Looking over the inner Cour de Marbre at Versailles Palace were two
little rooms, in the main pile of the building, which constituted the
very core of privacy in the Petits Appartements du Roi. One was his
Majesty’s “den,” the other his wig-room, and both were elegantly
simple, almost severe, in their appointments. In the Galerie des
Glaces adjoining, marble, paint, crystal, and silver, in lavish
profusion, represented to the public eye the habitual equipage of a
Grand Monarch; these more restful surroundings represented to the
monarch himself his secret possession of some emotions felt in common
with the vulgar herd, to wit, the joys of a retreat where he could do
just as he liked, without the necessity of posing to himself or
others. A few chairs, a table, a secrétaire--all profusely painted
and be-ormolued, it was true, but for the simple reason that beauty
unadorned was unprocurable in the Paris of the period--sober hangings,
a quiet picture or so--such was the furniture of the little apartment
appropriated by Louis XIV. to his inmost meditations.
We find him in this distinguished snuggery on a certain afternoon of
the year 1704--the twenty-first of August, to be exact. It is within
three days of St. Bartholomew, a feast which his Most Catholic Majesty
makes a particular point of solemnising. He is, in fact, pondering a
minor detail of its observances at this very moment.
As he sits, his eyes fixed on nothingness in crinkled abstraction, we
will seize the fearful opportunity to scrutinise him. He is sixty-six
years of age, and in suggestion, we think, more like a queen-dowager
than a monarch. His minute stature, his old-matronly face, worldly,
shrewd, not unkindly; his immense falling wig, resembling a cap with
hanging wattles; his feminine particularities and prejudices, all
combine to convey that false impression of his sex. He has a woman’s
tastes for dainty clothes and china and gossip; I am convinced that,
were it possible to conceive him stooping to the condescension, he
would play the part of Madame more realistically than the Chevalier
d’Eon himself came to play it.
He is attired (for monarchs do not dress) in a full-skirted coat of
apricot velvet, with silver frogs. The coat is left unbuttoned from
neck to waist, revealing an ample breast of cambric and a rich lace
cravat. His white silk stockings are rolled back over their garters,
which are fastened above the knee, and embrace breeches of the same
velvet material; and stiff diamond-buckled shoes, with square toes,
long tongues, and very high silver heels, complete the exquisite
picture.
So he poses, and posed, as punctilious in his homage to himself as any
courtier. If he did not appear, in bulk, a star of the first
magnitude, he was as brilliant a centre as his own dazzled system need
desire.
An odd train of thought was in Louis’s mind as he sat thus gazing into
vacancy. The nearness of the Feast of St. Bartholomew was its central
subject, since it entailed the repetition of a custom long practised
by him to significant effect. Or had there been any connection between
the custom and the effect? That was just the question in his mind. He
was inclining, for some extraordinary reason, to doubt for the first
time their relationship. It had come upon him all in an instant at
what, adopting the fashion, we must call a psychologic moment in his
career.
He was not, according to some people, a really wise man; but there was
no denying that he was a supremely self-sufficient. It had never
occurred to him, in all his life, that his judgment could possibly be
surpassed by another. That was the queer thing. He had tacitly, almost
unconsciously, it seemed, permitted, in one curious instance, his
mental supremacy to subordinate itself to a superstition. He appeared
to recognise the fact all at once, and with an amazement that was like
one of those sudden developments of reason which a child will exhibit
between a single night’s sleeping and waking. Something had happened
to him, and he saw himself in a moment--not a fool; that were
impossible--but, in a certain solitary direction, a dupe to his own
modesty. Quality, kingship, all his greatness as it stood, he had let
be accounted, by default, less to the essence of divinity in himself
than to a paltry charm, in the accidental possession of which any
quacksalver might boast himself omniscient. He felt strangely small
all of a sudden.
Presently he stirred, and threw out his chest. Small! He, Louis? Had
he not made France what she was? Had he not in the blood of two great
wars, prolonged, triumphant, deadly, cemented the fabric of state of
which he stood, golden, sacrosanct, the supreme expression? Was he not
at this date the most powerful monarch, the most glorious, the most
dreaded that a dazzled world had ever worshipped? And since some there
remained who questioned his preeminence, were not his armies at this
moment opening a third victorious campaign in order to re-convince the
recalcitrants? And to what was all this success to be attributed--to
his own mastering genius, inspired, stupendous, or to his possession
of a trumpery talisman, whose favour, even, was conditional?
He drew in his breath, with a slight hissing sound, as if he had been
stung. Superstition? an aberration, to which the mightiest were
subject. He thanked his majestic stars only that the knowledge of it
was private to himself.
He half rose, and sank into his chair again, with a frown. It was his
custom, he told himself haughtily, to command Destiny, not truckle to
it. How had he come to concede even this single exception to his
custom? There was a blind spot, it was said, in every eye; perhaps
there was some like defect in every kingly constitution. The heel of
Achilles! Or, maybe--what else?
Age!
The word seemed to smite him out of the depths. He almost jumped where
he sat. This business, so childish in its credulity! Merciful Heaven!
was it possible he could be verging on his _second_ childhood--he,
Louis, who had almost come to convince himself that he was destined to
the fiery chariot? Of late the sun discs, the emblems of the _Roi
soleil_, had increased in number on his walls and ceilings. Perhaps
they, too, were a sign of his dotage.
He hesitated no longer, but, rising hastily, sought the secrétaire
against the wall, and, feeling in a very remote and secret little
recess of it, brought out a tiny packet, somewhat like a Hebrew
phylactery in suggestion. It was no more than a couple of inches or so
square, of vellum, flattish in form, and closely sealed with an odd,
incomprehensible device. A number of pin-pricks perforated it.
As he stood, holding the thing in his hand, the time and occasion on
which he had consented to its acceptance rose vividly before him. It
had been a black night in a certain October long past, when a dark
Italian monk, a famed astrologer, had waited on him by appointment in
his Sêvres villa. He recalled how, consequent on his casting of the
royal horoscope, this sardonic Genethliac had offered him (for a
weighty consideration), as a defence against certain threatened
complications in his royal ecliptic, the very talisman he now
regarded, and which, saddled with a condition, was to procure him
consistent happiness and prosperity throughout his reign. And he
recalled how he had accepted the terms, covenanting, on pain of
disaster, to preserve the charm intact, and, moreover, to plunge, on
the occasion of every notable Church festival, a pin through its
sides.
A naïve undertaking, perhaps, yet seeming justified in its results.
Half credulous, half contemptuous, and entirely good-humoured, he had
been faithful to the conditions, and had certainly prospered. The
thing had become a habit with him, and his conscience had never felt a
scruple in its performance. Why should it? Was not the bestower of the
gift a consecrated priest? He could find a hundred reasons for
tolerating his superstition, and not one for condemning it. Probably,
if the truth were known, the packet contained what might be called a
black, or contrary relic--a lock of Judas’s hair, a shaving of
Ananias’s toe-nail, a scale of Saladin’s liver, or one shed by the
devil himself when he struggled in St. Dunstan’s tongs. Or more likely
it contained nothing at all, and had served for a mere trick to extort
money.
He held it out at arm’s length, with a smile on his face. The
absurdity of his compliance had struck him all at once acutely. That
his destiny, through all these long years, could have hung at the
mercy of so ridiculous a trifle! He was great because he was great, a
conqueror by force of inherent genius. Away for once and for ever with
the imposture!
One moment he held the packet up to the light, and saw a hundred tiny
stars shine through the punctures he had made in it on successive
feasts; the next he broke the seals, unfolded the vellum, stared,
dropped the whole on the floor, and staggered back as if stricken to
the heart.
There, at his feet, it lay revealed before him--the thing that he had
done; and he knew that he, the most Christian King, he who had revoked
the Edict of Nantes, he who had rooted up the tares and made all
France one crop of catholicity, he who stood for Heaven’s vicegerent,
its high priest, its super-pope, had been for years stabbing the
Blessed Host, the consecrated wafer!
As he thus dwelt, motionless, aghast, a knock came at his door. He
collected himself by a wrenching effort, and bade the intruder into
his presence.
It was a courier from the Maréchal de Villeroy, introduced by a
favoured courtier. Both men were agitated and death-pale. They came to
inform his Majesty that his entire army, under Marshal Tallard, had
been destroyed, or had capitulated to the Duke of Marlborough at
Blenheim, in Bavaria.
The King at first answered nothing; but his eyes were observed to
wander towards a scrap of vellum, apparently insignificant, which lay
upon the floor. And then he recovered himself, with a courageous
smile.
“But that is very bad news, my friend,” he said.