THE ARTIST AND THE POLITICIAN.
"Ah! it is you, Dubois," exclaimed the regent, as his minister entered.
"Yes, monseigneur," said Dubois, taking out some papers. "Well, what do
you say to our Bretons now?"
"What papers are those?" asked the regent, who, in spite of the
preceding day's conversation, or perhaps because of it, felt a secret
sympathy with De Chanlay.
"Oh, nothing at all, first a little report of what passed yesterday
evening between M. de Chanlay and his excellency the Duc d'Olivares."
"You listened, then?" said the regent.
"Pardieu, monseigneur, what did you expect that I should do?"
"And you heard?"
"All. What do you think of his Catholic majesty's pretensions?"
"I think that perhaps they use his name without his consent."
"And Cardinal Alberoni? Tudieu! monseigneur, how nicely they manage
Europe: the pretender in England; Prussia, Sweden, and Russia tearing
Holland to pieces; the empire recovering Sicily and Naples; the grand
duchy of Tuscany for Philip the Fifth's son; Sardinia for the king of
Savoy; Commanchio for the pope; France for Spain; really, this plan is
somewhat grand, to emanate from the brain of a bell-ringer."
"All smoke! these prospects," said the duke; "mere dreams."
"And the Breton league, is that all smoke?"
"I am forced to own that that really exists."
"And the dagger of our conspirator; is that a dream?"
"No; it even appeared to me likely to be vigorously handled."
"Peste! monseigneur, you complained in the other plot that you found
none but rose-water conspirators. Well, this time I hope you are better
pleased. These fellows strike hard."
"Do you know," said the regent, thoughtfully, "that the Chevalier de
Chanlay is of an energetic and vigorous nature."
"Ah, the next thing will be, you will conceive a great admiration for
this fellow. I know, monseigneur, that you are capable of it."
"How is it that a prince always finds such natures among his enemies,
and not among friends?"
"Because, monseigneur, hatred is a passion, and devotion often only a
weakness; but if you will descend from the height of philosophy and
deign to a simple act, namely, to give me two signatures--"
"What signatures?" asked the regent.
"First, there is a captain to be made a major."
"Captain la Jonquiere?"
"Oh, no; as to him, we'll hang him when we have done with him; but
meanwhile, we must treat him with care."
"Who, then, is this captain?"
"A brave officer whom monseigneur eight days, or rather eight nights
ago, met in a house in the Rue St. Honore."
"What do you mean?"
"Ah, I see I must aid your memory a little, monseigneur, since you have
such a bad one."
"Speak, one can never get at the truth with you."
"In two words, eight nights ago you went out disguised as a musketeer
through the little door in the Rue Richelieu, accompanied by Noce and
Simiane."
"It is true; what passed in the Rue St. Honore?"
"Do you wish to know, monseigneur?"
"I do."
"I can refuse you nothing."
"Speak, then."
"You supped at the house--that house, monseigneur."
"Still with Noce and Simiane?"
"No, monseigneur, tete-a-tete. Noce and Simiane supped too, but
separately. You supped, then, and were at table, when a brave officer,
who probably mistook the door, knocked so obstinately at yours, that you
became impatient, and handled the unfortunate who disturbed you somewhat
roughly, but he, who, it seems, was not of an enduring nature, took out
his sword, whereupon you, monseigneur, who never look twice before
committing a folly, drew your rapier and tried your skill with the
officer."
"And the result?" asked the regent.
"Was, that you got a scratch on the shoulder, in return for which you
bestowed on your adversary a sword-thrust in the breast."
"But it was not dangerous?" asked the regent, anxiously.
"No; fortunately the blade glided along the ribs."
"So much the better."
"But that is not all."
"How?"
"It appears that you owed the officer a special grudge."
"I had never seen him."
"Princes strike from a distance."
"What do you mean?"
"This officer had been a captain for eight years, when, on your
highness's coming into power, he was dismissed."
"Then I suppose he deserved it."
"Ah, monseigneur, you would make us out as infallible as the pope!"
"He must have committed some cowardly act."
"He is one of the bravest officers in the service."
"Some infamous act then?"
"He is the most honest fellow breathing."
"Then this is an injustice to be repaired."
"Exactly; and that is why I prepared this major's brevet."
"Give it to me, Dubois, you have some good in you sometimes."
A diabolical smile passed over Dubois's face as he drew from his
portfolio a second paper.
The regent watched him uneasily.
"What is that paper?" asked he.
"Monseigneur, you have repaired an act of injustice, now do an act of
justice."
"The order to arrest the Chevalier Gaston de Chanlay, and place him in
the Bastille," cried the regent. "Ah! I see now why you bribed me with a
good action; but stay, this requires reflection."
"Do you think I propose to you an abuse of power, monseigneur?" asked
Dubois, laughing.
"No, but yet--"
"Monseigneur," continued Dubois, "when we have in our hands the
government of a kingdom, the thing most necessary is, to govern."
"But it seems to me that I am the master."
"To reward, yes; but on condition of punishing--the balance of justice
is destroyed, monseigneur, if an eternal and blind mercy weighs down one
of the scales. To act as you always wish, and often do, is not good, but
weak. What is the reward of virtue, if you do not punish vice?"
"Then," said the regent, the more impatiently that he felt he was
defending a bad though generous cause, "if you wished me to be severe,
you should not have brought about an interview between me and this young
man; you should not have given me the opportunity of appreciating his
worth, but have allowed me to suppose him a common conspirator."
"Yes; and now, because he presented himself to your highness under a
romantic guise, your artistic imagination runs away with you. Diable!
monseigneur, there is a time for everything; so chemistry with Hubert,
engraving with Audran, music with Lafare, make love with the whole
world--but politics with me."
"Mon Dieu!" said the regent, "is it worth while to defend a life,
watched, tortured, calumniated as mine is?"
"But it is not your life you are defending, monseigneur; consider, among
all these calumnies which pursue you, and against which Heaven knows you
should be steeled by this time; your most bitter enemies have never
accused you of cowardice--as to your life, at Steinkirk, at Nerwinden,
and at Lerida, you proved at what rate you valued it. Pardieu! if you
were merely a private gentleman, a minister, or a prince of the blood,
and you were assassinated, a man's heart would cease to beat, and that
would be all; but wrongly or rightly, you coveted a place among the
powerful ones of the world; for that end you broke the will of Louis the
Fourteenth, you drove the bastards from the throne whereon they had
already placed their feet, you made yourself regent of France--that is
to say, the keystone of the arch of the world. If you die, it is not a
man who falls, it is the pillar which supports the European edifice
which gives way; thus our four last years of watchfulness and struggles
would be lost, and everything around would be shaken. Look at England;
the Chevalier de Saint George will renew the mad enterprises of the
pretender; look at Holland---Russia, Sweden, and Prussia would hunt her
to the death; look at Austria--her two-headed eagle seizes Venice and
Milan, as an indemnification for the loss of Spain; cast your eyes on
France--no longer France, but Philip the Fifth's vassal; look, finally,
at Louis the Fifteenth, the last descendant of the greatest monarch that
ever gave light to the world, and the child whom by watchfulness and
care we have saved from the fate of his father, his mother, and his
uncles, to place him safe and sound on the throne of his ancestors; this
child falls back again into the hands of those whom an adulterous law
boldly calls to succeed him; thus, on all sides, murder, desolation,
ruin, civil and foreign wars. And why? because it pleases Monsieur
Philippe d'Orleans to think himself still major of the king's troops, or
commandant of the army in Spain, and to forget that he ceased to be so
from the moment he became regent of France."
"You _will_ have it, then," said the duke.
"Stay, monseigneur," said Dubois, "it shall not be said that in an
affair of this importance you gave way to my importunity. I have said
what I had to say, now I leave you--do as you please. I leave you the
paper; I am going to give some orders, and in a quarter of an hour I
will return to fetch it."
And Dubois saluted the regent and went out.
Left alone, the regent became thoughtful--this whole affair, so somber
and so tenacious of life, this remains of the former conspiracy, filled
the duke's mind with gloomy thoughts; he had braved death in battle, had
laughed at abductions meditated by the Spaniards and by Louis the
Fourteenth's bastards; but this time a secret horror oppressed him; he
felt an involuntary admiration for the young man whose poniard was
raised against him; sometimes he hated him, at others he excused--he
almost loved him. Dubois, cowering down over this conspiracy like an
infernal ape over some dying prey, and piercing with his ravenous claws
to its very heart, seemed to him to possess a sublime intelligence and
power; he felt that he, ordinarily so courageous, should have defended
his life feebly in this instance, and his eyes involuntarily sought the
paper.
"Yes," murmured he, "Dubois is right, my life is no longer my own;
yesterday, my mother also told me the same thing. Who knows what might
happen if I were to fall? The same as happened at the death of my
ancestor Henry the Fourth, perchance. After having reconquered his
kingdom step by step, he was about--thanks to ten years of peace,
economy, and prosperity--to add Alsace, Lorraine, and perhaps Flanders,
to France, while the Duke of Savoy, his son-in-law, descending the Alps,
should cut out for himself a kingdom in the Milanais, and with the
leavings of that kingdom enrich the kingdom of Venice and strengthen the
dukes of Modena, Florence, and Mantua; everything was ready for the
immense result, prepared during the whole life of a king who was at once
a legislator and a soldier; then the 13th of May arrived; a carriage
with the royal livery passed the Rue de la Feronniere, and the clock of
Les Innocents struck three. In a moment all was destroyed; past
prosperity, hopes of the future; it needed a whole century, a minister
called Richelieu and a king called Louis the Fourteenth, to cicatrize
the wound made in France by Ravaillac's knife. Yes, Dubois was right,"
cried the duke, "and I must abandon this young man to human justice;
besides, it is not I who condemn him; the judges are there to decide;
and," added he, with animation, "have I not still the power to pardon."
And quieted by the thought of this royal prerogative, which he exercised
in the name of Louis XV., he signed the paper, and left the room to
finish dressing.
Ten minutes after the door opened softly, Dubois carefully looked in,
saw that the room was empty, approached the table near which the prince
had been seated, looked rapidly at the order, smiled on seeing the
signature, and folding it in four, placed it in his pocket, and left the
room with an air of great satisfaction.