The three musketeers
politeness, only stopping before the queen. “Madame,” said he, “you are
about to receive a visit from the chancellor, who will communicate
certain matters to you with which I have charged him.”
The unfortunate queen, who was constantly threatened with divorce,
exile, and trial even, turned pale under her rouge, and could not
refrain from saying, “But why this visit, sire? What can the chancellor
have to say to me that your Majesty could not say yourself?”
The king turned upon his heel without reply, and almost at the same
instant the captain of the Guards, M. de Guitant, announced the visit
of the chancellor.
When the chancellor appeared, the king had already gone out by another
door.
The chancellor entered, half smiling, half blushing. As we shall
probably meet with him again in the course of our history, it may be
well for our readers to be made at once acquainted with him.
This chancellor was a pleasant man. He was Des Roches le Masle, canon
of Notre Dame, who had formerly been valet of a bishop, who introduced
him to his Eminence as a perfectly devout man. The cardinal trusted
him, and therein found his advantage.
There are many stories related of him, and among them this. After a
wild youth, he had retired into a convent, there to expiate, at least
for some time, the follies of adolescence. On entering this holy place,
the poor penitent was unable to shut the door so close as to prevent
the passions he fled from entering with him. He was incessantly
attacked by them, and the superior, to whom he had confided this
misfortune, wishing as much as in him lay to free him from them, had
advised him, in order to conjure away the tempting demon, to have
recourse to the bell rope, and ring with all his might. At the
denunciating sound, the monks would be rendered aware that temptation
was besieging a brother, and all the community would go to prayers.
This advice appeared good to the future chancellor. He conjured the
evil spirit with abundance of prayers offered up by the monks. But the
devil does not suffer himself to be easily dispossessed from a place in
which he has fixed his garrison. In proportion as they redoubled the
exorcisms he redoubled the temptations; so that day and night the bell
was ringing full swing, announcing the extreme desire for mortification
which the penitent experienced.
The monks had no longer an instant of repose. By day they did nothing
but ascend and descend the steps which led to the chapel; at night, in
addition to complines and matins, they were further obliged to leap
twenty times out of their beds and prostrate themselves on the floor of
their cells.
It is not known whether it was the devil who gave way, or the monks who
grew tired; but within three months the penitent reappeared in the
world with the reputation of being the most terrible _possessed_ that
ever existed.
On leaving the convent he entered into the magistracy, became president
on the place of his uncle, embraced the cardinal’s party, which did not
prove want of sagacity, became chancellor, served his Eminence with
zeal in his hatred against the queen-mother and his vengeance against
Anne of Austria, stimulated the judges in the affair of Calais,
encouraged the attempts of M. de Laffemas, chief gamekeeper of France;
then, at length, invested with the entire confidence of the cardinal—a
confidence which he had so well earned—he received the singular
commission for the execution of which he presented himself in the
queen’s apartments.
The queen was still standing when he entered; but scarcely had she
perceived him then she reseated herself in her armchair, and made a
sign to her women to resume their cushions and stools, and with an air
of supreme hauteur, said, “What do you desire, monsieur, and with what
object do you present yourself here?”
“To make, madame, in the name of the king, and without prejudice to the
respect which I have the honor to owe to your Majesty a close
examination into all your papers.”
“How, monsieur, an investigation of my papers—mine! Truly, this is an
indignity!”
“Be kind enough to pardon me, madame; but in this circumstance I am but
the instrument which the king employs. Has not his Majesty just left
you, and has he not himself asked you to prepare for this visit?”
“Search, then, monsieur! I am a criminal, as it appears. Estafania,
give up the keys of my drawers and my desks.”
For form’s sake the chancellor paid a visit to the pieces of furniture
named; but he well knew that it was not in a piece of furniture that
the queen would place the important letter she had written that day.
When the chancellor had opened and shut twenty times the drawers of the
secretaries, it became necessary, whatever hesitation he might
experience—it became necessary, I say, to come to the conclusion of the
affair; that is to say, to search the queen herself. The chancellor
advanced, therefore, toward Anne of Austria, and said with a very
perplexed and embarrassed air, “And now it remains for me to make the
principal examination.”
“What is that?” asked the queen, who did not understand, or rather was
not willing to understand.
“His majesty is certain that a letter has been written by you during
the day; he knows that it has not yet been sent to its address. This
letter is not in your table nor in your secretary; and yet this letter
must be somewhere.”
“Would you dare to lift your hand to your queen?” said Anne of Austria,
drawing herself up to her full height, and fixing her eyes upon the
chancellor with an expression almost threatening.
“I am a faithful subject of the king, madame, and all that his Majesty
commands I shall do.”
“Well, it is true!” said Anne of Austria; “and the spies of the
cardinal have served him faithfully. I have written a letter today;
that letter is not yet gone. The letter is here.” And the queen laid
her beautiful hand on her bosom.
“Then give me that letter, madame,” said the chancellor.
“I will give it to none but the king, monsieur,” said Anne.
“If the king had desired that the letter should be given to him,
madame, he would have demanded it of you himself. But I repeat to you,
I am charged with reclaiming it; and if you do not give it up—”
“Well?”
“He has, then, charged me to take it from you.”
“How! What do you say?”
“That my orders go far, madame; and that I am authorized to seek for
the suspected paper, even on the person of your Majesty.”
“What horror!” cried the queen.
“Be kind enough, then, madame, to act more compliantly.”
“The conduct is infamously violent! Do you know that, monsieur?”
“The king commands it, madame; excuse me.”
“I will not suffer it! No, no, I would rather die!” cried the queen, in
whom the imperious blood of Spain and Austria began to rise.
The chancellor made a profound reverence. Then, with the intention
quite patent of not drawing back a foot from the accomplishment of the
commission with which he was charged, and as the attendant of an
executioner might have done in the chamber of torture, he approached
Anne of Austria, from whose eyes at the same instant sprang tears of
rage.
The queen was, as we have said, of great beauty. The commission might
well be called delicate; and the king had reached, in his jealousy of
Buckingham, the point of not being jealous of anyone else.
Without doubt the chancellor Séguier looked about at that moment for
the rope of the famous bell; but not finding it he summoned his
resolution, and stretched forth his hands toward the place where the
queen had acknowledged the paper was to be found.
Anne of Austria took one step backward, became so pale that it might be
said she was dying, and leaning with her left hand upon a table behind
her to keep herself from falling, she with her right hand drew the
paper from her bosom and held it out to the keeper of the seals.
“There, monsieur, there is that letter!” cried the queen, with a broken
and trembling voice; “take it, and deliver me from your odious
presence.”
The chancellor, who, on his part, trembled with an emotion easily to be
conceived, took the letter, bowed to the ground, and retired. The door
was scarcely closed upon him, when the queen sank, half fainting, into
the arms of her women.
The chancellor carried the letter to the king without having read a
single word of it. The king took it with a trembling hand, looked for
the address, which was wanting, became very pale, opened it slowly,
then seeing by the first words that it was addressed to the King of
Spain, he read it rapidly.
It was nothing but a plan of attack against the cardinal. The queen
pressed her brother and the Emperor of Austria to appear to be wounded,
as they really were, by the policy of Richelieu—the eternal object of
which was the abasement of the house of Austria—to declare war against
France, and as a condition of peace, to insist upon the dismissal of
the cardinal; but as to love, there was not a single word about it in
all the letter.
The king, quite delighted, inquired if the cardinal was still at the
Louvre; he was told that his Eminence awaited the orders of his Majesty
in the business cabinet.
The king went straight to him.
“There, Duke,” said he, “you were right and I was wrong. The whole
intrigue is political, and there is not the least question of love in
this letter; but, on the other hand, there is abundant question of
you.”
The cardinal took the letter, and read it with the greatest attention;
then, when he had arrived at the end of it, he read it a second time.
“Well, your Majesty,” said he, “you see how far my enemies go; they
menace you with two wars if you do not dismiss me. In your place, in
truth, sire, I should yield to such powerful instance; and on my part,
it would be a real happiness to withdraw from public affairs.”
“What say you, Duke?”
“I say, sire, that my health is sinking under these excessive struggles
and these never-ending labors. I say that according to all probability
I shall not be able to undergo the fatigues of the siege of La
Rochelle, and that it would be far better that you should appoint there
either Monsieur de Condé, Monsieur de Bassopierre, or some valiant
gentleman whose business is war, and not me, who am a churchman, and
who am constantly turned aside for my real vocation to look after
matters for which I have no aptitude. You would be the happier for it
at home, sire, and I do not doubt you would be the greater for it
abroad.”
“Monsieur Duke,” said the king, “I understand you. Be satisfied, all
who are named in that letter shall be punished as they deserve, even
the queen herself.”
“What do you say, sire? God forbid that the queen should suffer the
least inconvenience or uneasiness on my account! She has always
believed me, sire, to be her enemy; although your Majesty can bear
witness that I have always taken her part warmly, even against you. Oh,
if she betrayed your Majesty on the side of your honor, it would be
quite another thing, and I should be the first to say, ‘No grace,
sire—no grace for the guilty!’ Happily, there is nothing of the kind,
and your Majesty has just acquired a new proof of it.”
“That is true, Monsieur Cardinal,” said the king, “and you were right,
as you always are; but the queen, not the less, deserves all my anger.”
“It is you, sire, who have now incurred hers. And even if she were to
be seriously offended, I could well understand it; your Majesty has
treated her with a severity—”
“It is thus I will always treat my enemies and yours, Duke, however
high they may be placed, and whatever peril I may incur in acting
severely toward them.”
“The queen is my enemy, but is not yours, sire; on the contrary, she is
a devoted, submissive, and irreproachable wife. Allow me, then, sire,