The War of Women. Volume 1

"Your Highness has said it."

"His orders, then, are not to lose sight of us."

"Yes; but what care you, if you are not the person he keeps in sight?"

"I fail to understand you, Lenet."

Lenet smiled.

"I understand myself, madame, and I will answer for everything. Dress Pierrot as a prince, and the prince as a gardener, and I will undertake to teach Pierrot his lesson."

"Oh, mon Dieu! let my son go away alone!"

"Your son will go with his mother, madame."

"Impossible!"

"Why so? If they find a false Duc d'Enghien here, they may well find a false Princesse de Condé!"

"Oh! splendid! Now I understand, good Lenet! dear Lenet! But who will represent me?" added the princess, anxiously.

"Have no fear on that score, madame," replied the imperturbable counsellor. "The Princesse de Condé whom I propose to make use of, and who I intend shall be kept in sight by Monsieur de Mazarin's spy, has just undressed in hot haste, and is getting into your bed at this moment."

Let us go back for a moment, and see what had taken place prior to Lenet's conversation with the princess.

While the guests were still sitting about the festive board, toasting the princes and cursing Mazarin, while Lenet was bargaining with Cauvignac in his cabinet for the possession of Monsieur d'Épernon's signature, and while Madame la Princesse was making her preparations for departure, a horseman made his appearance at the main gate of the château, followed by his servant, and rang the bell.

The concierge opened the gate, but behind the concierge the new-comer found the halberdier whom we already know.

"Whence come you?" he demanded.

"From Mantes," was the reply.

So far all was well.

"Whither go you?" the halberdier continued.

"To wait upon the princess dowager of Condé, then upon Madame la Princesse, and lastly upon Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien."

"You cannot enter!" said the halberdier, barring the way with his halberd.

"By order of the king!" rejoined the new-comer, taking a paper from his pocket.

At these awe-inspiring words the halberd was lowered, the sentinel called an usher, that official hurried to the spot, and his Majesty's messenger, having delivered his credentials, was immediately ushered into the château.

Fortunately, it was a very extensive structure, and the apartments of the dowager were far removed from the gallery, where the last scene of the noisy festival we have described was still in progress.

If the messenger had requested an interview with Madame la Princesse in the first place, the whole plan of escape would in truth have been thwarted. But etiquette demanded that he should first pay his respects to the elder princess; so the first valet de chambre ushered him into a large cabinet, adjoining her Highness's bedroom.

"Pray accept her Highness's apologies, monsieur," said he, "but her Highness was taken suddenly ill day before yesterday, and was bled for the third time less than two hours since. I will make known your arrival to her, and I shall have the honor of ushering you into her presence in a moment."

The gentleman bowed in token of acquiescence, and was left alone, entirely unaware that three curious pairs of eyes were observing his countenance through the key-hole and trying to recognize him.

These three pairs of eyes belonged to Lenet, to Vialas, the princess's equerry, and to La Roussière, captain of the hunt. In the event that either one of the three had recognized the gentleman, that one was to enter the room, and on the pretext of entertaining him while he waited, to divert his attention and thus gain time.

But no one of the three was able to recognize the man whom they were so deeply interested in winning over to their cause. He was a well-favored youth in the uniform of an officer of infantry; he gazed about, with an indifferent air which might easily have been attributed to distaste for his errand, at the family portraits and the furniture of the cabinet, paying particular attention to the portrait of the dowager, to whom he was soon to be introduced, – a portrait which was made when she was in the very flower of her youth and beauty.

It was but a very few minutes before the valet de chambre returned, as he had promised, and conducted the messenger to the princess dowager's bedroom.

Charlotte de Montmorency was sitting up in bed; her physician, Bourdelot, was just leaving her bedside. He met the officer at the door and saluted him ceremoniously; the officer returned his salutation in the same manner.

When the princess heard the visitor's footsteps and the few words he exchanged with the physician, she made a rapid sign with her hand in the direction of the passage beside the bed, whereupon the heavily fringed hangings which enveloped the bed except on the side where they were drawn apart for the reception of her visitor, moved slightly for two or three seconds.

In the passage were the younger princess and Lenet, who had entered by a secret door cut in the wainscoting, eager to ascertain the purport of the king's messenger's visit to Chantilly.

The officer walked into the room, and halting a few feet from the door, bowed with a greater show of respect than etiquette absolutely demanded.

The princess dowager's great black eyes were dilated with the superb expression of a queen about to give free rein to her wrath; her silence was heavy with impending storms. With her white hand, made even whiter than usual by the blood-letting, she motioned to the messenger to deliver to her the letter of which he was the bearer.

The officer extended his hand toward hers, and respectfully placed therein Anne of Austria's letter; then waited until the princess should have read the four lines it contained.

"Very good," muttered the dowager, folding the paper with affected coolness; "I understand the queen's meaning, shrouded as it is in polite phrases; I am your prisoner."

"Madame," the officer began, in dire embarrassment.

"A prisoner easy to guard, monsieur," continued Madame de Condé, "for I am in no condition to fly very far; and I have, as you must have seen as you came in, a stern keeper in the person of my physician, Monsieur Bourdelot."

As she spoke the dowager looked more attentively at the messenger, whose countenance was sufficiently pre-possessing to soften somewhat the harsh reception due the bearer of such a communication.

"I knew," she continued, "that Monsieur de Mazarin was capable of much unseemly violence; but I did not believe him to be so faint-hearted as to fear a sick old woman, a helpless widow, and an infant, for I presume that the order of which you are the bearer, applies to the princess my daughter, and the duke my grandson, as well as to myself?"

"Madame," returned the young man, "I should be in despair were your Highness to judge me by the functions which I am unhappily compelled to perform. I arrived at Mantes bearing a message for the queen. The postscript of the message recommended the messenger to her Majesty; the queen thereupon graciously bade me remain in attendance upon her, as she would in all probability have need of my services. Two days later the queen sent me hither; but while accepting, as in duty bound, the mission, whatever it might be, which her Majesty deigned to intrust to me, I will venture to say that I did not solicit it, and furthermore that I would have refused it if kings were accustomed to brook a refusal."

With that the officer bowed again, with no less respect than before.

"I augur well from your explanation, and, since you have given it, I have some hope that I may be permitted to be ill without being molested. But no false shame, monsieur; tell me the truth at once. Shall I be watched even in my own apartments, as my poor son is at Vincennes? Shall I be allowed to write, and will my letters be opened, or not? If, contrary to all appearance, I am ever able to leave my bed again, will my walks be restricted?"

"Madame," replied the officer, "these are the instructions which the queen did me the honor to give me with her own mouth: 'Go,' said her Majesty, 'and assure my cousin of Condé that I will do whatever the welfare of the realm will permit me to do for the princes. In this letter I beg her to receive one of my officers, who will serve as intermediary between her and myself for such communications as she may wish to make to me. You will be that officer.' Such, madame," added the young man, with renewed demonstrations of respect, "were her Majesty's own words."

The princess listened to this recital with the careful attention of one seeking to detect in a diplomatic note the hidden meaning often depending upon the use of a certain word, or upon the placing of a comma in a particular spot.

After a moment's reflection, having discovered, doubtless, in the message the meaning that she had feared from the first to find therein, that is to say, espionage pure and simple, she said, pressing her lips together:

"You will take up your abode at Chantilly, monsieur, as the queen desires; furthermore, if you will say what apartment will be most agreeable to you, and most convenient for executing your commission, that apartment shall be yours."

"Madame," rejoined the officer, with a slight frown, "I have had the honor of explaining to your Highness many things not included in my instructions. Between your Highness's wrath and the queen's command I am in a dangerous position, being naught but a poor officer, and above all a wretched courtier. However, it seems to me that your Highness would be more generous to abstain from humiliating a man who is merely a passive instrument. It is distasteful to me, madame, to have to do what I am doing. But the queen has so ordered, and it is for me to obey the queen's commands to the letter. I did not seek the position, – I should have been glad had it been given to another; it seems to me that that is much to say."

And the officer raised his head with a blush which caused a similar blush to overspread the princess's haughty countenance.