"PUT NOT THY TRUST IN PRINCES."
Madame de Noailles rises to receive the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and
kisses her with effusion, but is startled at the sight of her blanched
face and despondent air. She is plainly dressed in a dark travelling
costume, bows to the Duchesse de Sennécy and to the other ladies, and
sinks down on a couch.
"Good heavens! what is the matter?" asks Madame de Noailles, with
intense curiosity, taking her by the hand; "you are strangely altered
since I left the palace a few hours since."
The Duchesse de Chevreuse glances at the circle of ladies, the
"nineteen bosom friends," whose eyes are riveted upon her as if to read
her thoughts. The red-nosed Countess in particular has advanced close
to her, in order not to lose a syllable; her mouth is wide open, to
assist her ears in listening.
"I have come on private business of some importance to myself, dear
Duchess," says Madame de Chevreuse, speaking under her breath. "I did
not know that you received this evening. It is unfortunate."
Madame de Noailles, who is dying to hear what she has to say, looks at
her guests with an unmistakable expression. The Duchesse de Sennécy
rises at once.
"Allow me to wish you good evening, my dear friend," says she, and
departs. The red-nosed Countess is forced to rise and follow her
example, how much against her will it is plain to see; the other
ladies retire with her.
Madame de Noailles and the Duchesse de Chevreuse are now alone. Madame
de Chevreuse heaves a profound sigh; a tear rolls down her cheek,
out of which the dimples are faded. Her thin lips are white, and she
shivers.
"Tell me, Duchess, what misfortune has happened?" asks Madame de
Noailles, taking her hand.
"A misfortune, yes, for I love her—I love her dearly. I have devoted my
life to serve her; without me she would not now be Regent of France."
Madame de Chevreuse speaks in broken sentences; her looks are wild; her
mind seems to wander; her large prominent eyes are fixed on vacancy.
"Duchess, for God's sake rouse yourself. What has happened? Is it the
Queen?" And Madame de Noailles wrings the hand of her friend to rouse
her.
"Yes—it is the Queen," replies Madame de Chevreuse slowly, becoming
more conscious, and gazing at her. "Her Majesty has dismissed me. I am
on my way to Tours—exiled."
"Gracious heaven!" exclaims Madame de Noailles; "what ingratitude!"
"Duchess, I thank you for your sympathy; but, I beseech you, say not
one word against my beloved mistress. When I entered this room it
seemed to me that sorrow had made me mad—my brain was on fire. I am
better now, and calmer. My royal mistress may live to want me, as she
has so often done before. She may recall me. At Court—in exile—absent
or present, I am her humble and devoted slave."
"She will want no one as long as she has Mazarin," says the Duchess,
with a sneer.
"So I fear," returns Madame de Chevreuse.
"But what has happened since I left the palace?" again eagerly asks
Madame de Noailles.
"I will tell you. I have never been the same to her Majesty since the
old days, when I was banished, after the Val de Grâce, by Richelieu.
She received me well after I returned, when she was Regent; but I
have loved her too devotedly not to feel the difference. While, on my
side, the long years that I had spent flying over Europe to escape the
machinations of the Cardinal, had only made me more devoted to her, the
Queen—who formerly trusted me with every thought—had grown serious,
reserved, and ascetic. I am pious enough myself,"—and a gleam of fun
passes into her weary face, and causes her eyes to sparkle,—"I never
eat meat in Lent, and always confess at Easter. But her Majesty has
become a bigot. She was always reproving me, too, for those little
_agaceries_ (vanities she called them) which no one lives without.
'My age,' she said, 'forbade them.' Now I only own to forty, Duchess;
that is not an age to go into a convent, and to think of nothing but
my soul. Why should I not enjoy myself a little yet?" And her large
eyes find their way to a mirror opposite, and dwell on it with evident
complacency.
"But the Queen reproaches everybody," returns Madame de Noailles.
"Conceive—she reprimanded me for wearing a dress too _décolleté_."
Madame de Chevreuse smiles faintly; for it was indeed true that the
older Madame de Noailles grew, the lower her dresses were cut.
"People who hated me made the Queen believe," continues Madame de
Chevreuse, "that I wanted to govern her—to use her patronage. If it
were so, I should have done it long ago. It was the Princesse de
Condé who told the Queen so; she hates me. When I assured her Majesty
that it was false, she seemed to believe me. Then came the affair of
Madame de Montbazon and the letters found in her room, one of which
she said was written by the Duchesse de Longueville, the daughter of
my enemy, the Princesse de Condé. How could I help what my stepmother
said?—she is a spoilt beauty, and very injudicious—but her Majesty
blamed me, nevertheless. I implored her to forgive my stepmother;
and for this purpose, I offered her Majesty yesterday a collation in
those fine gardens, kept by Regnard, beyond the chestnut avenue of the
Tuileries—you know these gardens, Duchess?"
"I do," replies Madame de Noailles.
"Her Majesty had often wished to go there. I asked my stepmother to be
present, in the full belief that the Queen's kind heart would relent
when she saw her, and that she would restore her to favour. Alas! I
was mistaken. I do not know the Queen now, she is so changed. She came
accompanied by the Princesse de Condé. No sooner had she set eyes on
Madame de Montbazon, who was conversing with me, than the Queen gave me
a furious glance, called the Princesse de Condé to her side, and bid
her command the attendance of her pages; then, without another word,
her Majesty turned her back on me, entered her coach, and departed."
"Heavens!" exclaims Madame de Noailles, turning up her eyes, "no one
is safe, unless they are allies of Cardinal Mazarin."
"An hour afterwards,"—and the Duchesse de Chevreuse raises her
handkerchief to her eyes,—"I received an order to quit Paris for Tours.
Alas, I have not deserved it!"
"It is the Cardinal," cries Madame de Noailles. "He will drive out all
her old friends; they are inconvenient——"
While she speaks the door opens, and Mademoiselle de Hautefort enters
the saloon, unannounced. She is bathed in tears; her eyes are swollen
with excessive weeping; she cannot repress her sobs. The two ladies
rise, and endeavour to sooth her; but her passionate sorrow is not to
be appeased. For some time she cannot utter a word. Madame de Chevreuse
hung over her affectionately.
"Dearest friend," she says, kissing her, "I guess what has happened.
You are exiled; so am I. Come with me into Touraine; let us comfort
each other until better days."
"Oh, speak not to me of better days," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort.
"They can never come to me. My dear, dear mistress, you have broken my
heart!" and she bursts into a fresh passion of tears.
The Duchesse de Chevreuse sits down beside her and chafes her hand.
Madame de Noailles, who sees in the departure of these two ladies a
chance of greater promotion and increased confidence for herself, forms
her countenance into an expression of concern she does not in the least
feel.
"My dear friend," says Madame de Chevreuse, endeavouring to calm
the agony of grief which shook the whole frame of Mademoiselle de
Hautefort, "let us share our sorrow."
"The Queen must think herself rich in friends, to cast away such
devoted servants," observes Madame de Noailles sententiously,
contemplating the group through her eye-glass. "Do speak, Mademoiselle
de Hautefort."
She had gradually become more collected, and her violent sobs had
ceased; but now and then her bosom heaves, as bitter recollections of
the past float through her mind.
"Speak," whispers the Duchesse de Chevreuse in her softest voice, "it
will relieve you. In what manner did our royal mistress dismiss you?"
"Late last evening," answers Mademoiselle de Hautefort, in a tremulous
voice, stopping every now and then to sigh, and to wipe the tears
that streamed from her eyes. "Mademoiselle de Motteville and I
were assisting the Queen at her _coucher_. As is our habit we were
conversing familiarly with her. The Queen was undressed, and just
preparing to get into bed. She had only her last prayer to say, for
she lives on prayer, like a true saint." Madame de Noailles draws down
the corners of her mouth and scarcely endeavours to hide her derision.
Even the Duchesse de Chevreuse smiles. "Mademoiselle de Motteville and
her sister the Comtesse de Jars, and Mademoiselle de Beaumont, had
just left the anteroom from whence they had been speaking with the
Queen. I was on my knees before her taking off her shoes. All at once
I remembered that a gentleman, who attends upon the ladies in waiting,
called Nédo, a Breton—you know him, Duchess?"—Madame de Chevreuse
answered that she did,—"had asked me to obtain a better appointment for
him." Mademoiselle de Hautefort pauses. The scene seems to rise before
her, and a fresh fit of violent sobbing prevents her from speaking.
"Alas!" she exclaims at last, "why—why did I presume to trouble her
Majesty for such a trifle? A stranger to me, too! I have lost what was
dearer to me than life—herself. She refused me," continues Mademoiselle
de Hautefort, "I was nettled. Oh, Duchess," says she, turning to Madame
de Chevreuse, "how often have you borne my hasty temper! How I reproach
myself now! That temper has ruined—undone me!"
"What would Monsieur le Maréchal de Schomberg say if he heard you?"
asks Madame de Noailles slily.
"Do not name him to me," cries Mademoiselle de Hautefort impatiently.
"Schomberg is nothing to me in comparison with the Queen. Had I
remained with her, I could never, never have married!"
"Well, you will now," and the Duchess laughs. "But what happened? Do go
on."
"Alas! I lost my temper. I was irritated at her Majesty refusing me
so small a favour. I told her she had forgotten the claims of her old
friends, who had suffered so much in her service."
"That was wrong, ungenerous," interposes Madame de Chevreuse. "A favour
ceases to be a favour, if it be made a subject of reproach; besides——"
"Ah! I know it too well!" and Mademoiselle de Hautefort almost
groans with anguish; "and it is that which breaks my heart; it is my
own fault. The Queen, in one moment, became more excited than I had
ever seen her. Her face turned crimson, she threw herself on her bed,
commanded me to close the curtains, and to retire. I disobeyed her.
I could not help it. I cast myself on the ground within the _ruelle_
of her bed. I clasped my hands. I told her I called God to witness of
my love, my devotion to her. I implored her to recall the past, to
remember his Majesty Louis XIII."
"Ah! you were very wrong," exclaims Madame de Chevreuse; "most
impolitic, most undutiful. You have a good heart, mademoiselle, but you
are too impulsive."
"It is true," answers Mademoiselle de Hautefort, humbly. "Her Majesty
grew more and more displeased, she said that she must have me know she
would allow no one about her who did not love and respect her; then she
went on to say that I had made observations upon her valued servant,
Cardinal Mazarin, which were very displeasing to her. I replied too
hastily that it was my care for her honour that had made me do so; that
reports were circulating injurious to her, and that I longed to see the
departure of a minister whose presence compromised her."
"What imprudence!" cries Madame de Chevreuse, lifting up her hands.
"How could you dare to say this?"
"It is quite true, however," rejoins Madame de Noailles, "and it was
the part of a true friend to tell her."
"Would to God I had been silent!" continues Mademoiselle de Hautefort;
"no sooner were the words out of my mouth than the Queen sternly
ordered me to extinguish the lights and to withdraw. I rose from my
knees more dead than alive and departed. When I awoke this morning I
received an order commanding me not to approach within forty miles of
the Court. Oh, it is dreadful!"
"Come with me into Touraine, my carriage waits below. We will stop
at your lodgings in order to give your people time to pack. Come,
dear friend, we have lived side by side among the splendours of the
court, we have suffered persecution for the same mistress, we love her
devotedly, spite of all injuries. Let us now comfort each other in
exile."
Mademoiselle de Hautefort casts herself into the arms of the Duchess.
"You will not keep her long," observes Madame de Noailles, with a
smile, "we shall soon see her back at Court, as Madame la Marèchale de
Schomberg, more blooming than ever."
"No, no," sobs Mademoiselle de Hautefort. "Never!"
"Adieu, Madame," says the Duchesse de Chevreuse, saluting Madame de
Noailles, and taking Mademoiselle de Hautefort by the hand. "Excuse our
abrupt departure, but the sooner we quit Paris the better. My friend
and I would desire in all things to obey her Majesty's pleasure. Let
us hope to meet in happier days. _Ma chère_," adds she more gaily,
addressing the maid of honour, "we shall not die of _ennui_ at my
château."
[Illustration: DUCHESSE DE CHEVREUSE.]
Mademoiselle de Hautefort only replies with sobs. The idea of departing
overcame her.
"Some gentlemen of our acquaintance will attend us."
"How like the Duchess! She cannot exist without lovers," mutters Madame
de Noailles, to herself. Meanwhile she attended the two ladies to the
head of the staircase, with great apparent affection, kissing them on
both cheeks. She watched their departure from a window and waved her
hand to them, affecting to weep.
"What a relief they are gone!" she exclaims, taking out her watch. "_Ma
foi_, how long they have stayed! It is time for me to dress for the
Queen's circle. Now they are gone, there is no one in my way at Court.
I am sure of favour—perhaps of confidence. Her Majesty must unbosom
herself to some one; why not to me? In half an hour I must be at the
palace," and she rang and ordered her coach.
The Duchesse de Chevreuse was never again called to the side of Anne of
Austria. Her hatred of Cardinal Mazarin forbade it. She became one of
the principal leaders of that "Ladies' Battle," the Fronde.
Nor was Mademoiselle de Hautefort ever forgiven her bluntness on the
Queen's very equivocal behaviour. As Marèchale de Schomberg, however,
she reappeared at Court, but found Anne of Austria lost to her for ever.
The Duchesse de Noailles wore dresses cut in accordance with her
Majesty's taste. Although she never became the Queen's confidante, for
many years she held a high station at Court.