Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  The Cardinal was ambitious, he had confidence in his talents and in the driving force of his mighty family, and he looked to become another Richelieu or Mazarin, the first Minister of the Crown, the empurpled ruler of France, the guiding power behind the throne. All this he looked confidently to achieve; all this he might have achieved but for the obstacle that Marie Therese’s resentment flung across his path. The Empress saw to it that, through the person of her daughter, her hatred should pursue him even into France.

  Obedient ever to the iron will of her mother, sharing her mother’s resentment, Marie Antoinette exerted all her influence to thwart this Cardinal whom her mother had taught her to regard as a dangerous, unprincipled man.

  On his return from Vienna bearing letters from Marie Therese to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal found himself coldly received by the dull King, and discouraged from remaining at Court, whilst the Queen refused to grant him so much as the audience necessary for the delivery of these letters, desiring him to forward them instead.

  The chagrined Cardinal had no illusions. He beheld here the hand of Marie Therese controlling Marie Antoinette, and, through Marie Antoinette, the King himself. Worse followed. He who had dreamt himself another Richelieu could only with difficulty obtain the promised position of Grand Almoner of France, and this solely as a result of the powerful and insistent influence exerted by his family.

  He perceived that if he was to succeed at all he must begin by softening the rigorous attitude which the Queen maintained towards him. To that end he addressed himself. But three successive letters he wrote to the Queen remained unanswered. Through other channels persistently he begged for an audience that he might come in person to express his regrets for the offending indiscretion. But the Queen remained unmoved, ruled ever by the Austrian Empress, who through her daughter sought to guide the affairs of France.

  Rohan was reduced to despair, and then in an evil hour his path was crossed by Jeanne de la Motte de Valois, who enjoyed the reputation of secretly possessing the friendship of the Queen, exerting a sort of back-stair influence, and who lived on that reputation.

  As a drowning man clutches at a straw, so the Cardinal-Prince Louis de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, Landgrave of Alsace, Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, clutched at this faiseuse d’affaires to help him in his desperate need.

  Jeanne de la Motte de Valois — perhaps the most astounding adventuress that ever lived by her wits and her beauty — had begun life by begging her bread in the streets. She laid claim to left-handed descent from the royal line of Valois, and, her claim supported by the Marchioness Boulainvilliers, who had befriended her, she had obtained from the Crown a small pension, and had married the unscrupulous Marc Antoine de la Motte, a young soldier in the Burgundy regiment of the Gendarmerie.

  Later, in the autumn of 1786, her protectress presented her to Cardinal de Rohan. His Eminence, interested in the lady’s extraordinary history, in her remarkable beauty, vivacity, and wit, received the De la Mottes at his sumptuous chateau at Saverne, near Strasbourg, heard her story in greater detail, promised his protection, and as an earnest of his kindly intentions obtained for her husband a captain’s commission in the Dragoons.

  Thereafter you see the De la Mottes in Paris and at Versailles, hustled from lodging to lodging for failure to pay what they owe; and finally installed in a house in the Rue Neuve Saint-Gilles. There they kept a sort of state, spending lavishly, now the money borrowed from the Cardinal, or upon the Cardinal’s security; now the proceeds of pawned goods that had been bought on credit, and of other swindles practised upon those who were impressed by the lady’s name and lineage and the patronage of the great Cardinal which she enjoyed.

  To live on your wits is no easy matter. It demands infinite address, coolness, daring, and resource qualities which Madame de la Motte possessed in the highest degree, so that, harassed and pressed by creditors, she yet contrived to evade their attacks and to present a calm and, therefore, confidence-inspiring front to the world.

  The truth of Madame de la Motte de Valois’s reputation for influence at Court was never doubted. There was nothing in the character of Marie Antoinette to occasion such doubts. Indiscreet in many things, Her Majesty was most notoriously so in her attachments, as witness her intimacy with Madame de Polignac and the Princesse de Lambelle. And the public voice had magnified — as it will — those indiscretions until it had torn her character into shreds.

  The fame of the Countess Jeanne de Valois — as Madame de la Motte now styled herself — increasing, she was employed as an intermediary by place-seekers and people with suits to prefer, who gratefully purchased her promises to interest herself on their behalf at Court.

  And then into her web of intrigue blundered the Cardinal de Rohan, who, as he confessed, “was completely blinded by his immense desire to regain the good graces of the Queen.” She aroused fresh hope in his despairing heart by protesting that, as some return for all the favours she had received from him, she would not rest until she had disposed the Queen more favourably towards him.

  Later came assurances that the Queen’s hostility was melting under her persuasions, and at last she announced that she was authorized by Her Majesty to invite him to submit the justification which so long and so vainly he had sought permission to present.

  Rohan, in a vertigo of satisfaction, indited his justification, forwarded it to the Queen by the hand of the Countess, and some days later received a note in the Queen’s hand upon blue-edged paper adorned by the lilies of France.

  “I rejoice,” wrote Marie Antoinette, “to find at last that you were not in fault. I cannot yet grant you the audience you desire, but as soon as the circumstances allow of it I shall let you know. Be discreet.”

  Upon the advice of the Countess of Valois, His Eminence sent a reply expressive of his deep gratitude and joy.

  Thus began a correspondence between Queen and Cardinal which continued regularly for a space of three months, growing gradually more confidential and intimate. As time passed his solicitations of an audience became more pressing, until at last the Queen wrote announcing that, actuated by esteem and affection for him who had so long been kept in banishment, she herself desired the meeting. But it must be secret. An open audience would still be premature; he had numerous enemies at Court, who, thus forewarned, might so exert themselves against him as yet to ruin all.

  To receive such a letter from a beautiful woman, and that woman a queen whose glories her inaccessibility had magnified a thousandfold in his imagination, must have all but turned the Cardinal’s head. The secrecy of the correspondence, culminating in a clandestine meeting, seemed to establish between them an intimacy impossible under other circumstances.

  Into the warp of his ambition was now woven another, tenderly romantic, though infinitely respectful, feeling.

  You realize, I hope, the frame of mind in which the Cardinal-Prince took his way through that luminous, fragrant summer night towards the Grove of Venus. He went to lay the cornerstone of the proud edifice of his ambitions. To him it was a night of nights — a night of gems, he pronounced it, looking up into the jewelled vault of heaven. And in that phrase he was singularly prophetic.

  By an avenue of boxwood and yoke-elm he entered into an open glade, in the middle of which there was a circle where the intended statue of Venus was never placed. But if the cold marble effigy of a goddess were absent, the warm, living figure of a queen stood, all in shimmering white amid the gloom, awaiting him.

  Rohan checked a moment, his breath arrested, his pulses quickened. Then he sped forward, and, flinging off his wide-brimmed hat, he prostrated himself to kiss the hem of her white cambric gown. Something — a rose that she let fall — brushed lightly past his cheek. Reverently he recovered it, accounting it a tangible symbol of her favour, and he looked up into the proud, lovely face — which, although but dimly discernible, was yet unmistakable to him protesting his gratitude and devotion. He perceived that she was tremblin
g, and caught the quiver in the voice that answered him.

  “You may hope that the past will be forgiven.”

  And then, before he could drink more deeply of this cup of delight, came rapid steps to interrupt them. A slender man, in whom the Cardinal seemed to recognize the Queen’s valet Desclaux, thrust through the curtains of foliage into the grove.

  “Quick, madame!” he exclaimed in agitation. “Madame la Comtesse and Mademoiselle d’Artois are approaching!”

  The Queen was whirled away, and the Cardinal discreetly effaced himself, his happiness tempered by chagrin at the interruption.

  When, on the morrow, the Countess of Valois brought him a blue-bordered note with Her Majesty’s wishes that he should patiently await a propitious season for his public restoration to royal favour, he resigned himself with the most complete and satisfied submission. Had he not the memory of her voice and the rose she had given him? Soon afterwards came a blue-bordered note in which Marie Antoinette advised him to withdraw to his Bishopric of Strasbourg until she should judge that the desired season of his reinstatement had arrived.

  Obediently Rohan withdrew.

  It was in the following December that the Countess of Valois’s good offices at Court were solicited by a new client, and that she first beheld the famous diamond necklace.

  It had been made by the Court jewellers of the Rue Vendome — Bohmer and Bassenge — and intended for the Countess du Barry. On the assembling of its component gems Bohmer had laboured for five years and travelled all over Europe, with the result that he had achieved not so much a necklace as a blazing scarf of diamonds of a splendour outrivalling any jewel that the world had ever seen.

  Unfortunately, Bohmer was too long over the task. Louis XV died inopportunely, and the firm found itself with a necklace worth two million livres on its hands.

  Hopes were founded upon Marie Antoinette’s reputed extravagance. But the price appalled her, while Louis XVI met the importunities of the jeweller with the reply that the country needed a ship of war more urgently than a necklace.

  Thereafter Bohmer offered it in various Courts of Europe, but always without success. Things were becoming awkward. The firm had borrowed heavily to pay for the stones, and anxiety seems to have driven Bohmer to the verge of desperation. Again he offered the necklace to the King, announcing himself ready to make terms, and to accept payment in instalments; but again it was refused.

  Bohmer now became that pest to society, the man with a grievance that he must be venting everywhere. On one occasion he so far forgot himself as to intrude upon the Queen as she was walking in the gardens of the Trianon. Flinging himself upon his knees before her, he protested with sobs that he was in despair, and that unless she purchased the necklace he would go and drown himself. His tears left her unmoved to anything but scorn.

  “Get up, Bohmer!” she bade him. “I don’t like such scenes. I have refused the necklace, and I don’t want to hear of it again. Instead of drowning yourself, break it up and sell the diamonds separately.”

  He did neither one nor the other, but continued to air his grievance; and among those who heard him was one Laporte, an impecunious visitor at the house of the Countess of Valois.

  Bohmer had said that he would pay a thousand louis to any one who found him a purchaser for the necklace. That was enough to stir the needy Laporte. He mentioned the matter to the Countess, and enlisted her interest. Then he told Bohmer of her great influence with the Queen, and brought the jeweller to visit her with the necklace.

  Dazzled by the fire of those gems, the Countess nevertheless protested — but in an arch manner calculated to convince Bohmer of the contrary — that she had no power to influence Her Majesty. Yet yielding with apparent reluctance to his importunities, she, nevertheless, ended by promising to see what could be done.

  On January 3d the Cardinal came back from Strasbourg. Correspondence with the Queen, through Madame de Valois, had continued during his absence, and now, within a few days of his return, an opportunity was to be afforded him of proving his readiness to serve Her Majesty, and of placing her under a profound obligation to him.

  The Countess brought him a letter from Marie Antoinette, in which the Queen expressed her desire to acquire the necklace, but added that, being without the requisite funds at the moment, it would be necessary to settle the terms and arrange the instalments, which should be paid at intervals of three months. For this she required an intermediary who in himself would be a sufficient guarantee to the Bohmers, and she ended by inviting His Eminence to act on her behalf.

  That invitation the Cardinal, who had been waiting ever since the meeting in the Grove of Venus for an opportunity of proving himself, accepted with alacrity.

  And so, on January 24th, the Countess drives up to the Grand Balcon, the jewellers’ shop in the Rue Vendome. Her dark eyes sparkle, the lovely, piquant face is wreathed in smiles.

  “Messieurs,” she greets the anxious partners, “I think I can promise you that the necklace will very shortly be sold.”

  The jewellers gasp in the immensity of the hope her words arouse.

  “The purchase,” she goes on to inform them, “will be effected by a very great nobleman.”

  Bassenge bursts into voluble gratitude. She cuts it short.

  “That nobleman is the Cardinal-Prince Louis de Rohan. It is with him that you will arrange the affair, and I advise you,” she adds in a confidential tone, “to take every precaution, especially in the matter of the terms of payment that may be proposed to you. That is all, I think, messieurs. You will, of course, bear in mind that it is no concern of mine, and that I do not so much as want my name mentioned in connection with it.”

  “Perfectly, madame,” splutters Bohmer, who is perspiring, although the air is cold— “perfectly! We understand, and we are profoundly grateful. If—” His hands fumble nervously at a case. “If you would deign, madame, to accept this trifle as an earnest of our indebtedness, we—”

  There is a tinge of haughtiness in her manner as she interrupts him.

  “You do not appear to understand, Bohmer, that the matter does not at all concern me. I have done nothing,” she insists; then, melting into smiles, “My only desire,” she adds, “was to be of service to you.”

  And upon that she departs, leaving them profoundly impressed by her graciousness and still more by her refusal to accept a valuable jewel.

  On the morrow the great nobleman she had heralded, the Cardinal himself, alighted at the Grand Balcon, coming, on the Queen’s behalf, to see the necklace and settle the terms. By the end of the week the bargain was concluded. The price was fixed at 1,600,000 livres, which the Queen was to pay in four instalments extending over two years, the first falling due on the following August 1st.

  These terms the Cardinal embodied in a note which he forwarded to Madame de la Motte, that they might be ratified by the Queen.

  The Countess returned the note to him next day.

  “Her Majesty is pleased and grateful,” she announced, “and she approves of all that you have done. But she does not wish to sign anything.”

  On that point, however, the Cardinal was insistent. The magnitude of the transaction demanded it, and he positively refused to move further without Her Majesty’s signature.

  The Countess departed to return again on the last day of the month with the document completed as the Cardinal required, bearing now the signature “Marie Antoinette de France,” and the terms marked “approved” in the Queen’s hand.

  “The Queen,” Madame de la Motte informed him, “is making this purchase secretly, without the King’s knowledge, and she particularly begs that this note shall not leave Your Eminence’s hands. Do not, therefore, allow any one to see it.”

  Rohan gave the required promise, but, not conceiving that the Bohmers were included in it, he showed them the note and the Queen’s signature when they came to wait upon him with the necklace on the morrow.

  In the dusk of evening a closed carriage dre
w up at the door of Madame de la Motte Valois’s lodging on the Place Dauphine at Versailles. Rohan alighted, and went upstairs with a casket under his arm.

  Madame awaited him in a white-panelled, indifferently lighted room, to which there was an alcove with glass doors.

  “You have brought the necklace?”

  “It is here,” he replied, tapping the box with his gloved hand.

  “Her Majesty is expecting it to-night. Her messenger should arrive at any moment. She will be pleased with Your Eminence.”

  “That is all that I can desire,” he answered gravely; and sat down in answer to her invitation, the precious casket on his knees.

  Waiting thus, they talked desultorily for some moments. At last came steps upon the stairs.

  “Quick! The alcove!” she exclaimed. “You must not be seen by Her Majesty’s messenger.”

  Rohan, with ready understanding, a miracle of discretion, effaced himself into the alcove, through the glass doors of which he could see what passed.

  The door was opened by madame’s maid with the announcement:

  “From the Queen.”

  A tall, slender young man in black, the Queen’s attendant of that other night of gems — the night of the Grove of Venus — stepped quickly into the room, bowed like a courtier to Madame de la Motte, and presented a note.

  Madame broke the seal, then begged the messenger to withdraw for a moment. When he had gone, she turned to the Cardinal, who stood in the doorway of the alcove.

  “That is Desclaux, Her Majesty’s valet,” she said; and held out to him the note, which requested the delivery of the necklace to the bearer.