The War of Women. Volume 1

X

When Barrabas had gone, Canolles summoned the officer, and requested him to act as his guide in the inspection he proposed to make of his new dominions.

The officer at once placed himself at his command.

At the door he found a sort of staff composed of the other principal functionaries of the citadel. Escorted by them, talking with them, and listening to descriptions of all the half-moons, casemates, cellars, and attics, the morning wore away, and about eleven o'clock he returned to his apartments, having made a thorough inspection. His escort disappeared, and Canolles was left alone with the officer whose acquaintance he had first made.

"Now," said that officer, drawing near him with an air of mystery, "there remains but a single apartment and a single person for Monsieur le Gouverneur to see."

"I beg your pardon?" said Canolles.

"That person's apartment is yonder," said the officer, pointing to a door which Canolles had not yet opened.

"Ah! it is yonder, is it?"

"Yes."

"And the person too?

"Yes."

"Very well. Pardon me, I beg, but I am greatly fatigued, having travelled night and day, and my head's not very clear this morning; so pray explain your meaning a little more fully."

"Well, Monsieur le Gouverneur," rejoined the officer, with a most knowing smile, "the apartment – "

" – of the person – " said Canolles.

" – who awaits you, is yonder. You understand now, don't you?"

Canolles started, as if he were returning from the land of dreams.

"Yes, yes. Very good," said he; "and I may go in?"

"To be sure, as you are expected."

"Here goes, then!" said Canolles; and with his heart beating fit to burst its walls, hardly able to see, his fears and his desires inextricably confused in his mind, he opened the door and saw behind the hangings, with laughing face and sparkling eyes, Nanon de Lartigues, who cried out with joy, as she threw her arms around the young man's neck.

Canolles stood like a statue, with his arms hanging at his sides, and lifeless eye.

"You?" he faltered.

"I!" said she, redoubling her smiles and kisses.

The remembrance of the wrong he had done her passed through Canolles' mind, and as he divined instantly that he owed to this faithful friend his latest good-fortune, he was utterly crushed by the combined weight of remorse and gratitude.

"Ah!" said he; "you were at hand to save me while I was throwing myself away like a madman; you were watching over me; you are my guardian angel."

"Don't call me your angel, for I am a very devil," said Nanon; "but I appear only at opportune times, you will admit."

"You are right, dear friend; in good sooth, I believe that you have saved me from the scaffold."

"I think so too. Ah! baron, how could you, shrewd and far-sighted as you are, ever allow yourself to be taken in by those conceited jades of princesses?"

Canolles blushed to the whites of his eyes; but Nanon had adopted the plan of not noticing his embarrassment.

"In truth," said he, "I don't know. I can't understand myself."

"Oh, they are very cunning! Ah, messieurs, you choose to make war on women! What's this I have heard? They showed you, in place of the younger princess, a maid of honor, a chambermaid, a log of wood – what was it?"

Canolles felt the fever rising from his trembling fingers to his confused brain.

"I thought it was the princess," he said; "I didn't know her."

"Who was it, pray?"

"A maid of honor, I think."

"Ah, my poor boy! it's that traitor Mazarin's fault. What the devil! when a man is sent upon a delicate mission like that, they should give him a portrait. If you had had or seen a portrait of Madame la Princesse, you would certainly have recognized her. But let us say no more about it. Do you know that that awful Mazarin, on the pretext that you had betrayed the king, wanted to throw you to the toads?"

"I suspected as much."

"But I said: 'Let's throw him to the Nanons.' Did I do well? Tell me!"

Preoccupied as he was with the memory of the viscountess, and although he wore the viscountess's portrait upon his heart, Canolles could not resist the bewitching tenderness, the charming wit that sparkled in the loveliest eyes in the world; he stooped and pressed his lips upon the pretty hand which was offered him.

"And you came here to await me?"

"I went to Paris to find you, and bring you here. I carried your commission with me. The separation seemed very long and tedious to me, for Monsieur d'Épernon alone fell with his full weight upon my monotonous life. I learned of your discomfiture. By the way, I had forgotten to tell you; you are my brother, you know."

"I thought so from reading your letter."

"Yes, somebody betrayed us. The letter I wrote you fell into bad hands. The duke arrived in a rage. I told him your name, and that you were my brother, poor Canolles; and we are now united by the most legitimate bond. You are almost my husband, my poor boy."

Canolles yielded to her incredible powers of fascination. Having kissed her white hands he kissed her black eyes. The ghost of Madame de Cambes should have taken flight, veiling her eyes in sorrow.

"After that," continued Nanon, "I laid my plans, and provided for everything. I made of Monsieur d'Épernon your patron, or rather your friend. I turned aside the wrath of Mazarin. Lastly, I selected Saint-Georges as a place of retirement, because, dear boy, you know, they are forever wanting to stone me. Dear Canolles, you are the only soul in the whole world who loves me ever so little. Come, tell me that you love me!"

And the captivating siren, throwing her arms about the young man's neck, gazed ardently into his eyes, as if she would read to the very depths of his heart.

Canolles felt in his heart, which Nanon was seeking to read, that he could not remain insensible to such boundless devotion. A secret presentiment told him that there was something more than love in Nanon's feeling for him, that there was generosity too, and that she not only loved him, but forgave him.

He made a motion of his head which answered her question; for he would not have dared to say with his lips that he loved her, although at the bottom of his heart all his memories pleaded in her favor.

"And so I made choice of Île Saint-Georges," she continued, "as a safe place for my money, my jewelry, and my person. 'What other than the man I love,' I said to myself, 'can defend my life? What other than my master can guard my treasures?' Everything is in your hands, my own love, – my life and my wealth. Will you keep a jealous watch over it all? Will you be a faithful friend and faithful guardian?"

At that moment a bugle rang out in the court-yard, and awoke a sympathetic vibration in Canolles' heart. He had before him love, more eloquent than it had ever been; a hundred yards away was war, – war, which inflames and intoxicates the imagination.

"Yes, Nanon, yes!" he cried. "Your person and your treasure are safe in my hands, and I would die, I swear it, to save you from the slightest danger."

"Thanks, my noble knight," said she; "I am as sure of your courage as of your nobleness of heart. Alas!" she added with a smile, "I would I were as sure of your love."

"Oh!" murmured Canolles, "you may be sure – "

"Very well, very well," said Nanon, "love is proved by deeds, not by oaths; by what you do, monsieur, we will judge of your love."

Throwing the loveliest arms in the world around Canolles' neck, she laid her head against his throbbing breast.

"Now, he must forget," she said to herself, "and he will forget – "

XI

On the day that Canolles was arrested at Jaulnay, under the eyes of Madame de Cambes, she set out with Pompée to join Madame la Princesse, who was in the neighborhood of Coutras.

The worthy squire's first care was to try and prove to his mistress that the failure of Cauvignac's band to hold the fair traveller to ransom, or to commit any act of violence in her regard, was to be attributed to his resolute bearing, and his experience in the art of war. To be sure, Madame de Cambes was less easily convinced than Pompée hoped would be the case, and called his attention to the fact that for something more than an hour he had entirely disappeared; but Pompée explained to her that during that time he was hiding in a corridor, where he had prepared everything for the viscountess's flight, having a ladder in readiness; but he was compelled to maintain an unequal struggle with two frantic soldiers, who tried to take the ladder away from him; the which he did, of course, with his well-known indomitable courage.

This conversation naturally led Pompée to bestow a warm eulogium upon the soldiers of his day, who were savage as lions in face of the enemy, as they had proved at the siege of Montauban and the battle of Corbie; but gentle and courteous to their compatriots, – qualities of which the soldiers of that day could hardly boast, it must be confessed.

The fact is that, without suspecting it, Pompée narrowly escaped a great danger, that of being kidnapped. As he was strutting about, as usual, with gleaming eyes, puffed-out chest, and the general appearance of a Nimrod, he fell under Cauvignac's eye; but, thanks to subsequent events; thanks to the two hundred pistoles he had received from Nanon to molest no one save Baron de Canolles; and thanks to the philosophical reflection that jealousy is the most magnificent of passions, and must be treated with respect when one finds it in his path, the dear brother passed Pompée disdainfully by, and allowed Madame de Cambes to continue her journey to Bordeaux. Indeed, in Nanon's eyes Bordeaux was very near Canolles. She would have been glad to have the viscountess in Peru or Greenland or the Indies.

On the other hand, when Nanon reflected that henceforth she would have her dear Canolles all to herself within four strong walls, and that excellent fortifications, inaccessible to the king's soldiers, made a prisoner of Madame de Cambes to all intent, her heart swelled with the unspeakable joy which none but children and lovers know on this earth.

We have seen how her dream was realized, and Nanon and Canolles were united at Île Saint-Georges.

Madame de Cambes pursued her journey sadly and fearfully. Notwithstanding his boasting, Pompée was very far from reassuring her, and she was terrified beyond measure to see a considerable party of mounted-men approaching along a cross-road, toward evening of the day that she left Jaulnay.

They were the same gentlemen returning from the famous burial of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, which afforded Monsieur le Prince de Marsillac an opportunity, under the pretext of rendering due honor to his father's memory, to get together all the nobility of France and Picardy, who hated Mazarin even more than they loved the princess. But Madame de Cambes and Pompée were struck by the fact that some of these horsemen carried an arm in a sling; others had a leg hanging limp and swathed in bandages; several had bloody bandages around their heads. It was necessary to look very closely at these cruelly maltreated gentlemen to recognize in them the active, spruce cavaliers who hunted the stag in the park at Chantilly.

But fear has keen eyes; and Pompée and Madame de Cambes recognized some familiar faces under the bloody bandages.

"Peste! madame," said Pompée, "the funeral procession must have travelled over very rough roads. I should say that most of these gentlemen had had a fall! see how they've been curried."

"That's just what I was looking at," said Claire.

"It reminds me of the return from Corbie," said Pompée, proudly; "but on that occasion I was not among the gallant fellows who returned, but among those who were brought back."

"But aren't these gentlemen commanded by any one?" Claire asked, in some anxiety as to the success of an enterprise which seemed to have had such inauspicious results. "Have they no leader? Has their leader been slain, that we do not see him? Pray look!"

"Madame," replied Pompée, rising majestically in his stirrups, "nothing is easier than to distinguish a leader among the people he commands. Ordinarily, on the march, the officer rides in the centre, with his staff; in action, he rides behind or on the flank of his troop. Cast your eyes at the different points that I mention and you can judge for yourself."

"I can see nothing, Pompée; but I think that some one is following us. Pray look back – "

"Hm! no, madame," said Pompée, clearing his throat, but omitting to turn his head lest he might really see some one. "No, there is nobody. But, stay, may that not be the leader with that red plume? No. That gilded sword? No. That piebald horse like Madame de Turenne's? No. It's a strange thing; there's no danger, and the commanding officer might venture to show himself; it isn't here as it was at Corbie – "

"You are mistaken, Master Pompée," said a harsh, mocking voice behind the poor squire, who nearly lost his seat in his fright; "you are mistaken, it's much worse than at Corbie."

Claire quickly turned her head, and saw within five feet of her a horseman of medium stature, dressed with an affectation of simplicity, who was looking at her with a pair of small, gleaming eyes, as deep set as a ferret's. "With his thick, black hair, his thin, twitching lips, his bilious pallor, and his frowning brow, this gentleman had a depressing effect even in broad daylight; at night his appearance would perhaps have inspired fear.

"Monsieur le Prince de Marsillac!" cried Claire, deeply moved. "Ah! well met, monsieur."

"Say Monsieur le Duc de La Rochefoucauld, madame; for now that the duke my father is dead I have succeeded to that name, under which all the actions of my life, good or bad, are to be set down."

"You are returning?" said Claire, with some hesitation.

"We are returning beaten, madame."

"Beaten! great Heaven!"

"I say that we are returning beaten, madame, because I am naturally little inclined to boast, and I tell the truth to myself as well as to others; otherwise I might claim that we are returning victorious; but, in point of fact, we are beaten because our design upon Saumur failed. I arrived too late; we have lost that important place, which Jarzé has surrendered. Henceforth, assuming that Madame la Princesse has Bordeaux, which has been promised her, the war will be concentrated in Guyenne."

"But, monsieur," said Claire, "if, as I understand you to say, the capitulation of Saumur took place without a blow, how does it happen that all these gentleman are wounded?"

"Because," said La Rochefoucauld, with pride, which he could not conceal, despite his power over himself, "we fell in with some royal troops."

"And you fought with them?" demanded Madame de Cambes, eagerly.

"Mon Dieu! yes, madame."

"So the first French blood has already been spilled by Frenchmen!" murmured the viscountess. "And you, Monsieur le Duc, were the one to set the example?"

"I was, madame."

"You, so calm and cool and shrewd!"

"When one upholds an unjust cause against me it sometimes happens that I become very unreasonable because I am so earnest in my support of what is reasonable."

"You are not wounded, I trust?"

"No, I was more fortunate this time than at Lignes and Paris. Indeed, I thought that I had had my fill of civil war, and was done with it forever; but I was mistaken. What would you have? Man always forms his plans without consulting his passions, the true architects of his life, which give an entirely different shape to the structure, when they do not overturn it altogether."

Madame de Cambes smiled, for she remembered that Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld had said that for Madame de Longueville's lovely eyes he had made war on kings, and would make war on the gods.

This smile did not escape the duke, and he gave the viscountess no time to follow up the thought which gave it birth.

"Allow me to offer you my congratulations, madame," he continued, "for you are, in truth, a very model of valor."

"Why so?"

"Good lack! to travel thus alone, or with a single attendant, like a Clorinda or a Bradamante! Oh! by the way, I have heard of your admirable conduct at Chantilly. They tell me that you fooled a poor devil of a royal officer to perfection. An easy victory, was it not?" added the duke, with the smile and the look which, upon his face, meant so much.

"How so?" Claire asked with emotion.

"I say easy," continued the duke, "because he did not fight on equal terms with you. There was one thing, however, that impressed me particularly in the version that was given me of that episode," – and the duke fixed his little eyes upon the viscountess more sharply than ever.

There was no way for Madame de Cambes to retreat with honor, so she prepared to make as vigorous a defence as possible.

"Tell me what it was that struck you so forcibly, Monsieur le Duc," said she.

"It was the very great skill, madame, with which you played that little comic part; in fact, if I am to believe what I hear, the officer had already seen your squire and yourself."

These last words, although uttered with the studied indifference of a man of tact, did not fail to produce a deep impression upon Madame de Cambes.

"He had seen me, monsieur, do you say?"

"One moment, madame; let us understand each other; it's not I who say it, but that indefinite personage called 'they' to whose power kings are as submissive as the lowest of their subjects."

"Where had he seen me, may I ask?"

"They say that it was on the way from Libourne to Chantilly, at a village called Jaulnay; but the interview was cut short, as the gentleman received an order from Monsieur d'Épernon to start at once for Mantes."

"But if this gentleman had seen me before, Monsieur le Duc, how could he have failed to recognize me?"

"Ah! the famous they of whom I spoke just now, and who have an answer for every question, would say that the thing was possible, as the interview took place in the dark."

"Really, Monsieur le Duc," said the viscountess, in dismay, "I am at a loss to understand what you mean by that."

"In that case," rejoined the duke, with assumed good-nature, "I must have been ill-informed; and then, what does a mere momentary encounter amount to, after all? It is true, madame," he added gallantly, "that your face and figure are calculated to leave a deep impression, even after an interview lasting only an instant."

"But that would not be possible," the viscountess retorted, "if, as you yourself say, the interview took place in the dark."

"Very true, and you parry cleverly, madame. I must be the one who is mistaken, then, unless the young man had noticed you even before the interview at Jaulnay, which in that case would not be precisely a meeting."

"What would it be, then? Be careful of your words, Monsieur le Duc."

"As you see, I am hesitating; our dear French language is so poor that I seek in vain for a word to express my thought. It would be what is called, in Italian, an appuntamento; in English, an assignation."

"If I am not mistaken, Monsieur le Duc," said Claire, "those two words are translated in French by rendez-vous?"

"Go to!" exclaimed the duke; "here I have said a foolish thing in two foreign languages, and lo! I stumble upon a person who understands them both! Pardon me, madame; it seems that Italian and English are as poor as French."

Claire pressed her hand to her heart to breathe more freely; she was suffocating. One thing was made clear to her mind which she had always suspected; namely, that Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld had for her been unfaithful to Madame de Longueville, in thought and in desire at least, and that it was a feeling of jealousy which led him to speak as he had been speaking. In fact, two years before, the Prince de Marsillac had paid court to her as assiduously as was consistent with his crafty nature, and his constant indecision and timidity, which made him the most vindictive of foes, when he was not the most grateful of friends. So it was that the viscountess preferred not to break a lance with the man who held public and private affairs in the hollow of his hand.

"Do you know, Monsieur le Duc," said she, "that you are an invaluable man, especially under circumstances like the present; and that Monsieur de Mazarin, much as he prides himself upon his police, is no better served in that regard than yourself?"

"If I knew nothing, madame," retorted Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld, "I should resemble that dear statesman too closely, and should have no reason for making war upon him. And so I try to keep myself posted on everything."

"Even the secrets of your allies, if they have any?"

"You used a word then which might be construed to your disadvantage, if it should be overheard, – 'secrets.' So that journey and that meeting were secrets, were they?"

"Let us understand each other, Monsieur le Duc, for you are no more than half right. The meeting was an accident. The journey was a secret, yes, and a woman's secret too, for it was known to none but Madame la Princesse and myself."

The duke smiled. This sturdy defence made him sharpen up his own wits.

"And to Lenet," he said, "and Richon, and Madame de Tourville, to say nothing of a certain Vicomte de Cambes, whose name I heard for the first time in connection with this matter. To be sure, as he is your brother, you might tell me that the secret was all in the family."

Claire began to laugh, to avoid irritating the duke, whose smile was beginning to show signs of vanishing.

"Do you know one thing, duke?" said she.

"No, tell it me; and if it is a secret, madame, I promise to be as discreet as yourself, and tell it to no one but my staff."

"Do as you please about that; I ask nothing better, although I thereby run the risk of making an enemy of a great princess, whose hatred would be no pleasant thing to incur."

The duke blushed imperceptibly.

"Well, what is this secret?" said he.

"Do you know whom Madame la Princesse selected for my companion in the journey I was asked to undertake?"

"No,"

"Yourself."

"Indeed! I remember that Madame la Princesse asked me if I could act as escort to a person returning from Libourne to Paris."

"And you refused?"

"I was unavoidably detained in Poitou by important business."

"Yes, you had to receive couriers from Madame de Longueville."

La Rochefoucauld gazed earnestly at the viscountess, as if to search the lowest depths of her heart before the trace of her words had disappeared, and said, riding closer to her side: "Do you reproach me for it?"

"Not at all; your heart is so well disposed in that place, Monsieur le Duc, that you have a right to expect compliments rather than reproaches."

"Ah!" said the duke, with an involuntary sigh; "would to God I had made that journey with you!"

"Why so?"

"Because then I should not have gone to Saumur," he replied, in a tone which indicated that he had another response ready, which he did not dare, or did not choose, to make.

"Richon must have told him everything," thought Claire.

"However, I do not repine at my private ill-fortune, since it has resulted to the public good."

"What do you mean, monsieur? I do not understand you."

"I mean that if I had been with you, you would not have fallen in with the officer, who happened, so clear it is that Heaven is on our side, to be the same one sent by Mazarin to Chantilly."

"Ah! Monsieur le Duc," said Claire, in a voice choked by the memory of the harrowing scene so recently enacted, "do not jest concerning that unfortunate officer!"

"Why? Is his person sacred?"

"Now, yes; for to noble hearts great misfortunes are no less sanctified than great good-fortune. That officer may be dead at this hour, monsieur, and he will have paid for his error, or his devotion, with his life."

"Dead with love?" queried the duke.

"Let us speak seriously, monsieur; you are well aware that if I give my heart away it will not be to people whom I meet on the high-road. I tell you that the unhappy man was arrested this very day by order of Monsieur de Mazarin."

"Arrested!" exclaimed the duke. "How do you know that? – still by accident?"

"Mon Dieu, yes! I was passing through Jaulnay – Do you know Jaulnay, monsieur?"

"Perfectly; I received a sword-cut in the shoulder there. You were passing through Jaulnay. Why, wasn't that the village where, as the story goes – ?"

"Let us have done with the story, Monsieur le Duc," replied Claire, blushing. "I was passing through Jaulnay, as I tell you, when I saw a party of armed men halting with a prisoner in their midst; the prisoner was he."

"He, do you say? Ah! madame, take care, you said he!"

"The officer, I mean. Mon Dieu! Monsieur le Duc, how deep you are! A truce to your subtleties, and if you have no pity for the poor fellow – "

"Pity! I!" cried the duke. "In God's name, madame, have I time to have pity, especially for people I do not know?"

Claire cast a sidelong glance at La Rochefoucauld's pale face, and his thin lips curled by a joyless smile, and she shuddered involuntarily.

"Madame," he continued, "I would be glad to have the honor of escorting you farther; but I must throw a garrison into Montrond, so forgive me if I leave you. Twenty gentlemen, more fortunate than I, will look to your safety until you have joined Madame la Princesse, to whom I beg you to present my respects."

"Are you not going to Bordeaux?" Claire asked.

"No; just now I am on my way to Turenne to join Monsieur de Bouillon. We are engaged in a contest of courtesy to see which shall not be general; he's a doughty antagonist, but I am determined to get the better of him, and remain his lieutenant."

Upon that the duke ceremoniously saluted the viscountess and rode slowly away in the direction taken by his little band of horsemen. Claire followed him with her eyes, murmuring: —

"His pity! I invoked his pity! He spoke the truth; he has no time to feel pity."

A group of horsemen left the main body and came toward her, while the rest rode into the woods near by.

Behind them, with his reins over his horse's neck, La Rochefoucauld rode dreamily along, the man of the false look and the white hands, who wrote at the head of his memoirs this sentence, which sounds strangely enough in the mouth of a moral philosopher: —

"I think that one should content himself with making a show of compassion, but should be careful to have none. It is a passion which serves no useful purpose within a well-constituted mind, which serves only to weaken the heart, and which should be left to the common people, who, as they never do anything by reason, need to have passion in order to do anything."

Two days later Madame de Cambes was in attendance upon Madame la Princesse.