She gave out that she was a widow looking for peace and quiet. One may recall that this is how Master Biscarros described her.
So Monsieur d’Epernon had come to visit the charming recluse to tell her that he was leaving for a week on duty, and no sooner had he left than Nanon sent a note via the tax collector, one of her protégés, to Canolles, who, thanks to his own leave of absence, had been waiting nearby. However, as we have seen, this original short note had disappeared from the messenger’s hands and, beneath Cauvignac’s pen, had become a copy of an invitation. The unsuspecting beau was hastening to respond to this invitation, when the Viscount de Cambes had stopped him four hundred yards from his goal.
The rest, we know.
Nanon was therefore waiting for Canolles as a woman in love waits, that is to say, taking her watch out of her pocket ten times a minute, constantly going over to the casement, listening for every sound and watching the magnificent red sun setting behind the mountain as it made way for the first shades of night. First of all, there was a knock on the front door, and she sent Francinette to answer. But it was only the scullery boy bringing the dinner (the guest for which was still awaited). Nanon stared into the antechamber and saw Master Biscarros’s fake messenger, while he in turn was staring into the bedroom, where there was a small table with two places laid on it. Nanon instructed Francinette to keep the food hot, sadly closed the door and went back to her window, which, as far as one could see through the gathering darkness, showed her an empty road.
A second knock, and one delivered in a special manner, sounded on the little door at the back, and Nanon exclaimed: ‘He’s here!’ But, fearing that it might again not be him, she stopped, frozen in her tracks. A moment later the door opened, and Mademoiselle Francinette appeared, with a look of consternation, silently holding the letter. The young woman saw it and leapt forward, took it from the chambermaid’s hand, quickly opened it and read it anxiously.
The letter had the effect on Nanon of a lightning bolt. She loved Canolles very deeply, but ambition was for her an emotion almost equal to love, and if she lost the Duke d’Epernon she would not only lose all her fortune to come, but perhaps even the fortune that she had already acquired. However, being a resourceful woman, she extinguished the candle, which might cast her shadow, and ran over to the window. Just in time: four men were walking towards the house and were a mere twenty yards from it. The man in the cloak was at their head, and in this figure in the cloak Nanon quite clearly recognized the duke. At that moment, Mademoiselle Francinette came in, holding a candle. Nanon looked in despair at the table, with its two place settings, at the two chairs, at the two pillows, glaring in insolent whiteness against the crimson background of the damask curtains, and finally at her alluring nightgown, which was so much in keeping with all these preparations. ‘I’m lost!’ she thought.
But almost immediately this subtle mind recovered its wits, and a smile crossed her lips. Swift as lightning, she snatched the simple crystal glass intended for Canolles and threw it out casually into the garden, then took the golden goblet bearing the duke’s arms out of a case and placed his silver-gilt knife and fork next to the plate. After that, chilled with fear, but with a hastily composed smile, she ran down the steps and reached the door just as a deep, solemn knock sounded on it.
Francinette was about to open up, but Nanon seized her arm, pushed her aside and, with that swift glance that so perfectly expresses the thought in a woman surprised, said: ‘It’s the duke that I’m expecting, not Monsieur de Canolles. Serve us.’
Then she drew back the bolts herself, and, throwing her arms round the neck of the man with the white plume, who was preparing to show her his most furious expression, she exclaimed: ‘Oh! My dream was right! Come, my dear Duke, the table is laid and we can dine together.’
D’Epernon was struck dumb, but since a woman’s embrace is always pleasant to endure, he let himself be hugged. But then, remembering the damning evidence that he had, he said: ‘One moment, Mademoiselle, there is something that must be settled between us, if you would.’
Signalling to his henchmen, who stepped back respectfully, though without going away altogether, he stepped gravely and stiffly into the house, alone.
‘What is it, my dear Duke?’ Nanon asked, with such a fine show of merriment that one might have believed it to be natural. ‘Did you forget something here the last time you came? Is that why you are looking around everywhere?’
‘Yes,’ said the duke. ‘I forgot to tell you that I was not one of those old loons, a greybeard of the kind that Monsieur Cyrano de Bergerac 31 puts in his comedies, and having forgotten to tell you, I have returned in person to prove it to you.’
‘I don’t understand, Monseigneur,’ said Nanon, in the calmest and most open manner. ‘Please explain what you mean.’
The duke’s eyes rested on the two chairs, then turned to the two places at the table, and from them turned to the two pillows. Here, they stayed longer and a flush of anger rose to his face.
Nanon was expecting all this and awaited the outcome of the inspection with a smile that revealed her pearly-white teeth. However, this smile seemed quite like a grimace, and those whitest of teeth would have been chattering were it not that anxiety kept them pressed against one another.
The duke once more turned his furious gaze on her.
‘I am still awaiting your lordship’s pleasure,’ Nanon said, with a gracious curtsey.
‘My lordship’s pleasure,’ he replied, ‘is for you to explain to me the meaning of this supper.’
‘As I already told you, I had a dream, which told me that although you had left me yesterday, you would return today. And my dreams are never wrong. So I had this supper prepared for you.’
The duke made a grimace, which he intended to appear as an ironic smile.
‘And those two pillows?’ he asked.
‘Does his lordship intend to go back and sleep in Libourne? In that case, my dream was wrong, because it told me that he would be staying.’
The duke gave a second grimace that was still more significant than the first.
‘And what about this charming negligee, Madame, and these exquisite perfumes?’
‘It is one of the negligees I am accustomed to wear when I am expecting your lordship. These perfumes come from the sachets of Spanish leather that I put in my cupboards, and which his lordship himself told me often that he liked above all other scents, since it was the one that the queen preferred.’
‘So you were expecting me?’ the duke said, with an ironic chuckle.
‘Now, now, my lord!’ Nanon said, raising an eyebrow in her turn. ‘Heaven forgive me, I believe you want to look in the cupboards. Could you be jealous, by any chance?’ And she burst out laughing.
The duke assumed a lordly air.
‘I, jealous! Most surely not! Thank God, I am not such an ass. Of course, as I am old and rich, I know that I am liable to be deceived. But at least, I want to prove to those by whom I am deceived that I have not been fooled.’
‘And how can you prove that?’ Nanon said. ‘I am curious to know.’
‘Oh, it won’t be hard. I just have to show them this piece of paper.’ The duke took a letter out of his pocket. ‘I have no illusion,’ he said. ‘At my age, one does not dream, even when awake. But I do get letters. Read this one; it is interesting.’
Trembling, Nanon took the letter that the duke held out to her and shuddered when she saw the handwriting – though the shudder was so slight as to be imperceptible. She read:
Monseigneur the Duke d’Epernon is advised that this evening a man who for nearly six months has enjoyed the intimacy of Mademoiselle Nanon de Lartigues will go to her house, staying to supper and to sleep.
Since we do not wish to leave any doubt in the mind of Monseigneur the Duke d’Epernon, we advise him that this fortunate rival is called the Baron de Canolles.
Nanon went pale. The blow had struck home.
‘Oh, Roland, Roland!’ she
murmured. ‘I thought I had seen the last of you.’
‘Is my information correct?’ asked the duke in triumph.
‘Hardly,’ Nanon replied. ‘And if your political intelligence is no better than your amorous intelligence, I am sorry for you.’
‘You are sorry for me?’
‘Indeed, since this Monsieur de Canolles, to whom you accord the undeserved honour of believing him to be your rival, is not here; and moreover you can wait if you wish and see whether he comes.’
‘He has been here.’
‘Here!’ Nanon exclaimed. ‘That is not true.’
This time there was a note of absolute truth in the accused woman’s voice.
‘What I mean is that he came to within four hundred yards of here and stopped, fortunately for him, at the inn of the Golden Calf.’
Nanon realized that the duke knew far less than she had at first imagined. She shrugged her shoulders; then another idea, coming no doubt from the letter, which she was still turning over and over in her hands, began to spring up in her mind.
‘Is it possible,’ she asked, ‘that a man of genius and one of the most subtle politicians in the kingdom should allow himself to be taken in by an anonymous letter?’
‘Well, then, anonymous or not, how do you explain this letter?’
‘Oh, it’s not hard to explain: this is another plot by our friends in Agen. Monsieur de Canolles asked you if, for family reasons, you would grant him leave of absence, which you did. They knew that he was coming this way and constructed this ridiculous accusation around his journey.’
Nanon observed that the duke’s face, instead of relaxing, darkened even more.
‘This would be a good explanation,’ he said, ‘if the famous letter that you attribute to your friends did not have a particular postscript which you, in your confusion, have overlooked.’
A mortal shudder ran through the whole of the young woman’s body. She felt that if chance did not come to her aid, she could not sustain the contest.
‘A postscript!’ she repeated.
‘Yes, read it,’ said the duke. ‘You have the letter in your hands.’
Nanon tried to smile, but felt herself that her drawn features would not lend themselves any longer to such an expression of calm. So she merely read the letter, in the most confident tone that she could muster.
‘ “I have in my hands the letter from Mademoiselle de Lartigues to Monsieur de Canolles, in which she fixes the rendezvous that I mentioned for this evening. I shall exchange this letter for a letter of attestation that the duke will make available through a single man in a boat on the Dordogne, opposite the village of Saint-Michel-la-Rivière, at six o’clock this evening.”
‘And you were rash enough…?’ said Nanon.
‘Anything that you write is so precious to me, dear lady, that it did not occur to me that I could pay too much for a letter in your hand.’
‘Entrusting such a secret to the indiscretion of a third party! Oh, my lord Duke!’
‘Madame, this is the kind of confidence that one receives in person and that is how I received it. The man on the Dordogne was myself.’
‘So you have my letter?’
‘Here it is.’
Nanon quickly tried to remember what was in the letter, but she could not, and she began to feel confused. For this reason, she was forced to take her own letter and reread it. It contained a mere three lines. Nanon glanced over them eagerly and realized, with unspeakable joy, that the letter did not compromise her entirely.
‘Read it aloud,’ said the duke. ‘I am like you, I have forgotten what was in this letter.’
Nanon at last found the smile that she had tried in vain to call up a few moments earlier, and, in response to the duke’s invitation, read the following:
‘ “I shall sup at eight. Are you free? I am. In that case, be on time, my dear Canolles, and have no fear for our secret.” ’
‘I think that is clear enough!’ the duke exclaimed, pale with fury.
This will absolve me, Nanon thought.
‘Come, come,’ said the duke. ‘So you have a secret with Monsieur de Canolles!’
VI
Nanon realized that a second’s hesitation would destroy her. In any case, she had had time to elaborate the plan that the anonymous letter had suggested to her.
‘Well, yes,’ she said staring hard at the duke. ‘I have a secret with this gentleman.’
‘You admit it!’ the Duke d’Epernon exclaimed.
‘I must, since one can hide nothing from you.’
‘Oh!’ the duke shouted.
‘Yes, I was expecting Monsieur de Canolles,’ Nanon continued calmly.
‘You were expecting him?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘You dare to admit it?’
‘Most openly! Now, do you know who Monsieur de Canolles is?’
‘He’s a bumptious idiot, whom I shall punish soundly for his impudence.’
‘He is a brave and noble gentleman, whom you will continue to favour with your goodwill.’
‘I swear by God that I shall do nothing of the sort, damn it!’
‘Don’t swear anything, Duke, at least not until I have spoken,’ Nanon answered, smiling.
‘Speak then, but hurry up.’
‘Have you not noticed – you, who can see into the deepest recesses of the heart,’ Nanon continued, ‘how much I favoured Monsieur de Canolles, how I appealed to you on his behalf, the captain’s commission that I obtained for him, that allocation of funds for a journey to Britanny with Monsieur de La Meilleraie and this recent leave of absence… in a word, my constant eagerness to oblige him?’
‘Madame! Madame!’ said the duke. ‘You have gone too far!’
‘For heaven’s sake, Duke, wait until I have finished.’
‘Why do I need to wait any longer? What more can you have to tell me?’
‘That I have the most tender affection for Monsieur de Canolles.’
‘As I know well enough, by God!’
‘That I am devoted to him, body and soul.’
‘Madame, this is too much…’
‘That I should serve him to death and do so because…’
‘Because he is your lover, as anyone could guess.’
‘Because…’ Nanon continued, grasping the trembling duke’s hand with a dramatic gesture. ‘Because he is my brother!’
The Duke d’Epernon’s arm fell to his side.
‘Your brother!’ he said.
Nanon gave a nod, together with a smile of triumph.
Then, after a while, the duke exclaimed: ‘This demands some explanation.’
‘Which I shall give you,’ said Nanon. ‘When did my father die?’
‘Why…’ said the duke, calculating. ‘Some eight months ago.’
‘And when did you sign the captain’s commission for Monsieur de Canolles?’
‘Around the same time,’ said the duke.
‘A fortnight later,’ said Nanon.
‘Perhaps… a fortnight later.’
‘I regret having to reveal the shame of another woman,’ Nanon went on. ‘And to divulge this secret, which is our secret, you understand… But your strange jealousy has driven me to it, and your cruel manner gives me no alternative. I shall follow your example, my lord Duke, and lack generosity.’
‘Go on, go on,’ said the duke, who was already beginning to be ensnared by the contrivances of the lovely Gascon’s imagination.
‘Well, my father was a lawyer who enjoyed a certain reputation. Twenty-five years ago, he was still young, and he was still quite handsome. Before getting married, he fell in love with Monsieur de Canolles’s mother, whose hand had been refused him, because she was of noble birth and he was a commoner. Love, as often happens, took it upon itself to put right the mistake of Nature, and while Monsieur de Canolles was away on a journey… Well, do you understand now?’
‘Yes, but why did it take you so long to develop this friendship for Monsieur de C
anolles?’
‘Because it was only after my father’s death that I discovered the bond between us. The secret was contained in a letter that the baron himself handed to me, calling me his sister.’
‘And where is this letter?’ the duke asked.
‘Have you forgotten the fire that destroyed all my possessions? My most precious jewels and my most private papers!’
‘That’s true,’ said the duke.
‘Twenty times I wanted to tell you this story, being quite sure that you would do everything for the man whom I know, secretly, as my brother. But he always prevented me, begging me to spare the reputation of his mother, who is still alive. I respected his feelings because I could understand them.’
‘Really!’ said the duke, quite touched. ‘Poor Canolles!’
‘And yet,’ Nanon went on, ‘he was rejecting a fortune.’
‘He is a sensitive and considerate soul,’ said the duke. ‘This scrupulous behaviour is to his credit.’
‘But I went further: I swore that this secret would never be revealed to anyone in this world. But your suspicions forced it out of me. Wretch that I am! I forgot my oath! Oh, wretch! I have betrayed my brother’s secret!’
And Nanon dissolved into tears.
The duke fell on his knees and kissed her pretty hands, which she allowed him to take, with an air of exhaustion, while her eyes, raised to the heavens, seemed to be begging God to forgive her disloyalty.
‘You say “Wretch that I am!” ’ said the duke. ‘You should say “Good fortune for all!” I want this dear Canolles to make up for lost time. I do not know him, but I should like to. You must introduce me, and I shall love him like my own son!’