Chapter IV.

Anne of Austria at the Age of Forty-six.

When left alone with Bernouin, Mazarin was for some minutes lost in

thought. He had gained much information, but not enough. Mazarin was a

cheat at the card-table. This is a detail preserved to us by Brienne.

He called it using his advantages. He now determined not to begin the

game with D’Artagnan till he knew completely all his adversary’s cards.

“My lord, have you any commands?” asked Bernouin.

“Yes, yes,” replied Mazarin. “Light me; I am going to the queen.”

Bernouin took up a candlestick and led the way.

There was a secret communication between the cardinal’s apartments and

those of the queen; and through this corridor* Mazarin passed whenever

he wished to visit Anne of Austria.

* This secret passage is still to be seen in the Palais Royal.

In the bedroom in which this passage ended, Bernouin encountered Madame

de Beauvais, like himself intrusted with the secret of these

subterranean love affairs; and Madame de Beauvais undertook to prepare

Anne of Austria, who was in her oratory with the young king, Louis

XIV., to receive the cardinal.

Anne, reclining in a large easy-chair, her head supported by her hand,

her elbow resting on a table, was looking at her son, who was turning

over the leaves of a large book filled with pictures. This celebrated

woman fully understood the art of being dull with dignity. It was her

practice to pass hours either in her oratory or in her room, without

either reading or praying.

When Madame de Beauvais appeared at the door and announced the

cardinal, the child, who had been absorbed in the pages of Quintus

Curtius, enlivened as they were by engravings of Alexander’s feats of

arms, frowned and looked at his mother.

“Why,” he said, “does he enter without first asking for an audience?”

Anne colored slightly.

“The prime minister,” she said, “is obliged in these unsettled days to

inform the queen of all that is happening from time to time, without

exciting the curiosity or remarks of the court.”

“But Richelieu never came in this manner,” said the pertinacious boy.

“How can you remember what Monsieur de Richelieu did? You were too

young to know about such things.”

“I do not remember what he did, but I have inquired and I have been

told all about it.”

“And who told you about it?” asked Anne of Austria, with a movement of

impatience.

“I know that I ought never to name the persons who answer my

questions,” answered the child, “for if I do I shall learn nothing

further.”

At this very moment Mazarin entered. The king rose immediately, took

his book, closed it and went to lay it down on the table, near which he

continued standing, in order that Mazarin might be obliged to stand

also.

Mazarin contemplated these proceedings with a thoughtful glance. They

explained what had occurred that evening.

He bowed respectfully to the king, who gave him a somewhat cavalier

reception, but a look from his mother reproved him for the hatred

which, from his infancy, Louis XIV. had entertained toward Mazarin, and

he endeavored to receive the minister’s homage with civility.

Anne of Austria sought to read in Mazarin’s face the occasion of this

unexpected visit, since the cardinal usually came to her apartment only

after every one had retired.

The minister made a slight sign with his head, whereupon the queen said

to Madame Beauvais:

“It is time for the king to go to bed; call Laporte.”

The queen had several times already told her son that he ought to go to

bed, and several times Louis had coaxingly insisted on staying where he

was; but now he made no reply, but turned pale and bit his lips with

anger.

In a few minutes Laporte came into the room. The child went directly to

him without kissing his mother.

“Well, Louis,” said Anne, “why do you not kiss me?”

“I thought you were angry with me, madame; you sent me away.”

“I do not send you away, but you have had the small-pox and I am afraid

that sitting up late may tire you.”

“You had no fears of my being tired when you ordered me to go to the

palace to-day to pass the odious decrees which have raised the people

to rebellion.”

“Sire!” interposed Laporte, in order to turn the subject, “to whom does

your majesty wish me to give the candle?”

“To any one, Laporte,” the child said; and then added in a loud voice,

“to any one except Mancini.”

Now Mancini was a nephew of Mazarin’s and was as much hated by Louis as

the cardinal himself, although placed near his person by the minister.

And the king went out of the room without either embracing his mother

or even bowing to the cardinal.

“Good,” said Mazarin, “I am glad to see that his majesty has been

brought up with a hatred of dissimulation.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the queen, almost timidly.

“Why, it seems to me that the way in which he left us needs no

explanation. Besides, his majesty takes no pains to conceal how little

affection he has for me. That, however, does not hinder me from being

entirely devoted to his service, as I am to that of your majesty.”

“I ask your pardon for him, cardinal,” said the queen; “he is a child,

not yet able to understand his obligations to you.”

The cardinal smiled.

“But,” continued the queen, “you have doubtless come for some important

purpose. What is it, then?”

Mazarin sank into a chair with the deepest melancholy painted on his

countenance.

“It is likely,” he replied, “that we shall soon be obliged to separate,

unless you love me well enough to follow me to Italy.”

“Why,” cried the queen; “how is that?”

“Because, as they say in the opera of ‘Thisbe,’ ‘The whole world

conspires to break our bonds.’”

“You jest, sir!” answered the queen, endeavoring to assume something of

her former dignity.

“Alas! I do not, madame,” rejoined Mazarin. “Mark well what I say. The

whole world conspires to break our bonds. Now as you are one of the

whole world, I mean to say that you also are deserting me.”

“Cardinal!”

“Heavens! did I not see you the other day smile on the Duke of Orléans?

or rather at what he said?”

“And what was he saying?”

“He said this, madame: ‘Mazarin is a stumbling-block. Send him away and

all will then be well.’”

“What do you wish me to do?”

“Oh, madame! you are the queen!”

“Queen, forsooth! when I am at the mercy of every scribbler in the

Palais Royal who covers waste paper with nonsense, or of every country

squire in the kingdom.”

“Nevertheless, you have still the power of banishing from your presence

those whom you do not like!”

“That is to say, whom _you_ do not like,” returned the queen.

“I! persons whom _I_ do not like!”

“Yes, indeed. Who sent away Madame de Chevreuse after she had been

persecuted twelve years under the last reign?”

“A woman of intrigue, who wanted to keep up against me the spirit of

cabal she had raised against M. de Richelieu.”

“Who dismissed Madame de Hautefort, that friend so loyal that she

refused the favor of the king that she might remain in mine?”

“A prude, who told you every night, as she undressed you, that it was a

sin to love a priest, just as if one were a priest because one happens

to be a cardinal.”

“Who ordered Monsieur de Beaufort to be arrested?”

“An incendiary the burden of whose song was his intention to

assassinate me.”

“You see, cardinal,” replied the queen, “that your enemies are mine.”

“That is not enough madame, it is necessary that your friends should be

also mine.”

“My friends, monsieur?” The queen shook her head. “Alas, I have them no

longer!”

“How is it that you have no friends in your prosperity when you had

many in adversity?”

“It is because in my prosperity I forgot those old friends, monsieur;

because I have acted like Queen Marie de Médicis, who, returning from

her first exile, treated with contempt all those who had suffered for

her and, being proscribed a second time, died at Cologne abandoned by

every one, even by her own son.”

“Well, let us see,” said Mazarin; “isn’t there still time to repair the

evil? Search among your friends, your oldest friends.”

“What do you mean, monsieur?”

“Nothing else than I say—search.”

“Alas, I look around me in vain! I have no influence with any one.

Monsieur is, as usual, led by his favorite; yesterday it was Choisy,

to-day it is La Rivière, to-morrow it will be some one else. Monsieur

le Prince is led by the coadjutor, who is led by Madame de Guéménée.”

“Therefore, madame, I ask you to look, not among your friends of

to-day, but among those of other times.”

“Among my friends of other times?” said the queen.

“Yes, among your friends of other times; among those who aided you to

contend against the Duc de Richelieu and even to conquer him.”

“What is he aiming at?” murmured the queen, looking uneasily at the

cardinal.

“Yes,” continued his eminence; “under certain circumstances, with that

strong and shrewd mind your majesty possesses, aided by your friends,

you were able to repel the attacks of that adversary.”

“I!” said the queen. “I suffered, that is all.”

“Yes,” said Mazarin, “as women suffer in avenging themselves. Come, let

us come to the point. Do you know Monsieur de Rochefort?”

“One of my bitterest enemies—the faithful friend of Cardinal

Richelieu.”

“I know that, and we sent him to the Bastile,” said Mazarin.

“Is he at liberty?” asked the queen.

“No; still there, but I only speak of him in order that I may introduce

the name of another man. Do you know Monsieur d’Artagnan?” he added,

looking steadfastly at the queen.

Anne of Austria received the blow with a beating heart.

“Has the Gascon been indiscreet?” she murmured to herself, then said

aloud:

“D’Artagnan! stop an instant, the name seems certainly familiar.

D’Artagnan! there was a musketeer who was in love with one of my women.

Poor young creature! she was poisoned on my account.”

“That’s all you know of him?” asked Mazarin.

The queen looked at him, surprised.

“You seem, sir,” she remarked, “to be making me undergo a course of

cross-examination.”

“Which you answer according to your fancy,” replied Mazarin.

“Tell me your wishes and I will comply with them.”

The queen spoke with some impatience.

“Well, madame,” said Mazarin, bowing, “I desire that you give me a

share in your friends, as I have shared with you the little industry

and talent that Heaven has given me. The circumstances are grave and it

will be necessary to act promptly.”

“Still!” said the queen. “I thought that we were finally quit of

Monsieur de Beaufort.”

“Yes, you saw only the torrent that threatened to overturn everything

and you gave no attention to the still water. There is, however, a

proverb current in France relating to water which is quiet.”

“Continue,” said the queen.

“Well, then, madame, not a day passes in which I do not suffer affronts

from your princes and your lordly servants, all of them automata who do

not perceive that I wind up the spring that makes them move, nor do

they see that beneath my quiet demeanor lies the still scorn of an

injured, irritated man, who has sworn to himself to master them one of

these days. We have arrested Monsieur de Beaufort, but he is the least

dangerous among them. There is the Prince de Condé——”

“The hero of Rocroy. Do you think of _him?_”

“Yes, madame, often and often, but _pazienza_, as we say in Italy;

next, after Monsieur de Condé, comes the Duke of Orléans.”

“What are you saying? The first prince of the blood, the king’s uncle!”

“No! not the first prince of the blood, not the king’s uncle, but the

base conspirator, the soul of every cabal, who pretends to lead the

brave people who are weak enough to believe in the honor of a prince of

the blood—not the prince nearest to the throne, not the king’s uncle, I

repeat, but the murderer of Chalais, of Montmorency and of Cinq-Mars,

who is playing now the same game he played long ago and who thinks that

he will win the game because he has a new adversary—instead of a man

who threatened, a man who smiles. But he is mistaken; I shall not leave

so near the queen that source of discord with which the deceased

cardinal so often caused the anger of the king to rage above the

boiling point.”

Anne blushed and buried her face in her hands.

“What am I to do?” she said, bowed down beneath the voice of her

tyrant.

“Endeavor to remember the names of those faithful servants who crossed

the Channel, in spite of Monsieur de Richelieu, tracking the roads

along which they passed by their blood, to bring back to your majesty

certain jewels given by you to Buckingham.”

Anne arose, full of majesty, and as if touched by a spring, and looking

at the cardinal with the haughty dignity which in the days of her youth

had made her so powerful: “You are insulting me!” she said.

“I wish,” continued Mazarin, finishing, as it were, the speech this

sudden movement of the queen had cut; “I wish, in fact, that you should

now do for your husband what you formerly did for your lover.”

“Again that accusation!” cried the queen. “I thought that calumny was

stifled or extinct; you have spared me till now, but since you speak of

it, once for all, I tell you——”

“Madame, I do not ask you to tell me,” said Mazarin, astounded by this

returning courage.

“I will tell you all,” replied Anne. “Listen: there were in truth, at

that epoch, four devoted hearts, four loyal spirits, four faithful

swords, who saved more than my life—my honor——”

“Ah! you confess it!” exclaimed Mazarin.

“Is it only the guilty whose honor is at the sport of others, sir? and

cannot women be dishonored by appearances? Yes, appearances were

against me and I was about to suffer dishonor. However, I swear I was

not guilty, I swear it by——”

The queen looked around her for some sacred object by which she could

swear, and taking out of a cupboard hidden in the tapestry, a small

coffer of rosewood set in silver, and laying it on the altar:

“I swear,” she said, “by these sacred relics that Buckingham was not my

lover.”

“What relics are those by which you swear?” asked Mazarin, smiling. “I

am incredulous.”

The queen untied from around her throat a small golden key which hung

there, and presented it to the cardinal.

“Open, sir,” she said, “and look for yourself.”

Mazarin opened the coffer; a knife, covered with rust, and two letters,

one of which was stained with blood, alone met his gaze.

“What are these things?” he asked.

“What are these things?” replied Anne, with queen-like dignity,

extending toward the open coffer an arm, despite the lapse of years,

still beautiful. “These two letters are the only ones I ever wrote to

him. This knife is the knife with which Felton stabbed him. Read the

letters and see if I have lied or spoken the truth.”

But Mazarin, notwithstanding this permission, instead of reading the

letters, took the knife which the dying Buckingham had snatched out of

the wound and sent by Laporte to the queen. The blade was red, for the

blood had become rust; after a momentary examination during which the

queen became as white as the cloth which covered the altar on which she

was leaning, he put it back into the coffer with an involuntary

shudder.

“It is well, madame, I believe your oath.”

“No, no, read,” exclaimed the queen, indignantly; “read, I command you,

for I am resolved that everything shall be finished to-night and never

will I recur to this subject again. Do you think,” she said, with a

ghastly smile, “that I shall be inclined to reopen this coffer to

answer any future accusations?”

Mazarin, overcome by this determination, read the two letters. In one

the queen asked for the ornaments back again. This letter had been

conveyed by D’Artagnan and had arrived in time. The other was that

which Laporte had placed in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham,

warning him that he was about to be assassinated; that communication

had arrived too late.

“It is well, madame,” said Mazarin; “nothing can gainsay such

testimony.”

“Sir,” replied the queen, closing the coffer and leaning her hand upon

it, “if there is anything to be said, it is that I have always been

ungrateful to the brave men who saved me—that I have given nothing to

that gallant officer, D’Artagnan, you were speaking of just now, but my

hand to kiss and this diamond.”

As she spoke she extended her beautiful hand to the cardinal and showed

him a superb diamond which sparkled on her finger.

“It appears,” she resumed, “that he sold it—-he sold it in order to

save me another time—to be able to send a messenger to the duke to warn

him of his danger—he sold it to Monsieur des Essarts, on whose finger I

remarked it. I bought it from him, but it belongs to D’Artagnan. Give

it back to him, sir, and since you have such a man in your service,

make him useful.”

“Thank you, madame,” said Mazarin. “I will profit by the advice.”

“And now,” added the queen, her voice broken by her emotion, “have you

any other question to ask me?”

“Nothing,”—the cardinal spoke in his most conciliatory manner—“except

to beg of you to forgive my unworthy suspicions. I love you so tenderly

that I cannot help being jealous, even of the past.”

A smile, which was indefinable, passed over the lips of the queen.

“Since you have no further interrogations to make, leave me, I beseech

you,” she said. “I wish, after such a scene, to be alone.”

Mazarin bent low before her.

“I will retire, madame. Do you permit me to return?”

“Yes, to-morrow.”

The cardinal took the queen’s hand and pressed it with an air of

gallantry to his lips.

Scarcely had he left her when the queen went into her son’s room, and

inquired from Laporte if the king was in bed. Laporte pointed to the

child, who was asleep.

Anne ascended the steps side of the bed and softly kissed the placid

forehead of her son; then she retired as silently as she had come,

merely saying to Laporte:

“Try, my dear Laporte, to make the king more courteous to Monsieur le

Cardinal, to whom both he and I are under such important obligations.”