The Château of Beaumanoir had, since the advent of the Intendant Bigot,
been the scene of many a festive revelry that matched, in bacchanalian
frenzy, the wild orgies of the Regency and the present debaucheries
of Croisy and the petits appartements of Versailles. Its splendor, its
luxury, its riotous feasts lasting without intermission sometimes for
days, were the themes of wonder and disgust to the unsophisticated
people of New France, and of endless comparison between the extravagance
of the Royal Intendant and the simple manners and inflexible morals of
the Governor-General.
The great hall of the Château, the scene of the gorgeous feasts of the
Intendant, was brilliantly illuminated with silver lamps, glowing like
globes of sunlight as they hung from the lofty ceiling, upon which
was painted a fresco of the apotheosis of Louis XIV., where the Grand
Monarque was surrounded by a cloud of Condés, Orléanois, and Bourbons,
of near and more remote consanguinity. At the head of the room hung a
full-length portrait of Marquise de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis
XV., and the friend and patroness of the Intendant Bigot; her bold,
voluptuous beauty seemed well fitted to be the presiding genius of his
house. The walls bore many other paintings of artistic and historic
value. The King and Queen; the dark-eyed Montespan; the crafty
Maintenon; and the pensive beauty of Louise de la Vallière, the only
mistress of Louis XIV. who loved him for his own sake, and whose
portrait, copied from this picture, may still be seen in the chapel of
the Ursulines of Quebec, where the fair Louise is represented as St.
Thais kneeling at prayer among the nuns.
The table in the great hall, a masterpiece of workmanship, was made of
a dark Canadian wood then newly introduced, and stretched the length of
the hall. A massive gold epergne of choicest Italian art, the gift of
La Pompadour, stood on the centre of the table. It represented Bacchus
enthroned on a tun of wine, presenting flowing cups to a dance of fauns
and satyrs.
Silver cups of Venetian sculpture and goblets of Bohemian manufacture
sparkled like stars upon the brilliant table, brimming over with the
gold and ruby vintages of France and Spain; or lay overturned amid pools
of wine that ran down upon the velvet carpet. Dishes of Parmesan cheese,
caviare, and other provocatives to thirst stood upon the table, amid
vases of flowers and baskets of the choicest fruits of the Antilles.
Round this magnificent table sat a score or more of revellers--in the
garb of gentlemen, but all in disorder and soiled with wine; their
countenances were inflamed, their eyes red and fiery, their tongues
loose and loquacious. Here and there a vacant or overturned chair showed
where a guest had fallen in the debauch and been carried off by
the valets, who in gorgeous liveries waited on the table. A band of
musicians sat up in a gallery at the end of the hall, and filled the
pauses of the riotous feast with the ravishing strains of Lulli and
Destouches.
At the head of the table, first in place as in rank, sat François Bigot,
Intendant of New France. His low, well-set figure, dark hair, small,
keen black eyes, and swarthy features full of fire and animation,
bespoke his Gascon blood. His countenance was far from comely,--nay,
when in repose, even ugly and repulsive,--but his eyes were magnets that
drew men's looks towards him, for in them lay the force of a powerful
will and a depth and subtlety of intellect that made men fear, if they
could not love him. Yet when he chose--and it was his usual mood--to
exercise his blandishments on men, he rarely failed to captivate them,
while his pleasant wit, courtly ways, and natural gallantry towards
women, exercised with the polished seductiveness he had learned in the
Court of Louis XV., made François Bigot the most plausible and dangerous
man in New France.
He was fond of wine and music, passionately addicted to gambling, and
devoted to the pleasant vices that were rampant in the Court of
France, finely educated, able in the conduct of affairs, and fertile in
expedients to accomplish his ends. François Bigot might have saved New
France, had he been honest as he was clever; but he was unprincipled and
corrupt: no conscience checked his ambition or his love of pleasure.
He ruined New France for the sake of himself and his patroness and the
crowd of courtiers and frail beauties who surrounded the King, whose
arts and influence kept him in his high office despite all the efforts
of the Honnêtes Gens, the good and true men of the Colony, to remove
him.
He had already ruined and lost the ancient Colony of Acadia, through his
defrauds and malversations as Chief Commissary of the Army, and instead
of trial and punishment, had lately been exalted to the higher and still
more important office of Royal Intendant of New France.
On the right of the Intendant sat his bosom friend, the Sieur Cadet, a
large, sensual man, with twinkling gray eyes, thick nose, and full red
lips. His broad face, flushed with wine, glowed like the harvest moon
rising above the horizon. Cadet had, it was said, been a butcher in
Quebec. He was now, for the misfortune of his country, Chief Commissary
of the Army and a close confederate of the Intendant.
On the left of the Intendant sat his Secretary, De Pean, crafty and
unscrupulous, a parasite, too, who flattered his master and ministered
to his pleasures. De Pean was a military man, and not a bad soldier in
the field; but he loved gain better than glory, and amassed an enormous
fortune out of the impoverishment of his country.
Le Mercier, too, was there, Commandant of Artillery, a brave officer,
but a bad man; Varin, a proud, arrogant libertine, Commissary of
Montreal, who outdid Bigot in rapine and Cadet in coarseness; De Breard,
Comptroller of the Marine, a worthy associate of Penisault, whose
pinched features and cunning leer were in keeping with his important
office of chief manager of the Friponne. Perrault, D'Estebe, Morin, and
Vergor, all creatures of the Intendant, swelled the roll of infamy, as
partners of the Grand Company of Associates trading in New France, as
their charter named them--the “Grand Company of Thieves,” as the people
in their plain Norman called them who robbed them in the King's name
and, under pretence of maintaining the war, passed the most arbitrary
decrees, the only object of which was to enrich themselves and their
higher patrons at the Court of Versailles.
The rest of the company seated round the table comprised a number of
dissolute seigneurs and gallants of fashion about town--men of great
wants and great extravagance, just the class so quaintly described by
Charlevoix, a quarter of a century previous, as “gentlemen thoroughly
versed in the most elegant and agreeable modes of spending money, but
greatly at a loss how to obtain it.”
Among the gay young seigneurs who had been drawn into the vortex of
Bigot's splendid dissipation, was the brave, handsome Le Gardeur de
Repentigny--a captain of the Royal Marine, a Colonial corps recently
embodied at Quebec. In general form and feature Le Gardeur was a manly
reflex of his beautiful sister Amélie, but his countenance was marred
with traces of debauchery. His face was inflamed, and his dark eyes, so
like his sister's, by nature tender and true, were now glittering with
the adder tongues of the cursed wine-serpent.
Taking the cue from Bigot, Le Gardeur responded madly to the challenges
to drink from all around him. Wine was now flooding every brain, and the
table was one scene of riotous debauch.
“Fill up again, Le Gardeur!” exclaimed the Intendant, with a loud and
still clear voice; “the lying clock says it is day--broad day, but
neither cock crows nor day dawns in the Château of Beaumanoir, save at
the will of its master and his merry guests! Fill up, companions all!
The lamplight in the wine-cup is brighter than the clearest sun that
ever shone!”
“Bravo Bigot! name your toast, and we will pledge it till the seven
stars count fourteen!” replied Le Gardeur, looking hazily at the great
clock in the hall. “I see four clocks in the room, and every one of them
lies if it says it is day!”
“You are mending, Le Gardeur de Repentigny! You are worthy to belong to
the Grand Company! But you shall have my toast. We have drank it twenty
times already, but it will stand drinking twenty times more. It is the
best prologue to wine ever devised by wit of man--a woman--”
“And the best epilogue too, Bigot!” interjected Varin, visibly drunk;
“but let us have the toast, my cup is waiting.”
“Well, fill up all, then; and we will drink the health, wealth, and
love by stealth, of the jolliest dame in sunny France--The Marquise de
Pompadour!”
“La Pompadour! La Pompadour!” Every tongue repeated the name, the
goblets were drained to the bottoms, and a thunder of applause and
clattering of glasses followed the toast of the mistress of Louis XV.,
who was the special protectress of the Grand Company,--a goodly share of
whose profits in the monopoly of trade in New France was thrown into the
lap of the powerful favorite.
“Come, Varin! your turn now!” cried Bigot, turning to the Commissary;
“a toast for Ville Marie! Merry Montreal! where they eat like rats of
Poitou, and drink till they ring the fire-bells, as the Bordelais did to
welcome the collectors of the gabelle. The Montrealers have not rung the
fire-bells yet against you, Varin, but they will by and by!”
Varin filled his cup with an unsteady hand until it ran over, and
propping his body against the table as he stood up, replied, “A
toast for Ville Marie! and our friends in need!--The blue caps of the
Richelieu!” This was in allusion to a recent ordinance of the Intendant,
authorizing him to seize all the corn in store at Montreal and in the
surrounding country--under pretence of supplying the army, and really to
secure the monopoly of it for the Grand Company.
The toast was drunk, amid rapturous applause. “Well said, Varin!”
exclaimed Bigot; “that toast implied both business and pleasure: the
business was to sweep out the granges of the farmers; the pleasure is to
drink in honor of your success.”
“My foragers sweep clean!” said Varin, resuming his seat, and looking
under his hand to steady his gaze. “Better brooms were never made in
Besançon. The country is swept as clean as a ball-room. Your Excellency
and the Marquise might lead the dance over it, and not a straw lie in
your way!”
“And did you manage it without a fight, Varin?” asked the Sieur
d'Estebe, with a half sneer.
“Fight! Why fight? The habitans will never resist the King's name. We
conjure the devil down with that. When we skin our eels we don't
begin at the tail! If we did, the habitans would be like the eels of
Mélun--cry out before they were hurt. No! no! D'Estebe! We are more
polite in Ville Marie. We tell them the King's troops need the corn.
They doff their caps, and with tears in their eyes, say, 'Monsieur le
Commissaire, the King can have all we possess, and ourselves too, if he
will only save Canada from the Bostonnais.' This is better than stealing
the honey and killing the bees that made it, D'Estebe!”
“But what became of the families of the habitans after this swoop of
your foragers?” asked the Seigneur de Beauce, a country gentleman
who retained a few honorable ideas floating on top of the wine he had
swallowed.
“Oh! the families--that is, the women and children, for we took the men
for the army. You see, De Beauce,” replied Varin, with a mocking air,
as he crossed his thumbs like a peasant of Languedoc when he wishes to
inspire belief in his words, “the families have to do what the gentlemen
of Beauce practise in times of scarcity--breakfast by gaping! or they
can eat wind, like the people of Poitou: it will make them spit clean!”
De Beauce was irritated at the mocking sign and the proverbial allusion
to the gaping of the people of Beauce. He started up in wrath, and
striking his fist on the table, “Monsieur Varin!” cried he, “do not
cross your thumbs at me, or I will cut them off! Let me tell you the
gentlemen of Beauce do not breakfast on gaping, but have plenty of corn
to stuff even a Commissary of Montreal!”
The Sieur Le Mercier, at a sign from Bigot, interposed to stop the
rising quarrel. “Don't mind Varin,” said he, whispering to De Beauce;
“he is drunk, and a row will anger the Intendant. Wait, and by and by
you shall toast Varin as the chief baker of Pharoah, who got hanged
because he stole the King's corn.”
“As he deserves to be, for his insult to the gentlemen of Beauce,”
insinuated Bigot, leaning over to his angry guest, at the same time
winking good-humoredly to Varin. “Come, now, De Beauce, friends all,
amantium irae, you know--which is Latin for love--and I will sing you
a stave in praise of this good wine, which is better than Bacchus ever
drank.” The Intendant rose up, and holding a brimming glass in his hand,
chanted in full, musical voice a favorite ditty of the day, as a ready
mode of restoring harmony among the company:
“'Amis! dans ma bouteille,
Voilà le vin de France!
C'est le bon vin qui danse ici,
C'est le bon vin qui danse.
Gai lon la!
Vive la lirette!
Des Filettes
Il y en aura!'
Vivent les Filettes! The girls of Quebec--first in beauty, last in love,
and nowhere in scorn of a gallant worthy of them!” continued Bigot.
“What say you, De Pean? Are you not prepared to toast the belles of
Quebec?”
“That I am, your Excellency!” De Pean was unsteady upon his feet, as he
rose to respond to the Intendant's challenge. He pot-valiantly drew his
sword, and laid it on the table. “I will call on the honorable company
to drink this toast on their knees, and there is my sword to cut the
legs off any gentleman who will not kneel down and drink a full cup to
the bright eyes of the belle of Quebec--The incomparable Angélique des
Meloises!”
The toast suited their mood. Every one filled up his cup in honor of a
beauty so universally admired.
“Kneel down, all,” cried the Intendant, “or De Pean will hamstring us!”
All knelt down with a clash--some of them unable to rise again. “We will
drink to the Angélique charms of the fair Des Meloises. Come now, all
together!--as the jolly Dutchmen of Albany say, 'Upp seys over!'”
Such of the company as were able resumed their seats amid great laughter
and confusion, when the Sieur Deschenaux, a reckless young gallant,
ablaze with wine and excitement, stood up, leaning against the table.
His fingers dabbled in his wine-cup as he addressed them, but he did not
notice it.
“We have drunk with all the honors,” said he, “to the bright eyes of the
belle of Quebec. I call on every gentleman now, to drink to the still
brighter eyes of the belle of New France!”
“Who is she? Name! name!” shouted a dozen voices; “who is the belle of
New France?”
“Who is she? Why, who can she be but the fair Angélique, whom we have
just honored?” replied De Pean, hotly, jealous of any precedence in that
quarter.
“Tut!” cried Deschenaux, “you compare glowworms with evening stars, when
you pretend to match Angélique des Meloises with the lady I propose to
honor! I call for full brimmers--cardinal's hats--in honor of the belle
of New France--the fair Amélie de Repentigny!”
Le Gardeur de Repentigny was sitting leaning on his elbow, his face
beaming with jollity, as he waited, with a full cup, for Deschenaux's
toast. But no sooner did he hear the name of his sister from those lips
than he sprang up as though a serpent had bit him. He hurled his goblet
at the head of Deschenaux with a fierce imprecation, and drew his sword
as he rushed towards him.
“A thousand lightnings strike you! How dare you pollute that holy name,
Deschenaux? Retract that toast instantly, or you shall drink it in
blood--retract, I say!”
The guests rose to their feet in terrible uproar. Le Gardeur struggled
violently to break through a number of those who interposed between him
and Deschenaux, who, roused to frenzy by the insult from Le Gardeur,
had also drawn his sword, and stood ready to receive the assault of his
antagonist.
The Intendant, whose courage and presence of mind never forsook him,
pulled Deschenaux down upon his seat and held fast his sword arm,
shouting in his ear,--
“Are you mad, Deschenaux? You knew she was his sister, and how he
worships her! Retract the toast--it was inopportune! Besides, recollect
we want to win over De Repentigny to the Grand Company!”
Deschenaux struggled for a minute, but the influence of the Intendant
was all-powerful over him. He gave way. “Damn De Repentigny,” said he,
“I only meant to do honor to the pretty witch. Who would have expected
him to take it up in that manner?”
“Any one who knows him; besides,” continued the Intendant, “if you must
toast his sister, wait till we get him body and soul made over to the
Grand Company, and then he will care no more for his sister's fame than
you do for yours.”
“But the insult! He has drawn blood with the goblet,” said Deschenaux,
wiping his forehead with his fingers; “I cannot pardon that!”
“Tut, tut; fight him another day. But you shall not fight here! Cadet
and Le Mercier have pinned the young Bayard, I see; so you have a chance
to do the honorable; Deschenaux; go to him, retract the toast, and say
you had forgotten the fair lady was his sister.”
Deschenaux swallowed his wrath, rose up, and sheathed his sword. Taking
the Intendant by the arm, he went up to Le Gardeur, who was still trying
to advance. Deschenaux held up his hand deprecatingly. “Le Gardeur,”
said he, with an air of apparent contrition, “I was wrong to offer that
toast. I had forgotten the fair lady was your sister. I retract the
toast, since it is disagreeable to you, although all would have been
proud to drink it.”
Le Gardeur was as hard to appease as he was easy to excite to anger. He
still held his drawn sword in his hand.
“Come!” cried Bigot, “you are as hard to please as Villiers Vendôme,
whom the King himself could not satisfy. Deschenaux says he is sorry.
A gentleman cannot say more; so shake hands and be friends, De
Repentigny.”
Impervious to threats, and often to reason, Le Gardeur could not resist
an appeal to his generosity.
He sheathed his sword, and held out his hand with frank forgiveness.
“Your apology is ample, Sieur Deschenaux. I am satisfied you meant no
affront to my sister! It is my weak point, messieurs,” continued he,
looking firmly at the company, ready to break out had he detected the
shadow of a sneer upon any one's countenance. “I honor her as I do the
queen of heaven. Neither of their names ought to be spoken here.”
“Well said! Le Gardeur,” exclaimed the Intendant. “That's right,
shake hands, and be friends again. Blessed are quarrels that lead to
reconciliation and the washing out of feuds in wine. Take your seats,
gentlemen.”
There was a general scramble back to the table. Bigot stood up in
renewed force.
“Valets!” cried he, “bring in now the largest cups! We will drink
a toast five fathoms deep, in water of life strong enough to melt
Cleopatra's pearls, and to a jollier dame than Egypt's queen. But
first we will make Le Gardeur de Repentigny free of the guild of noble
partners of the company of adventurers trading in New France.”
The valets flew in and out. In a few moments the table was replenished
with huge drinking-cups, silver flagons, and all the heavy impedimenta
of the army of Bacchus.
“You are willing to become one of us, and enter the jolly guild of the
Grand Company?” exclaimed the Intendant, taking Le Gardeur by the hand.
“Yes, I am a stranger, and you may take me in. I claim admission,”
replied Le Gardeur with drunken gravity, “and by St. Pigot! I will be
true to the guild!”
Bigot kissed him on both cheeks. “By the boot of St. Benoit! you speak
like the King of Yvetot. Le Gardeur de Repentigny, you are fit to wear
fur in the Court of Burgundy.”
“You can measure my foot, Bigot,” replied Le Gardeur, “and satisfy the
company that I am able to wear the boot of St. Benoit.”
“By jolly St. Chinon! and you shall wear it, Le Gardeur,” exclaimed
Bigot, handing him a quart flagon of wine, which Le Gardeur drank
without drawing breath. “That boot fits,” shouted the Intendant
exultingly; “now for the chant! I will lead. Stop the breath of any one
who will not join in the chorus.”
The Intendant in great voice led off a macaronic verse of Molière, that
had often made merry the orgies of Versailles:
“'Bene, bene, bene, respondere!
Dignus, dignus es, entrare
In nostro laeto corpore!'”
A tintamarre of voices and a jingle of glasses accompanied the violins
and tambours de Basque as the company stood up and sang the song,
winding up with a grand burst at the chorus:
“'Vivat! vivat! vivat! cent fois vivat!
Novus socius qui tam bene parlat!
Mille mille annis et manget et bibat,
Fripet et friponnat!'”
Hands were shaken all round, congratulations, embracings, and filthy
kisses showered upon Le Gardeur to honor his admission as a partner of
the Grand Company.
“And now,” continued Bigot, “we will drink a draught long as the bell
rope of Notre Dame. Fill up brimmers of the quintessence of the grape,
and drain them dry in honor of the Friponne!”
The name was electric. It was, in the country, a word of opprobrium, but
at Beaumanoir it was laughed at with true Gallic nonchalance. Indeed,
to show their scorn of public opinion, the Grand Company had lately
launched a new ship upon the Great Lakes to carry on the fur trade, and
had appropriately and mockingly named her, “La Friponne.”
The toast of La Friponne was drunk with applause, followed by a wild
bacchanalian song.
The Sieur Morin had been a merchant in Bordeaux whose bond was held
in as little value as his word. He had lately removed to New France,
transferred the bulk of his merchandise to the Friponne, and become an
active agent of the Grand Company.
“La Friponne!” cried he; “I have drunk success to her with all my heart
and throat; but I say she will never wear a night-cap and sleep quietly
in our arms until we muzzle the Golden Dog that barks by night and by
day in the Rue Buade.”
“That is true, Morin!”, interrupted Varin. “The Grand Company will
never know peace until we send the Bourgeois, his master, back to the
Bastille. The Golden Dog is--”
“Damn the Golden Dog!” exclaimed Bigot, passionately. “Why do you utter
his name, Varin, to sour our wine? I hope one day to pull down the Dog,
as well as the whole kennel of the insolent Bourgeois.” Then, as was his
wont, concealing his feelings under a mocking gibe, “Varin,” said he,
“they say that it is your marrow bone the Golden Dog is gnawing--ha! ha!
ha!”
“More people believe it is your Excellency's!” Varin knew he was right,
but aware of Bigot's touchiness on that point, added, as is the wont of
panders to great men, “It is either yours or the Cardinal's.”
“Let it be the Cardinal's, then! He is still in purgatory, and there
will wait the arrival of the Bourgeois, to balance accounts with him.”
Bigot hated the Bourgeois Philibert as one hates the man he has injured.
Bigot had been instrumental in his banishment years ago from France,
when the bold Norman count defended the persecuted Jansenists in the
Parliament of Rouen. The Intendant hated him now for his wealth and
prosperity in New France. But his wrath turned to fury when he saw the
tablet of the Golden Dog, with its taunting inscription, glaring upon
the front of the magazine in the Rue Buade. Bigot felt the full meaning
and significance of the words that burned into his soul, and for which
he hoped one day to be revenged.
“Confusion to the whole litter of the Golden Dog, and that is the party
of the Honnêtes Gens!” cried he. “But for that canting savant who plays
the Governor here, I would pull down the sign and hang its master up in
its stead to-morrow!”
The company now grew still more hilarious and noisy in their cups. Few
paid attention to what the Intendant was saying. But De Repentigny heard
him utter the words, “Oh, for men who dare do men's deeds!” He caught
the eye of De Repentigny, and added, “But we are all cowards in the
Grand Company, and are afraid of the Bourgeois.”
The wine was bubbling in the brain of Le Gardeur. He scarcely knew what
the Intendant said, but he caught the last words.
“Whom do you call cowards, Chevalier? I have joined the Grand Company.
If the rest are cowards, I am not: I stand ready to pluck the peruke off
the head of any man in New France, and carry it on my sword to the Place
d' Armes, where I will challenge all the world to come and take it!”
“Pish! that is nothing! give me man's work. I want to see the partner in
the Grand Company who dare pull down the Golden Dog.”
“I dare! and I dare!” exclaimed a dozen voices at once in response to
the appeal of the Intendant, who craftily meant his challenge to ensnare
only Le Gardeur.
“And I dare; and I will, too, if you wish it, Chevalier!” shouted Le
Gardeur, mad with wine, and quite oblivious of the thousand claims of
the father of his friend, Pierre Philibert, upon him.
“I take you at your word, Le Gardeur! and bind your honor to it in the
presence of all these gentlemen,” said Bigot with a look of intense
satisfaction.
“When shall it be done--to-day?” Le Gardeur seemed ready to pluck the
moon from the sky in his present state of ecstasy.
“Why, no, not to-day; not before the pear is ripe will we pluck it! Your
word of honor will keep till then?”
Bigot was in great glee over the success of his stratagem to entrap De
Repentigny.
“It will keep a thousand years!” replied Le Gardeur, amid a fresh
outburst of merriment round the board which culminated in a shameless
song, fit only for a revel of satyrs.
The Sieur Cadet lolled lazily in his chair, his eyes blinking with a
sleepy leer. “We are getting stupidly drunk. Bigot,” said he; “we want
something new to rouse us all to fresh life. Will you let me offer a
toast?”
“Go on, Cadet! offer what toast you please. There is nothing in heaven,
hell, or upon earth that I won't drink to for your sake.”
“I want you to drink it on your knees, Bigot! pledge me that, and fill
your biggest cup.”
“We will drink it on all fours if you like! come, out with your toast,
Cadet; you are as long over it as Father Glapion's sermon in Lent! and
it will be as interesting, I dare say!”
“Well, Chevalier, the Grand Company, after toasting all the beauties of
Quebec, desire to drink the health of the fair mistress of Beaumanoir,
and in her presence too!” said Cadet with owlish gravity.
Bigot started; drunk and reckless as he was, he did not like his secret
to be divulged. He was angry with Cadet for referring to it in the
presence of so many who knew not that a strange lady was residing at
Beaumanoir. He was too thoroughly a libertine of the period to feel any
moral compunction for any excess he committed. He was habitually more
ready to glory over his conquests, than to deny or extenuate them. But
in this case he had, to the surprise of Cadet, been very reticent, and
shy of speaking of this lady even to him.
“They say she is a miracle of beauty, Bigot!” continued Cadet, “and that
you are so jealous of the charms of your belle Gabrielle that you are
afraid to show her to your best friends.”
“My belle Gabrielle is at liberty to go where she pleases, Cadet!” Bigot
saw the absurdity of anger, but he felt it, nevertheless. “She chooses
not to leave her bower, to look even on you, Cadet! I warrant you she
has not slept all night, listening to your infernal din.”
“Then, I hope you will allow us to go and beg pardon on our knees for
disturbing her rest. What say the good company?”
“Agreed, agreed!” was the general response, and all pressed the
Intendant vociferously to allow them to see the fair mistress of
Beaumanoir.
Varin, however, proposed that she should be brought into the hall. “Send
her to us, O King,” cried he; “we are nobles of Persia, and this is
Shushan the palace, where we carouse according to the law of the Medes,
seven days at a stretch. Let the King bring in Queen Vashti, to show her
beauty to the princes and nobles of his court!”
Bigot, too full of wine to weigh scruples, yielded to the wish of his
boon companions. He rose from his chair, which in his absence was taken
by Cadet. “Mind!” said he, “if I bring her in, you shall show her every
respect.”
“We will kiss the dust of her feet,” answered Cadet, “and consider you
the greatest king of a feast in New France or Old.”
Bigot, without further parley, passed out of the hall, traversed a long
corridor and entered an anteroom, where he found Dame Tremblay, the old
housekeeper, dozing on her chair. He roused her up, and bade her go to
the inner chamber to summon her mistress.
The housekeeper rose in a moment at the voice of the Intendant. She was
a comely dame, with a ruddy cheek, and an eye in her head that looked
inquisitively at her master as she arranged her cap and threw back her
rather gay ribbons.
“I want your mistress up in the great hall! Go summon her at once,”
repeated the Intendant.
The housekeeper courtesied, but pressed her lips together as if to
prevent them from speaking in remonstrance. She went at once on her
ungracious errand.