Old Court Life in France, Volume II (of 2). Elliot Frances Minto Dickinson

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СКАЧАТЬ her duty. Once more she kissed the crumpled leaves over which her fingers had so often passed; she deluged them with her tears. Then she lit a taper and set fire to the whole.

      She sat immovable before the burning fragments; her eyes fixed, her hands clasped. As the flame rose, glistened, and then melted away into light particles of dust that the morning air, blowing in from the open window, bore away fluttering in the breeze, she seemed to look upon the death of her love. "Alas!" cried she, "now all is over." Vows of eternal constancy, entreaties that would melt a heart of stone, confidence beyond all limit, affection that enshrouded her in folds of unutterable tenderness – gone, – vanished into air! Such was the image of her life: a life bright in promise, gay and dazzling, to smoulder down into ashes, too fragile even to claim a resting-place.

      Louise de Lafayette wrote a few lines to the Duchesse de Sennécy, praying her to convey her dutiful salutations to her Majesty, and to request her dismissal from the post of maid of honour, which, she said, "she felt she had fulfilled so ill." Then she addressed the following note to the King: – "I request your Majesty to meet me this day week, at noon, in the parlour of the Convent of the Daughters of Mary, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine."

      When the King read these lines his heart sank within him. The austerity of the place, a rendezvous in a convent of peculiar sanctity, where he knew Mademoiselle de Lafayette always resorted at the solemn season of Lent and Passion Week, where he could only converse with her between double bars, was not the place of meeting of which he had fondly dreamed! Yet his natural delicacy made him fully appreciate the modesty of Louise and the gentle rebuke she administered to him for his too pressing solicitation in naming a place of meeting. At the convent, although they would certainly be alone, no scandal could possibly attach to the interview. More than this he never for an instant imagined. The habits of piety in which Mademoiselle de Lafayette lived, and her frequent retreats for religious purposes, raised in his mind no suspicion. He should see her, and see her alone, undisturbed, unwatched. On that thought he dwelt with rapture; time would, he hoped, do the rest.

      Punctually, at noon, the King arrived at the Convent of the Daughters of Mary. He was received by the Abbess in person, and conducted into the parlour. Here she left him. A moment more, a curtain was withdrawn, and, behind double bars of iron, Louise de Lafayette stood before him. She wore the dark brown robes and corded girdle of the order, the long white veil of the noviciate falling round her lovely face. The King stood transfixed, his eyes riveted upon her.

      "Forgive me, Sire," said she, in a voice full of sweetness, "forgive me for having dared to dispose of myself without your leave. But, Sire, a too fervent attachment had led us both into danger. I had forgotten my duty in the love I felt for you, – your Majesty forgot you were a husband. That letter, in which you proposed meeting me at Versailles, opened my eyes to the truth. God be thanked, there was yet time for repentance. This morning I have taken the white veil, and in a year I shall pronounce the final vows. My life will still be passed with you, Sire; but it will be a life of prayer." As she spoke she smiled sadly, and awaited his reply.

      "Great God!" exclaimed Louis at length, when he could find words. "Is this a vision? Are you an angel already glorified?" He sank upon his knees before her.

      "Rise, Sire," said she solemnly; "such a posture befits neither the dignity of your station nor the sacredness of mine. I am no angel, but still your tender friend; a friend who watches over you, who only lives to remind you of your duties. You will share my heart with the holy virgins among whom I live, the saints in heaven, and my God. Let not even the tomb divide us – live, Sire, such a life that we may be reunited among the spirits of the just."

      "Oh, Louise!" exclaimed Louis, in a voice choked with emotion; "Louise, who alone fills my despairing, my solitary heart! at your feet I abjure all profane, all unholy thoughts. Speak – command me! my spirit follows you. But, alas!" and he rose to his feet and wrung his hands in bitterest anguish, "what is to become of me in the midst of my detestable Court? Suffer me to follow your example; let me too, within the walls of a cloister, seek that resignation and courage which make you so sublime."

      "Good heavens, Sire!" exclaimed Louise de Lafayette, "what do I hear? You, a sovereign, a husband, bury yourself in a cloister! Our situations are utterly unlike. I, a solitary girl, have but withdrawn from a world to which you were my only tie. Your glory, the glory of France, your own welfare, and the welfare of the Queen, are to you sacred duties. And now, Sire, listen to me," and she approached close to the bars which divided them, and a look of the old melting tenderness passed for a moment over her beautiful face, "Sire, if ever I have been dear to you, listen. The sin for which I feel most poignant sorrow – the sin which years, nay, a life of expiation cannot wipe out – is – that I have by my selfish, my miserable attachment, alienated you from the Queen." Louis was about to interrupt her, but she signed to him to be silent. "I know, Sire, what you would say," she broke in hastily, – "that our attachment has in no way altered your relations towards her Majesty. True, it is so; but my influence over you ought to have been devoted to unite you. It ought to have been my privilege to render both your Majesties happy as man and wife, to give heirs to France, to strengthen the Government. Alas, alas! I have sinned almost beyond forgiveness!" and for awhile she broke into passionate sobs, which all her self-command could not restrain. "Her Majesty, Sire, is a most noble lady, beautiful, generous, loyal, courageous. For twenty years she, the greatest queen in Europe, has been neglected, almost scorned by you her husband. Under these trials her lofty spirit has not flinched – she has been true to you and to herself. Temptation, provocation, nay, insults have not shaken her virtue. Believe nothing against her, Sire – her soul is as lovely as her body. Sire, the Queen is childless, devote your whole life to her and to France; tend her, protect her, love her. Then, and then only, shall I be reconciled to God." As she spoke her sweet grey eyes turned towards heaven, her countenance was transfigured as in an ecstasy; no saint standing within a sculptured shrine could be more pure, more holy.

      The King gazed at her awestruck. "Dispose of me as you will," murmured he; "command my life – but, remember that now I have lost you, happiness is gone from me for ever!"

      "Adieu, Sire," said Mademoiselle de Lafayette. "The hour-glass warns me that our interview is over. Return in six months and tell that I have been obeyed."

      She drew the dark curtain across the bars, and the Abbess entered. Louis returned hastily to Saint-Germain.

       CHAPTER V.

      MONSIEUR LE GRAND

      IN the broad valley of the Loire, between Tours and Saumur, the train stops at the small station of Cinq-Mars. This station lies beside the Loire, which glides by in a current so broad and majestic, as to suggest a series of huge lakes, with banks bordered by sand and scrub, rather than a river. On either side of the Loire run ranges of low hills, their glassy surface gashed and scored by many a rent revealing the chalky soil beneath, their summits fringed with scanty underwood, and dotted with groups of gnarled and knotted oaks and ragged fir-trees, the rough roots clasping cairns of rock and blocks of limestone. In the dimples of these low hills lie snugly sheltered villas, each within its own garden and policy. These villas thicken as the small township of Cinq-Mars is approached, – a nest of bright little houses, gay streets, and tall chimneys telling of provincial commerce, all clustered beneath chalky cliffs which rise abruptly behind, rent by many a dark fissure and blackened watercourse. Aloft, on a grassy marge, where many an old tree bends its scathed trunk to the prevailing wind, among bushes and piled-up heaps of stones, rise the ruins of a feudal castle. Two gate towers support an arch, through which the blue sky peeps, and some low, broken walls, without form and void, skirt the summit of the cliff. This ruin, absolutely pathetic in its desolate loneliness, is all that remains of the ancestral castle of the Cöiffiers de Cinq-Mars, Marquis d'Effiat. From this hearth and from these shattered walls, now raised "to the height of infamy," sprung that handsome, shallow, ambitious coxcomb, known as the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, who succeeded Mademoiselle de Lafayette in the favour of Louis XIII.

      Deprived СКАЧАТЬ