Madame de Combalet, as was her habit, covered her face with her fan.
“I’ll wager,” said the Duc de Guise, “you’re going to talk about my scoundrel of a son.”
“Just so. You know that he now insists on being presented his shirt, like a prince of the blood. Eight or ten people have been foolish enough to do him this honor. But a few days ago he designated the Abbé de Retz, who pretended to be nervous and dropped it into the fire, where it scorched. After that, the abbé picked up his hat, bowed, and left.”
“Well done, by my faith, well done,” said the Duc de Guise, “and I’ll compliment him on it next time I see him.”
“If one dared to speak,” said Madame de Combalet, “one might say your son’s done even worse than that.”
“Oh, tell us, tell us, Madame!” said Monsieur de Guise.
“Well, on his last visit to his sister Madame de Saint-Pierre, the abbess in Reims, he dined with her in the parlor, and then went right into the convent like a prince. There he was, sixteen years old, and chasing after the nuns. He caught the most beautiful and, willy-nilly, began to kiss her. ‘My brother!’ cried Madame de Saint-Pierre, ‘My brother! Don’t joke like this! These are the Brides of Christ!’ ‘Good,’ replied the villain, ‘God is powerful enough to keep me from embracing his brides, if that was His will.’ ‘I’ll complain to the queen!’ cried the nun, who was quite pretty. This frightened the abbess. ‘Embrace that other one, too,’ she said to the prince. ‘But, sister, she’s very ugly!’ he replied. ‘All the more reason—it will look like you were acting childish and didn’t know any better.’ ‘Must I, sister?’ ‘If you don’t, the pretty one will complain.’ ‘Well, then, ugly it is!’ And he kissed the ugly one, who was grateful, and kept the pretty one from complaining.”
“And how, beautiful widow, do you know of this?” the duke asked Madame de Combalet.
“Madame de Saint-Pierre made her report to my uncle—but my uncle has such a weakness for the House of Guise, he only laughed!”
“When I saw the lad last month,” said Monsieur le Prince, “he had a yellow silk stocking as a feather in his hat. What does that folly mean?”
“It means,” said Monsieur d’Orléans, “that he was in love with La Villiers of the Hotel de Bourgogne, and she was playing a role in which she wore yellow stockings. He sent Tristan l’Hermite to pay her a compliment on her legs. She pulled off one of her stockings and gave it to Tristan, saying, ‘If Monsieur de Joinville wears this as a plume on his hat for three days, he can then come and ask me for whatever he wants.’”
“Well?” asked Madame de Sablé.
“Well, he wore it for three days, and my cousin de Guise, his father, can tell you that on the fourth, he returned to the Hotel de Guise at eleven in the morning.”
“A fine life for a future archbishop!” said Madame de Sablé.
“But these days,” His Royal Highness continued, “he’s in love with Mademoiselle de Pons, a great big blonde. The other day she went for a purgative. He asked for the address of her apothecary and took the same drug, writing her, ‘No one can say that if you’re being purged, I’m not being purged as well.’”
“Ah!” said the duke. “This amour with an actress explains why, the other day, the great ninny invited every trained-dog buffoon in Paris to the Hotel de Guise. Imagine me coming into the mansion and finding the courtyard full of dogs dressed in all sorts of costumes. There were about three hundred, with about thirty clowns standing around, each with his pack. ‘What are you up to now, Joinville?’ I asked. ‘I’m putting on a show, Father,’ he replied. Guess why he’d invited all these buffoons? He promised each one a crown if, three days hence, three hundred trained dogs of Paris would jump at once for Mademoiselle de Pons.”
“By the way,” said Gaston, too impatient to stay with one subject for long, “as his neighbor, dear Dowager, have you heard about poor Pisany? Voiture saw him yesterday and said he’s not doing too badly.”
“I called this morning, and was told that the doctors were still hovering around him.”
“I have fresher news than that,” said the Duc de Montmorency. “I left the Comte de Moret at the door of the Hotel de Rambouillet, where he’d decided to go in person.”
“What, the Comte de Moret?” said Madame de Combalet. “The man whom Pisany wanted killed?”
“Quite so,” said the duke. “It seems it was all a misunderstanding.”
At that moment, the door opened and the usher announced, “Monseigneur Antoine de Bourbon, Comte de Moret.”
“Stay a moment,” said the duke, “here he is. He’ll tell you all about it himself, and much better than I would, as I start mumbling every time I have to say more than twenty words.”
The Comte de Moret came in, and all eyes turned toward him—especially, we must say, those of the women.
Having not yet been presented to Marie de Gonzague, he waited at the door till Monsieur de Montmorency came to lead him to the princess, which the duke hastened to do with the same elegant grace he did everything.
No less elegant, the young prince bowed to the princess, kissed her hand, gave her the regards of the Duc de Rethel whom he’d seen in passing in Mantua, kissed the hand of Madame de Longueville, and picked up her bouquet, which had fallen from her bodice as she’d stepped aside to make room for Madame de Combalet. He returned it with a charming gesture, bowed profoundly before Monseigneur Gaston, and then took a modest place near the Duc de Montmorency.
“My dear prince,” Montmorency said when the ceremony was over, “we were talking about you just before you came in.”
“Me? Bah. What could you have to say about me in such celebrated company?”
“You’re right, Monseigneur,” said a female voice. “A man wants to murder you just because you’re a lover of Marion Delorme’s sister. Why ever would we care about that?”
“Ah!” said the prince. “There’s a voice I know. Is that not my little cousin?”
“Indeed, Master Jacquelino!” replied Madame de Fargis, approaching and holding out her hand.
The Comte de Moret bent over her hand, whispering, “You know I must see you again, simply must speak with you. I’m in love.”
“With me?”
“A little—but with another, a lot.”
“Impudence! What’s her name?”
“I don’t know her name.”
“Is she pretty, at least?”
“I don’t know what she looks like.”
“Is she young?”
“She must be.”
“And why do you think that?”
“From the voice I heard, the hand I touched, the breath I drank in.”
“Ah, my cousin. How can you say things like that?”
“I’m twenty-one. I say what I feel.”
“Oh, youth! Youth!” said Madame de Fargis, “Priceless diamond that tarnishes so quickly!”
“My dear Count,” interrupted the duke, “You’re making all the ladies jealous of your ‘cousin,’ as I believe you called Madame de Fargis. They want to know why you were visiting a man who tried to have you assassinated.”
“First,” said the Comte de Moret, with a charming air, “because I’m a cousin of Madame de Rambouillet.”
“A cousin? How?” asked Monsieur d’Orléans, who prided himself on his knowledge of noble genealogy. “Please explain, Monsieur de Moret.”
“Through my little cousin Fargis, who married Monsieur de Fargis of Angennes, cousin of Madame de Rambouillet.”
“And how are you the cousin of Madame de Fargis?”
“That,” said the Comte de Moret, “is our secret—isn’t that so, Cousin Marina?”
“Yes, Cousin Jacquelino,” laughed Madame de Fargis.
“Then, besides being a cousin to Madame de Rambouillet, I’m one of her friends.”
“But I’ve seen you at her house only once or twice,” said Madame de Combalet.
“She asked me to stop paying visits.”
??
?Why’s that?” asked Madame de Sablé.
“Because Monsieur de Chevreuse was jealous of me.”
“Had he the right to be?”
“Hmm. How many of us are there in this salon? Thirty or so. I’d tell each one for a thousand. That makes thirty thousand.”
“To dogs, we give our words away,” said Monsieur.
“Then he had the right—on behalf of his wife.”
A roar of laughter greeted the count’s admission.
“But,” said Madame de Montbazon, who was afraid she might not get the whole tale to pass on to her stepsister Chevreuse, “that still doesn’t tell the story of the assassination.”
“Ah! Ventre-saint-gris! That’s simple enough. Who compromised Madame de la Montagne by saying I was her lover?”
“None other than Madame de Chevreuse,” said Madame de Sablé.
“Well, poor Pisany believed it was Madame de Maugiron who was my delight. Certain issues with his shape make him touchy, while certain truths told by his mirror make him positively irascible. Instead of calling me out for a duel, which I would’ve been happy to grant him, he decided to pay a bravo to pick a quarrel. His luck was out: he tried to hire an honest man, who refused. He tried to kill the bravo, but failed. He tried to kill Souscarrières, and failed. And that’s the story.”
“But that’s not what we want to hear,” insisted Monsieur. “Why did you go to visit a man who tried to assassinate you?”
“Because he couldn’t come to me. I’m a good soul, Monseigneur. I thought poor Pisany might think I was out to get him, and would have nightmares. So I shook his hand and told him that if, in the future, he believes he has reason to complain of me, he should just call me out for a duel. I’m just a simple gentleman, and have no right to refuse someone who believes his honor offended. Though I’d rather not offend anyone.”
As the young man spoke these words so gently and yet, at the same time, so firmly, a murmur of approval answered the frank and honest smile on his lips.
He’d hardly finished speaking when the door opened again and the usher announced, “Mademoiselle Isabelle de Lautrec.”
As she entered, they could see behind her the footman, wearing the livery of her château, who’d accompanied her.
At the sight of the young woman, the Comte de Moret felt a strange feeling of attraction and took a step toward her.
She walked, blushing and graceful, to Princess Marie, and bowed respectfully before her. “Madame,” she said, “I come from Her Majesty bearing you a letter from my father, with good news for you, and I beg leave with respect to place this letter at your feet.”
At the first words spoken by Mademoiselle de Lautrec, the Comte de Moret’s heart leaped. He seized Madame de Fargis’s hand and, pressing it, he murmured, “It’s she! It’s she! The one I love!”
XVIII
Isabelle and Marina
As the Comte de Moret had foreseen without truly knowing anything, even a name, but by the wonderful insight of youth that makes a feeling more reliable than the senses, Mademoiselle Isabelle de Lautrec was perfectly lovely, albeit with a beauty different from that of Princess Marie.
Marie de Gonzague was a brunette with blue eyes, while Isabelle de Lautrec was blond with eyes, eyelashes, and eyebrows of black. Her skin was a dazzling white, fine and transparent, with the delicate shading of a rose petal. Her neck had that long lovely curve seen in women painted by Pérugin and in the early work of his pupil Sanzio. Her hands were long, slim, and white, the very model of the hands of Leonardo da Vinci’s La Ferronière. Her long flowing dress didn’t reveal even the shadow of her feet, but one could guess that if they were in harmony with her hands, they would be slender and delicate.
As Isabelle knelt before the princess, Marie embraced her and kissed her forehead. “God forbid,” she said, “I should allow to kneel before me the daughter of one of the best servants of our house. Just give me your good news. Now, daughter of our dear friend, does your father say this is news for me alone, or may I share it with those who love us?”
“As you’ll see in the postscript, Madame, His Majesty’s Ambassador, Monsieur de La Saludie, has authorized the news to be spread in Italy—and Your Highness may, in turn, let it be known in France.”
Princess Marie turned an inquiring look toward Madame de Combalet who, with a slight nod, confirmed what the beautiful messenger had said.
Marie read the letter to herself.
While she was reading it, the young woman turned her eyes to the rest of the assembly. Until then, she’d seen only the princess, the other twenty-five or thirty people in the salon appearing as in a mirage.
When her look reached the Comte de Moret, their eyes met, and along their gaze flashed an electric jolt that went right to both their hearts.
Isabelle paled and leaned against the princess’s chair.
The Comte de Moret saw the emotion strike her, and seemed to hear a choir of heavenly angels singing, Glory to God!
The usher had named her as a member of the old and illustrious family of Lautrec, whose noble history almost equaled that of the princes.
And she had never been in love. He knew it: he had hoped as much, but now he was sure.
Meanwhile, Princess Marie had finished her letter. “Messieurs,” she said, “here is the news from my dear Isabelle’s father. On his way to Mantua he met Monsieur de La Saludie, His Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinaire to the Italian powers. Monsieur de La Saludie was charged by the cardinal with telling both the Duke of Mantua and the Venetian Senate of our conquest of La Rochelle. He was also responsible for declaring that France was prepared to come to the aid of Casale and to support Charles de Nevers in the possession of his new dominions. Passing through Turin he had seen the Duke of Savoy, Charles-Emmanuel, and had enjoined him, in the name of his son-in-law our king, and on the behalf of the cardinal, to abandon his claim to Montferrat. He was empowered to offer the Duke of Savoy, in return, the city of Trino, with a sovereign income of twelve thousand crowns a year. Monsieur de Bautru has departed for Spain and Monsieur de Charnace for Austria, Germany, and Sweden, with the same message.”
“I hope,” said Monsieur, “this doesn’t mean the cardinal plans to ally us with the Protestants.”
“As for me,” said Monsieur le Prince, “if that was the only way to keep Wallenstein and his bandits in Germany, I wouldn’t be against it.”
“That’s your Huguenot blood talking,” replied Gaston d’Orléans.
“I would think,” laughed the prince, “that there’s more Huguenot blood in Your Highness’s veins than in mine. Between our fathers Henri de Navarre and Henri de Condé, the only difference is that one took the mass to gain a kingdom, and the other didn’t.”
“Just the same, Messieurs,” said the Duc de Montmorency, “this is great news. Do we have any idea who will be given command of the army we send to Italy?”
“Not yet,” replied Monsieur, “but it’s likely, Monsieur le Duc, that the cardinal, who paid you a million for the office of Admiral so he could conduct the siege of La Rochelle as he saw fit, will spend another million for the right to direct the Italian campaign in person—even two million, if need be.”
“But confess, Monseigneur,” said Madame de Combalet, “that if he ran the campaign as well as he led the siege of La Rochelle, neither the king nor France would have cause for complaint. Some others might demand a million to undertake the task, and yet not fare as well.”
Gaston bit his lip. He hadn’t appeared for a moment at the siege of La Rochelle, after having received five hundred thousand crowns for his campaign expenses.
“I hope, Monseigneur,” said the Duc de Guise, “that you won’t let this opportunity to assert your rights escape you.”
“If I go,” said Monsieur, “so will you, cousin. I’ve received quite a bit from the House of Guise through the hands of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, and would be glad for a chance to show I’m not ungrateful. And you, my dear Duke,” Gaston said, going up to Mont
morency, “would be particularly welcome, as it would give me an opportunity to correct some injustices. Among your father’s trophies of arms is the Sword of the Constable, which I don’t think would be too heavy for the son. But remember, my dear Duke, in that event I would be delighted to see at your side, making his debut under such a fine mentor, my dear brother the Comte de Moret.”
The Comte de Moret bowed while the duke, flattered in his supreme ambition by Gaston’s speech, said, “Those words are not planted in sand, Monseigneur. If the opportunity presents itself, Your Highness will see that I’ll remember them.”
Just then, the usher came in through a side door and said something to the Dowager Duchesse de Longueville, who immediately left with him by the same door.
The gentlemen all gathered around Monsieur. The chance of a war—all the more likely as everyone knew Savoy had no intention of raising the siege of Casale, and that the Spanish were determined to deny Mantua to the Duc de Nevers—granted Monsieur sudden importance. It was impossible that such an expedition could be undertaken without him, and in that case his high position in the army would give him the disposal of some important commands.
The usher returned after a moment and spoke quietly to Princess Marie, who followed him through the same door Madame de Longueville had used.
Madame de Combalet, who was nearby, heard the name Vautier and shuddered. Vautier, the reader will recall, was the secret confidant of the queen mother.
Five minutes later, it was to Monseigneur Gaston that the usher came to ask him to join Madame de Longueville and the Princesse Marie. “Gentlemen,” he said, bowing, “remember that I am no one special, that I aspire to nothing in the world other than to be a devoted knight to Princess Marie. And being no one, I can promise nothing to anyone!”
With these words, he put his hat on his head and skipped off, both hands tucked into the top of his breeches, as was his habit.
He was hardly gone before the Comte de Moret, taking advantage of the general astonishment at the successive disappearances of the Duchesse de Longueville, the Princesse Marie, and His Royal Highness Monsieur, went straight across the salon to Isabelle de Lautrec. Bowing before the blushing and tongue-tied young woman, he said, “Mademoiselle, please know that there is in the world a man who, the night he met you without even glimpsing you, vowed to be yours through life and death—and tonight, after seeing you, he renews that oath. This man is the Comte de Moret.”