(By Margaret)
Our siege was over at last. I can hardly explain how or why, for there
was no real settlement of the points at issue. I have since come to
understand that the Queen and the Cardinal were alarmed lest the Vicomte
de Turenne with his army should come to the assistance of his brother,
the Duke of Bouillon, and thus leave the frontier open to the Spaniards;
and that this very possibility also worked upon the First President
Mole, who was too true a Frenchman not to prefer giving way to the Queen
to bringing disunion into the army and admitting the invader. Most of
the provincial Parliaments were of the same mind as that of Paris, and
if all had united and stood firm the Court would have been reduced to
great straits. It was well for us at St. Germain that they never guessed
at our discomforts on our hill, and how impossible it would have been to
hold out for a more complete victory.
I was glad enough to leave St. Germain the day after the terms had been
agreed upon. The royal family did not yet move, but my term of waiting
had long been expired; I burned to rejoin my mother and sister, and
likewise to escape from the assiduities of M. de Lamont, who was
becoming more insufferable than ever.
So I asked permission of the Queen to let my son resume his studies, and
of Mademoiselle to leave her for the time. Both were gracious, though
the Queen told me I was going into a wasp’s nest; while, on the
other hand, Mademoiselle congratulated me on returning to those dear
Parisians, and said she should not be long behind me. I was too much
afraid of being hindered not to set out immediately after having
received my license, so as to take advantage of the escort of some of
the deputies with whom I had a slight acquaintance. I also hoped to
avoid M. de Lamont’s leave-takings, but I was not fortunate enough to
do this. The absurd man, learning that I was on the point of departure,
came rushing headlong into the court where the carriages stood, having
first disordered his hair and untied his scarf, so as to give himself a
distracted appearance, and thus he threw himself on his knees between
me and the coach door, declaring that I was killing him and breaking his
heart by my cruelty.
I was very angry, and afraid of showing any excitement, lest it should
give him any advantage, so I only drew up my head coldly and said:
‘Let me pass, sir.’ But that only made him throw himself on the ground
as if he would kiss my robe, whereupon Gasppard, with his hand on his
little sword, said: ‘Why don’t you give him a good kick, mama?’ This
made everybody laugh; and I said, still keeping my head stiff: ‘We will
go round to the other door, my son, since there is this obstruction in
our way.’
This we did before he could follow us; and the last I saw of M. de
Lamont as I quitted St. Germain, he was still kneeling in the court, in
the attitude of an Orlando Furioso, reaching out his arms towards the
departing carriage. I did not pity him, for I did not for a moment
believe his passion a serious one, and I thought his wife would not be
much happier than my poor little sister-in-law, about whom I was very
anxious, and as to these extravagances, they were the ordinary custom of
those who professed to be lovers. He was one of the equerries-in-waiting
on the Duchess of Orleans, and thus happily could not follow; and I
never rejoiced more than when Gaspard and I, with my two women, had
turned our backs on St. Germain and began to descend through the
scattered trees of the forest towards Paris.
No less than forty carriages came out to meet the deputies on their
return, and our progress was very slow, but at last we found ourselves
at our hotel, where we were entirely unexpected, and the porter was so
much surprised that, instead of announcing us properly, he rushed into
the courtyard, screaming out: ‘Madame! Monsieur le Marquis!’ The whole
household came rushing down the steps pell-mell, so that it was plain at
the first glance that my mother was not there. Annora was the first to
throw herself into my arms, with a shriek and sob of joy, which gave
me a pleasure I cannot describe when I contrasted this meeting with our
former one, for now again I felt that we were wholly sisters.
Gaspard sprang to the Abbe’s neck, and declared himself tired of his
holidays, and quite ready to resume his studies. They would be much
pleasanter than running after the King and Duke of Anjou, and bearing
the blame of all their pranks. My mother, I heard, was at the Convent of
St. Jaques with her poor bereaved Queen, and she had left my sister in
the charge of Sir Francis and Lady Ommaney.
The old lady came to welcome me; Sir Francis was out gone to inquire
for the President Darpent; and before I had been an hour in the house, I
found how entirely different a world it was from that which I had left,
and how changed were the interests that absorbed it. Of my poor little
Cecile scarcely anything was known. Annora had only seen her once or
twice, and even the poor English Queen was second in interest to the
illness of M. Darpent, and the fatigues of his wife in nursing him. It
seemed to me as if Lady Ommaney and my sister discussed, as if he had
been their near relation, every symptom of him, who, in the eyes of all
my recent companions, was nothing better than an old frondeur, a rebel
richly deserving to be put to death.
If Lady Ommaney had understood French, I really believe she would have
gone to help Madame Darpent, who had now been sitting up for several
nights; and though her son was most dutiful, and shared her vigils,
taking every imaginable care of his father, he could not relieve her
materially. The old man died the morning after my return home, and Sir
Francis, who had been to inquire, reported that the funeral was to take
place the next night by Madame’s desire, as she was resolved that it
should not be made an occasion for the meeting of inveighing against the
Government as the remote cause of his death.
The city was, in fact, in a very unquiet state; nevertheless, Queen
Henrietta returned to her apartments at the Louvre, and my mother came
back to us, though when she found me at home, she only remained for one
night. The Queen wanted her, and it was not convenient, in the condition
of things, to be carried about in a sedan chair. Moreover I had a visit
from my sister-in-law; I was astonished at her venturing out, but though
very thin, she looked radiant, for her husband had come into Paris in
the train of the Princes, and had actually passed half an hour with her!
I was less gratified when I found what he had come for. It was to desire
his wife to come to me and inform me that it was the will and pleasure
of the Prince of Conde that I should accept the addresses of the Baron
de Lamont.
‘Thank you, sister,’ I said, smiling a little, for I knew it was of no
use to scold her or argue with her, and I would have spoken of something
else, but she held my hand and entreated:
‘You will, then?’
‘Oh! you have been charged to throw your influence into the scale,’ I
said, laughing; and the poor thing had to confess that he had said to
her, with an air so noble, so amiable, that here was an opportunity of
being of some real use to him if she would persuade Madame de Bellaise
to marry M. de Lamont.
‘To him!’ I might well exclaim.
‘Well, you see,’ Cecile explained, ‘M. le Prince said to him: ‘The
Bellaise is your sister-in-law, is she not? It is for you to overcome
her ridiculous scruples and make her accept Lamont, who is desperately
in love with her, and whose fortune needs to be repaired.’’
‘I see,’ I replied; ‘but I cannot carry my complaisance so far.’
‘But,’ faltered Cecile, ‘he is very handsome and very distinguished--’
‘Come, Cecile, you have done your duty. That is enough.’
But the poor little thing thought herself bound still to persuade me
with the arguments put into her mouth, till I asked her whether she
could wish me to forget her brother, or if in my place she would do such
a thing as give a father like M. de Lamont to her children. Then she
began to weep, and asked me to forgive her, ending in her simplicity
with:
‘The Prince would have been pleased with my husband, and perhaps he
would borne me good will for it!’
‘Ah! Cecile,’ I said, embracing her; ‘I would do much for you, but you
must not ask me to do this.’
The next question was about a visit of condolence to be paid to Madame
Darpent. We still kept the Ommaneys with us, on the pretext that the
presence of a gentleman gave a sense of security in the condition of the
city, but chiefly because we feared that they would be half-starved in
their lodgings.
Sir Francis told us that Madame Darpent was, ‘after your French
fashion,’ as he said, receiving visits of condolence in her bed, and,
considering how good and obliging the young man had been, he supposed
we should pay one. Annora’s eyes shone, but to my surprise she said
nothing, and I was quite ready to consent, since I too felt under such
obligations to the younger Darpent that I could let no scruple about
condescension stand in my way, and I was glad that my mother could not
hear of it until after it was done.
Lady Ommaney, however, looked rather old and mysterious. She came to
my room and told me that she thought I ought to know, though she had no
opportunity of telling my mother, that she could not but believe that
she had observed a growing inclination between Mistress Annora and
the young Monsieur Darpent. I suppose my countenance showed a certain
dismay, for she explained that it might be only an old woman’s fancy;
but knowing what were our French notions as to nobility and rank, and
how we treated all honest gentry without titles like the dirt under our
feet, she thought we ought to be warned. Though for her part, if the
young gentleman were not a Papist and Frenchman, she did not see that
Mistress Nan could do much better even if we were in England. Then
she began giving me instances of barons’ daughters marrying gentlemen
learned in the law; and I listened with dismay, for I knew that these
would serve to make my sister more determined, if it were really true
that any such passion were dawning. I saw that to her English breeding
it would not seem so unworthy as it would to us, but to my mother it
would be shocking, and I could not tell how my brother would look on it.
The only recommendation in my eyes would be the very contrary in his,
namely, that she might be led to embrace our religion; but then I
thought Clement Darpent so doubtful a Catholic that she would be more
likely to lead him away. My confidence was chiefly in his bourgeois
pride, which was not likely to suffer him to pay his addresses where
they would be disdained by the family, and in his scrupulous good faith,
which would certainly prevent his taking advantage of the absence of the
maiden’s mother and brother.
However, I knew my sister well enough to be aware that to contradict her
was the surest mode of making her resolute, and I thought it wiser that
there should be no appearance of neglect or ingratitude to rouse her on
behalf of the Darpents. So I agreed with Lady Ommaney that we would
seem to take no notice, but only be upon our guard. We did not propose
Annora’s accompanying us on our visit of condolence, but she was
prepared when the carriage came round, and we made our way, falling into
a long line of plain but well-appointed equipages of the ladies of the
robe, who were all come on the same errand, and we were marshalled into
the house, and up the stairs by lackeys in mourning.
At the top of the great staircase, receiving everybody, stood Clement
Darpent, looking rather pale, and his advocate’s black dress decorated
with heavy weepers of crape. When he saw us his face lighted up, and he
came down to the landing to meet us, an attention of course due to our
rank; but it was scarcely the honour done to the family that made his
voice so fervent in his exclamation, ‘Ah! this is true goodness,’ though
it was only addressed to me, and of course it was my hand that he held
as he conducted us upstairs, and to the great chamber where his mother
sat up in her bed, not, as you may imagine, in the cloud of lace and
cambric which had coquettishly shrouded the widowhood of poor little
Madame de Chatillon. All was plain and severe, though scrupulously neat.
There was not an ornament in the room, only a crucifix and a holy-water
stoup by the side of the bed, and a priest standing by, of the grave and
severe aspect which distinguished those connected with Port Royal aux
Champs. Madame Darpent’s face looked white and shrunken, but there was
a beautiful peace and calmness on it, as if she dwelt in a region far
above and beyond the trifling world around her, and only submitted, like
one in a dream, to these outward formalities. I felt quite ashamed to
disturb her with my dull commonplace compliment of condolence, and I do
not think she in the least saw or knew who we were as her lips moved
in the formula of thanks. Then Clement led us away in the stream to the
buffet, where was the cake and wine of which it was etiquette for every
one to partake, though we only drank out of clear glass, not out
of silver, as when the mourners are noble. Monsieur Verdon and some
familiars of the house, whether friends or relations I do not know, were
attending to this, and there was a hum of conversation around; but there
was no acquaintance of ours present, and nobody ventured to speak to us,
except that Clement said: ‘She will be gratified, when she has time
to understand.’ And then he asked whether I had heard anything of my
brother.
As the streets were tolerably clear, I thought we had better drive at
once to the Louvre, to see my poor god-mother Queen and my mother.
Certainly it was a contrast. Queen Henrietta had been in agonies of
grief at first, and I believe no day passed without her weeping for her
husband. Her eyes were red, and she looked ill; but she was quite as
ready as ever to take interest in things around her; and she, as only
English were present, made me come and sit on a stool at her feet and
describe all the straits we had endured at St. Germain, laughing her
clear ringing laugh at the notion of her solemn, punctilious Spanish
sister-in-law living, as she said, en bergere in the middle of the
winter, and especially amusing herself over her niece Mademoiselle’s
little fiction that her equipage had secured respect.
‘That young Darpent is a useful and honest man,’ she said. ‘It is well
if your beaux yeux have secured him as a protector in these times, my
goddaughter.’
‘It is for my brother’s sake that he has been our friend,’ I said
stiffly, and my mother added that he had been engaged in our cause in
the Ribaumont suit, as if that naturally bound him to our service, while
the indignant colour flushed into Annora’s cheek at thus dispensing with
gratitude. However, we were soon interrupted, for now that the way into
the city was opened, and the widowed Queen had left her first solitude,
every one was coming to pay their respects to her; and the first we saw
arrive was Mademoiselle, who had no sooner exchanged her compliments
with her royal aunt, than, profiting by another arrival, she drew me
into a window and began: ‘But, my good Gildippe, this is serious. You
have left a distracted lover, and he is moving heaven and earth to
gain you. Have you considered? You would gain a position. He has great
influence with M. le Prince, who can do anything here.’
‘Ah! Mademoiselle! Your Royal Highness too!’ was all I could say, but I
could not silence her. M. de Lamont had interested the Prince of Conde
in his cause, and Mademoiselle, with her insane idea of marrying the
hero, in case the poor young Princess should die (and some people
declared that she was in a decline), would have thought me a small
sacrifice to please him. So I was beset on all sides. I think the man
was really enough in love to affect to be distracted. Though far less
good-looking in my early youth than my sister, I was so tall and blonde
as to have a distinguished air, and my indifference piqued my admirer
into a resolution to conquer me.
Mademoiselle harangued me on the absurdity of affecting to be a
disconsolate widow, on the step in rank that I should obtain, and
the antiquity of M. de Lamont’s pedigree, also upon all the ladies of
antiquity she could recollect who had married again; and when I called
Artemisia and Cornelia to the front in my defence, she betrayed her
secret, like poor Cecile, and declared that it was very obstinate and
disobedient in me not to consent to do what would recommend HER to the
Prince.
Next came M. d’Aubepine, poor young man, with the air of reckless
dissipation that sat so ill on a face still so youthful, and a still
more ridiculous affectation of worldly wisdom. He tried to argue me into
it by assuring me that the Prince would henceforth be all-powerful
in France, and that M. de Lamont was his protege, and that I was not
consulting my own interest, those of my son, or of my family, by my
refusal. When he found this ineffectual, he assured me peremptorily that
it was the Prince’s will, to which I replied, ‘That may be, Monsieur,
but it is not mine,’ to which he replied that I was Mademoiselle, but
that I should repent it. I said M. le Prince was not King of France, and
I trusted that he never would be, so that I did not see why I should be
bound to obey his will and pleasure. At which he looked so much as if
I were uttering blasphemy that I could not help laughing. I really
believe, poor fellow, that M. le Prince was more than a king to him,
the god of his idolatry, and that all his faults might be traced to his
blind worship and imitation.
I was not even exempt from the persuasions or commands of the great man
himself, who was at that time dominating the councils of France, and who
apparently could not endure that one poor woman should resist him. But
he, being a Bourbon and a great captain to boot, set about the thing
with a better grace than did the rest. It was in this manner. When
peace, such as it was, was agreed upon, the Princes came in to Paris,
and of course they came to pay their visit of ceremony to Queen
Henrietta. It was when I happened to be present, and before leaving her
apartment, the Prince came to me, and bending his curled head and eagle
face, said, with a look and gesture clearly unaccustomed to opposition:
‘Madame, I understand that you persist in cruelty to my friend, M. de
Lamont. Permit me to beg of you to reconsider your decision. On the
word of a Prince, you will not have reason to repent. He is under my
protection.’
I thanked His Highness for his condescension, but I assured him that I
had made up my mind not to marry again.
This made him frown, and his face, always harsh, and only redeemed from
ugliness by the fire of his eyes, became almost frightful, so that it
might have terrified a weak person into yielding; but of course all he
could then do was to make a sign to M. de Lamont to approach, present
him to me, and say, ‘I have requested Madame to reconsider her
decision,’ with which he bowed and left us tete-a-tete in the throng.
Then I tried to cut short M. de Lamont’s transports by telling him that
he must not take the Prince’s requesting as the same thing as my doing
it. Moreover, I did what my mother said was brutal and unbecoming; I
informed him that he was mistaken if he thought he should obtain any
claim over my son’s estate, for I had nothing but my husband’s portion,
and there were other guardians besides myself, who would not suffer
a stranger to have any share in the administration. Therewith he
vehemently exclaimed that I did him injustice, but I still believe that
his intention was, if his Prince had remained all-powerful, to get
the disposition of my son’s property thrown into his hands. My brother
Solivet was away with the army, Eustace in Holland, whence I longed to
recall him.
Meantime, Sir Francis Ommaney had had become intimate with the Darpents,
and so too had our good Abbe Bouchamp, who had assisted at the funeral
ceremonies, and from whom the widow derived much consolation. From
them we heard that she would fain have retired into the convent at Port
Royal, only she would not leave her son. There were those who held
that it was her duty not to let him stand between her and a vocation,
especially as he was full grown, and already in the world; but she
retained enough of her old training among the Huguenots to make her
insist that since God had given her children, it was plain that He meant
her to serve Him through her duty to them, and that if, through her
desertion of him, Clement were tempted to any evil courses, she should
never forgive herself. And our Abbe was the more inclined to encourage
her in this resolve that he did not love the Jansenists, and had a mind
sufficiently imbued with theology to understand their errors.
Certainly Clement showed no inclination to evil courses. In fact, he was
so grave and studious that his mother cherished the hope of taking him
with her to Port Royal to become one of the solitaries who transformed
the desert into a garden. She said that with patience she should see
him come to this, but in the meantime youth was sanguine, and he had not
renounced the hope of transforming the world. I think she also foresaw
that the unavowed love for Annora could scarcely lead to anything
but disappointment, and she thought that, in the rebound, he would be
willing to devote himself as one of those hermits.
He was certainly acting in a manner to astonish the world. He was not
yet of sufficient age or standing to succeed to his father’s chair
as the President of one of the Chambers of the Parliament, but his
promotion as one of the gens du roi (crown lawyers) had been secured by
annual fees almost ever since he was born, and the robe of the Consellor
who was promoted to the Presidency in the elder Darpent’s room was
awaiting him, when he declared his intention of accepting nothing that
had been bought for him, but of continuing a simple advocate, and only
obtaining what he could earn by his merits, not what was purchased.
To this no doubt the feelings imbibed from my brother and sister had
brought him. The younger men, and all the party who were still secret
frondeurs, applauded him loudly, and he was quietly approved by the
Chief President Mole who had still hopes that the domineering of the
Prince of Conde and the unpopularity of Cardinal Mazarin would lead to
changes in which ardent and self-devoted souls, like Clement’s, could
come to front and bring about improvements. The Coadjutor de Gondi, who
was bent on making himself the head of a party, likewise displayed much
admiration for one so disinterested, but I am afraid it was full of
satire; and most people spoke of young Darpent as a fool, or else as a
dangerous character.
And it might very possibly be that if he fell under suspicion, his
solitude might not be that of Port Royal but of the Bastille. Yet I am
not sure that his mother did not dread the patronage of the Coadjutor
most of all.