From the Memoirs of a Minister of France by Stanley John Weyman (best desktop ebook reader TXT) 📕

other end, and the first link found among Madame de Verneuil's following.

By this time it was nearly midnight, and my people were dropping with fatigue. Nevertheless, a sense of the desperate nature of the case animating them, they formed themselves voluntarily into a kind of council, all feeling their probity attacked; in which various modes of forcing the secret from those who held it were proposed—Maignan's suggestions being especially violent. Doubting, however, whether Madame had more than one confidante, I secretly made up my mind to a course which none dared to suggest; and then dismissing all to bed, kept only Maignan to lie in my chamber, that if any points occurred to me in the night I might question him on them.

At four o'clock I called him, and bade him go out quietly and saddle two horses. This done, I slipped out myself without arousing anyone, and mounting at the stables, took the Orleans road through the forest. My plan was to strike at the head, and surprising Madame de Verneuil while the event; still hung uncertain, to wrest the secret from her by trick or threat. The enterprise was desperate, for I knew the stubbornness and arrogance of the woman, and the inveterate enmity which she entertained towards me, more particularly since the King's marriage. But in a dangerous case any remedy is welcome.

I reached Malesherbes, where Madame was residing with her parents, a little before seven o'clock, and riding without disguise to the chateau demanded to see her. She was not yet risen, and the servants, whom my appearance threw into the utmost confusion, objected this to me; but I knew that the excuse was no real one, and answered roughly that I came from the King, and must see her. This opened all doors, and in a moment I found myself in her chamber. She was sitting up in bed, clothed in an elegant nightrail, and seemed in no wise surprised to see me. On the contrary, she greeted me with a smile and a taunting word; and omitted nothing that might evince her disdain or hurt my dignity. She let me advance without offering me a chair; and when, after saluting her, I looked about for one, I found that all the seats except one very low stool had been removed from the room.

This was so like her that it did not astonish me, and I baffled her malice by leaning against the wall. "This is no ordinary honour—from M. de Rosny!" she said, flouting me with her eyes.

"I come on no ordinary mission, madame," I said as gravely as I could.

"Mercy!" she exclaimed in a mocking tone. "I should have put on new ribbons, I suppose!"

"From the King, madame," I continued, not allowing myself to be moved, "to inquire how you obtained possession of his cipher."

She laughed loudly. "Good, simple King," she said, "to ask what he knows already!"

"He does not know, madame," I answered severely.

"What?" she cried, in affected surprise. "When he gave it to me himself!"

"He did not, madame."

"He did, sir!" she retorted, firing up. "Or if he did not, prove it—prove it! And, by the way," she continued, lowering her voice again, and reverting to her former tone of spiteful badinage, "how is the dear queen? I heard that she was indisposed yesterday, and kept the King in attendance all day. So unfortunate, you know, just at this time." And her eyes twinkled with malicious amusement.

"Madame," I said, "may I speak plainly to you?"

"I never heard that you could speak otherwise," she answered quickly. "Even his friends never called M. de Rosny a wit; but only a plain, rough man who served our royal turn well enough in rough times; but is now growing—"

"Madame!"

"A trifle exigeant and superfluous."

After that, I saw that it was war to the knife between us; and I asked her in very plain terms If she were not afraid of the queen's enmity, that she dared thus to flaunt the King's favours before her.

"No more than I am afraid of yours," she answered hardily.

"But if the King is disappointed in his hopes?"

"You may suffer; very probably will," she answered, slowly and smiling, "not I. Besides, sir—my child was born dead. He bore that very well."

"Yet, believe me, madame, you run some risk."

"In keeping what the King has given me?" she answered, raising her eyebrows.

"No! In keeping what the King has not given you!" I answered sternly. "Whereas, what do you gain?"

"Well," she replied, raising herself in the bed, while her eyes sparkled and her colour rose, "if you like, I will tell you. This pleasure, for one thing—the pleasure of seeing you there, awkward, booted, stained, and standing, waiting my will. That—which perhaps you call a petty thing—I gain first of all. Then I gain your ruin, M. de Rosny; I plant a sting in that woman's breast; and for his Majesty, he has made his bed and may lie on it."

"Have a care, madame!" I cried, bursting with indignation at a speech so shameless and disloyal. "You are playing a dangerous game, I warn you!"

"And what game have you played?" she replied, transported on a sudden with equal passion. "Who was it tore up the promise of marriage which the King gave me? Who was it prevented me being Queen of France? Who was it hurried on the match with this tradeswoman, so that the King found himself wedded, before he knew it? Who was it—but enough; enough!" she cried, interrupting herself with a gesture full of rage. "You have ruined me, you and your queen between you, and I will ruin you!"

"On the contrary, madame," I answered, collecting myself for a last effort, and speaking with all the severity which a just indignation inspired, "I have not ruined you. But if you do not tell me that which I am here to learn—I will!"

She laughed out loud. "Oh, you simpleton!" she said. "And you call yourself a statesman! Do you not see that if I do not tell it, you are disgraced yourself and powerless, and can do me no harm? Tell it you? When I have you all on the hip—you, the King, the queen! Not for a million crowns, M. de Rosny!"

"And that is your answer, madame?" I said, choking with rage. It had been long since any had dared so to beard me.

"Yes," she replied stoutly; "it is! Or, stay; you shall not go empty-handed." And thrusting her arm under the pillow she drew out, after a moment's search, a small packet, which she held out towards me. "Take it!" she said, with a taunting laugh. "It has served my turn. What the King gave me, I give you."

Seeing that it was the missing key to the cipher, I swallowed my rage and took it; and being assured by this time that I could effect nothing by staying longer, but should only expose myself to fresh insults, I turned on my heel, with rudeness equal to her own, and, without taking leave of her, flung the door open and went out. I heard her throw herself back with a shrill laugh of triumph. But as, the moment the door fell to behind me, my thoughts began to cast about for another way of escape—this failing—I took little heed of her, and less of the derisive looks to which the household, quickly taking the cue, treated me as I passed. I flung myself into the saddle and galloped off, followed by Maignan, who presently, to my surprise, blurted out a clumsy word of congratulation.

I turned on him in amazement, and, swearing at him, asked him what he meant.

"You have got it," he said timidly, pointing to the packet which I mechanically held in my hand.

"And to what purpose?" I cried, glad of this opportunity of unloading some of my wrath. "I want, not the paper, but the secret, fool! You may have the paper for yourself if you will tell me how Madame got it."

Nevertheless, his words led me to look at the packet. I opened it, and, having satisfied myself that it contained the original and not a copy, was putting it up again when my eyes fell on a small spot of blood which marked one corner of the cover. It was not larger than a grain of corn, but it awoke, first, a vague association and then a memory, which as I rode grew stronger and more definite, until, on a sudden, discovery flashed upon me—and the truth. I remembered where I had seen spots of blood before—on the papers I had handed to Ferret and remembered, too, where that blood had come from. I looked at the cut now, and, finding it nearly healed, sprang in my saddle. Of a certainty this paper had gone through my hands that day! It had been among the others; therefore it must have been passed to Ferret inside another when I first opened the bag! The rogue, getting it and seeing his opportunity, and that I did not suspect, had doubtless secreted it, probably while I was attending to my hand.

I had not suspected him before, because I had ticked off the earlier papers as I handed them to him; and had searched only among the rest and in the bag for the missing one. Now I wondered that I had not done so, and seen the truth from the beginning; and in my impatience I found the leagues through the forest, though the sun was not yet high and the trees sheltered us, the longest I had ridden in my life. When the roofs of the chateau at length appeared before us, I could scarcely keep my pace within bounds. Reflecting how Madame de Verneuil had over-reached herself, and how, by indulging in that last stroke of arrogance, she had placed the secret in my hands, I had much ado to refrain from going to the King booted and unwashed as I was; and though I had not eaten since the previous evening. However, the habit of propriety, which no man may lightly neglect, came to my aid. I made my toilet, and, having broken my fast standing, hastened to the Court. On the way I learned that the King was in the queen's garden, and, directing my steps thither, found him walking with my colleagues, Villeroy and Sillery, in the little avenue which leads to the garden of the Conciergerie. A number of the courtiers were standing on the low terrace watching them, while a second group lounged about the queen's staircase. Full of the news which I had for the King, I crossed the terrace; taking no particular heed of anyone, but greeting such as came in my way in my usual fashion. At the edge of the terrace I paused a moment before descending the three steps; and at the same moment, as it happened, Henry looked up, and our eyes met. On the instant he averted his gaze, and, turning on his heel in a marked way, retired slowly to the farther end of the walk.

The action was so deliberate that I could not doubt he meant to slight me; and I paused where I was, divided between grief and indignation, a mark for all those glances and whispered gibes in which courtiers indulge on such occasions. The slight was not rendered less serious by the fact that the King was walking with my two colleagues; so that I alone seemed to be out of his confidence, as one soon to be out of his councils also.

I perceived all this, and was not blind to the sneering smiles which were exchanged behind my back; but I affected to see nothing, and to be absorbed in sudden thought. In a minute or two the King turned and came back towards me; and again, as if he could not restrain his curiosity, looked up so that our eyes met. This time I thought that he would beckon me to him, satisfied with the lengths to which he had already carried his displeasure. But he turned again, with a light laugh.

At this a courtier, one of Sillery's creatures, who had presumed on the occasion so far as to come to my elbow, thought that he might safely amuse himself with me. "I am afraid that the King grows older, M. de Rosny," he said, smirking at his companions. "His sight seems to be failing."

"It