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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Louise de Lafayette, the King's spirits languished. In spite of his partial reconciliation with Anne of Austria, and the birth of a son, he was sullen and gloomy, spoke to no one, and desired no one to speak to him. When etiquette required his presence in the Queen's apartments, he seated himself in a corner, yawned, and fell asleep. The internal malady of which he died had already undermined his always feeble frame. His condition was altogether so critical, that the Cardinal looked round for a companion to solace his weariness. Henri de Cinq-Mars had lately come up to Paris from Touraine. In years he was a boy, under twenty. He was gentle, adroit, and amusing, but weak, and the Cardinal believed he had found in him the facile instrument he sought.

      Cinq-Mars was presented to the King. Louis was at once prepossessed by his handsome person and distinguished manners. Cinq-Mars, accustomed from infancy to field sports and country life, angling in the deep currents of the Loire and the Indre, hunting wild boars and deer in the dense forests of Azay and of Chanteloup, or flying his gear-falcon from the summits of his native downs, struck a sympathetic chord in the sad King's heart. One honour after the other was heaped upon him; finally he was made Grand Seneschal of France and Master of the Horse. From this time he dropped the patronymic of "Cinq-Mars," and was known at Court as "Monsieur le Grand," one of the greatest personages in France. For a time all went smoothly. King and minister smiled upon the petulant stripling, whose witty sallies and boyish audacity were tempered by the highest breeding. He was always present when the Cardinal conferred with the King, and from the first gave his opinion with much more freedom than altogether pleased the minister, who simply intended him for a puppet, not for an adviser. When the Cardinal remonstrated, Cinq-Mars shook his scented curls, pulled his lace ruffles, talked of loyalty and gratitude to the King, and of personal independence, in a manner the Cardinal deemed highly unbecoming and inconvenient. Monsieur le Grand cared little for what the Cardinal thought, and did not take the trouble to hide this opinion. He cared neither for the terrible minister nor for the eccentric Louis, whom he often treated, even in public, with contempt. It was the old story. Confident in favour, arrogant in power, he made enemies every day.

      Monsieur le Grand, however, passed his time with tolerable ease when relieved of the King's company, specially in the house of Marion de l'Orme, Rue des Tournelles. He was presented to her by Saint-Evrémond, and fell at once a victim to her wiles. Marion was the Aspasia of the day, and the charm of her entourage was delightful to him after the restraints of a dull and formal Court. Here he met D'Ablancourt, La Chambre, and Calprenéde, the popular writers of the age. The Abbé de Gondi and Scarron came also, and even the prudish Mademoiselle de Scudéri did not disdain to be present at these Noctes Ambrosianæ. Marion de l'Orme, then only thirty, was in the zenith of her beauty. Her languishing dark eyes exercised an absolute fascination over Cinq-Mars from the first instant they met. Her affected reserve, the refinement of her manners, the entrain of her society, free without license, captivated him. He believed her to be virtuous, and desired to make her his wife. Marion de l'Orme was to become Madame le Grande!

      This was precisely what that astute lady had angled for. Hence her reserve, her downcast eyes, her affected indifference. She saw that she was dealing with a vain, ignorant boy, who, in her hands, was helpless as an infant. Truly, he was madly in love with her, but he was a minor, and under the guardianship of the Dowager Marquise de Cinq-Mars, his mother, who might possibly not view an alliance with Mademoiselle Marion de l'Orme as an honour to the ancestral tree of the Effiats de Cinq-Mars. The marriage must be secret. Early one morning they started from the Rue de Tournelles in a coach and never stopped until they had reached the old castle among the hills of Touraine, above the feudatory village of Cinq-Mars. In the chapel of that now ruined pile their faith was plighted. Marion promised love, Cinq-Mars constancy. They were incapable of either. For eight days the old castle rang with the sounds of revelry. Cinq-Mars and Marion were as in a fairy palace; life was but a long enchantment. But at the end of that time Nemesis appeared in the shape of the Dowager Marchioness, to whose ears the report of these merry-makings came at Paris. Cinq-Mars replied to his mother that it was all a passetemps, and that Mademoiselle de l'Orme – well – was still Mademoiselle de l'Orme; that he loved the Principessa Maria di Gonzaga (to whom the handsome profligate had, indeed, paid his addresses before leaving Paris, the better to throw dust in the eyes of the world), and that he should shortly return to Paris and his duty with his Majesty.

      The mediæval chatelaine, however, was not to be deceived. She knew of the secret marriage, and nothing could exceed her rage. That Marion de l'Orme should sit on the feudal dais upon the seigneurial throne – that she should wear her jewelled coronet, should eat out of her silver dish, and inhabit her apartments – the thing was atrocious, scandalous, impossible. She flew to the Cardinal, with whom she had some friendship, and informed him of what had occurred. The Cardinal, who had formerly favoured Marion de l'Orme with more than his regard, was as much incensed as herself. That his protégé, Cinq-Mars, should supplant him, made him, old as he was, furiously jealous. That Cinq-Mars should dare to abandon the splendid position he himself had assigned him, leave the morbid Louis a prey to any adventurous scoundrel whose adroit flattery or affected sympathy might in a few hours render him arbiter of the Court and master of the kingdom, was, to Richelieu's thinking, an unpardonable crime. The artful prelate immediately took his measures. A royal ordinance was speedily framed, making all marriages contracted by persons under age, and without the consent of guardians, null and void!

      Cinq-Mars returned to Court indignant, insolent, defiant; swearing vengeance against the meddling Cardinal, and ready to enter into any scheme for his destruction. Mademoiselle Marion de l'Orme re-opened her salon in the Rue des Tournelles.

      As for Louis, from whom the knowledge of this little escapade had been carefully concealed, he received back the truant with greater favour than ever. Cinq-Mars, confident in the King's attachment, and looking on him as too feeble to combat his own audacious projects, spoke words which Louis had not heard since the beloved voice of Louise de Lafayette had uttered them. "He ought to rid himself of the Cardinal, and rule for himself," said Monsieur le Grand; "if not by fair, then by foul means." "Let Richelieu die," cried Cinq-Mars, "as he has made others die – the best blood in France: Montmorenci, Chalais, Saint-Preuil, Marillac, and so many others." It is certain that the King listened to these proposals favourably. He actually consented to conspire against himself and the State which he governed. Louis was too stupid to realise the absurdity of his position. He permitted Cinq-Mars to coquet with the Spanish Government, in order to insure the support of Spanish troops to be sent from the Netherlands to defend Sedan against the Cardinal and his own army in case of failure. But Richelieu, now fully alive to the dangerous ascendancy of Cinq-Mars, – for he had spies everywhere, specially the soft-spoken Chavigny, who was always about the King, – openly taxed his Sovereign with treachery in a message borne to him by the Marquis de Mortémart. Louis was dumbfounded and terrified. He wrote a letter that very same day, addressed to the Chancellor Séguier, apologising for his seeming infidelity to his minister. "He did not deny," said he, "that Monsieur le Grand desired to compass the Cardinal's death," but, with incredible meanness, he added, "that he had never listened to him." Monsieur le Grand, whose weak head was by this time completely turned, fully believing himself invincible, openly discussed what he should do when he was himself prime minister. Suspecting Louis of being too weak to be his only supporter, he turned to Gaston, Duc d'Orléans. Monsieur, whose life, like that of his brother's, singularly repeats itself, bethinking himself of early times and of a certain moonlight meeting on the terrace of Saint-Germain, at once addressed himself to the Queen. But she had already suffered too much to allow herself again to be drawn into danger. When Monsieur detailed the plot, and asked her significantly, "What news she had lately had from her brother, the King of Spain?" she answered that she had had no news, and instantly changed the conversation. This did not at all cool Monsieur's ardour, such as it was. Three times he had been banished from France for treason, and three times he had returned, as ready as ever, with or without the Queen, to conspire, to betray, and to be again banished. So the traitor-prince and the vainglorious favourite, both intensely hating Richelieu, laid their heads together to destroy him by means of Spain. To them was joined the Marquis de Thou, one of the jeunesse dorée of the Court, along with Fontrailles, secretary to Monsieur. The great Cardinal, sitting in the Palais Royal like a huge СКАЧАТЬ