LOUIS THE THIRTEENTH.
Leaving me in some danger of suffocation, and to my own reflections,
among which the warnings of the Marquis de Gordon occupied a
prominent place, the fair Countess had just time to conceal the key
of the cabinet in her bosom, when the arras rose and fell, and Louis
XIII. stood before her, with his broad plumed hat under his left arm,
and wearing a short velvet cloak and long silver-hilted sword,
tilting it up behind him as he continued to bow and advance with a
mincing jaunty step, and ended by kissing the hand of the Countess
thrice. At his neck hung the plain gold cross usually worn by him
when he officiated as one of the twenty canons of the cathedral
church of Ambrun--a solemn farce.
Louis the Just--so named because in an age which was still infected
by the poisonings and astrologies of the infamous Catherine de
Medicis, he had been born under the sign of the Zodiac, called
_Libra_, or the Balance--was not of a very amorous nature; but being
left almost entirely alone even amid the splendour of his court, and
being coldly treated by Anne of Austria his queen, who, like all the
great people of Paris, followed in the retinue of the formidable
Cardinal Richelieu, his minister and, scandal added, her lover, he
had but two or three domestics whom he loved and trusted; and who,
besides the huntsmen and hounds, were his chief favourites and
companions. Among these was particularly Boizenval, his valet de
chambre, who usually bore his presents and love letters to Clara, but
whom he banished in 1637, for delivering all his tender billets
doux--especially those addressed to the fair and unfortunate
Fayette--_first_ to the tyrannical, prying and overweening Cardinal
premier, to whose care, as well as to that of 'our blessed Lady,'
Louis boasted he had consigned his crown and kingdom, and so troubled
himself no more about them, believing like his successor, that 'they
would last _his_ time.'
Gallantry had been gradually resolving itself into a grand system
during his reign. The brilliant assemblies and gay circles by which
Francis I., of magnificent memory, had encouraged the polished
intercourse of his court; the gross sensuality which had been
introduced by the wicked and Machiavelian Catherine de Medicis, whose
fair dames of honour lured to death their Huguenot lovers; when
'murders were hatched in the arms of love, and massacre was planned
in the cabinet of pleasure;' with the shameless libertinism of Henry
IV., were all united now to the serious gallantry which Anne of
Austria had brought with her from Spain; and thus under Louis
XIII.--though he was very little of a gallant himself--love, in his
good city of Paris, became a science like astrology, and was analysed
like metaphysics; and thus, as I have said, it was formed into a
system, which rendered it the serious occupation of every one, and
the way was easily prepared for that more absurd state of things
which we find under the Grand Monarque his successor, when affairs of
state were debated, and solemn councils of war held, round a
courtesan lounging on a sofa, or in a pretty woman's bedroom; and
when a revolution in the heart of a great man's mistress was an event
of nearly as much consequence as a war on the Rhine, or an invasion
of Flanders. But to resume--
'What the deuce is this I hear now, ma belle?' said the King, as he
seated himself just where I had sat a moment before; 'here is the
_Mercure Francois_ publicly affirming--for M. Richelieu never tells
me anything--that Mademoiselle Marie Louise of Lorraine--Duke
Charles' daughter--is now in Paris, with her brother the Prince of
Vaudemont, suborning my officers. 'Tis a serious thing to assert!'
''Tis impossible, sire!' exclaimed the Countess, changing colour very
visibly; 'and that is more than improbable.'
'Nothing is impossible to those accursed Lorraines.'
'Your Majesty forgets that I am of Lorraine,' said the Countess with
considerable hauteur.
'Nay, pardon me; but I had hoped you had been long enough in Paris to
forget that wicked province.'
'Lorraine is an independent duchy, sire.'
'_Was_ you mean, madame, till Henry II., in 1552, reduced it to
obedience under the oriflamme, and left there a garrison which cost
Charles V. some trouble, and thirty thousand of the best soldiers in
Spain too! Moreover Metz, Toul, and Verdun were all confirmed to
France by the treaty of Château Cambresis in '59.
'Your Majesty is excessively tiresome.'
'I regret to hear it; but how is this, sweetheart,' said Louis,
knitting his brows as he surveyed the glittering dress of the lovely
Countess; 'will nothing content you but a robe of blue, powdered with
fleurs-de-lis?'
'It becomes me, sire, does it not?'
'Who alone are permitted to wear such?'
'Princesses of the blood royal; but am not I the life of your heart?'
'Under Henry IV., even the Duchess de Vendosme dared not have worn
these, after she was publicly affronted by the Count de Soissons for
doing so.'
'Henry IV. was a bear who should never have left the woods of the
Lower Pyrenees. Your Majesty is in a horrible humour this morning;
but here is luncheon, and there are chessmen--which do you prefer to
me?'
'Neither, sweetheart, yet I will have you all; luncheon now, chess
after, and you all the while.'
With these words the capricious King sat down to table, and was
assisted to various niceties by the white hands of the Countess, with
whom he afterwards sat down to chess, of which he was so passionately
fond that he played it in his carriage, where the men were pegs
inserted into holes in the squares of a perforated board, so that the
motion could not displace them.
'Ah, Countess,' he mumbled as the game began, 'you have the most
adorable hands heaven ever formed!'
'Yet they are the hands of a Lorrainer.'
'Have you ever seen this Marie Louise, of whom all men talk?'
'No;' replied the Countess, coldly; 'but why, sire?'
'Because we are told that she is full of the most dangerous beauty,
united to the sweetest sensibility.'
'Ah; she is cunning perhaps, and is one of those who rule by tender
glances, tears and sighs, or by an affectation of enthusiasm she
never feels. I have known many women of this kind.'
'You are piqued, my dear Countess--she is a mere girl--a child.'
'So is the Duchess de Montbazon--yet she has had eight lovers.'
'You are severe, Clara; Madame de Montbazon is the wife of a peer of
France.'
'I care not--for every lover she has, I could easily reckon ten, were
I not devoted to your Majesty.'
'Thank you--but you forget your game.'
'Ah! sire--a woman forgets the universe itself, when he whom she
truly loves is present.'
'Thou flatterest me, Clara,' said the poor silly King, trembling with
pleasure, and in turn playing the deuce with his game.
'And now I have two or three pretty little requests to make.'
'Peste! I thought so. Did not the jewels I sent by M. Boizenval
satisfy you?'
'Oh! sire, my letter of thanks expressed all I felt--but you mean not
to grudge them to your Clara?'
'No--no!--and this request--'
'Monseigneur--(I did not catch the name) departed to the company of
the saints yesterday, and has left a fine estate, the baton of a
marshal of France, the cross of Saint Esprit, and a regiment of
dragoons behind him.'
'Well,' said the King, wincing, and making a grimace; ''tis fortunate
that he could not take them all to heaven with him, as I wanted them
sorely.'
'So do I--the baton for Colonel Hepburn, the Scot, who dresses so
magnificently--the cross, and the colonelcy of horse, I leave to your
Majesty.
'Thank you, madame, you are exceedingly liberal; Hepburn, shall have
his baton, I promise you; but not until he has marched into Lorraine.'
'Sire, the cross of the Holy Ghost, vacant by the execution of the
Duke de Montmorenci, Campmaster of the regiment de Normandie, is not
yet filled up.'
'Well?'
'I wish it, if you love me,' said the Countess, starting from the
table, and throwing her arms round Louis.
'What--Countess, you with a cross of my first order?'
'Marion de l'Orme got one of St. Sepulchre, from the Cardinal, for
her lover Senecterre.'
'And for whom do _you_ wish it?' asked the King, suspiciously.
'For no lover, but a friend who will give me a thousand crowns for
it--Raynold Cheyne of the Scottish Guard.'
'The cross worn by a peer and marshal of France, the descendant of
four constables, one whose patent dates, like our Scottish League,
from Charles the Great, for a private gentleman of our guard?
Peste!--well, well, 'tis yours, Clara.'
'Thanks, sire,' said she, kissing him.
'Ha! what noise is that in the cabinet?--see, your dog snarls as if
some one--'
''Tis mice, only mice, sire; but here are pen and ink; please to
confirm these gifts; I deserve them, since I have been able to
anticipate my enemy, the Cardinal.'
The King confirmed them by a line or two, which he handed to the
Countess, saying,
'There is no man in all the Scottish Guard, I value more than Raynold
Cheyne, or would trust more--'
'With anything, but a pretty girl, sire.'
'True, Madame de Bouillon has quite spoiled him; but favours to our
soldiers are not thrown away at present; we have this day decided on
the war with Lorraine.'
Through a chink in the old cabinet, I could perceive the Countess
start with visible emotion at these words, and as she gave a furtive
glance towards a part of the arras, I thought that a fair face, and a
tress of golden hair were visible for a moment, as if some one was
listening.
'Would not your Majesty rather send an envoy to the Duke, and seek to
arbitrate this matter?'
'Countess, Richelieu means to send two envoys.'
'He does, sire!'
'Yes--the Cardinal Duke de Lavalette, and your friend the
Camp-Marechal Hepburn.'
'How--'
'With fifty thousand men.'
'Alas! my poor native province!'
'Such is our resolve.'
'And which way do they march?'
'By the road direct for the frontier, and Elsace Zaberne.'
Another glance, and most palpable nod of intelligence were exchanged
between the Countess and the eavesdropper, whom I suspected to be her
attendant.
'If this Duke of Lorraine had four heads, by the bones of St. Louis,
I would spike them all on the gate of St. Marcel, beside that of the
traitor Guy de Beaumanoir!'
'Before that happens, I fear me, that the little Dauphin will have
been hailed as Louis XIV.'
'Indeed, Countess!' said the King, with a sardonic grimace.
'Yes, sire, and you will be on your way to St. Denis, borne by the
twenty-four Scots of the Garde du Corps.'
'Perhaps so,' said the easy King; 'but mort de tout les diables! let
us have no more of politics, for I love to avoid them, and to come
here when I am weary of display. The parade and routine of royalty
are veritable slavery. Do you remember that fool the Prince of Condé
entering Paris in 1616 with no less than fifteen hundred nobles and
chevaliers and a thousand partizans in his train, and how he alarmed
our royal mother, Mary de Medicis, who thought he had come to sack
the city? By-the-by, in that year she had just finished the Hotel de
Gondi to the tune of forty thousand crowns.'
'Sire, you forget that in 1616 I was but a girl,' said the Countess,
pouting again.
'Four o'clock,' said the King, rising, as the hall-clock of the
château struck in the turret of the quadrangle; 'and I promised to
meet the grand huntsman and grand falconer at Versailles this evening
about some little improvements I am making in the kennels and
falconry. Fortunately, M. Richelieu does not interfere with _them_.
I must go.'
'So soon, sire!'
'But you will accompany me, Countess, I hope.'
'If your Majesty would excuse me--'
She paused, for the pettish Louis knit his brow.
'Countess!'--he began impressively.
'This morning I was so unwell, and slept so little--'
''Tis the mice in this old château, Countess,' said the King,
glancing round him suspiciously; 'and this old cabinet--some of M. le
Duc de Sully's furniture,' he added, giving it a knock that made my
heart to leap, 'seems a very receptacle for them. We must have it
broken and burned!'
The Countess was terrified.
'I will go, sire,' she faltered.
'Thanks, dear Clara; your hand.'
He led her out with his jaunty step again, and they retired.
I heard the wheels of the royal carriage in the avenue a moment
after, and then the hoofs of the musketeer escort. As these sounds
died away, my heart sank within me, for I was locked in the cabinet,
and its key was in the bosom of the Countess, who might return to
release me heaven alone knew when!