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 Orleans? 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 Medicis,
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 Riviere, to-morrow
it will be some one else. Monsieur le Prince is led by the
coadjutor, who is led by Madame de Guemenee."
"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 be 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 Conde
---- "
"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 Conde, comes the Duke of
Orleans."
"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.
