelieu, you will present him to me to-morrow, at my first reception,
without ceremony," said the king to the marshal. Then making an
affectionate gesture to Létorière, Louis XV. entered the palace.
The next day Létorière was officially presented; a few days after,
Louis XV. appointed him master of the horse, and later, he gave him a
cornetcy in the Mousquetaires.
From this moment the fortunes of Létorière did nothing but grow, for
the king's affection for him increased every day.
It would take too long to tell how the favorite became the most
conspicuous man at court: but this progress was simple and natural. To
all his rare advantages of mind, of person, of birth, and of heart,
there was soon added an exquisite taste in everything. His horses, his
furniture, and his dress became the type of elegance and good taste. In
short, at the end of four years the poor scholar of Plessis College had
become one of the most brilliant courtiers, and inspired at once
admiration, envy, hatred, adoration, as do all people endowed with
superior parts.
This narrative will not allow the recital of many brilliant exploits of
which the Marquis was the hero, or of which he was supposed to be the
hero, for his discretion was rare.
But it was well known that he could never be reproached with baseness or
perfidy in love. In two duels he showed himself brave and generous: the
only fault with which he could be charged, was great extravagance; but
this he could well afford, owing to the gaining of his lawsuit against
the Intendancy of Poitou, and also to the munificence and bounties of
the king, who successively appointed him Commendatory Abbé of the
Trinité de Vendôme, commander of the united orders of St. Lazare and
Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, a colonel of cavalry, counsellor of State, of
the sword, and grand seneschal of Aunis.
Such was the prodigious prosperity which Létorière reached during the
four years after his fortunate encounter with the king.
Amid all his successes, Létorière had never forgotten the great blue
eyes of the Opera Ball, and almost every day he contemplated his ring
with sadness.
Notwithstanding this device, _it follows you everywhere_, written under
an eye of such a charming blue, which appeared to regard him with a
tenderness full of confidence and serenity, the Marquis feared that he
had been completely forgotten by his mysterious protectress. In four
years he had received no news from her. Sometimes he trembled lest his
reputation as a man of gallantry, by awaking in the breast of the
unknown a just jealousy, might forever alienate her from him; sometimes
he feared that absence, or sickness, or death even, might have deprived
him of this strange friendship.
Moved by a singular and inexplicable sentiment, Létorière had always,
in his gallantries, carefully shunned the seductions of blue eyes,
however cruel this self-denial had often appeared to him. He had dreaded
to profane, perhaps unwittingly, a love which he thought was so little
like other loves. The more he prospered in a life which destiny had made
so beautiful, and perhaps too easily happy for him, the more
idolatrously did he dwell, almost with regret, on that season of
calmness and tranquil happiness, when the only emotion of his life was
excited by one of the letters in which his unknown had given him counsel
so full of wisdom.
He noted, almost with affright, the approach of the fatal limit that had
been assigned to him, when he was to receive a last letter which would
decide his destiny. This letter he received that very day, four years
after the meeting at the Opera Ball. It was as follows:
"For five years I have loved you . . . for five years I have followed
you through all the phases of your life, obscure or brilliant, poor or
fortunate. You are worthy of the heart which I offer you with
confidence. I am an orphan, my hand is free. I offer it to you. . . . No
human power can change my resolution to be yours. If you refuse to
realize my most cherished projects, withdrawn into a cloister, each day
I shall pray Heaven to grant you that happiness I would so willingly
have made for you.
"JULIE DE SOISSONS,
"_Princess of S . . . C . . ._"