The Chevalier des Meloises, quite out of humor with the merry Louises,
picked his way with quick, dainty steps down the Rue du Palais. The
gay Louises, before returning to the Convent, resolved to make a
hasty promenade to the walls to see the people at work upon them. They
received with great contentment the military salutes of the officers
of their acquaintance, which they acknowledged with the courtesy of
well-trained internes, slightly exaggerated by provoking smiles
and mischievous glances which had formed no part of the lessons in
politeness taught them by the nuns.
In justice be it said, however, the girls were actuated by a nobler
feeling than the mere spirit of amusement--a sentiment of loyalty to
France, a warm enthusiasm for their country, drew them to the walls:
they wanted to see the defenders of Quebec, to show their sympathy and
smile approval upon them.
“Would to heaven I were a man,” exclaimed Louise de Brouague, “that I
might wield a sword, a spade, anything of use, to serve my country! I
shame to do nothing but talk, pray, and suffer for it, while every one
else is working or fighting.”
Poor girl! she did not foresee a day when the women of New France would
undergo trials compared with which the sword stroke that kills the
strong man is as the touch of mercy,--when the batteries of Wolfe would
for sixty-five days shower shot and shell upon Quebec, and the South
shore for a hundred miles together be blazing with the fires of
devastation. Such things were mercifully withheld from their foresight,
and the light-hearted girls went the round of the works as gaily as they
would have tripped in a ballroom.
The Chevalier des Meloises, passing through the Porte du Palais, was
hailed by two or three young officers of the Regiment of Béarn,
who invited him into the Guard House to take a glass of wine before
descending the steep hill. The Chevalier stopped willingly, and entered
the well-furnished quarters of the officers of the guard, where a cool
flask of Burgundy presently restored him to good humor with himself, and
consequently with the world.
“What is up to-day at the Palace?” asked Captain Monredin, a vivacious
Navarrois. “All the Gros Bonnets of the Grand Company have gone down
this afternoon! I suppose you are going too, Des Meloises?”
“Yes! They have sent for me, you see, on affairs of State--what
Penisault calls 'business.' Not a drop of wine on the board! Nothing but
books and papers, bills and shipments, money paid, money received! Doit
et avoir and all the cursed lingo of the Friponne! I damn the Friponne,
but bless her money! It pays, Monredin! It pays better than fur-trading
at a lonely outpost in the northwest.” The Chevalier jingled a handful
of coin in his pocket. The sound was a sedative to his disgust at the
idea of trade, and quite reconciled him to the Friponne.
“You are a lucky dog nevertheless, to be able to make it jingle!” said
Monredin, “not one of us Béarnois can play an accompaniment to your air
of money in both pockets. Here is our famous Regiment of Béarn, second
to none in the King's service, a whole year in arrears without pay! Gad!
I wish I could go into 'business,' as you call it, and woo that jolly
dame, La Friponne!
“For six months we have lived on trust. Those leeches of Jews, who call
themselves Christians, down in the Sault au Matelot, won't cash the best
orders in the regiment for less than forty per cent. discount!”
“That is true!” broke in another officer, whose rather rubicund face
told of credit somewhere, and the product of credit,--good wine and
good dinners generally. “That is true, Monredin! The old curmudgeon of a
broker at the corner of the Cul de Sac had the impudence to ask me
fifty per cent. discount upon my drafts on Bourdeaux! I agree with Des
Meloises there: business may be a good thing for those who handle it,
but devil touch their dirty fingers for me!”
“Don't condemn all of them, Emeric,” said Captain Poulariez, a quiet,
resolute-looking officer. “There is one merchant in the city who carries
the principles of a gentleman into the usages of commerce. The Bourgeois
Philibert gives cent. per cent. for good orders of the King's officers,
just to show his sympathy with the army and his love for France.”
“Well, I wish he were paymaster of the forces, that is all, and then I
could go to him if I wanted to,” replied Monredin.
“Why do you not go to him?” asked Poulariez.
“Why, for the same reason, I suppose, so many others of us do not,”
replied Monredin. “Colonel Dalquier endorses my orders, and he hates the
Bourgeois cordially, as a hot friend of the Intendant ought to do. So
you see I have to submit to be plucked of my best pen-feathers by that
old fesse-mathieu Penisault at the Friponne!”
“How many of yours have gone out to the great spread at Belmont?” asked
Des Meloises, quite weary of commercial topics.
“Par Dieu!” replied Monredin, “except the colonel and adjutant, who
stayed away on principle, I think every officer in the regiment, present
company excepted--who being on duty could not go, much to their chagrin.
Such a glorious crush of handsome girls has not been seen, they say,
since our regiment came to Quebec.”
“And not likely to have been seen before your distinguished arrival--eh,
Monredin?” ejaculated Des Meloises, holding his glass to be refilled.
“That is delicious Burgundy,” added he, “I did not think any one beside
the Intendant had wine like that.”
“That is some of La Martinière's cargo,” replied Poulariex. “It was kind
of him, was it not, to remember us poor Béarnois here on the wrong side
of the Atlantic?”
“And how earnestly we were praying for that same Burgundy,” ejaculated
Monredin, “when it came, as if dropped upon us by Providence! Health and
wealth to Captain La Martinière and the good frigate Fleur-de-Lis!”
Another round followed.
“They talk about those Jansenist convulsionnaires at the tomb of Master
Paris, which are setting all France by the ears,” exclaimed Monredin,
“but I say there is nothing so contagious as the drinking of a glass of
wine like that.”
“And the glass gives us convulsions too, Monredin, if we try it too
often, and no miracle about it either,” remarked Poulariez.
Monredin looked up, red and puffy, as if needing a bridle to check his
fast gait.
“But they say we are to have peace soon. Is that true, Des Meloises?”
asked Poulariez. “You ought to know what is under the cards before they
are played.”
“No, I don't know; and I hope the report is not true. Who wants peace
yet? It would ruin the King's friends in the Colony.” Des Meloises
looked as statesmanlike as he could when delivering this dictum.
“Ruin the King's friends! Who are they, Des Meloises?” asked Poulariez,
with a look of well-assumed surprise.
“Why, the associates of the Grand Company, to be sure! What other
friends has the King got in New France?”
“Really! I thought he had the Regiment of Béarn for a number of them--to
say nothing of the honest people of the Colony,” replied Poulariez,
impatiently.
“The Honnêtes Gens, you mean!” exclaimed Des Meloises. “Well, Poulariez,
all I have to say is that if this Colony is to be kept up for the sake
of a lot of shopkeepers, wood-choppers, cobblers, and farmers, the
sooner the King hands it over to the devil or the English the better!”
Poulariex looked indignant enough; but from the others a loud laugh
followed this sally.
The Chevalier des Meloises pulled out his watch. “I must be gone to
the Palace,” said he. “I dare say Cadet, Varin, and Penisault will have
balanced the ledgers by this time, and the Intendant, who is the devil
for business on such occasions, will have settled the dividends for the
quarter--the only part of the business I care about.”
“But don't you help them with the work a little?” asked Poulariez.
“Not I; I leave business to them that have a vocation for it. Besides,
I think Cadet, Vargin, and Penisault like to keep the inner ring of the
company to themselves.” He turned to Emeric: “I hope there will be a
good dividend to-night, Emeric,” said he. “I owe you some revenge at
piquet, do I not?”
“You capoted me last night at the Taverne de Menut, and I had three aces
and three kings.”
“But I had a quatorze, and took the fishes,” replied Des Meloises.
“Well, Chevalier, I shall win them back to-night. I hope the dividend
will be good: in that way I too may share in the 'business' of the Grand
Company.”
“Good-by, Chevalier; remember me to St. Blague!” (This was a familiar
sobriquet of Bigot.) “Tis the best name going. If I had an heir for the
old château on the Adour, I would christen him Bigot for luck.”
The Chevalier des Meloises left the officers and proceeded down the
steep road that led to the Palace. The gardens were quiet to-day--a few
loungers might be seen in the magnificent alleys, pleached walks, and
terraces; beyond these gardens, however, stretched the King's wharves
and the magazines of the Friponne. These fairly swarmed with men loading
and unloading ships and bateaux, and piling and unpiling goods.
The Chevalier glanced with disdain at the magazines, and flourishing his
cane, mounted leisurely the broad steps of the Palace, and was at once
admitted to the council-room.
“Better late than never, Chevalier des Meloises!” exclaimed Bigot,
carelessly glancing at him as he took a seat at the board, where sat
Cadet, Varin, Penisault, and the leading spirits of the Grand Company.
“You are in double luck to-day. The business is over, and Dame Friponne
has laid a golden egg worth a Jew's tooth for each partner of the
Company.”
The Chevalier did not notice, or did not care for, the slight touch of
sarcasm in the Intendant's tone. “Thanks, Bigot!” drawled he. “My eggs
shall be hatched to-night down at Menut's. I expect to have little more
left than the shell of it to-morrow.”
“Well, never mind! We have considered all that, Chevalier. What one
loses another gets. It is all in the family. Look here,” continued he,
laying his finger upon a page of the ledger that lay open before him,
“Mademoiselle Angélique des Meloises is now a shareholder in the Grand
Company. The list of high, fair, and noble ladies of the Court who are
members of the Company will be honored by the addition of the name of
your charming sister.”
The Chevalier's eyes sparkled with delight as he read Angélique's name
on the book. A handsome sum of five digits stood to her credit. He bowed
his thanks with many warm expressions of his sense of the honor done his
sister by “placing her name on the roll of the ladies of the Court who
honor the Company by accepting a share of its dividends.”
“I hope Mademoiselle des Meloises will not refuse this small mark of our
respect,” observed Bigot, feeling well assured she would not deem it a
small one.
“Little fear of that!” muttered Cadet, whose bad opinion of the sex was
incorrigible. “The game fowls of Versailles scratch jewels out of every
dung-hill, and Angélique des Meloises has longer claws than any of
them!”
Cadet's ill-natured remark was either unheard or unheeded; besides,
he was privileged to say anything. Des Meloises bowed with an air of
perfect complaisance to the Intendant as he answered,--“I guarantee the
perfect satisfaction of Angélique with this marked compliment of the
Grand Company. She will, I am sure, appreciate the kindness of the
Intendant as it deserves.”
Cadet and Varin exchanged smiles, not unnoticed by Bigot, who smiled
too. “Yes, Chevalier,” said he, “the Company gives this token of its
admiration for the fairest lady in New France. We have bestowed premiums
upon fine flax and fat cattle: why not upon beauty, grace, and wit
embodied in handsome women?”
“Angélique will be highly flattered, Chevalier,” replied he, “at the
distinction. She must thank you herself, as I am sure she will.”
“I am happy to try to deserve her thanks,” replied Bigot; and, not
caring to talk further on the subject,--“what news in the city this
afternoon, Chevalier?” asked he; “how does that affair at Belmont go
off?”
“Don't know. Half the city has gone, I think. At the Church door,
however, the talk among the merchants is that peace is going to be made
soon. Is it so very threatening, Bigot?”
“If the King wills it, it is.” Bigot spoke carelessly.
“But your own opinion, Chevalier Bigot; what think you of it?”
“Amen! amen! Quod fiat fiatur! Seigny John, the fool of Paris, could
enlighten you as well as I could as to what the women at Versailles may
decide to do,” replied Bigot in a tone of impatience.
“I fear peace will be made. What will you do in that case, Bigot?” asked
Des Meloises, not noticing Bigot's aversion to the topic.
“If the King makes it, invitus amabo! as the man said who married the
shrew.” Bigot laughed mockingly. “We must make the best of it, Des
Meloises! and let me tell you privately, I mean to make a good thing of
it for ourselves whichever way it turns.”
“But what will become of the Company should the war expenditure stop?”
The Chevalier was thinking of his dividend of five figures.
“Oh! you should have been here sooner, Des Meloises: you would have
heard our grand settlement of the question in every contingency of peace
or war.”
“Be sure of one thing,” continued Bigot, “the Grand Company will not,
like the eels of Melun, cry out before they are skinned. What says the
proverb, 'Mieux vaut êngin que force' (craft beats strength)? The Grand
Company must prosper as the first condition of life in New France.
Perhaps a year or two of repose may not be amiss, to revictual and
reinforce the Colony; and by that time we shall be ready to pick the
lock of Bellona's temple again and cry Vive la guerre! Vive la Grande
Compagnie! more merrily than ever!”
Bigot's far-reaching intellect forecast the course of events, which
remained so much subject to his own direction after the peace of Aix la
Chapelle--a peace which in America was never a peace at all, but only
an armed and troubled truce between the clashing interests and rival
ambitions of the French and English in the New World.
The meeting of the Board of Managers of the Grand Company broke up,
and--a circumstance that rarely happened--without the customary debauch.
Bigot, preoccupied with his own projects, which reached far beyond the
mere interests of the Company, retired to his couch. Cadet, Varin,
and Penisault, forming an interior circle of the Friponne, had certain
matters to shape for the Company's eye. The rings of corruption in the
Grand Company descended, narrower and more black and precipitous, down
to the bottom where Bigot sat, the Demiurgos of all.
The Chevalier des Meloises was rather proud of his sister's beauty and
cleverness, and in truth a little afraid of her. They lived together
harmoniously enough, so long as each allowed the other his or her
own way. Both took it, and followed their own pleasures, and were not
usually disagreeable to one another, except when Angélique commented on
what she called his penuriousness, and he upon her extravagance, in the
financial administration of the family of the Des Meloises.
The Chevalier was highly delighted to-day to be able to inform Angélique
of her good fortune in becoming a partner of the Friponne and that
too by grace of his Excellency the Intendant. The information filled
Angélique with delight, not only because it made her independent of her
brother's mismanagement of money, but it opened a door to her wildest
hopes. In that gift her ambition found a potent ally to enable her to
resist the appeal to her heart which she knew would be made to-night by
Le Gardeur de Repentigny.
The Chevalier des Meloises had no idea of his sister's own aims. He had
long nourished a foolish fancy that, if he had not obtained the hand of
the wealthy and beautiful heiress of Repentigny, it was because he had
not proposed. Something to-day had suggested the thought that unless he
did propose soon his chances would be nil, and another might secure the
prize which he had in his vain fancy set down as his own.
He hinted to Angélique to-day that he had almost resolved to marry, and
that his projected alliance with the noble and wealthy house of Tilly
could be easily accomplished if Angélique would only do her share, as a
sister ought, in securing her brother's fortune and happiness.
“How?” asked she, looking up savagely, for she knew well at what her
brother was driving.
“By your accepting Le Gardeur without more delay! All the city knows he
is mad in love, and would marry you any day you choose if you wore only
the hair on your head. He would ask no better fortune!”
“It is useless to advise me, Renaud!” said she, “and whether I take Le
Gardeur or no it would not help your chance with Amélie! I am sorry for
it, for Amélie is a prize, Renaud! but not for you at any price. Let
me tell you, that desirable young lady will become the bride of Pierre
Philibert, and the bride of no other man living.”
“You give one cold encouragement, sister! But I am sure, if you would
only marry Le Gardeur, you could easily, with your tact and cleverness,
induce Amélie to let me share the Tilly fortune. There are chests full
of gold in the old Manor House, and a crow could hardly fly in a day
over their broad lands!”
“Perfectly useless, brother! Amélie is not like most girls. She would
refuse the hand of a king for the sake of the man she loves, and she
loves Pierre Philibert to his finger-ends. She has married him in her
heart a thousand times. I hate paragons of women, and would scorn to
be one, but I tell you, brother, Amélie is a paragon of a girl, without
knowing it!”
“Hum, I never tried my hand on a paragon: I should like to do so,”
replied he, with a smile of decided confidence in his powers. “I fancy
they are just like other women when you can catch them with their armor
off.”
“Yes, but women like Amélie never lay off their armor! They seem born in
it, like Minerva. But your vanity will not let you believe me, Renaud!
So go try her, and tell me your luck! She won't scratch you, nor scold.
Amélie is a lady, and will talk to you like a queen. But she will give
you a polite reply to your proposal that will improve your opinions of
our sex.”
“You are mocking me, Angélique, as you always do! One never knows when
you are in jest or when in earnest. Even when you get angry, it is often
unreal and for a purpose! I want you to be serious for once. The fortune
of the Tillys and De Repentignys is the best in New France, and we can
make it ours if you will help me.”
“I am serious enough in wishing you those chests full of gold, and those
broad lands that a crow cannot fly over in a day; but I must forego my
share of them, and so must you yours, brother!” Angélique leaned back
in her chair, desiring to stop further discussion of a topic she did not
like to hear.
“Why must you forego your share of the De Repentigny fortune, Angélique?
You could call it your own any day you chose by giving your little
finger to Le Gardeur! you do really puzzle me.”
The Chevalier did look perplexed at his inscrutable sister, who only
smiled over the table at him, as she nonchalantly cracked nuts and
sipped her wine by drops.
“Of course I puzzle you, Renaud!” said she at last. “I am a puzzle to
myself sometimes. But you see there are so many men in the world,--poor
ones are so plenty, rich ones so scarce, and sensible ones hardly to be
found at all,--that a woman may be excused for selling herself to the
highest bidder. Love is a commodity only spoken of in romances or in the
patois of milkmaids now-a-days!”
“Zounds, Angélique! you would try the patience of all the saints in
the calendar! I shall pity the fellow you take in! Here is the
fairest fortune in the Colony about to fall into the hands of Pierre
Philibert--whom Satan confound for his assurance! A fortune which I
always regarded as my own!”
“It shows the folly and vanity of your sex! You never spoke a word to
Amélie de Repentigny in the way of wooing in your life! Girls like her
don't drop into men's arms just for the asking.”
“Pshaw! as if she would refuse me if you only acted a sister's part! But
you are impenetrable as a rock, and the whole of your fickle sex could
not match your vanity and caprice, Angélique.”
She rose quickly with a provoked air.
“You are getting so complimentary to my poor sex, Renaud,” said she,
“that I must really leave you to yourself, and I could scarcely leave
you in worse company.”
“You are so bitter and sarcastic upon one!” replied he, tartly; “my only
desire was to secure a good fortune for you, and another for myself.
I don't see, for my part, what women are made for, except to mar
everything a man wants to do for himself and for them!”
“Certainly everything should be done for us, brother; but I have no
defence to make for my sex, none! I dare say we women deserve all that
men think of us, but then it is impolite to tell us so to our faces.
Now, as I advised you, Renaud, I would counsel you to study gardening,
and you may one day arrive at as great distinction as the Marquis de
Vandriere--you may cultivate chou chou if you cannot raise a bride like
Amélie de Repentigny.”
Angélique knew her brother's genius was not penetrating, or she
would scarcely have ventured this broad allusion to the brother of La
Pompadour, who, by virtue of his relationship to the Court favorite,
had recently been created Director of the Royal Gardens. What fancy was
working in the brain of Angélique when she alluded to him may be only
surmised.
The Chevalier was indignant, however, at an implied comparison between
himself and the plebeian Marquis de Vandriere. He replied, with some
heat,--
“The Marquis de Vandriere! How dare you mention him and me together!
There's not an officer's mess in the army that receives the son of
the fishmonger! Why do you mention him, Angélique? You are a perfect
riddle!”
“I only thought something might happen, brother, if I should ever go to
Paris! I was acting a charade in my fancy, and that was the solution of
it!”
“What was? You would drive the whole Sorbonne mad with your charades and
fancies! But I must leave you.”
“Good-by, brother,--if you will go. Think of it!--if you want to rise
in the world you may yet become a royal gardener like the Marquis de
Vandriere!” Her silvery laugh rang out good-humoredly as he descended
the stairs and passed out of the house.
She sat down in her fauteuil. “Pity Renaud is such a fool!” said she;
“yet I am not sure but he is wiser in his folly than I with all my tact
and cleverness, which I suspect are going to make a greater fool of me
than ever he is!”
She leaned back in her chair in a deep thinking mood. “It is growing
dark,” murmured she. “Le Gardeur will assuredly be here soon, in spite
of all the attractions of Belmont. How to deal with him when he comes is
more than I know: he will renew his suit, I am sure.”
For a moment the heart of Angélique softened in her bosom. “Accept him
I must not!” said she; “affront him I will not! cease to love him is
out of my power as much as is my ability to love the Intendant, whom I
cordially detest, and shall marry all the same!” She pressed her hands
over her eyes, and sat silent for a few minutes. “But I am not sure of
it! That woman remains still at Beaumanoir! Will my scheming to remove
her be all in vain or no?” Angélique recollected with a shudder a
thought that had leaped in her bosom, like a young Satan, engendered of
evil desires. “I dare hardly look in the honest eyes of Le Gardeur after
nursing such a monstrous fancy as that,” said she; “but my fate is fixed
all the same. Le Gardeur will vainly try to undo this knot in my life,
but he must leave me to my own devices.” To what devices she left him
was a thought that sprang not up in her purely selfish nature.
In her perplexity Angélique tied knot upon knot hard as pebbles in her
handkerchief. Those knots of her destiny, as she regarded them, she left
untied, and they remain untied to this day--a memento of her character
and of those knots in her life which posterity has puzzled itself over
to no purpose to explain.