The Project Gutenberg Etext of Cinq Mars, by Alfred de Vigny, v6
#39 in our series The French Immortals Crowned by the French Academy
#6 in our series by Octave Feuillet
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Title: Cinq Mars, v6
Author: Alfred de Vigny
Release Date: April, 2003 [Etext #3952]
[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
[The actual date this file first posted = 09/12/01]
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The Project Gutenberg Etext of Cinq Mars, by Alfred de Vigny, v6
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CINQ MARS
By ALFRED DE VIGNY
BOOK 6
CHAPTER XXII
THE STORM
'Blow, blow, thou winter wind;
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly.
Most friendship is feigning; most loving mere folly.'
SHAKESPEARE.
Amid that long and superb chain of the Pyrenees which forms the embattled
isthmus of the peninsula, in the centre of those blue pyramids, covered
in gradation with snow, forests, and downs, there opens a narrow defile,
a path cut in the dried-up bed of a perpendicular torrent; it circulates
among rocks, glides under bridges of frozen snow, twines along the edges
of inundated precipices to scale the adjacent mountains of Urdoz and
Oleron, and at last rising over their unequal ridges, turns their
nebulous peak into a new country which has also its mountains and its
depths, and, quitting France, descends into Spain. Never has the hoof of
the mule left its trace in these windings; man himself can with
difficulty stand upright there, even with the hempen boots which can not
slip, and the hook of the pikestaff to force into the crevices of the
rocks.
In the fine summer months the 'pastour', in his brown cape, and his black
long-bearded ram lead hither flocks, whose flowing wool sweeps the turf.
Nothing is heard in these rugged places but the sound of the large bells
which the sheep carry, and whose irregular tinklings produce unexpected
harmonies, casual gamuts, which astonish the traveller and delight the
savage and silent shepherd. But when the long month of September comes,
a shroud of snow spreads itself from the peak of the mountains down to
their base, respecting only this deeply excavated path, a few gorges open
by torrents, and some rocks of granite, which stretch out their
fantastical forms, like the bones of a buried world.
It is then that light troops of chamois make their appearance, with their
twisted horns extending over their backs, spring from rock to rock as if
driven before the wind, and take possession of their aerial desert.
Flights of ravens and crows incessantly wheel round and round in the
gulfs and natural wells which they transform into dark dovecots, while
the brown bear, followed by her shaggy family, who sport and tumble
around her in the snow, slowly descends from their retreat invaded by the
frost. But these are neither the most savage nor the most cruel
inhabitants that winter brings into these mountains; the daring smuggler
raises for himself a dwelling of wood on the very boundary of nature and
of politics. There unknown treaties, secret exchanges, are made between
the two Navarres, amid fogs and winds.
It was in this narrow path on the frontiers of France that, about two
months after the scenes we have witnessed in Paris, two travellers,
coming from Spain, stopped at midnight, fatigued and dismayed. They
heard musket-shots in the mountain.
"The scoundrels! how they have pursued us!" said one of them. "I can
go no farther; but for you I should have been taken."
"And you will be taken still, as well as that infernal paper, if you lose
your time in words; there is another volley on the rock of Saint Pierre-
de-L'Aigle. Up there, they suppose we have gone in the direction of the
Limacon; but, below, they will see the contrary. Descend; it is
doubtless a patrol hunting smugglers. Descend."
"But how? I can not see."
"Never mind, descend. Take my arm."
"Hold me; my boots slip," said the first traveller, stamping on the edge
of the rock to make sure of the solidity of the ground before trusting
himself upon it.
"Go on; go on!" said the other, pushing him. "There's one of the
rascals passing over our heads."
And, in fact, the shadow of a man, armed with a long gun, was reflected
on the snow. The two adventurers stood motionless. The man passed on.
They continued their descent.
"They will take us," said the one who was supporting the other. "They
have turned us. Give me your confounded parchment. I wear the dress of
a smuggler, and I can pass for one seeking an asylum among them; but you
would have no resource with your laced dress."
"You are right," said his companion; and, resting his foot against the
edge of the rock, and reclining on the slope, he gave him a roll of
hollow wood.
A gun was fired, and a ball buried itself, hissing, in the snow at their
feet.
"Marked!" said the first. "Roll down. If you are not dead when you get
to the bottom, take the road you see before you. On the left of the
hollow is Santa Maria. But turn to the right; cross Oleron; and you are
on the road to Pau and are saved. Go; roll down."
As he spoke, he pushed his comrade, and without condescending to look
after him, and himself neither ascending nor descending, followed the
flank of the mountain horizontally, hanging on by rocks, branches, and
even by plants, with the strength and energy of a wild-cat, and soon
found himself on firm ground before a small wooden hut, through which a
light was visible. The adventurer went all around it, like a hungry wolf
round a sheepfold, and, applying his eye to one of the openings,
apparently saw what determined him, for without further hesitation he
pushed the tottering door, which was not even fastened by a latch. The
whole but shook with the blow he had given it. He then saw that it was
divided into two cabins by a partition. A large flambeau of yellow wax
lighted the first. There, a young girl, pale and fearfully thin, was
crouched in a corner on the damp floor, just where the melted snow ran
under the planks of the cottage. Very long black hair, entangled and
covered with dust, fell in disorder over her coarse brown dress; the red
hood of the Pyrenees covered her head and shoulders. Her eyes were cast
down; and she was spinning with a small distaff attached to her waist.
The entry of a man did not appear to move her in the least.
"Ha! La moza,--[girl]-- get up and give me something to drink. I am
tired and thirsty."
The young girl did not answer, and, without raising her eyes, continued
to spin assiduously.
"Dost hear?" said the stranger, thrusting her with his foot. "Go and
tell thy master that a friend wishes to see him; but first give me some
drink. I shall sleep here."
She answered, in a hoarse voice, still spinning:
"I drink the snow that melts on the rock, or the green scum that floats
on the water of the swamp. But when I have spun well, they give me water
from the iron spring. When I sleep, the cold lizards crawl over my face;
but when I have well cleaned a mule, they throw me hay. The hay is warm;
the hay is good and warm. I put it under my marble feet."
"What tale art thou telling me?" said Jacques. "I spoke not of thee."
She continued:
"They make me hold a man while they kill him. Oh, what blood I have had
on my hands! God forgive them!--if that be possible. They make me hold
his head, and the bucket filled with crimson water. O Heaven!--I, who
was the bride of God! They throw their bodies into the abyss of snow;
but the vulture finds them; he lines his nest with their hair. I now see
thee full of life; I shall see thee bloody, pale, and dead."
The adventurer, shrugging his shoulders, began to whistle as he passed
the second door. Within he found the man he had seen through the chinks
of the cabin. He wore the blue berret cap of the Basques on one side,
and, enveloped in an ample cloak, seated on the pack-saddle of a mule,
and bending over a large brazier, smoked a cigar, and from time to time
drank from a leather bottle at his side. The light of the brazier showed
his full yellow face, as well as the chamber, in which mule-saddles were
ranged round the byasero as seats. He raised his head without altering
his position.
"Oh, oh! is it thou, Jacques?" he said. "Is it thou? Although 'tis
four years since I saw thee, I recognize thee. Thou art not changed,
brigand! There 'tis still, thy great knave's face. Sit down there, and
take a drink."
"Yes, here I am. But how the devil camest thou here? I thought thou
wert a judge, Houmain!"
"And I thought thou wert a Spanish captain, Jacques!"
"Ah! I was so for a time, and then a prisoner. But I got out of the
thing very snugly, and have taken again to the old trade, the free life,
the good smuggling work."
"Viva! viva! Jaleo!"--[A common Spanish oath.]-- cried Houmain. "We
brave fellows can turn our hands to everything. Thou camest by the other
passes, I suppose, for I have not seen thee since I returned to the
trade."
"Yes, yes; I have passed where thou wilt never pass," said Jacques.
"And what hast got?"
"A new merchandise. My mules will come tomorrow."
"Silk sashes, cigars, or linen?"
"Thou wilt know in time, amigo," said the ruffian. "Give me the skin.
I'm thirsty."
"Here, drink. It's true Valdepenas! We're so jolly here, we bandoleros!
Ay! jaleo! jaleo! come, drink; our friends are coming."
"What friends?" said Jacques, dropping the horn.
"Don't be uneasy, but drink. I'll tell thee all about it presently, and
then we'll sing the Andalusian Tirana."--[A kind of ballad.]
The adventurer took the horn, and assumed an appearance of ease.
"And who's that great she-devil I saw out there?" he said. "She seems
half dead."
"Oh, no! she's only mad. Drink; I'll tell thee all about her."
And taking from his red sash a long poniard denticulated on each side
like a saw, Houmain used it to stir up the fire, and said with vast
gravity:
"Thou must know first, if thou dost not know it already, that down below
there [he pointed toward France] the old wolf Richelieu carries all
before him."
"Ah, ah!" said Jacques.
"Yes; they call him the king of the King. Thou knowest? There is,
however, a young man almost as strong as he, and whom they call Monsieur
le Grand. This young fellow commands almost the whole army of Perpignan
at this moment. He arrived there a month ago; but the old fox is still
at Narbonne--a very cunning fox, indeed. As to the King, he is sometimes
this, sometimes that [as he spoke, Houmain turned his hand outward and
inward], between zist and zest; but while he is determining, I am for
zist--that is to say, I'm a Cardinalist. I've been regularly doing
business for my lord since the first job he gave me, three years ago.
I'll tell thee about it. He wanted some men of firmness and spirit for a
little expedition, and sent for me to be judge-Advocate."
"Ah! a very pretty post, I've heard."
"Yes, 'tis a trade like ours, where they sell cord instead of thread; but
it is less honest, for they kill men oftener. But 'tis also more
profitable; everything has its price."
"Very properly so," said Jacques.
"Behold me, then, in a red robe. I helped to give a yellow one and
brimstone to a fine fellow, who was cure at Loudun, and who had got into
a convent of nuns, like a wolf in a fold; and a fine thing he made of
it."
"Ha, ha, ha! That's very droll!" laughed Jacques. "Drink," said
Houmain. "Yes, Jago, I saw him after the affair, reduced to a little
black heap like this charcoal. See, this charcoal at the end of my
poniard. What things we are! That's just what we shall all come to when
we go to the Devil."
"Oh, none of these pleasantries!" said the other, very gravely. "You
know that I am religious."
"Well, I don't say no; it may be so," said Houmain, in the same tone.
"There's Richelieu, a Cardinal! But, no matter. Thou must know, then,
as I was Advocate-General, I advocated--"
"Ah, thou art quite a wit!"
"Yes, a little. But, as I was saying, I advocated into my own pocket
five hundred piastres, for Armand Duplessis pays his people well, and
there's nothing to be said against that, except that the money's not his
own; but that's the way with us all. I determined to invest this money
in our old trade; and I returned here. Business goes on well. There is
sentence of death out against us; and our goods, of course, sell for half
as much again as before."
"What's that?" exclaimed Jacques; "lightning at this time of year?"
"Yes, the storms are beginning; we've had two already. We are in the
clouds. Dost hear the roll of the thunder? But this is nothing; come,
drink. 'Tis almost one in the morning; we'll finish the skin and the
night together. As I was telling thee, I made acquaintance with our
president--a great scoundrel called Laubardemont. Dost know him?"
"Yes, a little," said Jacques; "he's a regular miser. But never mind
that; go on."
"Well, as we had nothing to conceal from one another, I told him of my
little commercial plans, and asked him, when any good jobs presented
themselves, to think of his judicial comrade; and I've had no cause to
complain of him."
"Ah!" said Jacques, "and what has he done?"
"Why, first, two years ago, he himself brought, me, on horseback behind
him, his niece that thou'st seen out there."
"His niece!" cried Jacques, rising; "and thou treat'st her like a slave!
Demonio!"
"Drink," said Houmain, quietly stirring the brazier with his poniard; "he
himself desired it should be so. Sit down."
Jacques did so.
"I don't think," continued the smuggler, "that he'd even be sorry to know
that she was--dost understand?--to hear she was under the snow rather
than above it; but he would not put her there himself, because he's a
good relative, as he himself said."
"And as I know," said Jacques; "but go on."
"Thou mayst suppose that a man like him, who lives at court, does not
like to have a mad niece in his house. The thing is self-evident; if I'd
continued to play my part of the man of the robe, I should have done the
same in a similar case. But here, as you perceive, we don't care much
for appearances; and I've taken her for a servant. She has shown more
good sense than I expected, although she has rarely ever spoken more than
a single word, and at first came the delicate over us. Now she rubs down
a mule like a groom. She has had a slight fever for the last few days;
but 'twill pass off one way or the other. But, I say, don't tell
Laubardemont that she still lives; he'd think 'twas for the sake of
economy I've kept her for a servant."
"How! is he here?" cried Jacques.
"Drink!" replied the phlegmatic Houmain, who himself set the example
most assiduously, and began to half shut his eyes with a languishing air.
"'Tis the second transaction I've had with this Laubardemont--or demon,
or whatever the name is; but 'tis a good devil of a demon, at all events.
I love him as I do my eyes; and I will drink his health out of this
bottle of Jurangon here. 'Tis the wine of a jolly fellow, the late King
Henry. How happy we are here!--Spain on the right hand, France on the
left; the wine-skin on one side, the bottle on the other! The bottle!
I've left all for the bottle!"
As he spoke, he knocked off the neck of a bottle of white wine. After
taking a long draught, he continued, while the stranger closely watched
him:
"Yes, he's here; and his feet must be rather cold, for he's been waiting
about the mountains ever since sunset, with his guards and our comrades.
Thou knowest our bandoleros, the true contrabandistas?"
"Ah! and what do they hunt?" said Jacques.
"Ah, that's the joke!" answered the drunkard. "'Tis to arrest two
rascals, who want to bring here sixty thousand Spanish soldiers in paper
in their pocket. You don't, perhaps, quite understand me, 'croquant'.
Well, 'tis as I tell thee--in their own pockets."
"Ay, ay! I understand," said Jacques, loosening his poniard in his sash,
and looking at the door.
"Very well, devil's-skin, let's sing the Tirana. Take the bottle, throw
away the cigar, and sing."
With these words the drunken host began to sing in Spanish, interrupting
his song with bumpers, which he threw down his throat, leaning back for
the greater ease, while Jacques, still seated, looked at him gloomily by
the light of the brazier, and meditated what he should do.
A flash of lightning entered the small window, and filled the room with a
sulphurous odor. A fearful clap immediately followed; the cabin shook;
and a beam fell outside.
"Hallo, the house!" cried the drunken man; "the Devil's among us; and
our friends are not come!"
"Sing!" said Jacques, drawing the pack upon which he was close to that
of Houmain.
The latter drank to encourage himself, and then continued to sing.
As he ended, he felt his seat totter, and fell backward; Jacques, thus
freed from him, sprang toward the door, when it opened, and his head
struck against the cold, pale face of the mad-woman. He recoiled.
"The judge!" she said, as she entered; and she fell prostrate on the
cold ground.
Jacques had already passed one foot over her; but another face appeared,
livid and surprised-that of a very tall man, enveloped in a cloak covered
with snow. He again recoiled, and laughed a laugh of terror and rage.
It was Laubardemont, followed by armed men; they looked at one another.
"Ah, com-r-a-d-e, yo-a ra-a-scal!" hiccuped Houmain, rising with
difficulty; "thou'rt a Royalist."
But when he saw these two men, who seemed petrified by each other, he
became silent, as conscious of his intoxication; and he reeled forward to
raise up the madwoman, who was still lying between the judge and the
Captain. The former spoke first.
"Are you not he we have been pursuing?"
"It is he!" said the armed men, with one voice; "the other has escaped."
Jacques receded to the split planks that formed the tottering wall of the
hut; enveloping himself in his cloak, like a bear forced against a tree
by the hounds, and, wishing to gain a moment's respite for reflection, he
said, firmly:
"The first who passes that brazier and the body of that girl is a dead
man."
And he drew a long poniard from his cloak. At this moment Houmain,
kneeling, turned the head of the girl. Her eyes were closed; he drew her
toward the brazier, which lighted up her face.
"Ah, heavens!" cried Laubardemont, forgetting himself in his fright; "
Jeanne again!"
"Be calm, my lo-lord," said Houmain, trying to open the eyelids, which
closed again, and to raise her head, which fell back again like wet
linen; "be, be--calm! Do-n't ex-cite yourself; she's dead, decidedly."
Jacques put his foot on the body as on a barrier, and, looking with a
ferocious laugh in the face of Laubardemont, said to him in a low voice:
"Let me pass, and I will not compromise thee, courtier; I will not tell
that she was thy niece, and that I am thy son."
Laubardemont collected himself, looked at his men, who pressed around him
with advanced carabines; and, signing them to retire a few steps, he
answered in a very low voice:
"Give me the treaty, and thou shalt pass."
"Here it is, in my girdle; touch it, and I will call you my father aloud.
What will thy master say?"
"Give it me, and I will spare thy life."
"Let me pass, and I will pardon thy having given me that life."
"Still the same, brigand?"
"Ay, assassin."
"What matters to thee that boy conspirator?" asked the judge.
"What matters to thee that old man who reigns?" answered the other.
"Give me that paper; I've sworn to have it."
"Leave it with me; I've sworn to carry it back."
"What can be thy oath and thy God?" demanded Laubardemont.
"And thine?" replied Jacques. "Is't the crucifix of red-hot iron?"
Here Houmain, rising between them, laughing and staggering, said to the
judge, slapping him on the shoulder.
"You are a long time coming to an understanding, friend; do-on't you know
him of old? He's a very good fellow."
"I? no!" cried Laubardemont, aloud; "I never saw him before."
At this moment, Jacques, who was protected by the drunkard and the
smallness of the crowded chamber, sprang violently against the weak
planks that formed the wall, and by a blow of his heel knocked two of
them out, and passed through the space thus created. The whole side of
the cabin was broken; it tottered, and the wind rushed in.
"Hallo! Demonio! Santo Demonio! where art going?" cried the smuggler;
"thou art breaking my house down, and on the side of the ravine, too."
All cautiously approached, tore away the planks that remained, and leaned
over the abyss. They contemplated a strange spectacle. The storm raged
in all its fury; and it was a storm of the Pyrenees. Enormous flashes of
lightning came all at once from all parts of the horizon, and their fires
succeeded so quickly that there seemed no interval; they appeared to be a
continuous flash. It was but rarely the flaming vault would suddenly
become obscure; and it then instantly resumed its glare. It was not the
light that seemed strange on this night, but the darkness.
The tall thin peaks and whitened rocks stood out from the red background
like blocks of marble on a cupola of burning brass, and resembled, amid
the snows, the wonders of a volcano; the waters gushed from them like
flames; the snow poured down like dazzling lava.
In this moving mass a man was seen struggling, whose efforts only
involved him deeper and deeper in the whirling and liquid gulf; his knees
were already buried. In vain he clasped his arms round an enormous
pyramidal and transparent icicle, which reflected the lightning like a
rock of crystal; the icicle itself was melting at its base, and slowly
bending over the declivity of the rock. Under the covering of snow,
masses of granite were heard striking against each other, as they
descended into the vast depths below. Yet they could still save him;
a space of scarcely four feet separated him from Laubardemont.
"I sink!" he cried; "hold out to me something, and thou shalt have the
treaty."
"Give it me, and I will reach thee this musket," said the judge.
"There it is," replied the ruffian, "since the Devil is for Richelieu!"
and taking one hand from the hold of his slippery support, he threw a
roll of wood into the cabin. Laubardemont rushed back upon the treaty
like a wolf on his prey. Jacques in vain held out his arm; he slowly
glided away with the enormous thawing block turned upon him, and was
silently buried in the snow.
"Ah, villain," were his last words, "thou hast deceived me! but thou
didst not take the treaty from me. I gave it thee, Father!" and he
disappeared wholly under the thick white bed of snow. Nothing was seen
in his place but the glittering flakes which the lightning had ploughed
up, as it became extinguished in them; nothing was--heard but the rolling
of the thunder and the dash of the water against the rocks, for the men
in the half-ruined cabin, grouped round a corpse and a villain, were
silent, tongue-tied with horror, and fearing lest God himself should send
a thunderbolt upon them.
CHAPTER XXIII
ABSENCE
L'absence est le plus grand des maux,
Non pas pour vous, cruelle !
LA FONTAINE.
Who has not found a charm in watching the clouds of heaven as they float
along? Who has not envied them the freedom of their journeyings through
the air, whether rolled in great masses by the wind, and colored by the
sun, they advance peacefully, like fleets of dark ships with gilt prows,
or sprinkled in light groups, they glide quickly on, airy and elongated,
like birds of passage, transparent as vast opals detached from the
treasury of the heavens, or glittering with whiteness, like snows from
the mountains carried on the wings of the winds? Man is a slow traveller
who envies those rapid journeyers; less rapid than his imagination, they
have yet seen in a single day all the places he loves, in remembrance or
in hope,--those that have witnessed his happiness or his misery, and
those so beautiful countries unknown to us, where we expect to find
everything at once. Doubtless there is not a spot on the whole earth, a
wild rock, an arid plain, over which we pass with indifference, that has
not been consecrated in the life of some man, and is not painted in his
remembrance; for, like battered vessels, before meeting inevitable wreck,
we leave some fragment of ourselves on every rock.
Whither go the dark-blue clouds of that storm of the Pyrenees? It is the
wind of Africa which drives them before it with a fiery breath. They
fly; they roll over one another, growlingly throwing out lightning before
them, as their torches, and leaving suspended behind them a long train of
rain, like a vaporous robe. Freed by an effort from the rocky defiles
that for a moment had arrested their course, they irrigate, in Bearn, the
picturesque patrimony of Henri IV; in Guienne, the conquests of Charles
VII; in Saintogne, Poitou, and Touraine, those of Charles V and of Philip
Augustus; and at last, slackening their pace above the old domain of Hugh
Capet, halt murmuring on the towers of St. Germain.
"O Madame!" exclaimed Marie de Mantua to the Queen, "do you see this
storm coming up from the south?"
"You often look in that direction, 'ma chere'," answered Anne of Austria,
leaning on the balcony.
"It is the direction of the sun, Madame."
"And of tempests, you see," said the Queen. "Trust in my friendship, my
child; these clouds can bring no happiness to you. I would rather see
you turn your eyes toward Poland. See the fine people you might
command."
At this moment, to avoid the rain, which began to fall, the Prince-
Palatine passed rapidly under the windows of the Queen, with a numerous
suite of young Poles on horseback. Their Turkish vests, with buttons of
diamonds, emeralds, and rubies; their green and gray cloaks; the lofty
plumes of their horses, and their adventurous air-gave them a singular
eclat to which the court had easily become accustomed. They paused for a
moment, and the Prince made two salutes, while the light animal he rode
passed gracefully sideways, keeping his front toward the princesses;
prancing and snorting, he shook his mane, and seemed to salute by putting
his head between his legs. The whole suite repeated the evolution as
they passed. The Princesse Marie had at first shrunk back, lest they
should see her tears; but the brilliant and flattering spectacle made her
return to the balcony, and she could not help exclaiming:
"How gracefully the Palatine rides that beautiful horse! he seems scarce
conscious of it."
The Queen smiled, and said:
"He is conscious about her who might be his queen tomorrow, if she would
but make a sign of the head, and let but one glance from her great black
almond-shaped eyes be turned on that throne, instead of always receiving
these poor foreigners with poutings, as now."
And Anne of Austria kissed the cheek of Marie, who could not refrain from
smiling also; but she instantly sunk her head, reproaching herself, and
resumed her sadness, which seemed gliding from her. She even needed once
more to contemplate the great clouds that hung over the chateau.
"Poor child," continued the Queen, "thou dost all thou canst to be very
faithful, and to keep thyself in the melancholy of thy romance. Thou art
making thyself ill with weeping when thou shouldst be asleep, and with
not eating. Thou passest the night in revery and in writing; but I warn
thee, thou wilt get nothing by it, except making thyself thin and less
beautiful, and the not being a queen. Thy Cinq-Mars is an ambitious
youth, who has lost himself."
Seeing Marie conceal her head in her handkerchief to weep, Anne of
Austria for a moment reentered her chamber, leaving Marie in the balcony,
and feigned to be looking for some jewels at her toilet-table; she soon
returned, slowly and gravely, to the window. Marie was more calm, and
was gazing sorrowfully at the landscape before her, the hills in the
distance, and the storm gradually spreading itself.
The Queen resumed in a more serious tone:
"God has been more merciful to you than your imprudence perhaps deserved,
Marie. He has saved you from great danger. You were willing to make
great sacrifices, but fortunately they have not been accomplished as you
expected. Innocence has saved you from love. You are as one who,
thinking she has swallowed a deadly poison, has in reality drunk only
pure and harmless water."
"Ah, Madame, what mean you? Am I not unhappy enough already?"
"Do not interrupt me," said the Queen; "you will, ere long, see your
present position with different eyes. I will not accuse you of
ingratitude toward the Cardinal; I have too many reasons for not liking
him. I myself witnessed the rise of the conspiracy. Still, you should
remember, 'ma chere', that he was the only person in France who, against
the opinion of the Queen-mother and of the court, insisted upon war with
the duchy of Mantua, which he recovered from the empire and from Spain,
and returned to the Duc de Nevers, your father. Here, in this very
chateau of Saint-Germain, was signed the treaty which deposed the Duke of
Guastalla.--[The 19th of May, 1632.]-- You were then very young; they
must, however, have told you of it. Yet here, through love alone (I am
willing to believe, with yourself, that it is so), a young man of two-
and-twenty is ready to get him assassinated."
"O Madame, he is incapable of such a deed. I swear to you that he has
refused to adopt it."
"I have begged you, Marie, to let me speak. I know that he is generous
and loyal. I am willing to believe that, contrary to the custom of our
times, he would not go so far as to kill an old man, as did the Chevalier
de Guise. But can he prevent his assassination, if his troops make him
prisoner? This we can not say, any more than he. God alone knows the
future. It is, at all events, certain that it is for you he attacks him,
and, to overthrow him, is preparing civil war, which perhaps is bursting
forth at the very moment that we speak--a war without success. Whichever
way it turns, it can only effect evil, for Monsieur is going to abandon
the conspiracy."
"How, Madame?"
"Listen to me. I tell you I am certain of it; I need not explain myself
further. What will the grand ecuyer do? The King, as he rightly
anticipated, has gone to consult the Cardinal. To consult him is to
yield to him; but the treaty of Spain is signed. If it be discovered,
what can Monsieur de Cinq-Mars do? Do not tremble thus. We will save
him; we will save his life, I promise you. There is yet time, I hope."
"Ah, Madame, you hope! I am lost!" cried Marie, half fainting.
"Let us sit down," said the Queen; and, placing herself near Marie, at
the entrance to the chamber, she continued:
"Doubtless Monsieur will treat for all the conspirators in treating for
himself; but exile will be the least punishment, perpetual exile.
Behold, then, the Duchesse de Nevers and Mantua, the Princesse Marie de
Gonzaga, the wife of Monsieur Henri d'Effiat, Marquis de Cinq-Mars,
exiled!"
"Well, Madame, I will follow him into exile. It is my duty; I am his
wife!" exclaimed Marie, sobbing. "I would I knew he were already
banished and in safety."
"Dreams of eighteen!" said the Queen, supporting Marie. "Awake, child,
awake! you must. I deny not the good qualities of Monsieur de Cinq-
Mars. He has a lofty character, a vast mind, and great courage; but he
may no longer be aught for you, and, fortunately, you are not his wife,
or even his betrothed."
"I am his, Madame-his alone."
"But without the benediction," replied Anne of Austria; "in a word,
without marriage. No priest would have dared--not even your own; he told
me so. Be silent!" she added, putting her two beautiful hands on
Marie's lips. "Be silent! You would say that God heard your vow; that
you can not live without him; that your destinies are inseparable from
his; that death alone can break your union? The phrases of your age,
delicious chimeras of a moment, at which one day you will smile, happy at
not having to lament them all your life. Of the many and brilliant women
you see around me at court, there is not one but at your age had some
beautiful dream of love, like this of yours, who did not form those ties,
which they believed indissoluble, and who did not in secret take eternal
oaths. Well, these dreams are vanished, these knots broken, these oaths
forgotten; and yet you see them happy women and mothers. Surrounded by
the honors of their rank, they laugh and dance every night. I again
divine what you would say--they loved not as you love, eh? You deceive
yourself, my dear child; they loved as much, and wept no less.
"And here I must make you acquainted with that great mystery which
constitutes your despair, since you are ignorant of the malady that
devours you. We have a twofold existence, 'm'amie': our internal life,
that of our feelings powerfully works within us, while the external life
dominates despite ourselves. We are never independent of men, more
especially in an elevated condition. Alone, we think ourselves
mistresses of our destiny; but the entrance of two or three people
fastens on all our chains, by recalling our rank and our retinue. Nay;
shut yourself up and abandon yourself to all the daring and extraordinary
resolutions that the passions may raise up in you, to the marvellous
sacrifices they may suggest to you. A lackey coming and asking your
orders will at once break the charm and bring you back to your real life.
It is this contest between your projects and your position which destroys
you. You are invariably angry with yourself; you bitterly reproach
yourself."
Marie turned away her head.
"Yes, you believe yourself criminal. Pardon yourself, Marie; all men are
beings so relative and so dependent one upon another that I know not
whether the great retreats of the world that we sometimes see are not
made for the world itself. Despair has its pursuits, and solitude its
coquetry. It is said that the gloomiest hermits can not refrain from
inquiring what men say of them. This need of public opinion is
beneficial, in that it combats, almost always victoriously, that which is
irregular in our imagination, and comes to the aid of duties which we too
easily forget. One experiences (you will feel it, I hope) in returning
to one's proper lot, after the sacrifice of that which had diverted the
reason, the satisfaction of an exile returning to his family, of a sick
person at sight of the sun after a night afflicted with frightful dreams.
"It is this feeling of a being returned, as it were, to its natural state
that creates the calm which you see in many eyes that have also had their
tears-for there are few women who have not known tears such as yours.
You would think yourself perjured if you renounced Cinq-Mars! But
nothing binds you; you have more than acquitted yourself toward him by
refusing for more than two years past the royal hands offered you. And,
after all, what has he done, this impassioned lover? He has elevated
himself to reach you; but may not the ambition which here seems to you to
have aided love have made use of that love? This young man seems to me
too profound, too calm in his political stratagems, too independent in
his vast resolutions, in his colossal enterprises, for me to believe him
solely occupied by his tenderness. If you have been but a means instead
of an end, what would you say?"
"I would still love him," answered Marie. "While he lives, I am his."
"And while I live," said the Queen, with firmness, "I will oppose the
alliance."
At these last words the rain and hail fell violently on the balcony.
The Queen took advantage of the circumstance abruptly to leave the room
and pass into that where the Duchesse de Chevreuse, Mazarin, Madame de
Guemenee, and the Prince-Palatine had been awaiting her for a short time.
The Queen walked up to them. Marie placed herself in the shade of a
curtain in order to conceal the redness of her eyes. She was at first
unwilling to take part in the sprightly conversation; but some words of
it attracted her attention. The Queen was showing to the Princesse de
Guemenee diamonds she had just received from Paris.
"As for this crown, it does not belong to me. The King had it prepared
for the future Queen of Poland. Who that is to be, we know not." Then
turning toward the Prince-Palatine, "We saw you pass, Prince. Whom were
you going to visit?"
"Mademoiselle la Duchesse de Rohan," answered the Pole.
The insinuating Mazarin, who availed himself of every opportunity to worm
out secrets, and to make himself necessary by forced confidences, said,
approaching the Queen:
"That comes very apropos, just as we were speaking of the crown of
Poland."
Marie, who was listening, could not hear this, and said to Madame de
Guemenee, who was at her side:
"Is Monsieur de Chabot, then, King of Poland?"
The Queen heard that, and was delighted at this touch of pride. In order
to develop its germ, she affected an approving attention to the
conversation that ensued.
The Princesse de Guemenee exclaimed:
"Can you conceive such a marriage? We really can't get it out of our
heads. This same Mademoiselle de Rohan, whom we have seen so haughty,
after having refused the Comte de Soissons, the Duc de Weimar, and the
Duc de Nemours, to marry Monsieur de Chabot, a simple gentleman! 'Tis
really a sad pity! What are we coming to? 'Tis impossible to say what
it will all end in."
"What! can it be true? Love at court! a real love affair! Can it be
believed?"
All this time the Queen continued opening and shutting and playing with
the new crown.
"Diamonds suit only black hair," she said. "Let us see. Let me put it
on you, Marie. Why, it suits her to admiration!"
"One would suppose it had been made for Madame la Princesse," said the
Cardinal.
"I would give the last drop of my blood for it to remain on that brow,"
said the Prince-Palatine.
Marie, through the tears that were still on her cheek, gave an infantine
and involuntary smile, like a ray of sunshine through rain. Then,
suddenly blushing deeply, she hastily took refuge in her apartments.
All present laughed. The Queen followed her with her eyes, smiled,
presented her hand for the Polish ambassador to kiss, and retired to
write a letter.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE WORK
One night, before Perpignan, a very unusual event took place. It was ten
o'clock; and all were asleep. The slow and almost suspended operations
of the siege had rendered the camp and the town inactive. The Spaniards
troubled themselves little about the French, all communication toward
Catalonia being open as in time of peace; and in the French army men's
minds were agitated with that secret anxiety which precedes great events.
Yet all was calm; no sound was heard but that of the measured tread of
the sentries. Nothing was seen in the dark night but the red light of
the matches of their guns, always smoking, when suddenly the trumpets of
the musketeers, of the light-horse, and of the men-at-arms sounded almost
simultaneously, "boot and saddle," and "to horse." All the sentinels
cried to arms; and the sergeants, with flambeaux, went from tent to tent,
along pike in their hands, to waken the soldiers, range them in lines,
and count them. Some files marched in gloomy silence along the streets
of the camp, and took their position in battle array. The sound of the
mounted squadrons announced that the heavy cavalry were making the same
dispositions. After half an hour of movement the noise ceased, the
torches were extinguished, and all again became calm, but the army was on
foot.
One of the last tents of the camp shone within as a star with flambeaux.
On approaching this little white and transparent pyramid, we might have
distinguished the shadows of two men reflected on the canvas as they
walked to and fro within. Outside several men on horseback were in
attendance; inside were De Thou and Cinq-Mars.
To see the pious and wise De Thou thus up and armed at this hour, you
might have taken him for one of the chiefs of the revolt. But a closer
examination of his serious countenance and mournful expression
immediately showed that he blamed it, and allowed himself to be led into
it and endangered by it from an extraordinary resolution which aided him
to surmount the horror he had of the enterprise itself. From the day
when Henri d'Effiat had opened his heart and confided to him its whole
secret, he had seen clearly that all remonstrance was vain with a young
man so powerfully resolved.
De Thou had even understood what M. de Cinq-Mars had not told him,
and had seen in the secret union of his friend with the Princesse Marie,
one of those ties of love whose mysterious and frequent faults,
voluptuous and involuntary derelictions, could not be too soon purified
by public benediction. He had comprehended that punishment, impossible
to be supported long by a lover, the adored master of that young girl,
and who was condemned daily to appear before her as a stranger, to
receive political disclosures of marriages they were preparing for her.
The day when he received his entire confession, he had done all in his
power to prevent Cinq-Mars going so far in his projects as the foreign
alliance. He had evoked the gravest recollections and the best feelings,
without any other result than rendering the invincible resolution of his
friend more rude toward him. Cinq-Mars, it will be recollected, had said
to him harshly, "Well, did I ask you to take part in this conspiracy?"
And he had desired only to promise not to denounce it; and he had
collected all his power against friendship to say, "Expect nothing
further from me if you sign this treaty." Yet Cinq-Mars had signed the
treaty; and De Thou was still there with him.
The habit of familiarly discussing the projects of his friend had perhaps
rendered them less odious to him. His contempt for the vices of the
Prime-Minister; his indignation at the servitude of the parliaments to
which his family belonged, and at the corruption of justice; the powerful
names, and more especially the noble characters of the men who directed
the enterprise--all had contributed to soften down his first painful
impression. Having once promised secrecy to M. de Cinq-Mars, he
considered himself as in a position to accept in detail all the secondary
disclosures; and since the fortuitous event which had compromised him
with the conspirators at the house of Marion de Lorme, he considered
himself united to them by honor, and engaged to an inviolable secrecy.
Since that time he had seen Monsieur, the Duc de Bouillon, and
Fontrailles; they had become accustomed to speak before him without
constraint, and he to hear them.
The dangers which threatened his friend now drew him into their vortex
like an invincible magnet. His conscience accused him; but he followed
Cinq-Mars wherever he went without even, from excess of delicacy,
hazarding a single expression which might resemble a personal fear. He
had tacitly given up his life, and would have deemed it unworthy of both
to manifest a desire to regain it.
The master of the horse was in his cuirass; he was armed, and wore large
boots. An enormous pistol, with a lighted match, was placed upon his
table between two flambeaux. A heavy watch in a brass case lay near the
pistol. De Thou, wrapped in a black cloak, sat motionless with folded
arms. Cinq-Mars paced backward and forward, his arms crossed behind his
back, from time to time looking at the hand of the watch, too sluggish in
his eyes. He opened the tent, looked up to the heavens, and returned.
"I do not see my star there," said he; "but no matter. She is here in my
heart."
"The night is dark," said De Thou.
"Say rather that the time draws nigh. It advances, my friend; it
advances. Twenty minutes more, and all will be accomplished. The army
only waits the report of this pistol to begin."
De Thou held in his hand an ivory crucifix, and looking first at the
cross, and then toward heaven, "Now," said he, "is the hour to complete
the sacrifice. I repent not; but oh, how bitter is the cup of sin to my
lips! I had vowed my days to innocence and to the works of the soul,
and here I am about to commit a crime, and to draw the sword."
But forcibly seizing the hand of Cinq-Mars, "It is for you, for you!"
he added with the enthusiasm of a blindly devoted heart. "I rejoice in
my errors if they turn to your glory. I see but your happiness in my
fault. Forgive me if I have returned for a moment to the habitual
thought of my whole life."
Cinq-Mars looked steadfastly at him; and a tear stole slowly down his
cheek.
"Virtuous friend," said he, "may your fault fall only on my head! But
let us hope that God, who pardons those who love, will be for us; for we
are criminal--I through love, you through friendship."
Then suddenly looking at the watch, he took the long pistol in his hand,
and gazed at the smoking match with a fierce air. His long hair fell
over his face like the mane of a young lion.
"Do not consume," said he; "burn slowly. Thou art about to light a flame
which the waves of ocean can not extinguish. The flame will soon light
half Europe; it may perhaps reach the wood of thrones. Burn slowly,
precious flame! The winds which fan thee are violent and fearful; they
are love and hatred. Reserve thyself! Thy explosion will be heard afar,
and will find echoes in the peasant's but and the king's palace.
Burn, burn, poor flame! Thou art to me a sceptre and a thunderbolt!"
De Thou, still holding his ivory crucifix in his hand, said in a low
voice:
"Lord, pardon us the blood that will be shed! We combat the wicked and
the impious." Then, raising his voice, "My friend, the cause of virtue
will triumph," he said; "it alone will triumph. God has ordained that
the guilty treaty should not reach us; that which constituted the crime
is no doubt destroyed. We shall fight without the foreigners, and
perhaps we shall not fight at all. God will change the heart of the
king."
"'Tis the hour! 'tis the hour!" exclaimed Cinq-Mars, his eyes fixed upon
the watch with a kind of savage joy; "four minutes more, and the
Cardinalists in the camp will be crushed! We shall march upon Narbonne!
He is there! Give me the pistol!"
At these words he hastily opened the tent, and took up the match.
"A courier from Paris! an express from court!" cried a voice outside,
as a man, heated with hard riding and overcome with fatigue, threw
himself from his horse, entered, and presented a letter to Cinq-Mars.
"From the Queen, Monseigneur," he said. Cinq-Mars turned pale, and read
as follows:
M. DE CINQ-MARS: I write this letter to entreat and conjure you to
restore to her duties our well-beloved adopted daughter and friend,
the Princesse Marie de Gonzaga, whom your affection alone turns from
the throne of Poland, which has been offered to her. I have sounded
her heart. She is very young, and I have good reason to believe
that she would accept the crown with less effort and less grief than
you may perhaps imagine.
It is for her you have undertaken a war which will put to fire and
sword my beautiful and beloved France. I supplicate and implore you
to act as a gentleman, and nobly to release the Duchesse de Mantua
from the promises she may have made you. Thus restore repose to her
soul, and peace to our beloved country.
The Queen, who will throw herself at your feet if need be,
ANNE.
Cinq-Mars calmly replaced the pistol upon the table; his first impulse
had been to turn its muzzle upon himself. However, he laid it down, and
snatching a pencil, wrote on the back of the letter;
MADAME: Marie de Gonzaga, being my wife, can not be Queen of Poland
until after my death. I die.
CINQ-MARS.
Then, as if he would not allow himself time for a moment's reflection, he
forced the letter into the hands of the courier.
"To horse! to horse!" cried he, in a furious tone. "If you remain
another instant, you are a dead man!"
He saw him gallop off, and reentered the tent. Alone with his friend, he
remained an instant standing, but pale, his eyes fixed, and looking on
the ground like a madman. He felt himself totter.
"De Thou!" he cried.
"What would you, my friend, my dear friend? I am with you. You have
acted grandly, most grandly, sublimely!"
"De Thou!" he cried again, in a hollow voice, and fell with his face to
the ground, like an uprooted tree.
Violent tempests assume different aspects, according to the climates in
which they take place. Those which have spread over a terrible space in
northern countries assemble into one single cloud under the torrid zone--
the more formidable, that they leave the horizon in all its purity, and
that the furious waves still reflect the azure of heaven while tinged
with the blood of man. It is the same with great passions. They assume
strange aspects according to our characters; but how terrible are they in
vigorous hearts, which have preserved their force under the veil of
social forms? When youth and despair embrace, we know not to what fury
they may rise, or what may be their sudden resignation; we know not
whether the volcano will burst the mountain or become suddenly
extinguished within its entrails.
De Thou, in alarm, raised his friend. The blood gushed from his nostrils
and ears; he would have thought him dead, but .for the torrents of tears
which flowed from his eyes. They were the only sign of life. Suddenly
he opened his lids, looked around him, and by an extraordinary energy
resumed his senses and the power of his will.
"I am in the presence of men," said he; "I must finish with them. My
friend, it is half-past eleven; the hour for the signal has passed.
Give, in my name, the order to return to quarters. It was a false alarm,
which I will myself explain this evening."
De Thou had already perceived the importance of this order; he went out
and returned immediately.
He found Cinq-Mars seated, calm, and endeavoring to cleanse the blood
from his face.
"De Thou," said he, looking fixedly at him, "retire; you disturb me."
"I leave you not," answered the latter.
"Fly, I tell you! the Pyrenees are not far distant. I can not speak
much longer, even to you; but if you remain with me, you will die. I
give you warning."
"I remain," repeated De Thou.
"May God preserve you, then!" answered Cinq-Mars, "for I can do nothing
more; the moment has passed. I leave you here. Call Fontrailles and all
the confederates: distribute these passports among them. Let them fly
immediately; tell them all has failed, but that I thank them. For you,
once again I say, fly with them, I entreat you; but whatever you do,
follow me not--follow me not, for your life! I swear to you not to do
violence to myself!"
With these words, shaking his friend's hand without looking at him, he
rushed from the tent.
Meantime, some leagues thence another conversation was taking place. At
Narbonne, in the same cabinet in which we formerly beheld Richelieu
regulating with Joseph the interests of the State, were still seated the
same men, nearly as we have described them. The minister, however, had
grown much older in three years of suffering; and the Capuchin was as
much terrified with the result of his expedition as his master appeared
tranquil.
The Cardinal, seated in his armchair, his legs bound and encased with
furs and warm clothing, had upon his knees three kittens, which gambolled
upon his scarlet robe. Every now and then he took one of them and placed
it upon the others, to continue their sport. He smiled as he watched
them. On his feet lay their mother, looking like an enormous animated
muff.
Joseph, seated near him, was going over the account of all he had heard
in the confessional. Pale even now, at the danger he had run of being
discovered, or of being murdered by Jacques, he concluded thus:
"In short, your Eminence, I can not help feeling agitated to my heart's
core when I reflect upon the dangers which have, and still do, threaten
you. Assassins offer themselves to poniard you. I beheld in France the
whole court against you, one half of the army, and two provinces.
Abroad, Spain and Portugal are ready to furnish troops. Everywhere there
are snares or battles, poniards or cannon."
The Cardinal yawned three times, without discontinuing his amusement, and
then said:
"A cat is a very fine animal. It is a drawing-room tiger. What
suppleness, what extraordinary finesse! Here is this little yellow one
pretending to sleep, in order that the tortoise-shell one may not notice
it, but fall upon its brother; and this one, how it tears the other! See
how it sticks its claws into its side! It would kill and eat it, I fully
believe, if it were the stronger. It is very amusing. What pretty
animals!"
He coughed and sneezed for some time; then he continued:
"Messire Joseph, I sent word to you not to speak to me of business until
after my supper. . . I have an appetite now, and it is not yet my hour.
Chicot, my doctor, recommends regularity, and I feel my usual pain in my
side. This is how I shall spend the evening," he added, looking at the
clock. "At nine, we will settle the affairs of Monsieur le Grand. At
ten, I shall be carried round the garden to take the air by moonlight.
Then I shall sleep for an hour or two. At midnight the King will be
here; and at four o'clock you may return to receive the various orders
for arrests, condemnations, or any others I may have to give you, for the
provinces, Paris, or the armies of his Majesty."
Richelieu said all this in the same tone of voice, with a uniform
enunciation, affected only by the weakness of his chest and the loss of
several teeth.
It was seven in the evening. The Capuchin withdrew. The Cardinal supped
with the greatest tranquillity; and when the clock struck half-past
eight, he sent for Joseph, and said to him, when he was seated:
"This, then, is all they have been able to do against me during more than
two years. They are poor creatures, truly! The Duc de Bouillon, whom I
thought possessed some ability, has forfeited all claim to my opinion.
I have watched him closely; and I ask you, has he taken one step worthy
of a true statesman? The King, Monsieur, and the rest, have only shown
their teeth against me, and without depriving me of one single man. The
young Cinq-Mars is the only man among them who has any consecutiveness of
ideas. All that he has done has been done surprisingly well. I must do
him justice; he had good qualities. I should have made him my pupil, had
it not been for his obstinate character. But he has here charged me
'a l'outrance, and must take the consequences. I am sorry for him.
I have left them to float about in open water for the last two years.
I shall now draw the net."
"It is time, Monseigneur," said Joseph, who often trembled involuntarily
as he spoke. "Do you bear in mind that from Perpignan to Narbonne the
way is short? Do you know that if your army here is powerful, your own
troops are weak and uncertain; that the young nobles are furious; and
that the King is not sure?"
The Cardinal looked at the clock.
"It is only half-past eight, Joseph. I have already told you that I will
not talk about this affair until nine. Meantime, as justice must be
done, you will write what I shall dictate, for my memory serves me well.
There are still some objectionable persons left, I see by my notes--four
of the judges of Urbain Grandier. He was a rare genius, that Urbain
Grandier," he added, with a malicious expression. Joseph bit his lips.
"All the other judges have died miserably. As to Houmain, he shall be
hanged as a smuggler by and by. We may leave him alone for the present.
But there is that horrible Lactantius, who lives peacefully, Barre, and
Mignon. Take a pen, and write to the Bishop of Poitiers,
"MONSEIGNEUR: It is his Majesty's pleasure that Fathers Mignon and
Barre be superseded in their cures, and sent with the shortest
possible delay to the town of Lyons, with Father Lactantius,
Capuchin, to be tried before a special tribunal, charged with
criminal intentions against the State."
Joseph wrote as coolly as a Turk strikes off a head at a sign from his
master. The Cardinal said to him, while signing the letter:
"I will let you know how I wish them to disappear, for it is important to
efface all traces of that affair. Providence has served me well. In
removing these men, I complete its work. That is all that posterity
shall know of the affair."
And he read to the Capuchin that page of his memoirs in which he recounts
the possession and sorceries of the magician.--[Collect. des Memoires
xxviii. 189.]--During this slow process, Joseph could not help looking
at the clock.
"You are anxious to come to Monsieur le Grand," said the Cardinal at
last. "Well, then, to please you, let us begin."
"Do you think I have not my reasons for being tranquil? You think that I
have allowed these poor conspirators to go too far. No, no! Here are
some little papers that would reassure you, did you know their contents.
First, in this hollow stick is the treaty with Spain, seized at Oleron.
I am well satisfied with Laubardemont; he is an able man."
The fire of ferocious jealousy sparkled under the thick eyebrows of the
monk.
"Ah, Monseigneur," said he, "you know not from whom he seized it. He
certainly suffered him to die, and in that respect we can not complain,
for he was the agent of the conspiracy; but it was his son."
"Say you the truth?" cried the Cardinal, in a severe tone. "Yes, for
you dare not lie to me. How knew you this?"
"From his attendants, Monsiegneur. Here are their reports. They will
testify to them."
The Cardinal having examined these papers, said:
"We will employ him once more to try our conspirators, and then you shall
do as you like with him. I give him to you."
Joseph joyfully pocketed his precious denunciations, and continued:
"Your Eminence speaks of trying men who are still armed and on
horseback."
"They are not all so. Read this letter from Monsieur to Chavigny. He
asks for pardon. He dared not address me the first day, and his prayers
rose no higher than the knees of one of my servants.
To M. de Chavigny:
M. DE CHAVIGNY: Although I believe that you are little satisfied
with me (and in truth you have reason to be dissatisfied), I do not
the less entreat you to endeavor my reconciliation with his
Eminence, and rely for this upon the true love you bear me, and
which, I believe, is greater than your anger. You know how much I
require to be relieved from the danger I am in. You have already
twice stood my friend with his Eminence. I swear to you this shall
be the last time I give you such an employment.
GASTON D'ORLEANS.
"But the next day he took courage, and sent this to myself,
To his Excellency the Cardinal-Duc:
MY COUSIN: This ungrateful M. le Grand is the most guilty man in the
world to have displeased you. The favors he received from his
Majesty have always made me doubtful of him and his artifices. For
you, my cousin, I retain my whole esteem. I am truly repentant at
having again been wanting in the fidelity I owe to my Lord the King,
and I call God to witness the sincerity with which I shall be for
the rest of my life your most faithful friend, with the same
devotion that I am, my cousin, your affectionate cousin,
GASTON.
and the third to the King. His project choked him; he could not keep it
down. But I am not so easily satisfied. I must have a free and full
confession, or I will expel him from the kingdom. I have written to him
this morning.
[MONSIEUR: Since God wills that men should have recourse to a frank
and entire confession to be absolved of their faults in this world,
I indicate to you the steps you must take to be delivered from this
danger. Your Highness has commenced well; you must continue. This
is all I can say to you.]
"As to the magnificent and powerful Due de Bouillon, sovereign lord of
Sedan and general-in-chief of the armies in Italy, he has just been
arrested by his officers in the midst of his soldiers, concealed in a
truss of straw. There remain, therefore, only our two young neighbors.
They imagine they have the camp wholly at their orders, while they really
have only the red troops. All the rest, being Monsieur's men, will not
act, and my troops will arrest them. However, I have permitted them to
appear to obey. If they give the signal at half-past eleven, they will
be arrested at the first step. If not, the King will give them up to me
this evening. Do not open your eyes so wide. He will give them up to
me, I repeat, this night, between midnight and one o'clock. You see that
all has been done without you, Joseph. We can dispense with you very
well; and truly, all this time, I do not see that we have received any
great service from you. You grow negligent."
"Ah, Monseigneur! did you but know the trouble I have had to discover
the route of the bearers of the treaty! I only learned it by risking my
life between these young people."
The Cardinal laughed contemptuously, leaning back in his chair.
"Thou must have been very ridiculous and very fearful in that box,
Joseph; I dare say it was the first time in thy life thou ever heardst
love spoken of. Dost thou like the language, Father Joseph? Tell me,
dost thou clearly understand it? I doubt whether thou hast formed a very
refined idea of it."
Richelieu, his arms crossed, looked at his discomfited Capuchin with
infinite delight, and continued in the scornfully familiar tone of a
grand seigneur, which he sometimes assumed, pleasing himself with putting
forth the noblest expressions through the most impure lips:
"Come, now, Joseph, give me a definition of love according to thy idea.
What can it be--for thou seest it exists out of romances. This worthy
youngster undertook these little conspiracies through love. Thou heardst
it thyself with throe unworthy ears. Come, what is love? For my part,
I know nothing about it."
The monk was astounded, and looked upon the ground with the stupid eye of
some base animal. After long consideration, he replied in a drawling and
nasal voice:
"It must be a kind of malignant fever which leads the brain astray; but
in truth, Monseigneur, I have never reflected on it until this moment.
I have always been embarrassed in speaking to a woman. I wish women
could be omitted from society altogether; for I do not see what use they
are, unless it be to disclose secrets, like the little Duchess or Marion
de Lorme, whom I can not too strongly recommend to your Eminence. She
thought of everything, and herself threw our little prophecy among the
conspirators with great address. We have not been without the marvellous
this time. As in the siege of Hesdin, all we have to do is to find a
window through which you may pass on the day of the execution."
[In 1638, Prince Thomas having raised the siege of Hesdin, the
Cardinal was much vexed at it. A nun of the convent of Mount
Calvary had said that the victory would be to the King and Father
Joseph, thus wishing it to be believed that Heaven protected the
minister. --Memoires pour l'histoire du Cardinal de Richelieu.]
"This is another of your absurdities, sir," said the Cardinal; "you will
make me as ridiculous as yourself, if you go on so; I am too powerful to
need the assistance of Heaven. Do not let that happen again. Occupy
yourself only with the people I consign to you. I traced your part
before. When the master of the horse is taken, you will see him tried
and executed at Lyons. I will not be known in this. This affair is
beneath me; it is a stone under my feet, upon which I ought not to have
bestowed so much attention."
Joseph was silent; he could not understand this man, who, surrounded on
every side by armed enemies, spoke of the future as of a present over
which he had the entire control, and of the present as a past which he no
longer feared. He knew not whether to look upon him as a madman or a
prophet, above or below the standard of human nature.
His astonishment was redoubled when Chavigny hastily entered, and nearly
falling, in his heavy boots, over the Cardinal's footstool, exclaimed in
great agitation:
"Sir, one of your servants has just arrived from Perpignan; and he has
beheld the camp in an uproar, and your enemies in the saddle."
"They will soon dismount, sir," replied Richelieu, replacing his
footstool. "You appear to have lost your equanimity."
"But--but, Monseigneur, must we not warn Monsieur de Fabert?"
"Let him sleep, and go to bed yourself; and you also, Joseph."
"Monseigneur, another strange event has occurred--the King has arrived."
"Indeed, that is extraordinary," said the minister, looking at his watch.
"I did not expect him these two hours. Retire, both of you."
A heavy trampling and the clattering of arms announced the arrival of the
Prince; the folding-doors were thrown open; the guards in the Cardinal's
service struck the ground thrice with their pikes; and the King appeared.
He entered, supporting himself with a cane on one side, and on the other
leaning upon the shoulder of his confessor, Father Sirmond, who withdrew,
and left him with the Cardinal; the latter rose with difficulty, but
could not advance a step to meet the King, because his legs were bandaged
and enveloped. He made a sign that they should assist the King to a seat
near the fire, facing himself. Louis XIII fell into an armchair
furnished with pillows, asked for and drank a glass of cordial, prepared
to strengthen him against the frequent fainting-fits caused by his malady
of languor, signed to all to leave the room, and, alone with Richelieu,
he said in a languid voice:
"I am departing, my dear Cardinal; I feel that I shall soon return to
God. I become weaker from day to day; neither the summer nor the
southern air has restored my strength."
"I shall precede your Majesty," replied the minister. "You see that
death has already conquered my limbs; but while I have a head to think
and a hand to write, I shall be at the service of your Majesty."
"And I am sure it was your intention to add, 'a heart to love me.'"
"Can your Majesty doubt it?" answered the Cardinal, frowning, and biting
his lips impatiently at this speech.
"Sometimes I doubt it," replied the King. "Listen: I wish to speak
openly to you, and to complain of you to yourself. There are two things
which have been upon my conscience these three years. I have never
mentioned them to you; but I reproached you secretly; and could anything
have induced me to consent to any proposals contrary to your interest,
it would be this recollection."
There was in this speech that frankness natural to weak minds, who seek
by thus making their ruler uneasy, to compensate for the harm they dare
not do him, and revenge their subjection by a childish controversy.
Richelieu perceived by these words that he had run a great risk; but he
saw at the same time the necessity of venting all his spleen, and, to
facilitate the explosion of these important avowals, he accumulated all
the professions he thought most calculated to provoke the King.
"No, no!" his Majesty at length exclaimed, "I shall believe nothing
until you have explained those two things, which are always in my
thoughts, which were lately mentioned to me, and which I can justify by
no reasoning. I mean the trial of Urbain Grandier, of which I was never
well informed, and the reason for the hatred you bore to my unfortunate
mother, even to her very ashes."
"Is this all, Sire?" said Richelieu. "Are these my only faults?
They are easily explained. The first it was necessary to conceal from
your Majesty because of its horrible and disgusting details of scandal.
There was certainly an art employed, which can not be looked upon as
guilty, in concealing, under the title of 'magic,' crimes the very names
of which are revolting to modesty, the recital of which would have
revealed dangerous mysteries to the innocent; this was a holy deceit
practised to hide these impurities from the eyes of the people."
"Enough, enough, Cardinal," said Louis XIII, turning away his head, and
looking downward, while a blush covered his face; "I can not hear more.
I understand you; these explanations would disgust me. I approve your
motives; 'tis well. I had not been told that; they had concealed these
dreadful vices from me. Are you assured of the proofs of these crimes?"
"I have them all in my possession, Sire; and as to the glorious Queen,
Marie de Medicis, I am surprised that your Majesty can forget how much I
was attached to her. Yes, I do not fear to acknowledge it; it is to her
I owe my elevation. She was the first who deigned to notice the Bishop
of Luton, then only twenty-two years of age, to place me near her. What
have I not suffered when she compelled me to oppose her in your Majesty's
interest! But this sacrifice was made for you. I never had, and never
shall have, to regret it."
"'Tis well for you, but for me!" said the King, bitterly.
"Ah, Sire," exclaimed the Cardinal, "did not the Son of God himself set
you an example? It is by the model of every perfection that we regulate
our counsels; and if the monument due to the precious remains of your
mother is not yet raised, Heaven is my witness that the works were
retarded through the fear of afflicting your heart by bringing back the
recollection of her death. But blessed be the day in which I have been
permitted to speak to you on the subject! I myself shall say the first
mass at Saint-Denis, when we shall see her deposited there, if Providence
allows me the strength."
The countenance of the King assumed a more affable yet still cold
expression; and the Cardinal, thinking that he could go no farther that
evening in persuasion, suddenly resolved to make a more powerful move,
and to attack the enemy in front. Still keeping his eyes firmly fixed
upon the King, he said, coldly:
"And was it for this you consented to my death?"
"Me!" said the King. "You have been deceived; I have indeed heard of a
conspiracy, and I wished to speak to you about it; but I have commanded
nothing against you."
"'The conspirators do not say so, Sire; but I am bound to believe your
Majesty, and I am glad for your sake that men were deceived. But what
advice were you about to condescend to give me?"
"I--I wished to tell you frankly, and between ourselves, that you will do
well to beware of Monsieur--"
"Ah, Sire, I can not now heed it; for here is a letter which he has just
sent to me for you. He seems to have been guilty even toward your
Majesty."
The King read in astonishment:
MONSEIGNEUR: I am much grieved at having once more failed in the
fidelity which I owe to your Majesty. I humbly entreat you to allow
me to ask a thousand pardons, with the assurances of my submission
and repentance.
Your very humble servant,
GASTON.
"What does this mean?" cried Louis; "dare they arm against me also?"
"Also!" muttered the Cardinal, biting his lips; "yes, Sire, also; and
this makes me believe, to a certain degree, this little packet of
papers."
While speaking, he drew a roll of parchment from a piece of hollowed
elder, and opened it before the eyes of the King.
"This is simply a treaty with Spain, which I think does not bear the
signature of your Majesty. You may see the twenty articles all in due
form. Everything is here arranged--the place of safety, the number of
troops, the supplies of men and money."
"The traitors!" cried the King, in great agitation; "they must be
seized. My brother renounces them and repents; but do not fail to arrest
the Duc de Bouillon."
"It shall be done, Sire."
"That will be difficult, in the middle of the army in Italy."
"I will answer with my head for his arrest, Sire; but is there not
another name to be added?"
"Who--what--Cinq-Mars?" inquired the King, hesitating.
"Exactly so, Sire," answered the Cardinal.
"I see--but--I think--we might--"
"Hear me!" exclaimed Richelieu, in a voice of thunder; "all must be
settled to-day. Your favorite is mounted at the head of his party;
choose between him and me. Yield up the boy to the man, or the man to
the boy; there is no alternative."
"And what will you do if I consent?" said the King.
"I will have his head and that of his friend."
"Never! it is impossible!" replied the King, with horror, as he
relapsed into the same state of irresolution he evinced when with Cinq-
Mars against Richelieu. "He is my friend as well as you; my heart bleeds
at the idea of his death. Why can you not both agree? Why this
division? It is that which has led him to this. You have between you
brought me to the brink of despair; you have made me the most miserable
of men."
Louis hid his head in his hands while speaking, and perhaps he shed
tears; but the inflexible minister kept his eyes upon him as if watching
his prey, and without remorse, without giving the King time for
reflection--on the contrary, profiting by this emotion to speak yet
longer.
"And is it thus," he continued, in a harsh and cold voice, "that you
remember the commandments of God communicated to you by the mouth of your
confessor? You told me one day that the Church expressly commanded you
to reveal to your prime minister all that you might hear against him;
yet I have never heard from you of my intended death! It was necessary
that more faithful friends should apprise me of this conspiracy; that the
guilty themselves through the mercy of Providence should themselves make
the avowal of their fault. One only, the most guilty, yet the least of
all, still resists, and it is he who has conducted the whole; it is he
who would deliver France into the power of the foreigner, who would
overthrow in one single day my labors of twenty years. He would call up
the Huguenots of the south, invite to arms all orders of the State,
revive crushed pretensions, and, in fact, renew the League which was put
down by your father. It is that--do not deceive yourself--it is that
which raises so many heads against you. Are you prepared for the combat?
If so, where are your arms?"
The King, quite overwhelmed, made no reply; he still covered his face
with his hands. The stony-hearted Cardinal crossed his arms and
continued:
"I fear that you imagine it is for myself I speak. Do you really think
that I do not know my own powers, and that I fear such an adversary?
Really, I know not what prevents me from letting you act for yourself--
from transferring the immense burden of State affairs to the shoulders of
this youth. You may imagine that during the twenty years I have been
acquainted with your court, I have not forgotten to assure myself a
retreat where, in spite of you, I could now go to live the six months
which perhaps remain to me of life. It would be a curious employment for
me to watch the progress of such a reign. What answer would you return,
for instance, when all the inferior potentates, regaining their station,
no longer kept in subjection by me, shall come in your brother's name to
say to you, as they dared to say to Henri IV on his throne: 'Divide with
us all the hereditary governments and sovereignties, and we shall be
content.'--[Memoires de Sully, 1595.]-- You will doubtless accede to
their request; and it is the least you can do for those who will have
delivered you from Richelieu. It will, perhaps, be fortunate, for to
govern the Ile-de-France, which they will no doubt allow you as the
original domain, your new minister will not require many secretaries."
While speaking thus, he furiously pushed the huge table, which nearly
filled the room, and was laden with papers and numerous portfolios.
Louis was aroused from his apathetic meditation by the excessive audacity
of this discourse. He raised his head, and seemed to have instantly
formed one resolution for fear he should adopt another.
"Well, sir," said he, "my answer is that I will reign alone."
"Be it so!" replied Richelieu. "But I ought to give you notice that
affairs are at present somewhat complicated. This is the hour when I
generally commence my ordinary avocations."
"I will act in your place," said Louis. "I will open the portfolios and
issue my commands."
"Try, then," said Richelieu. "I shall retire; and if anything causes you
to hesitate, you can send for me."
He rang a bell. In the same instant, and as if they had awaited the
signal, four vigorous footmen entered, and carried him and his chair into
another apartment, for we have before remarked that he was unable to
walk. While passing through the chambers where the secretaries were at
work, he called out in a loud voice:
"You will receive his Majesty's commands."
The King remained alone, strong in his new resolution, and, proud in
having once resisted, he became anxious immediately to plunge into
political business. He walked around the immense table, and beheld as
many portfolios as they then counted empires, kingdoms, and States in
Europe. He opened one and found it divided into sections equalling in
number the subdivisions of the country to which it related. All was in
order, but in alarming order for him, because each note only referred to
the very essence of the business it alluded to, and related only to the
exact point of its then relations with France. These laconic notes
proved as enigmatic to Louis, as did the letters in cipher which covered
the table. Here all was confusion. An edict of banishment and
expropriation of the Huguenots of La Rochelle was mingled with treaties
with Gustavus Adolphus and the Huguenots of the north against the empire.
Notes on General Bannier and Wallenstein, the Duc de Weimar, and Jean de
Witt were mingled with extracts from letters taken from the casket of the
Queen, the list of the necklaces and jewels they contained, and the
double interpretation which might be put upon every phrase of her notes.
Upon the margin of one of these letters was written: "For four lines in a
man's handwriting he might be criminally tried." Farther on were
scattered denunciations against the Huguenots; the republican plans they
had drawn up; the division of France into departments under the annual
dictatorship of a chief. The seal of this projected State was affixed to
it, representing an angel leaning upon a cross, and holding in his hand a
Bible, which he raised to his forehead. By the side was a document which
contained a list of those cardinals the pope had selected the same day as
the Bishop of Lurgon (Richelieu). Among them was to be found the Marquis
de Bedemar, ambassador and conspirator at Venice.
Louis XIII exhausted his powers in vain over the details of another
period, seeking unsuccessfully for any documents which might allude to
the present conspiracy, to enable him to perceive its true meaning, and
all that had been attempted against him, when a diminutive man, of an
olive complexion, who stooped much, entered the cabinet with a measured
step. This was a Secretary of State named Desnoyers. He advanced,
bowing.
"May I be permitted to address your Majesty on the affairs of Portugal?"
said he.
"And consequently of Spain?" said Louis. "Portugal is a province of
Spain."
"Of Portugal," reiterated Desnoyers. "Here is the manifesto we have this
moment received." And he read, "Don John, by the grace of God, King of
Portugal and of Algarves, kingdoms on this side of Africa, lord over
Guinea, by conquest, navigation, and trade with Arabia, Persia, and the
Indies--"
"What is all that?" said the King. "Who talks in this manner?"
"The Duke of Braganza, King of Portugal, crowned already some time by a
man whom they call Pinto. Scarcely has he ascended the throne than he
offers assistance to the revolted Catalonians."
"Has Catalonia also revolted? The King, Philip IV, no longer has the
Count-Duke for his Prime-Minister?"
"Just the contrary, Sire. It is on this very account. Here is the
declaration of the States-General of Catalonia to his Catholic Majesty,
signifying that the whole country will take up arms against his
sacrilegious and excommunicated troops. The King of Portugal--"
"Say the Duke of Braganza!" replied Louis. "I recognize no rebels."
"The Duke of Braganza, then," coldly repeated the Secretary of State,
"sends his nephew, Don Ignacio de Mascarenas, to the principality of
Catalonia, to seize the protection (and it may be the sovereignty) of
that country, which he would add to that he has just reconquered. Your
Majesty's troops are before Perpignan--"
"Well, and what of that?" said Louis.
"The Catalonians are more disposed toward France than toward Portugal,
and there is still time to deprive the King of-the Duke of Portugal, I
should say--of this protectorship."
"What! I assist rebels! You dare--"
"Such was the intention of his Eminence," continued the Secretary of
State. "Spain and France are nearly at open war, and Monsieur d'Olivares
has not hesitated to offer the assistance of his Catholic Majesty to the
Huguenots."
"Very good. I will consider it," said the King. "Leave me."
"Sire, the States-General of Catalonia are in a dilemma. The troops from
Aragon march against them."
"We shall see. I will come to a decision in a quarter of an hour,"
answered Louis XIII.
The little Secretary of State left the apartment discontented and
discouraged. In his place Chavigny immediately appeared, holding a
portfolio, on which were emblazoned the arms of England. "Sire," said
he, "I have to request your Majesty's commands upon the affairs of
England. The Parliamentarians, commanded by the Earl of Essex, have
raised the siege of Gloucester. Prince Rupert has at Newbury fought a
disastrous battle, and of little profit to his Britannic Majesty. The
Parliament is prolonged. All the principal cities take part with it,
together with all the seaports and the Presbyterian population. King
Charles I implores assistance, which the Queen can no longer obtain from
Holland."
"Troops must be sent to my brother of England," said Louis; but he wanted
to look over the preceding papers, and casting his eyes over the notes of
the Cardinal, he found that under a former request of the King of England
he had written with his own hand:
"We must consider some time and wait. The Commons are strong. King
Charles reckons upon the Scots; they will sell him.
"We must be cautious. A warlike man has been over to see Vincennes, and
he has said that 'princes ought never to be struck, except on the head.'"
The Cardinal had added "remarkable," but he had erased this word and
substituted "formidable." Again, beneath:
"This man rules Fairfax. He plays an inspired part. He will be a great
man--assistance refused--money lost."
The King then said, "No, no! do nothing hastily. I shall wait."
"But, Sire," said Chavigny, "events pass rapidly. If the courier be
delayed, the King's destruction may happen a year sooner."
"Have they advanced so far?" asked Louis.
"In the camp of the Independents they preach up the republic with the
Bible in their hands. In that of the Royalists, they dispute for
precedency, and amuse themselves."
"But one turn of good fortune may save everything?"
"The Stuarts are not fortunate, Sire," answered Chavigny, respectfully,
but in a tone which left ample room for consideration.
"Leave me," said the King, with some displeasure.
The State-Secretary slowly retired.
It was then that Louis XIII beheld himself as he really was, and was
terrified at the nothingness he found in himself. He at first stared at
the mass of papers which surrounded him, passing from one to the other,
finding dangers on every side, and finding them still greater with the
remedies he invented. He rose; and changing his place, he bent over, or
rather threw himself upon, a geographical map of Europe. There he found
all his fears concentrated. In the north, the south, the very centre of
the kingdom, revolutions appeared to him like so many Eumenides. In
every country he thought he saw a volcano ready to burst forth. He
imagined he heard cries of distress from kings, who appealed to him for
help, and the furious shouts of the populace. He fancied he felt the
territory of France trembling and crumbling beneath his feet. His feeble
and fatigued sight failed him. His weak head was attacked by vertigo,
which threw all his blood back upon his heart.
"Richelieu!" he cried, in a stifled voice, while he rang a bell; "summon
the Cardinal immediately."
And he swooned in an armchair.
When the King opened his eyes, revived by salts and potent essences which
had been applied to his lips and temples, he for one instant beheld
himself surrounded by pages, who withdrew as soon as he opened his eyes,
and he was once more left alone with the Cardinal. The impassible
minister had had his chair placed by that of the King, as a physician
would seat himself by the bedside of his patient, and fixed his sparkling
and scrutinizing eyes upon the pale countenance of Louis. As soon as his
victim could hear him, he renewed his fearful discourse in a hollow
voice:
"You have recalled me. What would you with me?"
Louis, who was reclining on the pillow, half opened his eyes, fixed them
upon Richelieu, and hastily closed them again. That bony head, armed
with two flaming eyes, and terminating in a pointed and grizzly beard,
the cap and vestments of the color of blood and flames,--all appeared
to him like an infernal spirit.
"You must reign," he said, in a languid voice.
"But will you give me up Cinq-Mars and De Thou?" again urged the
implacable minister, bending forward to read in the dull eyes of the
Prince, as an avaricious heir follows up, even to the tomb, the last
glimpses of the will of a dying relative.
"You must reign," repeated the King, turning away his head.
"Sign then," said Richelieu; "the contents of this are, 'This is my
command--to take them, dead or alive.'"
Louis, whose head still reclined on the raised back of the chair,
suffered his hand to fall upon the fatal paper, and signed it. "For
pity's sake, leave me; I am dying!" he said.
"That is not yet all," continued he whom men call the great politician.
"I place no reliance on you; I must first have some guarantee and
assurance. Sign this paper, and I will leave you:
"When the King shall go to visit the Cardinal, the guards of the
latter shall remain under arms; and when the Cardinal shall visit
the King, the guards of the Cardinal shall share the same post with
those of his Majesty.
"Again:
"His Majesty undertakes to place the two princes, his sons, in the
Cardinal's hands, as hostages of the good faith of his attachment."
"My children!" exclaimed Louis, raising his head, "dare you?"
"Would you rather that I should retire?" said Richelieu.
The King again signed.
"Is all finished now?" he inquired, with a deep sigh.
All was not finished; one other grief was still in reserve for him. The
door was suddenly opened, and Cinq-Mars entered. It was the Cardinal who
trembled now.
"What would you here, sir?" said he, seizing the bell to ring for
assistance.
The master of the horse was as pale as the King, and without
condescending to answer Richelieu, he advanced steadily toward Louis
XIII, who looked at him with the air of a man who has just received a
sentence of death.
"You would, Sire, find it difficult to have me arrested, for I have
twenty thousand men under my command," said Henri d'Effiat, in a sweet
and subdued voice.
"Alas, Cinq-Mars!" replied the King, sadly; "is it thou who hast been
guilty of these crimes?"
"Yes, Sire; and I also bring you my sword, for no doubt you came here to
surrender me," said he, unbuckling his sword, and laying it at the feet
of the King, who fixed his eyes upon the floor without making any reply.
Cinq-Mars smiled sadly, but not bitterly, for he no longer belonged to
this earth. Then, looking contemptuously at Richelieu, "I surrender
because I wish to die, but I am not conquered."
The Cardinal clenched his fist with passion; but he restrained his fury.
"Who are your accomplices?" he demanded. Cinq-Mars looked steadfastly
at Louis, and half opened his lips to speak. The King bent down his
head, and felt at that moment a torture unknown to all other men.
"I have none," said Cinq-Mars, pitying the King; and he slowly left the
apartment. He stopped in the first gallery. Fabert and all the
gentlemen rose on seeing him. He walked up to the commander, and said:
"Sir, order these gentlemen to arrest me!"
They looked at each other, without daring to approach him.
"Yes, sir, I am your prisoner; yes, gentlemen, I am without my sword, and
I repeat to you that I am the King's prisoner."
"I do not understand what I see," said the General; "there are two of you
who surrender, and I have no instruction to arrest any one."
"Two!" said Cinq-Mars; "the other is doubtless De Thou. Alas! I
recognize him by this devotion."
"And had I not also guessed your intention?" exclaimed the latter,
coming forward, and throwing himself into his arms.
CHAPTER XXV
THE PRISONERS
Amoung those old chateaux of which France is every year deprived
regretfully, as of flowers from her, crown, there was one of a grim and
savage appearance upon the left bank of the Saline. It looked like a
formidable sentinel placed at one of the gates of Lyons, and derived its
name from an enormous rock, known as Pierre-Encise, which terminates in a
peak--a sort of natural pyramid, the summit of which overhanging the
river in former times, they say, joined the rocks which may still be seen
on the opposite bank, forming the natural arch of a bridge; but time, the
waters, and the hand of man have left nothing standing but the ancient
mass of granite which formed the pedestal of the now destroyed fortress.
The archbishops of Lyons, as the temporal lords of the city, had built
and formerly resided in this castle. It afterward became a fortress,
and during the reign of Louis XIII a State prison. One colossal tower,
where the daylight could only penetrate through three long loopholes,
commanded the edifice, and some irregular buildings surrounded it with
their massive walls, whose lines and angles followed the form of the
immense and perpendicular rock.
It was here that the Cardinal, jealous of his prey, determined to
imprison his young enemies, and to conduct them himself.
Allowing Louis to precede him to Paris, he removed his captives from
Narbonne, dragging them in his train to ornament his last triumph, and
embarking on the Rhone at Tarascon, nearly, at the mouth of the river, as
if to prolong the pleasure of revenge which men have dared to call that
of the gods, displayed to the eyes of the spectators on both sides of the
river the luxury of his hatred; he slowly proceeded on his course up the
river in barges with gilded oars and emblazoned with his armorial
bearings, reclining in the first and followed by his two victims in the
second, which was fastened to his own by a long chain.
Often in the evening, when the heat of the day was passed, the awnings of
the two boats were removed, and in the one Richelieu might be seen, pale,
and seated in the stern; in that which followed, the two young prisoners,
calm and collected, supported each other, watching the passage of the
rapid stream. Formerly the soldiers of Caesar, who encamped on the same
shores, would have thought they beheld the inflexible boatman of the
infernal regions conducting the friendly shades of Castor and Pollux.
Christians dared not even reflect, or see a priest leading his two
enemies to the scaffold; it was the first minister who passed.
Thus he went on his way until he left his victims under guard at the
identical city in which the late conspirators had doomed him to perish.
Thus he loved to defy Fate herself, and to plant a trophy on the very
spot which had been selected for his tomb.
"He was borne," says an ancient manuscript journal of this year,
"along the river Rhone in a boat in which a wooden chamber had been
constructed, lined with crimson fluted velvet, the flooring of which
was of gold. The same boat contained an antechamber decorated in
the same manner. The prow and stern of the boat were occupied by
soldiers and guards, wearing scarlet coats embroidered with gold,
silver, and silk; and many lords of note. His Eminence occupied a
bed hung with purple taffetas. Monseigneur the Cardinal Bigni, and
Messeigneurs the Bishops of Nantes and Chartres, were there, with
many abbes and gentlemen in other boats. Preceding his vessel, a
boat sounded the passages, and another boat followed, filled with
arquebusiers and officers to command them. When they approached any
isle, they sent soldiers to inspect it, to discover whether it was
occupied by any suspicious persons; and, not meeting any, they
guarded the shore until two boats which followed had passed. They
were filled with the nobility and well-armed soldiers.
"Afterward came the boat of his Eminence, to the stern of which was
attached a little boat, which conveyed MM. de Thou and Cinq-Mars,
guarded by an officer of the King's guard and twelve guards from the
regiment of his Eminence. Three vessels, containing the clothes and
plate of his Eminence, with several gentlemen and soldiers, followed
the boats.
"Two companies of light-horsemen followed the banks of the Rhone in
Dauphin, and as many on the Languedoc and Vivarais side, and a noble
regiment of foot, who preceded his Eminence in the towns which he
was to enter, or in which he was to sleep. It was pleasant to
listen to the trumpets, which, played in Dauphine, were answered by
those in Vivarais, and repeated by the echoes of our rocks. It
seemed as if all were trying which could play best."--[See Notes.]
In the middle of a night of the month of September, while everything
appeared to slumber in the impregnable tower which contained the
prisoners, the door of their outer chamber turned noiselessly on its
hinges, and a man appeared on the threshold, clad in a brown robe
confined round his waist by a cord. His feet were encased in sandals,
and his hand grasped a large bunch of keys; it was Joseph. He looked
cautiously round without advancing, and contemplated in silence the
apartment occupied by the master of the horse. Thick carpets covered the
floor, and large and splendid hangings concealed the walls of the prison;
a bed hung with red damask was prepared, but it was unoccupied. Seated
near a high chimney in a large armchair, attired in a long gray robe,
similar in form to that of a priest, his head bent down, and his eyes
fixed upon a little cross of gold by the flickering light of a lamp, he
was absorbed in so deep a meditation that the Capuchin had leisure to
approach him closely, and confront the prisoner before he perceived him.
Suddenly, however, Cinq-Mars raised his head and exclaimed, "Wretch, what
do you here?"
"Young man, you are violent," answered the mysterious intruder, in a low
voice. "Two months' imprisonment ought to have been enough to calm you.
I come to tell you things of great importance. Listen to me! I have
thought much of you; and I do not hate you so much as you imagine. The
moments are precious. I will tell you all in a few words: in two hours
you will be interrogated, tried, and condemned to death with your friend.
It can not be otherwise, for all will be finished the same day."
"I know it," answered Cinq-Mars; "and I am prepared."
"Well, then, I can still release you from this affair. I have reflected
deeply, as I told you; and I am here to make a proposal which can but
give you satisfaction. The Cardinal has but six months to live. Let us
not be mysterious; we must speak openly. You see where I have brought
you to serve him; and you can judge by that the point to which I would
conduct him to serve you. If you wish it, we can cut short the six
months of his life which still remain. The King loves you, and will
recall you with joy when he finds you still live. You may long live,
and be powerful and happy, if you will protect me, and make me cardinal."
Astonishment deprived the young prisoner of speech. He could not
understand such language, and seemed to be unable to descend to it from
his higher meditations. All that he could say was:
"Your benefactor, Richelieu?"
The Capuchin smiled, and, drawing nearer, continued in an undertone:
"Policy admits of no benefits; it contains nothing but interest. A man
employed by a minister is no more bound to be grateful than a horse whose
rider prefers him to others. My pace has been convenient to him; so much
the better. Now it is my interest to throw him from the saddle. Yes,
this man loves none but himself. I now see that he has deceived me by
continually retarding my elevation; but once again, I possess the sure
means for your escape in silence. I am the master here. I will remove
the men in whom he trusts, and replace them by others whom he has
condemned to die, and who are near at hand confined in the northern
tower--the Tour des Oubliettes, which overhangs the river. His creatures
will occupy their places. I will recommend a physician--an empyric who
is devoted to me--to the illustrious Cardinal, who has been given over by
the most scientific in Paris. If you will unite with me, he shall convey
to him a universal and eternal remedy."
"Away!" exclaimed Cinq-Mars. "Leave me, thou infernal monk! No, thou
art like no other man! Thou glidest with a noiseless and furtive step
through the darkness; thou traversest the walls to preside at secret
crimes; thou placest thyself between the hearts of lovers to separate
them eternally. Who art thou? Thou resemblest a tormented spirit of the
damned!"
"Romantic boy!" answered Joseph; "you would have possessed high
attainments had it not been for your false notions. There is perhaps
neither damnation nor soul. If the dead returned to complain of their
fate, I should have a thousand around me; and I have never seen any,
even in my dreams."
"Monster!" muttered Cinq-Mars.
"Words again!" said Joseph; "there is neither monster nor virtuous man.
You and De Thou, who pride yourselves on what you call virtue--you have
failed in causing the death of perhaps a hundred thousand men--at once
and in the broad daylight--for no end, while Richelieu and I have caused
the death of far fewer, one by one, and by night, to found a great power.
Would you remain pure and virtuous, you must not interfere with other
men; or, rather, it is more reasonable to see that which is, and to say
with me, it is possible that there is no such thing as a soul. We are
the sons of chance; but relative to other men, we have passions which we
must satisfy."
"I breathe again!" exclaimed Cinq-Mars; "he believes not in God!"
Joseph continued:
"Richelieu, you, and I were born ambitious; it followed, then, that
everything must be sacrificed to this idea."
"Wretched man, do not compare me to thyself!"
"It is the plain truth, nevertheless," replied the Capuchin'; "only you
now see that our system was better than yours."
"Miserable wretch, it was for love--"
"No, no! it was not that; here are mere words again. You have perhaps
imagined it was so; but it was for your own advancement. I have heard
you speak to the young girl. You thought but of yourselves; you do not
love each other. She thought but of her rank, and you of your ambition.
One loves in order to hear one's self called perfect, and to be adored;
it is still the same egoism."
"Cruel serpent!" cried Cinq-Mars; "is it not enough that thou hast
caused our deaths? Why dost thou come here to cast thy venom upon the
life thou hast taken from us? What demon has suggested to thee thy
horrible analysis of hearts?"
"Hatred of everything which is superior to myself," replied Joseph, with
a low and hollow laugh, "and the desire to crush those I hate under my
feet, have made me ambitious and ingenious in finding the weakness of
your dreams."
"Just Heaven, dost thou hear him?" exclaimed Cinq-Mars, rising and
extending his arms upward.
The solitude of his prison; the pious conversations of his friend; and,
above all, the presence of death, which, like the light of an unknown
star, paints in other colors the objects we are accustomed to see;
meditations on eternity; and (shall we say it?) the great efforts he had
made to change his heartrending regrets into immortal hopes, and to
direct to God all that power of love which had led him astray upon earth-
all this combined had worked a strange revolution in him; and like those
ears of corn which ripen suddenly on receiving one ray from the sun, his
soul had acquired light, exalted by the mysterious influence of death.
"Just Heaven!" he repeated, "if this wretch and his master are human,
can I also be a man? Behold, O God, behold two distinct ambitions--the
one egoistical and bloody, the other devoted and unstained; theirs roused
by hatred, and ours inspired by love. Look down, O Lord, judge, and
pardon! Pardon, for we have greatly erred in walking but for a single
day in the same paths which, on earth, possess but one name to whatever
end it may tend!"
Joseph interrupted him harshly, stamping his foot on the ground:
"When you have finished your prayer," said he, "you will perhaps inform
me whether you will assist me; and I will instantly--"
"Never, impure wretch, never!" said Henri d'Effiat. "I will never unite
with you in an assassination. I refused to do so when powerful, and upon
yourself."
"You were wrong; you would have been master now."
"And what happiness should I find in my power when shared as it must be
by a woman who does not understand me; who loved me feebly, and prefers a
crown?"
"Inconceivable folly!" said the Capuchin, laughing.
"All with her; nothing without her--that was my desire."
"It is from obstinacy and vanity that you persist; it is impossible,"
replied Joseph. "It is not in nature."
"Thou who wouldst deny the spirit of self-sacrifice," answered Cinq-Mars;
"dost thou understand that of my friend?"
"It does not exist; he follows you because--"
Here the Capuchin, slightly embarrassed, reflected an instant.
"Because--because--he has formed you; you are his work; he is attached to
you by the self-love of an author. He was accustomed to lecture you; and
he felt that he should not find another pupil so docile to listen to and
applaud him. Constant habit has persuaded him that his life was bound to
yours; it is something of that kind. He will accompany you mechanically.
Besides, all is not yet finished; we shall see the end and the
examination. He will certainly deny all knowledge of the conspiracy."
"He will not deny it!" exclaimed Cinq-Mars, impetuously.
"He knew it, then? You confess it," said Joseph, triumphantly; "you have
not said as much before."
"O Heaven, what have I done!" gasped Cinq-Mars, hiding his face.
"Calm yourself; he is saved, notwithstanding this avowal, if you accept
my offer."
D'Effiat remained silent for a short time.
The Capuchin continued:
"Save your friend. The King's favor awaits you, and perhaps the love
which has erred for a moment."
"Man, or whatever else thou art, if thou hast in thee anything resembling
a heart," answered the prisoner, "save him! He is the purest of created
beings; but convey him far away while yet he sleeps, for should he awake,
thy endeavors would be vain."
"What good will that do me?" said the Capuchin, laughing. "It is you
and your favor that I want."
The impetuous Cinq-Mars rose, and, seizing Joseph by the arm, eying him
with a terrible look, said:
"I degraded him in interceding with thee for him." He continued, raising
the tapestry which separated his apartment from that of his friend,
"Come, and doubt, if thou canst, devotion and the immortality of the
soul. Compare the uneasiness and misery of thy triumph with the calmness
of our defeat, the meanness of thy reign with the grandeur of our
captivity, thy sanguinary vigils to the slumbers of the just."
A solitary lamp threw its light on De Thou. The young man was kneeling
on a cushion, surmounted by a large ebony crucifix. He seemed to have
fallen asleep while praying. His head, inclining backward, was still
raised toward the cross. His pale lips wore a calm and divine smile.
"Holy Father, how he sleeps!" exclaimed the astonished Capuchin,
thoughtlessly uniting to his frightful discourse the sacred name he every
day pronounced. He suddenly retired some paces, as if dazzled by a
heavenly vision.
"Nonsense, nonsense!" he said, shaking his head, and passing his hand
rapidly over his face. "All this is childishness. It would overcome me
if I reflected on it. These ideas may serve as opium to produce a calm.
But that is not the question; say yes or no."
"No," said Cinq-Mars, pushing him to the door by the shoulder. "I will
not accept life; and I do not regret having compromised De Thou, for he
would not have bought his life at the price of an assassination. And
when he yielded at Narbonne, it was not that he might escape at Lyons."
"Then wake him, for here come the judges," said the furious Capuchin, in
a sharp, piercing voice.
Lighted by flambeaux, and preceded by a detachment of the Scotch guards,
fourteen judges entered, wrapped in long robes, and whose features were
not easily distinguished. They seated themselves in silence on the right
and left of the huge chamber. They were the judges delegated by the
Cardinal to judge this sad and solemn affair--all true men to the
Cardinal Richelieu, and in his confidence, who from Tarascon had chosen
and instructed them. He had the Chancellor Seguier brought to Lyons, to
avoid, as he stated in the instructions he sent by Chavigny to the King
Louis XIII--"to avoid all the delays which would take place if he were
not present. M. de Mayillac," he adds, "was at Nantes for the trial of
Chulais, M. de Chateau-Neuf at Toulouse, superintending the death of M.
de Montmorency, and M. de Bellievre at Paris, conducting the trial of M.
de Biron. The authority and intelligence of these gentlemen in forms of
justice are indispensable."
The Chancellor arrived with all speed. But at this moment he was
informed that he was not to appear, for fear that he might be influenced
by the memory of his ancient friendship for the prisoner, whom he only
saw tete-a-tete. The commissioners and himself had previously and
rapidly received the cowardly depositions of the Duc d'Orleans, at
Villefranche, in Beaujolais, and then at Vivey,--[House which belonged to
an Abbe d'Esnay, brother of M. de Villeroy, called Montresor.] two miles
from Lyons, where this wretched prince had received orders to go, begging
forgiveness, and trembling, although surrounded by his followers, whom
from very pity he had been allowed to retain, carefully watched, however,
by the French and Swiss guards. The Cardinal had dictated to him his
part and answers word for word; and in consideration of this docility,
they had exempted him in form from the painful task of confronting MM. de
Cinq-Mars and De Thou. The chancellor and commissioners had also
prepared M. de Bouillon, and, strong with their preliminary work, they
visited in all their strength the two young criminals whom they had
determined not to save.
History has only handed down to us the names of the State counsellors who
accompanied Pierre Seguier, but not those of the other commissioners, of
whom it is only mentioned that there were six from the parliament of
Grenoble, and two presidents. The counsellor, or reporter of the State,
Laubardemont, who had directed them in all, was at their head. Joseph
often whispered to them with the most studied politeness, glancing at
Laubardemont with a ferocious sneer.
It was arranged that an armchair should serve as a bar; and all were
silent in expectation of the prisoner's answer.
He spoke in a soft and clear voice:
"Say to Monsieur le Chancelier that I have the right of appeal to the
parliament of Paris, and to object to my judges, because two of them are
my declared enemies, and at their head one of my friends, Monsieur de
Seguier himself, whom I maintained in his charge.
"But I will spare you much trouble, gentlemen, by pleading guilty to the
whole charge of conspiracy, arranged and conducted by myself alone. It
is my wish to die. I have nothing to add for myself; but if you would be
just, you will not harm the life of him whom the King has pronounced to
be the most honest man in France, and who dies for my sake alone."
"Summon him," said Laubardemont.
Two guards entered the apartment of De Thou, and led him forth. He
advanced, and bowed gravely, while an angelical smile played upon his
lips. Embracing Cinq-Mars, "Here at last is our day of glory," said he.
"We are about to gain heaven and eternal happiness."
"We understand," said Laubardemont, "we have been given to understand by
Monsieur de Cinq-Mars himself, that you were acquainted with this
conspiracy?"
De Thou answered instantly, and without hesitation. A half-smile was
still on his lips, and his eyes cast down.
"Gentlemen, I have passed my life in studying human laws, and I know that
the testimony of one accused person can not condemn another. I can also
repeat what I said before, that I should not have been believed had I
denounced the King's brother without proof. You perceive, then, that my
life and death entirely rest with myself. I have, however, well weighed
the one and the other. I have clearly foreseen that whatever life I may
hereafter lead, it could not but be most unhappy after the loss of
Monsieur de Cinq-Mars. I therefore acknowledge and confess that I was
aware of his conspiracy. I did my utmost to prevent it, to deter him
from it. He believed me to be his only and faithful friend, and I would
not betray him. Therefore, I condemn myself by the very laws which were
set forth by my father, who, I ho
pe, forgives me."
At these words, the two friends precipitated themselves into each other's
arms.
Cinq-Mars exclaimed:
"My friend, my friend, how bitterly I regret that I have caused your
death! Twice I have betrayed you; but you shall know in what manner."
But De Thou, embracing and consoling his friend, answered, raising his
eyes from the ground:
"Ah, happy are we to end our days in this manner! Humanly speaking, I
might complain of you; but God knows how much I love you. What have we
done to merit the grace of martyrdom, and the happiness of dying
together?"
The judges were not prepared for this mildness, and looked at each other
with surprise.
"If they would only give me a good partisan," muttered a hoarse voice (it
was Grandchamp, who had crept into the room, and whose eyes were red with
fury), "I would soon rid Monseigneur of all these black-looking fellows."
Two men with halberds immediately placed themselves silently at his side.
He said no more, and to compose himself retired to a window which
overlooked the river, whose tranquil waters the sun had not yet lighted
with its beams, and appeared to pay no attention to what was passing in
the room.
However, Laubardemont, fearing that the judges might be touched with
compassion, said in a loud voice:
"In pursuance of the order of Monseigneur the Cardinal, these two men
will be put to the rack; that is to say, to the ordinary and
extraordinary question."
Indignation forced Cinq-Mars again to assume his natural character;
crossing his arms, he made two steps toward Laubardemont and Joseph,
which alarmed them. The former involuntarily placed his hand to his
forehead.
"Are we at Loudun?" exclaimed the prisoner; but De Thou, advancing, took
his hand and held it. Cinq-Mars was silent, then continued in a calm
voice, looking steadfastly at the judges:
"Messieurs, this measure appears to me rather harsh; a man of my age and
rank ought not to be subjected to these formalities. I have confessed
all, and I will confess it all again. I willingly and gladly accept
death; it is not from souls like ours that secrets can be wrung by bodily
suffering. We are prisoners by our own free will, and at the time chosen
by us. We have confessed enough for you to condemn us to death; you
shall know nothing more. We have obtained what we wanted."
"What are you doing, my friend?" interrupted De Thou. "He is mistaken,
gentlemen, we do not refuse this martyrdom which God offers us; we demand
it."
"But," said Cinq-Mars, "do you need such infamous tortures to obtain
salvation--you who are already a martyr, a voluntary martyr to
friendship? Gentlemen, it is I alone who possess important secrets; it
is the chief of a conspiracy who knows all. Put me alone to the torture
if we must be treated like the worst of malefactors."
"For the sake of charity," added De Thou, "deprive me not of equal
suffering with my friend; I have not followed him so far, to abandon him
at this dreadful moment, and not to use every effort to accompany him to
heaven."
During this debate, another was going forward between Laubardemont and
Joseph. The latter, fearing that torments would induce him to disclose
the secret of his recent proposition, advised that they should not be
resorted to; the other, not thinking his triumph complete by death alone,
absolutely insisted on their being applied. The judges surrounded and
listened to these secret agents of the Prime-Minister; however, many
circumstances having caused them to suspect that the influence of the
Capuchin was more powerful than that of the judge, they took part with
him, and decided for mercy, when he finished by these words uttered in a
low voice:
"I know their secrets. There is no necessity to force them from their
lips, because they are useless, and relate to too high circumstances.
Monsieur le Grand has no one to denounce but the King, and the other the
Queen. It is better that we should remain ignorant. Besides, they will
not confess. I know them; they will be silent--the one from pride, the
other through piety. Let them alone. The torture will wound them; they
will be disfigured and unable to walk. That will spoil the whole
ceremony; they must be kept to appear."
This last observation prevailed. The judges retired to deliberate with
the chancellor. While departing, Joseph whispered to Laubardemont:
"I have provided you with enough pleasure here; you will still have that
of deliberating, and then you shall go and examine three men who are
confined in the northern tower."
These were the three judges who had condemned Urbain Grandier.
As he spoke, he laughed heartily, and was the last to leave the room,
pushing the astonished master of requests before him.
The sombre tribunal had scarcely disappeared when Grandchamp, relieved
from his two guards, hastened toward his master, and, seizing his hand,
said:
"In the name of Heaven, come to the terrace, Monseigneur! I have
something to show you; in the name of your mother, come!"
But at that moment the chamber door was opened, and the old Abbe Quillet
appeared.
"My children! my dear children!" exclaimed the old man, weeping
bitterly. "Alas! why was I only permitted to enter to-day? Dear Henri,
your mother, your brother, your sister, are concealed here."
"Be quiet, Monsieur l'Abbe!" said Grandchamp; "do come to the terrace,
Monseigneur."
But the old priest still detained and embraced his pupil.
"We hope," said he; "we hope for mercy."
"I shall refuse it," said Cinq-Mars.
"We hope for nothing but the mercy of God," added De Thou.
"Silence!" said Grandchamp, "the judges are returning."
And the door opened again to admit the dismal procession, from which
Joseph and Laubardemont were missing.
"Gentlemen," exclaimed the good Abbe, addressing the commissioners, "I am
happy to tell you that I have just arrived from Paris, and that no one
doubts but that all the conspirators will be pardoned. I have had an
interview at her Majesty's apartments with Monsieur himself; and as to
the Duc de Bouillon, his examination is not unfav--"
"Silence!" cried M. de Seyton, the lieutenant of the Scotch guards; and
the commissioners entered and again arranged themselves in the apartment.
M. de Thou, hearing them summon the criminal recorder of the presidial
of Lyons to pronounce the sentence, involuntarily launched out in one of
those transports of religious joy which are never displayed but by the
martyrs and saints at the approach of death; and, advancing toward this
man, he exclaimed:
"Quam speciosi pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona!"
Then, taking the hand of Cinq-Mars, he knelt down bareheaded to receive
the sentence, as was the custom. D'Effiat remained standing; and they
dared not compel him to kneel. The sentence was pronounced in these
words:
"The Attorney-General, prosecutor on the part of the State, on a
charge of high treason; and Messire Henri d'Effiat de Cinq-Mars,
master of the horse, aged twenty-two, and Francois Auguste de Thou,
aged thirty-five, of the King's privy council, prisoners in the
chateau of Pierre-Encise, at Lyons, accused and defendants on the
other part:
"Considered, the special trial commenced by the aforesaid attorney-
general against the said D'Efiiat and De Thou; informations,
interrogations, confessions, denegations, and confrontations, and
authenticated copies of the treaty with Spain, it is considered in
the delegated chamber:
"That he who conspires against the person of the ministers of
princes is considered by the ancient laws and constitutions of the
emperors to be guilty of high treason; (2) that the third ordinance
of the King Louis XI renders any one liable to the punishment of
death who does not reveal a conspiracy against the State.
"The commissioners deputed by his Majesty have declared the said
D'Effiat and De Thou guilty and convicted of the crime of high
treason:
"The said D'Effiat, for the conspiracies and enterprises, league,
and treaties, formed by him with the foreigner against the State;
"And the said De Thou, for having a thorough knowledge of this
conspiracy.
"In reparation of which crimes they have deprived them of all honors
and dignities, and condemned them to be deprived of their heads on a
scaffold, which is for this purpose erected in the Place des
Terreaux, in this city.
"It is further declared that all and each of their possessions, real
and personal, be confiscated to the King, and that those which they
hold from the crown do pass immediately to it again of the aforesaid
goods, sixty thousand livres being devoted to pious uses."
After the sentence was pronounced, M. de Thou exclaimed in a loud voice:
"God be blessed! God be praised!"
"I have never feared death," said Cinq-Mars, coldly.
Then, according to the forms prescribed, M. Seyton, the lieutenant of the
Scotch guards, an old man upward of sixty years of age, declared with
emotion that he placed the prisoners in the hands of the Sieur Thome,
provost of the merchants of Lyons; he then took leave of them, followed
by the whole of the body-guard, silently, and in tears.
"Weep not," said Cinq-Mars; "tears are useless. Rather pray for us; and
be assured that I do not fear death."
He shook them by the hand, and De Thou embraced them; after which they
left the apartment, their eyes filled with tears, and hiding their faces
in their cloaks.
"Barbarians!" exclaimed the Abbe Quillet; "to find arms against them,
one must search the whole arsenal of tyrants. Why did they admit me at
this moment?"
"As a confessor, Monsieur," whispered one of the commissioners; "for no
stranger has entered this place these two months."
As soon as the huge gates of the prison were closed, and the outside
gratings lowered, "To the terrace, in the name of Heaven!" again
exclaimed Grandchamp. And he drew his master and De Thou thither.
The old preceptor followed them, weeping.
"What do you want with us in a moment like this?" said Cinq-Mars, with
indulgent gravity.
"Look at the chains of the town," said the faithful servant.
The rising sun had hardly tinged the sky. In the horizon a line of vivid
yellow was visible, upon which the mountain's rough blue outlines were
boldly traced; the waves of the Saline, and the chains of the town
hanging from one bank to the other, were still veiled by a light vapor,
which also rose from Lyons and concealed the roofs of the houses from the
eye of the spectator. The first tints of the morning light had as yet
colored only the most elevated points of the magnificent landscape. In
the city the steeples of the Hotel de Ville and St. Nizier, and on the
surrounding hills the monasteries of the Carmelites and Ste.-Marie, and
the entire fortress of Pierre-Encise were gilded with the fires of the
coming day. The joyful peals from the churches were heard, the peaceful
matins from the convent and village bells. The walls of the prison were
alone silent.
"Well," said Cinq-Mars, "what are we to see the beauty of the plains, the
richness of the city, or the calm peacefulness of these villages? Ah, my
friend, in every place there are to be found passions and griefs, like
those which have brought us here."
The old Abbe and Grandchamp leaned over the parapet, watching the bank of
the river.
"The fog is so thick, we can see nothing yet," said the Abbe.
"How slowly our last sun appears!" said De Thou.
"Do you not see low down there, at the foot of the rocks, on the opposite
bank, a small white house, between the Halincourt gate and the Boulevard
Saint Jean?" asked the Abbe.
"I see nothing," answered Cinq-Mars, "but a mass of dreary wall."
"Hark!" said the Abbe; "some one speaks near us!"
In fact, a confused, low, and inexplicable murmur was heard in a little
turret, the back of which rested upon the platform of the terrace. As it
was scarcely larger than a pigeon-house, the prisoners had not until now
observed it.
"Are they already coming to fetch us?" said Cinq-Mars.
"Bah! bah!" answered Grandchamp, "do not make yourself uneasy; it is
the Tour des Oubliettes. I have prowled round the fort for two months,
and I have seen men fall from there into the water at least once a week.
Let us think of our affair. I see a light down there."
An invincible curiosity, however, led the two prisoners to look at the
turret, in spite of the horror of their own situation. It advanced to
the extremity of the rock, over a gulf of foaming green water of great
depth. A wheel of a mill long deserted was seen turning with great
rapidity. Three distinct sounds were now heard, like those of a
drawbridge suddenly lowered and raised to its former position by a recoil
or spring striking against the stone walls; and three times a black
substance was seen to fall into the water with a splash.
"Mercy! can these be men?" exclaimed the Abbe, crossing himself.
"I thought I saw brown robes turning in the air," said Grandchamp; "they
are the Cardinal's friends."
A horrible cry was heard from the tower, accompanied by an impious oath.
The heavy trap groaned for the fourth time. The green water received
with a loud noise a burden which cracked the enormous wheel of the mill;
one of its large spokes was torn away, and a man entangled in its beams
appeared above the foam, which he colored with his blood. He rose twice,
and sank beneath the waters, shrieking violently; it was Laubardemont.
Cinq-Mars drew back in horror.
"There is a Providence," said Grandchamp; "Urbain Grandier summoned him
in three years. But come, come! the time is precious! Do not remain
motionless. Be it he, I am not surprised, for those wretches devour each
other. But let us endeavor to deprive them of their choicest morsel.
Vive Dieu! I see the signal! We are saved! All is ready; run to this
side, Monsieur l'Abbe! See the white handkerchief at the window! our
friends are prepared."
The Abbe seized the hands of both his friends, and drew them to that side
of the terrace toward which they had at first looked. "Listen to me,
both of you," said he. "You must know that none of the conspirators has
profited by the retreat you secured for them. They have all hastened to
Lyons, disguised, and in great number; they have distributed sufficient
gold in the city to secure them from being betrayed; they are resolved to
make an attempt to deliver you. The time chosen is that when they are
conducting you to the scaffold; the signal is your hat, which you will
place on your head when they are to commence."
The worthy Abbe, half weeping, half smiling hopefully, related that upon
the arrest of his pupil he had hastened to Paris; that such secrecy
enveloped all the Cardinal's actions that none there knew the place in
which the master of the horse was detained. Many said that he was
banished; and when the reconciliation between Monsieur and the Duc de
Bouillon and the King was known, men no longer doubted that the life of
the other was assured, and ceased to speak of this affair, which, not
having been executed, compromised few persons. They had even in some
measure rejoiced in Paris to see the town of Sedan and its territory
added to the kingdom in exchange for the letters of abolition granted to
the Duke, acknowledged innocent in common with Monsieur; so that the
result of all the arrangements had been to excite admiration of the
Cardinal's ability, and of his clemency toward the conspirators, who, it
was said, had contemplated his death. They even spread the report that
he had facilitated the escape of Cinq-Mars and De Thou, occupying himself
generously with their retreat to a foreign land, after having bravely
caused them to be arrested in the midst of the camp of Perpignan.
At this part of the narrative, Cinq-Mars could not avoid forgetting his
resignation, and clasping his friend's hand, "Arrested!" he exclaimed.
"Must we renounce even the honor of having voluntarily surrendered
ourselves? Must we sacrifice all, even the opinion of posterity?"
"There is vanity again," replied De Thou, placing his fingers on his
lips. "But hush! let us hear the Abbe to the end."
The tutor, not doubting that the calmness which these two young men
exhibited arose from the joy they felt in finding their escape assured,
and seeing that the sun had hardly yet dispersed the morning mists,
yielded himself without restraint to the involuntary pleasure which old
men always feel in recounting new events, even though they afflict the
hearers. He related all his fruitless endeavors to discover his pupil's
retreat, unknown to the court and the town, where none, indeed, dared to
pronounce the name of Cinq-Mars in the most secret asylums. He had only
heard of the imprisonment at Pierre-Encise from the Queen herself, who
had deigned to send for him, and charge him to inform the Marechale
d'Effiat and all the conspirators that they might make a desperate effort
to deliver their young chief. Anne of Austria had even ventured to send
many of the gentlemen of Auvergne and Touraine to Lyons to assist in
their last attempt.
"The good Queen!" said he; "she wept greatly when I saw her, and said
that she would give all she possessed to save you. She reproached
herself deeply for some letter, I know not what. She spoke of the
welfare of France, but did not explain herself. She said that she
admired you, and conjured you to save yourself, if it were only through
pity for her, whom you would otherwise consign to everlasting remorse."
"Said she nothing else?" interrupted De Thou, supporting Cinq-Mars, who
grew visibly paler.
"Nothing more," said the old man.
"And no one else spoke of me?" inquired the master of the horse.
"No one," said the Abbe.
"If she had but written to me!" murmured Henri.
"Remember, my father, that you were sent here as a confessor," said De
Thou.
Here old Grandchamp, who had been kneeling before Cinq-Mars, and dragging
him by his clothes to the other side of the terrace, exclaimed in a
broken voice:
"Monseigneur--my master--my good master--do you see them? Look there--
'tis they! 'tis they--all of them!"
"Who, my old friend?" asked his master.
"Who? Great Heaven! look at that window! Do you not recognize them?
Your mother, your sisters, and your brother."
And the day, now fairly broken, showed him in the distance several women
waving their handkerchiefs; and there, dressed all in black, stretching
out her arms toward the prison, sustained by those about her, Cinq-Mars
recognized his mother, with his family, and his strength failed him for a
moment. He leaned his head upon his friend's breast and wept.
"How many times must I, then, die?" he murmured; then, with a gesture,
returning from the top of the tower the salutations of his family, "Let
us descend quickly, my father!" he said to the old Abbe. "You will tell
me at the tribunal of penitence, and before God, whether the remainder of
my life is worth my shedding more blood to preserve it."
It was there that Cinq-Mars confessed to God what he alone and Marie de
Mantua knew of their secret and unfortunate love. "He gave to his
confessor," says Father Daniel, "a portrait of a noble lady, set in
diamonds, which were to be sold, and the money employed in pious works."
M. de Thou, after having confessed, wrote a letter;--[See the copy of
this letter to Madame la Princesse de Guemenee, in the notes at the end
of the volume.]--after which (according to the account given by his
confessor) he said, "This is the last thought I will bestow upon this
world; let us depart for heaven!" and walking up and down the room with
long strides, he recited aloud the psalm, 'Miserere mei, Deus', with an
incredible ardor of spirit, his whole frame trembling so violently it
seemed as if he did not touch the earth, and that the soul was about to
make its exit from his body. The guards were mute at this spectacle,
which made them all shudder with respect and horror.
Meanwhile, all was calm in the city of Lyons, when to the great
astonishment of its inhabitants, they beheld the entrance through all its
gates of troops of infantry and cavalry, which they knew were encamped at
a great distance. The French and the Swiss guards, the regiment of
Pompadours, the men-at-arms of Maurevert, and the carabineers of La
Roque, all defiled in silence. The cavalry, with their muskets on the
pommel of the saddle, silently drew up round the chateau of Pierre-
Encise; the infantry formed a line upon the banks of the Saone from the
gate of the fortress to the Place des Terreaux. It was the usual spot
for execution.
"Four companies of the bourgeois of Lyons, called 'pennonage', of
which about eleven or twelve hundred men, were ranged [says the
journal of Montresor] in the midst of the Place des Terreaux, so as
to enclose a space of about eighty paces each way, into which they
admitted no one but those who were absolutely necessary.
"In the centre of this space was raised a scaffold about seven feet
high and nine feet square, in the midst of which, somewhat forward,
was placed a stake three feet in height, in front of which was a
block half a foot high, so that the principal face of the scaffold
looked toward the shambles of the Terreaux, by the side of the
Saone. Against the scaffold was placed a short ladder of eight
rounds, in the direction of the Dames de St. Pierre."
Nothing had transpired in the town as to the name of the prisoners. The
inaccessible walls of the fortress let none enter or leave but at night,
and the deep dungeons had sometimes confined father and son for years
together, four feet apart from each other, without their even being
aware of the vicinity. The surprise was extreme at these striking
preparations, and the crowd collected, not knowing whether for a fete
or for an execution.
This same secrecy which the agents of the minister had strictly preserved
was also carefully adhered to by the conspirators, for their heads
depended on it.
Montresor, Fontrailles, the Baron de Beauvau, Olivier d'Entraigues,
Gondi, the Comte du Lude, and the Advocate Fournier, disguised as
soldiers, workmen, and morris-dancers, armed with poniards under their
clothes, had dispersed amid the crowd more than five hundred gentlemen
and domestics, disguised like themselves. Horses were ready on the road
to Italy, and boats upon the Rhone had been previously engaged. The
young Marquis d'Effiat, elder brother of Cinq-Mars, dressed as a
Carthusian, traversed the crowd, without ceasing, between the Place des
Terreaux and the little house in which his mother and sister were
concealed with the Presidente de Pontac, the sister of the unfortunate
De Thou. He reassured them, gave them from time to time a ray of hope,
and returned to the conspirators to satisfy himself that each was
prepared for action.
Each soldier forming the line had at his side a man ready to poniard him.
The vast crowd, heaped together behind the line of guards, pushed them
forward, passed their lines, and made them lose ground. Ambrosio, the
Spanish servant whom Cinq-Mars had saved, had taken charge of the captain
of the pikemen, and, disguised as a Catalonian musician, had commenced a
dispute with him, pretending to be determined not to cease playing the
hurdy-gurdy.
Every one was at his post.
The Abbe de Gondi, Olivier d'Entraigues, and the Marquis d'Effiat were in
the midst of a group of fish-women and oyster-wenches, who were disputing
and bawling, abusing one of their number younger and more timid than her
masculine companions. The brother of Cinq-Mars approached to listen to
their quarrel.
"And why," said she to the others, "would you have Jean le Roux, who is
an honest man, cut off the heads of two Christians, because he is a
butcher by trade? So long as I am his wife, I'll not allow it. I'd
rather--"
"Well, you are wrong!" replied her companions. "What is't to thee
whether the meat he cuts is eaten or not eaten? Why, thou'lt have a
hundred crowns to dress thy three children all in new clothes. Thou'rt
lucky to be the wife of a butcher. Profit, then, 'ma mignonne', by what
God sends thee by the favor of his Eminence."
"Let me alone!" answered the first speaker. "I'll not accept it. I've
seen these fine young gentlemen at the windows. They look as mild as
lambs."
"Well! and are not thy lambs and calves killed?" said Femme le Bon.
"What fortune falls to this little woman! What a pity! especially when
it is from the reverend Capuchin!"
"How horrible is the gayety of the people!" said Olivier d'Entraigues,
unguardedly. All the women heard him, and began to murmur against him.
"Of the people!" said they; "and whence comes this little bricklayer
with his plastered clothes?"
"Ah!" interrupted another, "dost not see that 'tis some gentleman in
disguise? Look at his white hands! He never worked a square; 'tis some
little dandy conspirator. I've a great mind to go and fetch the captain
of the watch to arrest him."
The Abbe de Gondi felt all the danger of this situation, and throwing
himself with an air of anger upon Olivier, and assuming the manners of a
joiner, whose costume and apron he had adopted, he exclaimed, seizing him
by the collar:
"You're just right. 'Tis a little rascal that never works! These two
years that my father's apprenticed him, he has done nothing but comb his
hair to please the girls. Come, get home with you!"
And, striking him with his rule, he drove him through the crowd, and
returned to place himself on another part of the line. After having well
reprimanded the thoughtless page, he asked him for the letter which he
said he had to give to M. de Cinq-Mars when he should have escaped.
Olivier had carried it in his pocket for two months. He gave it him.
"It is from one prisoner to another," said he, "for the Chevalier de
jars, on leaving the Bastille, sent it me from one of his companions in
captivity."
"Ma foi!" said Gondi, "there may be some important secret in it for our
friends. I'll open it. You ought to have thought of it before. Ah,
bah! it is from old Bassompierre. Let us read it.
MY DEAR CHILD: I learn from the depths of the Bastille, where I
still remain, that you are conspiring against the tyrant Richelieu,
who does not cease to humiliate our good old nobility and the
parliaments, and to sap the foundations of the edifice upon which
the State reposes. I hear that the nobles are taxed and condemned
by petty judges, contrary to the privileges of their condition,
forced to the arriere-ban, despite the ancient customs."
"Ah! the old dotard!" interrupted the page, laughing immoderately.
"Not so foolish as you imagine, only he is a little behindhand for our
affair."
"I can not but approve this generous project, and I pray you give me
to wot all your proceedings--"
"Ah! the old language of the last reign!" said Olivier. "He can't say
'Make me acquainted with your proceedings,' as we now say."
"Let me read, for Heaven's sake!" said the Abbe; "a hundred years hence
they'll laugh at our phrases." He continued:
"I can counsel you, notwithstanding my great age, in relating to you
what happened to me in 1560."
"Ah, faith! I've not time to waste in reading it all. Let us see the
end.
"When I remember my dining at the house of Madame la Marechale
d'Effiat, your mother, and ask myself what has become of all the
guests, I am really afflicted. My poor Puy-Laurens has died at
Vincennes, of grief at being forgotten by Monsieur in his prison;
De Launay killed in a duel, and I am grieved at it, for although I
was little satisfied with my arrest, he did it with courtesy, and I
have always thought him a gentleman. As for me, I am under lock and
key until the death of M. le Cardinal. Ah, my child! we were
thirteen at table. We must not laugh at old superstitions. Thank
God that you are the only one to whom evil has not arrived!"
"There again!" said Olivier, laughing heartily; and this time the Abbe
de Gondi could not maintain his gravity, despite all his efforts.
They tore the useless letter to pieces, that it might not prolong the
detention of the old marechal, should it be found, and drew near the
Place des Terreaux and the line of guards, whom they were to attack when
the signal of the hat should be given by the young prisoner.
They beheld with satisfaction all their friends at their posts, and ready
"to play with their knives," to use their own expression. The people,
pressing around them, favored them without being aware of it. There came
near the Abbe a troop of young ladies dressed in white and veiled. They
were going to church to communicate; and the nuns who conducted them,
thinking, like most of the people, that the preparations were intended to
do honor to some great personage, allowed them to mount upon some large
hewn stones, collected behind the soldiers. There they grouped
themselves with the grace natural to their age, like twenty beautiful
statues upon a single pedestal. One would have taken them for those
vestals whom antiquity invited to the sanguinary shows of the gladiators.
They whispered to each other, looking around them, laughing and blushing
together like children.
The Abbe de Gondi saw with impatience that Olivier was again forgetting
his character of conspirator and his costume of a bricklayer in ogling
these girls, and assuming a mien too elegant, an attitude too refined,
for the position in life he was supposed to occupy. He already began to
approach them, turning his hair with his fingers, when Fontrailles and
Montresor fortunately arrived in the dress of Swiss soldiers. A group of
gentlemen, disguised as sailors, followed them with iron-shod staves in
their hands. There was a paleness on their faces which announced no
good.
"Stop here!" said one of them to his suite; "this is the place."
The sombre air and the silence of these spectators contrasted with the
gay and anxious looks of the girls, and their childish exclamations.
"Ah, the fine procession!" they cried; "there are at least five hundred
men with cuirasses and red uniforms, upon fine horses. They've got
yellow feathers in their large hats."
"They are strangers--Catalonians," said a French guard.
"Whom are they conducting here? Ah, here is a fine gilt coach! but
there's no one in it."
"Ah! I see three men on foot; where are they going?"
"To death!" said Fontrailles, in a deep, stern voice which silenced all
around. Nothing was heard but the slow tramp of the horses, which
suddenly stopped, from one of those delays that happen in all
processions. They then beheld a painful and singular spectacle. An old
man with a tonsured head walked with difficulty, sobbing violently,
supported by two young men of interesting and engaging appearance, who
held one of each other's hands behind his bent shoulders, while with the
other each held one of his arms. The one on the left was dressed in
black; he was grave, and his eyes were cast down. The other, much
younger, was attired in a striking dress. A pourpoint of Holland cloth,
adorned with broad gold lace, and with large embroidered sleeves, covered
him from the neck to the waist, somewhat in the fashion of a woman's
corset; the rest of his vestments were in black velvet, embroidered with
silver palms. Gray boots with red heels, to which were attached golden
spurs; a scarlet cloak with gold buttons--all set off to advantage his
elegant and graceful figure. He bowed right and left with a melancholy
smile.
An old servant, with white moustache, and beard, followed with his head
bent down, leading two chargers, richly comparisoned. The young ladies
were silent; but they could not restrain their sobs.
"It is, then, that poor old man whom they are leading to the scaffold,"
they exclaimed; "and his children are supporting him."
"Upon your knees, ladies," said a man, "and pray for him!"
"On your knees," cried Gondi, "and let us pray that God will deliver
him!"
All the conspirators repeated, "On your knees! on your knees!" and set
the example to the people, who imitated them in silence.
"We can see his movements better now," said Gondi, in a whisper to
Montresor. "Stand up; what is he doing?"
"He has stopped, and is speaking on our side, saluting us; I think he has
recognized us."
Every house, window, wall, roof, and raised platform that looked upon the
place was filled with persons of every age and condition.
The most profound silence prevailed throughout the immense multitude.
One might have heard the wings of a gnat, the breath of the slightest
wind, the passage of the grains of dust which it raised; yet the air was
calm, the sun brilliant, the sky blue. The people listened attentively.
They were close to the Place des Terreaux; they heard the blows of the
hammer upon the planks, then the voice of Cinq-Mars.
A young Carthusian thrust his pale face between two guards. All the
conspirators rose above the kneeling people. Every one put his hand to
his belt or in his bosom, approaching close to the soldier whom he was to
poniard.
"What is he doing?" asked the Carthusian. "Has he his hat upon his
head?"
"He throws his hat upon the ground far from him," calmly answered the
arquebusier.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE FETE
"Mon Dieu! quest-ce que ce monde!"
Dernieres paroles de M. Cinq-Mars
The same day that the melancholy procession took place at Lyons, and
during the scenes we have just witnessed, a magnificent fete was given at
Paris with all the luxury and bad taste of the time. The powerful
Cardinal had determined to fill the first two towns in France with his
pomp. The Cardinal's return was the occasion on which this fete was
announced, as given to the King and all his court.
Master of the French empire by force, the Cardinal desired to be master
of French opinion by seduction; and, weary of dominating, hoped to
please. The tragedy of "Mirame" was to be represented in a hall
constructed expressly for this great day, which raised the expenses of
this entertainment, says Pelisson, to three hundred thousand crowns.
The entire guard of the Prime-Minister were under arms; his four
companies of musketeers and gens d'armes were ranged in a line upon the
vast staircases and at the entrance of the long galleries of the Palais-
Cardinal. This brilliant pandemonium, where the mortal sins have a
temple on each floor, belonged that day to pride alone, which occupied it
from top to bottom. Upon each step was placed one of the arquebusiers of
the Cardinal's guard, holding a torch in one hand and a long carbine in
the other. The crowd of his gentlemen circulated between these living
candelabra, while in the large garden, surrounded by huge chestnut-trees,
now replaced by a range of archers, two companies of mounted light-horse,
their muskets in their hands, were ready to obey the first order or the
first fear of their master.
The Cardinal, carried and followed by his thirty-eight pages, took his
seat in his box hung with purple, facing that in which the King was half
reclining behind the green curtains which preserved him from the glare of
the flambeaux. The whole court filled the boxes, and rose when the King
appeared. The orchestra commenced a brilliant overture, and the pit was
thrown open to all the men of the town and the army who presented
themselves. Three impetuous waves of spectators rushed in and filled it
in an instant. They were standing, and so thickly pressed together that
the movement of a single arm sufficed to cause in the crowd a movement
similar to the waving of a field of corn. There was one man whose head
thus described a large circle, as that of a compass, without his feet
quitting the spot to which they were fixed; and some young men were
carried out fainting.
The minister, contrary to custom, advanced his skeleton head out of his
box, and saluted the assembly with an air which was meant to be gracious.
This grimace obtained an acknowledgment only from the boxes; the pit was
silent. Richelieu had wished to show that he did not fear the public
judgment upon his work, and had given orders to admit without distinction
all who should present themselves. He began to repent of this, but too
late. The impartial assembly was as cold at the tragedie-pastorale
itself. In vain did the theatrical bergeres, covered with jewels, raised
upon red heels, with crooks ornamented with ribbons and garlands of
flowers upon their robes, which were stuck out with farthingale's, die of
love in tirades of two hundred verses; in vain did the 'amants parfaits'
starve themselves in solitary caves, deploring their death in emphatic
tones, and fastening to their hair ribbons of the favorite color of their
mistress; in vain did the ladies of the court exhibit signs of perfect
ecstasy, leaning over the edges of their boxes, and even attempt a few
fainting-fits--the silent pit gave no other sign of life than the
perpetual shaking of black heads with long hair.
The Cardinal bit his lips and played the abstracted during the first and
second acts; the silence in which the third and fourth passed off so
wounded his paternal heart that he had himself raised half out of the
balcony, and in this uncomfortable and ridiculous position signed to the
court to remark the finest passages, and himself gave the signal for
applause. It was acted upon from some of the boxes, but the impassible
pit was more silent than ever; leaving the affair entirely between the
stage and the upper regions, they obstinately remained neuter. The
master of Europe and France then cast a furious look at this handful of
men who dared not to admire his work, feeling in his heart the wish of
Nero, and thought for a moment how happy he should be if all those men
had but one head.
Suddenly this black and before silent mass became animated, and endless
rounds of applause burst forth, to the great astonishment of the boxes,
and above all, of the minister. He bent forward and bowed gratefully,
but drew back on perceiving that the clapping of hands interrupted the
actors every time they wished to proceed. The King had the curtains of
his box, until then closed, opened, to see what excited so much
enthusiasm. The whole court leaned forward from their boxes, and
perceived among the spectators on the stage a young man, humbly dressed,
who had just seated himself there with difficulty. Every look was fixed
upon him. He appeared utterly embarrassed by this, and sought to cover
himself with his little black cloak-far too short for the purpose. "Le
Cid! le Cid!" cried the pit, incessantly applauding.
"Terrified, Corneille escaped behind the scenes, and all was again
silent. The Cardinal, beside himself with fury, had his curtain closed,
and was carried into his galleries, where was performed another scene,
prepared long before by the care of Joseph, who had tutored the
attendants upon the point before quitting Paris. Cardinal Mazarin
exclaimed that it would be quicker to pass his Eminence through a long
glazed window, which was only two feet from the ground, and led from his
box to the apartments; and it opened and the page passed his armchair
through it. Hereupon a hundred voices rose to proclaim the
accomplishment of the grand prophecy of Nostradamus. They said:
"The bonnet rouge!-that's Monseigneur; 'quarante onces!'--that's Cinq-
Mars; 'tout finira!'--that's De Thou. What a providential incident! His
Eminence reigns over the future as over the present."
He advanced thus upon his ambulatory throne through the long and splendid
galleries, listening to this delicious murmur of a new flattery; but
insensible to the hum of voices which deified his genius, he would have
given all their praises for one word, one single gesture of that
immovable and inflexible public, even had that word been a cry of hatred;
for clamor can be stifled, but how avenge one's self on silence? The
people can be prevented from striking, but who can prevent their waiting?
Pursued by the troublesome phantom of public opinion, the gloomy minister
only thought himself in safety when he reached the interior of his palace
amid his flattering courtiers, whose adorations soon made him forget that
a miserable pit had dared not to admire him. He had himself placed like
a king in the midst of his vast apartments, and, looking around him,
attentively counted the powerful and submissive men who surrounded him.
Counting them, he admired himself. The chiefs of the great families, the
princes of the Church, the presidents of all the parliaments, the
governors of the provinces, the marshals and generals-in-chief of the
armies, the nuncio, the ambassadors of all the kingdoms, the deputies and
senators of the republics, were motionless, submissive, and ranged around
him, as if awaiting his orders. There was no longer a look to brave his
look, no longer a word to raise itself against his will, not a project
that men dared to form in the most secret recesses of the heart, not a
thought which did not proceed from his. Mute Europe listened to him by
its representatives. From time to time he raise an imperious voice, and
threw a self-satisfied word to this pompous circle, as a man who throws a
copper coin among a crowd of beggars. Then might be distinguished, by
the pride which lit up his looks and the joy visible in his countenance,
the prince who had received such a favor.
Transformed into another man, he seemed to have made a step in the
hierarchy of power, so surrounded with unlooked-for adorations and sudden
caresses was the fortunate courtier, whose obscure happiness the Cardinal
did not even perceive. The King's brother and the Duc de Bouillon stood
in the crowd, whence the minister did not deign to withdraw them. Only
he ostentatiously said that it would be well to dismantle a few
fortresses, spoke at length of the necessity of pavements and quays at
Paris, and said in two words to Turenne that he might perhaps be sent to
the army in Italy, to seek his baton as marechal from Prince Thomas.
While Richelieu thus played with the great and small things of Europe,
amid his noisy fete, the Queen was informed at the Louvre that the time
was come for her to proceed to the Cardinal's palace, where the King
awaited her after the tragedy. The serious Anne of Austria did not
witness any play; but she could not refuse her presence at the fete of
the Prime-Minister. She was in her oratory, ready to depart, and covered
with pearls, her favorite ornament; standing opposite a large glass with
Marie de Mantua, she was arranging more to her satisfaction one or two
details of the young Duchess's toilette, who, dressed in a long pink
robe, was herself contemplating with attention, though with somewhat of
ennui and a little sullenness, the ensemble of her appearance.
She saw her own work in Marie, and, more troubled, thought with deep
apprehension of the moment when this transient calm would cease, despite
the profound knowledge she had of the feeling but frivolous character of
Marie. Since the conversation at St.-Germain (the fatal letter), she had
not quitted the young Princess, and had bestowed all her care to lead her
mind to the path which she had traced out for her, for the most decided
feature in the character of Anne of Austria was an invincible obstinacy
in her calculations, to which she would fain have subjected all events
and all passions with a geometrical exactitude. There is no doubt that
to this positive and immovable mind we must attribute all the misfortunes
of her regency. The sombre reply of Cinq-Mars; his arrest; his trial--
all had been concealed from the Princesse Marie, whose first fault, it is
true, had been a movement of self-love and a momentary forgetfulness.
However, the Queen by nature was good-hearted, and had bitterly repented
her precipitation in writing words so decisive, and whose consequences
had been so serious; and all her endeavors had been applied to mitigate
the results. In reflecting upon her conduct in reference to the
happiness of France, she applauded herself for having thus, at one
stroke, stifled the germ of a civil war which would have shaken the State
to its very foundations. But when she approached her young friend and
gazed on that charming being whose happiness she was thus destroying in
its bloom, and reflected that an old man upon a throne, even, would not
recompense her for the eternal loss she was about to sustain; when she
thought of the entire devotion, the total abnegation of himself, she had
witnessed in a young man of twenty-two, of so lofty a character, and
almost master of the kingdom--she pitied Marie, and admired from her very
soul the man whom she had judged so ill.
She would at least have desired to explain his worth to her whom he had
loved so deeply, and who as yet knew him not; but she still hoped that
the conspirators assembled at Lyons would be able to save him, and once
knowing him to be in a foreign land she could tell all to her dear Marie.
As to the latter, she had at first feared war. But surrounded by the
Queen's people, who had let nothing reach her ear but news dictated by
this Princess, she knew, or thought she knew, that the conspiracy had not
taken place; that the King and the Cardinal had returned to Paris nearly
at the same time; that Monsieur, relapsed for a while, had reappeared at
court; that the Duc de Bouillon, on ceding Sedan, had also been restored
to favor; and that if the 'grand ecuyer' had not yet appeared, the reason
was the more decided animosity of the Cardinal toward him, and the
greater part he had taken in the conspiracy. But common sense and
natural justice clearly said that having acted under the order of the
King's brother, his pardon ought to follow that of this Prince.
All then, had calmed the first uneasiness of her heart, while nothing
had softened the kind of proud resentment she felt against Cinq-Mars,
so indifferent as not to inform her of the place of his retreat, known to
the Queen and the whole court, while, she said to herself, she had
thought but of him. Besides, for two months the balls and fetes had so
rapidly succeeded each other, and so many mysterious duties had commanded
her presence, that she had for reflection and regret scarce more than the
time of her toilette, at which she was generally almost alone. Every
evening she regularly commenced the general reflection upon the
ingratitude and inconstancy of men--a profound and novel thought, which
never fails to occupy the head of a young person in the time of first
love--but sleep never permitted her to finish the reflection; and the
fatigue of dancing closed her large black eyes ere her ideas had found
time to classify themselves in her memory, or to present her with any
distinct images of the past.
In the morning she was always surrounded by the young princesses of the
court, and ere she well had time to dress had to present herself in the
Queen's apartment, where awaited her the eternal, but now less
disagreeable homage of the Prince-Palatine. The Poles had had time to
learn at the court of France that mysterious reserve, that eloquent
silence which so pleases the women, because it enhances the importance of
things always secret, and elevates those whom they respect, so as to
preclude the idea of exhibiting suffering in their presence. Marie was
regarded as promised to King Uladislas; and she herself--we must confess
it--had so well accustomed herself to this idea that the throne of Poland
occupied by another queen would have appeared to her a monstrous thing.
She did not look forward with pleasure to the period of ascending it,
but had, however, taken possession of the homage which was rendered her
beforehand. Thus, without avowing it even to herself, she greatly
exaggerated the supposed offences of Cinq-Mars, which the Queen had
expounded to her at St. Germain.
"You are as fresh as the roses in this bouquet," said the Queen. "Come,
'ma chere', are you ready? What means this pouting air? Come, let me
fasten this earring. Do you not like these toys, eh? Will you have
another set of ornaments?"
"Oh, no, Madame. I think that I ought not to decorate myself at all, for
no one knows better than yourself how unhappy I am. Men are very cruel
toward us!
"I have reflected on what you said, and all is now clear to me.
Yes, it is quite true that he did not love me, for had he loved me
he would have renounced an enterprise that gave me so much uneasiness.
I told him, I remember, indeed, which was very decided," she added, with
an important and even solemn air, "that he would be a rebel--yes, Madame,
a rebel. I told him so at Saint-Eustache. But I see that your Majesty
was right. I am very unfortunate! He had more ambition than love."
Here a tear of pique escaped from her eyes, and rolled quickly down her
cheek, as a pearl upon a rose.
"Yes, it is certain," she continued, fastening her bracelets; "and the
greatest proof is that in the two months he has renounced his enterprise
--you told me that you had saved him--he has not let me know the place of
his retreat, while I during that time have been weeping, have been
imploring all your power in his favor; have sought but a word that might
inform me of his proceedings. I have thought but of him; and even now I
refuse every day the throne of Poland, because I wish to prove to the end
that I am constant, that you yourself can not make me disloyal to my
attachment, far more serious than his, and that we are of higher worth
than the men. But, however, I think I may attend this fete, since it is
not a ball."
"Yes, yes, my dear child! come, come!" said the Queen, desirous of
putting an end to this childish talk, which afflicted her all the more
that it was herself who had encouraged it. "Come, you will see the union
that prevails between the princes and the Cardinal, and we shall perhaps
hear some good news." They departed.
When the two princesses entered the long galleries of the Palais-
Cardinal, they were received and coldly saluted by the King and the
minister, who, closely surrounded by silent courtiers, were playing at
chess upon a small low table. All the ladies who entered with the Queen
or followed her, spread through the apartments; and soon soft music
sounded in one of the saloons--a gentle accompaniment to the thousand
private conversations carried on round the play tables.
Near the Queen passed, saluting her, a young newly married couple--the
happy Chabot and the beautiful Duchesse de Rohan. They seemed to shun
the crowd, and to seek apart a moment to speak to each other of
themselves. Every one received them with a smile and looked after them
with envy. Their happiness was expressed as strongly in the countenances
of others as in their own.
Marie followed them with her eyes. "Still they are happy," she whispered
to the Queen, remembering the censure which in her hearing had been
thrown upon the match.
But without answering, Anne of Austria, fearful that in the crowd some
inconsiderate expression might inform her young friend of the mournful
event so interesting to her, placed herself with Marie behind the King.
Monsieur, the Prince-Palatine, and the Duc de Bouillon came to speak to
her with a gay and lively air. The second, however, casting upon Marie a
severe and scrutinizing glance, said to her:
"Madame la Princesse, you are most surprisingly beautiful and gay this
evening."
She was confused at these words, and at seeing the speaker walk away with
a sombre air. She addressed herself to the Duc d'Orleans, who did not
answer, and seemed not to hear her. Marie looked at the Queen, and
thought she remarked paleness and disquiet on her features. Meantime,
no one ventured to approach the minister, who was deliberately meditating
his moves. Mazarin alone, leaning over his chair, followed all the
strokes with a servile attention, giving gestures of admiration every
time that the Cardinal played. Application to the game seemed to have
dissipated for a moment the cloud that usually shaded the minister's
brow. He had just advanced a tower, which placed Louis's king in that
false position which is called "stalemate,"--a situation in which the
ebony king, without being personally attacked, can neither advance nor
retire in any direction. The Cardinal, raising his eyes, looked at his
adversary and smiled with one corner of his mouth, not being able to
avoid a secret analogy. Then, observing the dim eyes and dying
countenance of the Prince, he whispered to Mazarin:
"Faith, I think he'll go before me. He is greatly changed."
At the same time he himself was seized with a long and violent cough,
accompanied internally with the sharp, deep pain he so often felt in the
side. At the sinister warning he put a handkerchief to his mouth, which
he withdrew covered with blood. To hide it, he threw it under the table,
and looked around him with a stern smile, as if to forbid observation.
Louis XIII, perfectly insensible, did not make the least movement, beyond
arranging his men for another game with a skeleton and trembling hand.
There two dying men seemed to be throwing lots which should depart first.
At this moment a clock struck the hour of midnight. The King raised his
head.
"Ah, ah!" he said; "this morning at twelve Monsieur le Grand had a
disagreeable time of it."
A piercing shriek was uttered behind him. He shuddered, and threw
himself forward, upsetting the table. Marie de Mantua lay senseless in
the arms of the Queen, who, weeping bitterly, said in the King's ear:
"Ah, Sire, your axe has a double edge."
She then bestowed all her cares and maternal kisses upon the young
Princess, who, surrounded by all the ladies of the court, only came to
herself to burst into a torrent of tears. As soon as she opened her
eyes, "Alas! yes, my child," said Anne of Austria. "My poor girl, you
are Queen of Poland."
It has often happened that the same event which causes tears to flow in
the palace of kings has spread joy without, for the people ever suppose
that happiness reigns at festivals. There were five days' rejoicings for
the return of the minister, and every evening under the windows of the
Palais-Cardinal and those of the Louvre pressed the people of Paris. The
late disturbances had given them a taste for public movements. They
rushed from one street to another with a curiosity at times insulting and
hostile, sometimes walking in silent procession, sometimes sending forth
loud peals of laughter or prolonged yells, of which no one understood the
meaning. Bands of young men fought in the streets and danced in rounds
in the squares, as if manifesting some secret hope of pleasure and some
insensate joy, grievous to the upright heart.
It was remarkable that profound silence prevailed exactly in those places
where the minister had ordered rejoicings, and that the people passed
disdainfully before the illuminated facade of his palace. If some voices
were raised, it was to read aloud in a sneering tone the legends and
inscriptions with which the idiot flattery of some obscure writers had
surrounded the portraits of the minister. One of these pictures was
guarded by arquebusiers, who, however, could not preserve it from the
stones which were thrown at it from a distance by unseen hands. It
represented the Cardinal-Generalissimo wearing a casque surrounded by
laurels. Above it was inscribed:
"Grand Duc: c'est justement que la France t'honore;
Ainsi que le dieu Mars dans Paris on t'adore."
These fine phrases did not persuade the people that they were happy.
They no more adored the Cardinal than they did the god Mars, but they
accepted his fetes because they served as a covering for disorder. All
Paris was in an uproar. Men with long beards, carrying torches, measures
of wine, and two drinking-cups, which they knocked together with a great
noise, went along, arm in arm, shouting in chorus with rude voices an old
round of the League:.
"Reprenons la danse;
Allons, c'est assez.
Le printemps commence;
Les rois sont passes.
"Prenons quelque treve;
Nous sommes lasses.
Les rois de la feve
Nous ont harasses.
"Allons, Jean du Mayne,
Les rois sont passes.
"Les rois de la feve
Nous ont harasses.
Allons, Jean du Mayne,
Les rois sont passes."
The frightful bands who howled forth these words traversed the Quais and
the Pont-Neuf, squeezing against the high houses, which then covered the
latter, the peaceful citizens who were led there by simple curiosity.
Two young men, wrapped in cloaks, thus thrown one against the other,
recognized each other by the light of a torch placed at the foot of the
statue of Henri IV, which had been lately raised.
"What! still at Paris?" said Corneille to Milton. "I thought you were
in London."
"Hear you the people, Monsieur? Do you hear them? What is this ominous
chorus,
'Les rois sont passes'?"
"That is nothing, Monsieur. Listen to their conversation."
"The parliament is dead," said one of the men; "the nobles are dead.
Let us dance; we are the masters. The old Cardinal is dying. There is
no longer any but the King and ourselves."
"Do you hear that drunken wretch, Monsieur?" asked Corneille. "All our
epoch is in those words of his."
"What! is this the work of the minister who is called great among you,
and even by other nations? I do not understand him."
"I will explain the matter to you presently," answered Corneille. "But
first listen to the concluding part of this letter, which I received to-
day. Draw near this light under the statue of the late King. We are
alone. The crowd has passed. Listen!
"It was by one of those unforeseen circumstances which prevent the
accomplishment of the noblest enterprises that we were not able to
save MM. de Cinq-Mars and De Thou. We might have foreseen that,
prepared for death by long meditation, they would themselves refuse
our aid; but this idea did not occur to any of us. In the
precipitation of our measures, we also committed the fault of
dispersing ourselves too much in the crowd, so that we could not
take a sudden resolution. I was unfortunately stationed near the
scaffold; and I saw our unfortunate friends advance to the foot of
it, supporting the poor Abbe Quillet, who was destined to behold the
death of the pupil whose birth he had witnessed. He sobbed aloud,
and had strength enough only to kiss the hands of the two friends.
We all advanced, ready to throw ourselves upon the guards at the
announced signal; but I saw with grief M. de Cinq-Mars cast his hat
from him with an air of disdain. Our movement had been observed,
and the Catalonian guard was doubled round the scaffold. I could
see no more; but I heard much weeping around me. After the three
usual blasts of the trumpet, the recorder of Lyons, on horseback at
a little distance from the scaffold, read the sentence of death, to
which neither of the prisoners listened. M. de Thou said to M. de
Cinq-Mars:
"'Well, dear friend, which shall die first? Do you remember Saint-
Gervais and Saint-Protais?'
"'Which you think best,' answered Cinq-Mars.
"The second confessor, addressing M. de Thou, said, 'You are the
elder.'
"'True,' said M. de Thou; and, turning to M. le Grand, 'You are the
most generous; you will show me the way to the glory of heaven.'
"'Alas!' said Cinq-Mars; 'I have opened to you that of the
precipice; but let us meet death nobly, and we shall revel in the
glory and happiness of heaven!'
"Hereupon he embraced him, and ascended the scaffold with surprising
address and agility. He walked round the scaffold, and contemplated
the whole of the great assembly with a calm countenance, which
betrayed no sign of fear, and a serious and graceful manner. He
then went round once more, saluting the people on every side,
without appearing to recognize any of us, with a majestic and
charming expression of face; he then knelt down, raising his eyes to
heaven, adoring God, and recommending himself to Him. As he
embraced the crucifix, the father confessor called to the people to
pray for him; and M. le Grand, opening his arms, still holding his
crucifix, made the same request to the people. Then he readily
knelt before the block, holding the stake, placed his neck upon it,
and asked the confessor, 'Father, is this right?' Then, while they
were cutting off his hair, he raised his eyes to heaven, and said,
sighing:
"'My God, what is this world? My God, I offer thee my death as a
satisfaction for my sins!'
"'What are you waiting for? What are you doing there?' he said to
the executioner, who had not yet taken his axe from an old bag he
had brought with him. His confessor, approaching, gave him a
medallion; and he, with an incredible tranquillity of mind, begged
the father to hold the crucifix before his eyes, which he would not
allow to be bound. I saw the two trembling hands of the Abbe
Quillet, who raised the crucifix. At this moment a voice, as clear
and pure as that of an angel, commenced the 'Ave, maris stella'.
In the universal silence I recognized the voice of M. de Thou, who
was at the foot of the scaffold; the people repeated the sacred
strain. M. de Cinq-Mars clung more tightly to the stake; and I saw
a raised axe, made like the English axes. A terrible cry of the
people from the Place, the windows, and the towers told me that it
had fallen, and that the head had rolled to the ground. I had
happily strength enough left to think of his soul, and to commence a
prayer for him.
"I mingled it with that which I heard pronounced aloud by our
unfortunate and pious friend De Thou. I rose and saw him spring
upon the scaffold with such promptitude that he might almost have
been said to fly. The father and he recited a psalm; he uttered it
with the ardor of a seraphim, as if his soul had borne his body to
heaven. Then, kneeling down, he kissed the blood of Cinq-Mars as
that of a martyr, and became himself a greater martyr. I do not
know whether God was pleased to grant him this last favor; but I saw
with horror that the executioner, terrified no doubt at the first
blow he had given, struck him upon the top of his head, whither the
unfortunate young man raised his hand; the people sent forth a long
groan, and advanced against the executioner. The poor wretch,
terrified still more, struck him another blow, which only cut the
skin and threw him upon the scaffold, where the executioner rolled
upon him to despatch him. A strange event terrified the people as
much as the horrible spectacle. M. de Cinq-Mars' old servant held
his horse as at a military funeral; he had stopped at the foot of
the scaffold, and like a man paralyzed, watched his master to the
end, then suddenly, as if struck by the same axe, fell dead under
the blow which had taken off his master's head.
"I write these sad details in haste, on board a Genoese galley, into
which Fontrailles, Gondi, Entraigues, Beauvau, Du Lude, myself, and
others of the chief conspirators have retired. We are going to
England to await until time shall deliver France from the tyrant
whom we could not destroy. I abandon forever the service of the
base Prince who betrayed us.
"MONTRESOR"
"Such," continued Corneille, "has been the fate of these two young men
whom you lately saw so powerful. Their last sigh was that of the ancient
monarchy. Nothing more than a court can reign here henceforth; the
nobles and the senates are destroyed."
"And this is your pretended great man!" said Milton. "What has he
sought to do? He would, then, create republics for future ages, since he
destroys the basis of your monarchy?"
"Look not so far," answered Corneille; "he only seeks to reign until the
end of his life. He has worked for the present and not for the future;
he has continued the work of Louis XI; and neither one nor the other knew
what they were doing."
The Englishman smiled.
"I thought," he said, "that true genius followed another path. This man
has shaken all that he ought to have supported, and they admire him!
I pity your nation."
"Pity it not!" exclaimed Corneille, warmly; "a man passes away, but a
people is renewed. This people, Monsieur, is gifted with an immortal
energy, which nothing can destroy; its imagination often leads it astray,
but superior reason will ever ultimately master its disorders."
The two young and already great men walked, as they conversed, upon the
space which separates the statue of Henri IV from the Place Dauphine;
they stopped a moment in the centre of this Place.
"Yes, Monsieur," continued Corneille, "I see every evening with what
rapidity a noble thought finds its echo in French hearts; and every
evening I retire happy at the sight. Gratitude prostrates the poor
people before this statue of a good king! Who knows what other monument
another passion may raise near this? Who can say how far the love of
glory will lead our people? Who knows that in the place where we now
are, there may not be raised a pyramid taken from the East?"
"These are the secrets of the future," said Milton. "I, like yourself,
admire your impassioned nation; but I fear them for themselves. I do not
well understand them; and I do not recognize their wisdom when I see them
lavishing their admiration upon men such as he who now rules you. The
love of power is very puerile; and this man is devoured by it, without
having force enough to seize it wholly. By an utter absurdity, he is a
tyrant under a master. Thus has this colossus, never firmly balanced,
been all but overthrown by the finger of a boy. Does that indicate
genius? No, no! when genius condescends to quit the lofty regions of
its true home for a human passion, at least, it should grasp that passion
in its entirety. Since Richelieu only aimed at power, why did he not,
if he was a genius, make himself absolute master of power? I am going to
see a man who is not yet known, and whom I see swayed by this miserable
ambition; but I think that he will go farther. His name is Cromwell!"
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A cat is a very fine animal. It is a drawing-room tiger
But how avenge one's self on silence?
Deny the spirit of self-sacrifice
Hatred of everything which is superior to myself
Hermits can not refrain from inquiring what men say of them
Princes ought never to be struck, except on the head
These ideas may serve as opium to produce a calm
They loved not as you love, eh?
End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Cinq Mars, v6
by Alfred de Vigny
