CHAPTER VI.
THE PRINCE DE CELLAMARE.
At this invitation there entered a tall, thin, grave man, with asunburned complexion, who at a single glance took in everything in theroom, animate and inanimate. The chevalier recognized the ambassador oftheir Catholic majesties, the Prince de Cellamare.
"Well, prince," asked the duchess, "what have you to tell us?"
"I have to tell you, madame," replied the prince, kissing her handrespectfully, and throwing his cloak on a chair, "that your highness hadbetter change coachmen. I predict misfortune if you retain in yourservice the fellow who drove me here. He seems to me to be some oneemployed by the regent to break the necks of your highness and all yourcompanions."
Every one began to laugh, and particularly the coachman himself, who,without ceremony, had entered behind the prince; and who, throwing hishat and cloak on a seat, showed himself a man of high bearing, fromthirty-five to forty years old, with the lower part of his face hiddenby a black handkerchief.
"Do you hear, my dear Laval, what the prince says of you?"
"Yes, yes," said Laval; "it is worth while to give him Montmorencies tobe treated like that. Ah, M. le Prince, the first gentlemen in Franceare not good enough for your coachmen! Peste! you are difficult toplease. Have you many coachmen at Naples who date from Robert theStrong?"
"What! is it you, my dear count?" said the prince, holding out his handto him.
"Myself, prince! Madame la Duchesse sent away her coachman to keep Lentin his own family, and engaged me for this night. She thought it safer."
"And Madame la Duchesse did right," said the cardinal. "One cannot taketoo many precautions."
"Ah, your eminence," said Laval, "I should like to know if you would beof the same opinion after passing half the night on the box of acarriage, first to fetch M. d'Harmental from the opera ball, and then totake the prince from the Hotel Colbert."
"What!" said D'Harmental, "was it you, Monsieur le Comte, who had thegoodness--"
"Yes, young man," replied Laval; "and I would have gone to the end ofthe world to bring you here, for I know you. You are a gallantgentleman; you were one of the first to enter Denain, and you tookAlbemarle. You were fortunate enough not to leave half your jaw there,as I did in Italy. You were right, for it would have been a furthermotive for taking away your regiment, which they have done, however."
"We will restore you that a hundredfold," said the duchess; "but now letus speak of Spain. Prince, you have news from Alberoni, Pompadour tellsme."
"Yes, your highness."
"What are they?"
"Both good and bad. His majesty Philip V. is in one of his melancholymoods and will not determine upon anything. He will not believe in thetreaty of the quadruple alliance."
"Will not believe in it!" cried the duchess; "and the treaty ought to besigned now. In a week Dubois will have brought it here."
"I know it, your highness," replied Cellamare, coldly; "but his Catholicmajesty does not."
"Then he abandons us?"
"Almost."
"What becomes, then, of the queen's fine promises, and the empire shepretends to have over her husband?"
"She promises to prove it to you, madame," replied the prince, "whensomething is done."
"Yes," said the Cardinal de Polignac; "and then she will fail in thatpromise."
"No, your eminence! I will answer for her."
"What I see most clearly in all this is," said Laval, "that we mustcompromise the king. Once compromised, he must go on."
"Now, then," said Cellamare, "we are coming to business."
"But how to compromise him," asked the Duchesse de Maine, "without aletter from him, without even a verbal message, and at five hundredleagues' distance?"
"Has he not his representative at Paris, and is not that representativein your house at this very moment, madame?"
"Prince," said the duchess, "you have more extended powers than you arewilling to admit."
"No; my powers are limited to telling you that the citadel of Toledo andthe fortress of Saragossa are at your service. Find the means of makingthe regent enter there, and their Catholic majesties will close the dooron him so securely that he will not leave it again, I promise you."
"It is impossible," said Monsieur de Polignac.
"Impossible! and why?" cried D'Harmental. "On the contrary, what is moresimple? Nothing is necessary but eight or ten determined men, awell-closed carriage, and relays to Bayonne."
"I have already offered to undertake it," said Laval.
"And I," said Pompadour.
"You cannot," said the duchess; "the regent knows you; and if the thingfailed, you would be lost."
"It is a pity," said Cellamare, coldly; "for, once arrived at Toledo orSaragossa, there is greatness in store for him who shall havesucceeded."
"And the blue ribbon," added Madame de Maine, "on his return to Paris."
"Oh, silence, I beg, madame," said D'Harmental; "for if your highnesssays such things, you give to devotion the air of ambition, and rob itof all its merit. I was going to offer myself for the enterprise--I, whoam unknown to the regent--but now I hesitate; and yet I venture tobelieve myself worthy of the confidence of your highness, and able tojustify it."----"What, chevalier!" cried the duchess, "you would risk--"
"My life; it is all I have to risk. I thought I had already offered it,and that your highness had accepted it. Was I mistaken?"
"No, no, chevalier," said the duchess quickly; "and you are a brave andloyal gentleman. I have always believed in presentiments, and from themoment Valef pronounced your name, telling me that you were what I findyou to be, I felt of what assistance you would be to us. Gentlemen, youhear what the chevalier says; in what can you aid him?"
"In whatever he may want," said Laval and Pompadour.
"The coffers of their Catholic majesties are at his disposal," said thePrince de Cellamare, "and he may make free use of them."
"I thank you," said D'Harmental, turning toward the Comte de Laval andthe Marquis de Pompadour; "but, known as you are, you would only makethe enterprise more difficult. Occupy yourselves only in obtaining forme a passport for Spain, as if I had the charge of some prisoner ofimportance: that ought to be easy."
"I undertake it," said the Abbe Brigaud: "I will get from D'Argenson apaper all prepared, which will only have to be filled in."
"Excellent Brigaud," said Pompadour; "he does not speak often, but hespeaks to the purpose."
"It is he who should be made cardinal," said the duchess, "rather thancertain great lords of my acquaintance; but as soon as we can dispose ofthe blue and the red, be easy, gentlemen, we shall not be miserly. Now,chevalier, you have heard what the prince said. If you want money--"
"Unfortunately," replied D'Harmental, "I am not rich enough to refusehis excellency's offer, and so soon as I have arrived at the end ofabout a million pistoles which I have at home, I must have recourse toyou."
"To him, to me, to us all, chevalier, for each one in such circumstancesshould tax himself according to his means. I have little ready money,but I have many diamonds and pearls; therefore want for nothing, I beg.All the world has not your disinterestedness, and there is devotionwhich must be bought."
"Above all, be prudent," said the cardinal.
"Do not be uneasy," replied D'Harmental, contemptuously. "I havesufficient grounds of complaint against the regent for it to bebelieved, if I were taken, that it was an affair between him and me, andthat my vengeance was entirely personal."
"But," said the Comte de Laval, "you must have a kind of lieutenant inthis enterprise, some one on whom you can count. Have you any one?"
"I think so," replied D'Harmental; "but I must be informed each morningwhat the regent will do in the evening. Monsieur le Prince de Cellamare,as ambassador, must have his secret police."
"Yes," said the prince, embarrassed, "I have some people who give me anaccount."----"That is exactly it," said D'Harmental.
"Where do you lodge?" asked
the cardinal.
"At my own house, monseigneur, Rue de Richelieu, No. 74."
"And how long have you lived there?"
"Three years."
"Then you are too well known there, monsieur; you must change quarters.The people whom you receive are known, and the sight of strange faceswould give rise to questions."
"This time your eminence is right," said D'Harmental. "I will seekanother lodging in some retired neighborhood."
"I undertake it," said Brigaud; "my costume does not excite suspicions.I will engage you a lodging as if it was destined for a young man fromthe country who has been recommended to me, and who has come to occupysome place in an office."
"Truly, my dear Brigaud," said the Marquis de Pompadour, "you are likethe princess in the 'Arabian Nights,' who never opened her mouth but todrop pearls."
"Well, it is a settled thing, Monsieur l'Abbe," said D'Harmental; "Ireckon on you, and I shall announce at home that I am going to leaveParis for a three months' trip."
"Everything is settled, then," said the Duchesse de Maine joyfully."This is the first time that I have been able to see clearly into ouraffairs, chevalier, and we owe it to you. I shall not forget it."
"Gentlemen," said Malezieux, pulling out his watch, "I would observethat it is four o'clock in the morning, and that we shall kill our dearduchesse with fatigue."
"You are mistaken," said the duchess; "such nights rest me, and it islong since I have passed one so good."
"Prince," said Laval, "you must be contented with the coachman whom youwished discharged, unless you would prefer driving yourself, or going onfoot."
"No, indeed," said the prince, "I will risk it. I am a Neapolitan, andbelieve in omens. If you overturn me it will be a sign that we must staywhere we are--if you conduct me safely it will be a sign that we may goon."
"Pompadour, you must take back Monsieur d'Harmental," said the duchess.
"Willingly," said the marquis. "It is a long time since we met, and wehave a hundred things to say to each other."
"Cannot I take leave of my sprightly bat?" asked D'Harmental; "for I donot forget that it is to her I owe the happiness of having offered myservices to your highness."
"De Launay," cried the duchess, conducting the Prince of Cellamare tothe door, "De Launay, here is Monsieur le Chevalier d'Harmental, whosays you are the greatest sorceress he has ever known."
"Well!" said she who has left us such charming memoirs, under the nameof Madame de Stael, "do you believe in my prophecies now, Monsieur leChevalier?"
"I believe, because I hope," replied the chevalier. "But now that I knowthe fairy that sent you, it is not your predictions that astonish me themost. How were you so well informed about the past, and, above all, ofthe present?"
"Well, De Launay, be kind, and do not torment the chevalier any longer,or he will believe us to be two witches, and be afraid of us."
"Was there not one of your friends, chevalier," asked De Launay, "wholeft you this morning in the Bois de Boulogne to come and say adieu tous."
"Valef! It is Valef!" cried D'Harmental. "I understand now."
"In the place of Oedipus you would have been devoured ten times over bythe Sphinx."
"But the mathematics; but the anatomy; but Virgil?" replied D'Harmental.
"Do you not know, chevalier," said Malezieux, mixing in theconversation, "that we never call her anything here but our 'savante?'with the exception of Chaulieu, however, who calls her his flirt, andhis coquette; but all as a poetical license. We let her loose the otherday on Du Vernay, our doctor, and she beat him at anatomy."
"And," said the Marquis de Pompadour, taking D'Harmental's arm to leadhim away, "the good man in his disappointment declared that there was noother girl in France who understood the human frame so well."
"Ah!" said the Abbe Brigaud, folding his papers, "here is the firstsavant on record who has been known to make a bon-mot. It is true thathe did not intend it."
And D'Harmental and Pompadour, having taken leave of the duchess,retired laughing, followed by the Abbe Brigaud, who reckoned on them todrive him home.
"Well," said Madame de Maine, addressing the Cardinal de Polignac, "doesyour eminence still find it such a terrible thing to conspire?"
"Madame," replied the cardinal, who could not understand that any onecould laugh when their head was in danger, "I will ask you the samequestion when we are all in the Bastille."
And he went away with the good chancellor, deploring the ill-luck whichhad thrown him into such a rash enterprise.
The duchess looked after him with a contempt which she could notdisguise: then, when she was alone with De Launay:
"My dear Sophy," said she, "let us put out our lantern, for I think wehave found a man."