The Modern Library Children's Classics

by Kenneth Grahame

“Now that we are alone again, Sire, let us converse seriously, if it please Your Majesty.” He paused a moment, then added significantly: “Sire, Buckingham has been in Paris five days; he left Paris this morning.”

  XVI

  WHEREIN MONSIEUR PIERRE SÉGUIER, CHANCELLOR OF FRANCE AND KEEPER OF THE SEALS, LOOKS MORE THAN ONCE FOR A BELL TO RING AS LUSTILY AS HE WAS WONT TO DO OF YORE

  To describe the impression these few words made upon Louis XIII is impossible. The King flushed, then paled; the Cardinal knew at once that his cause had recovered all the ground it had lost.

  “My Lord Buckingham in Paris! What brought him here?”

  “Doubtless he came to plot with Your Majesty’s Huguenots and Spanish enemies.”

  “No, pardieu, no! He came to plot against my honor with Madame de Chevreuse, Madame de Longueville and the Condés.”

  “Surely not, Sire. Her Majesty is far too discreet to risk such a scandal. And she loves Your Majesty too dearly.”

  “Woman is a weak vessel, Monsieur le Cardinal. As for her loving me much, I have my own opinion on that score.”

  “Nevertheless, Sire, I still maintain that the Duke of Buckingham came to Paris on a political errand.”

  “And I, Monsieur le Cardinal, insist that he came for other reasons. If the Queen is guilty, she shall rue it.”

  “As a matter of fact,” the Cardinal continued, “much as I hate to dwell upon such a betrayal, Your Majesty does remind me of an important point. In accordance with Your Majesty’s orders, I have questioned Madame de Lannoy several times. This morning she told me that two nights ago the Queen had sat up till a very late hour, that the following morning she had wept a great deal, and that she had spent most of that day writing.”

  “Ah, she has been writing to him,” the King said angrily. “Monsieur le Cardinal,” he added, “I must have the papers of the Queen!”

  “But how can we seize them, Sire? Obviously neither Your Majesty nor I can undertake to do so.”

  “How did we go about it in the case of the wife of the Maréchal d’Ancre?” cried the King, now in a towering rage. “Eight years ago, I recall, she plotted against the State. Well, we searched her apartment first, then we searched her person, and we found enough to send her to the stake as a witch.”

  “Madame la Maréchale d’Ancre was but a florentine adventuress, Sire, that is all; whereas the august spouse of Your Majesty is Anne of Austria, Queen of France, one of the mightiest princesses on earth.”

  “She is all the more guilty for that very reason, Monseigneur; the more she has forgotten the exalted position she occupies, the lower she has fallen. Besides I have long since decided to put an end to all these petty political and amorous intrigues. There is a certain La Porte in her household, is there not?”

  “Ay, Your Majesty, I confess I believe him to be the mainspring of all this business.”

  “Then you agree with me that the Queen is betraying me?”

  “I repeat, Sire, I believe that the Queen is plotting against the power of her King, but I do not say she is plotting against his honor.”

  “And I tell you she is guilty on both counts. Her Majesty does not love me, she loves another, she loves the infamous Buckingham! Why did you not have him arrested while he was in Paris?”

  “Arrest the Duke of Buckingham? Arrest the Prime Minister of King Charles the first? How can you think of it, Sire? What a scandal! Then, suppose Your Majesty’s suspicions proved justified—and I continue to doubt it—what a terrible mess, what a desperate scandal!”

  “But since he behaved like a vagabond and a thief, you should have—”

  Louis XIII stopped, frightened at what he was about to say; Richelieu, craning his neck, waited in vain for the word which had died on the monarch’s lips.

  “I should have—?”

  “Nothing, nothing!” said the King. “But all the while he was in Paris, you kept your eye on him?”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “Where did he lodge?”

  “Number 75 Rue de La Harpe.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Near the Luxembourg Palace.”

  “You are sure he did not meet the Queen?”

  “I believe the Queen too loyal to you to have done so.”

  “But they corresponded. It was to him the Queen wrote all day yesterday. Monsieur le Cardinal, I must have those letters.”

  “But Sire—”

  “Monsieur le Cardinal, I must have them at all costs.”

  “I beg Your Majesty to observe—”

  “Are you too betraying me, Monseigneur? Why do you constantly oppose my will? Are you too in league with the Spaniards and the English, with Madame de Chevreuse and with the Queen?”

  “Sire,” the Cardinal sighed, “I believed I had proved myself above suspicion.”

  “Monsieur le Cardinal, you heard me: I will have those letters.”

  “There is but one way—.”

  “What is that?”

  “Monsieur Séguier, Keeper of the Seals, might be entrusted with this task; it rests entirely within the competence of his post.”

  “Let him be sent for instantly.”

  “He is probably waiting for me now. We had an engagement this evening, when Your Majesty summoned me, I left word for him to await my return.”

  “Let him be sent for instantly.”

  “Your Majesty’s orders shall be executed, but—”

  “But what?”

  “But the Queen may perhaps refuse to obey.”

  “To obey my orders?”

  “Yes, if she does not know these orders come from the King.”

  “Well then, to dispel any doubts she might have on that matter, I shall go tell her myself.”

  “I beg you to remember, Sire, that I have done everything in my power to prevent a misunderstanding between Her Majesty and yourself.”

  “Yes, Monseigneur, I know you are very indulgent—perhaps too indulgent—where the Queen is concerned. In fact, I warn you, we shall have cause to take up that matter presently.”

  “Whenever it shall please Your Majesty. Meanwhile I shall always remain happy, nay proud, Sire, to assure perfect harmony between my royal masters.”

  “Good, Monsieur le Cardinal, good. Now, pray send for the Keeper of the Seals; I go to call upon the Queen.”

  With which the King departed.

  The Queen was surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, Madame de Guitaut, Madame de Sablé, Madame de Montbazon and Madame de Guéménée. In one corner sat the Spanish Lady of the Bedchamber, Dona Estefana, who had followed the Queen from Madrid. Madame de Guéménée was reading aloud and everyone was listening attentively save the Queen, who, on the contrary, had suggested this reading. While pretending to listen, Her Majesty pursued the thread of her own thoughts.

  These thoughts, though intent upon love, were tinged with melancholy. The Queen was recalling how she was deprived of her husband’s confidence … how relentlessly the Cardinal’s hatred dogged her footsteps … how Richelieu had never forgiven her for repulsing a more tender sentiment on his part … how the Queen Mother, Marie de Medici, had once granted Richelieu the favors Anne now refused … how Richelieu’s rancor had pursued the Queen Mother for years after the liaison was over … how Anne herself had seen her most devoted followers, her most intimate confidants and her most cherished favorites struck down on every side.… Truly, she was like those unfortunates who are damned with a fatal gift … she brought ruin to everything she touched … her very friendship was a fated signal for the persecution of those she befriended … Madame de Chevreuse and Madame de Vernet in exile … and now La Porte himself did not conceal from her that he expected to be arrested at any moment.…

  The Queen was plunged in the darkest of these reflections when the door suddenly opened and the King loomed before her.

  Madame de Guéménée stopped dead in the middle of a sentence and dropped the book on her lap. The ladies all rose. A deep silence ensued.

  As fo
r the King, he strode rudely past the ladies and stopped squarely in front of the Queen.

  “Madame,” he said hoarsely, “you are about to receive a visit from the Chancellor who will communicate to you certain matters with which I have charged him.”

  The unhappy Queen, ceaselessly threatened with divorce, exile and even trial at law, paled under her rouge and automatically inquired:

  “But why this visit, Sire? What can the Chancellor tell me that Your Majesty cannot himself tell me?”

  For all answer, the King turned on his heel just as the Captain of the Guards, Monsieur de Guitant, announced the Chancellor. By the time Monsieur Séguier, Chancellor and Keeper of the Seals, appeared, the King had vanished through another door. Séguier entered, half smiling, half blushing.

  Séguier was by nature the drollest of men. He owed his success to the fact that Des Roches Le Masle, a canon of Notre Dame, who had once served the Cardinal, had referred him to Richelieu as a completely reliable man. The Cardinal trusted him and found no cause to regret it.

  Séguier was the subject of numerous anecdotes not the least of which is the following.

  After a stormy youth, he retired to a monastery to expiate, for a while at least, the follies of his adolescence. But on entering this holy place, the penitent could not shut the door behind him fast enough to prevent his besetting temptations from following him in. Relentlessly they obsessed him. When he confessed this to the Superior, the latter, seeking to protect him as much as possible, recommended that to exorcise the demon of temptation, Séguier resort to the bell-rope, pulling it with all his might. At the tell-tale clangor, his fellow-monks would know that one of their brothers was being beleaguered by Satan; and the entire community would forthwith take to their prayers.

  To the future Chancellor and Keeper of the Seals, this advice seemed eminently sound. He fell heartily to work exorcising the Evil Spirit by dint of the long, frequent and effortful prayers of his fellows. But Satan was not to be so readily dislodged from a bastion so comfortable, familiar and stalwart. Accordingly, fast as the monks increased their supplications, Satan redoubled his temptations so that the bell clanged full-peal day and night.

  So extreme was the penitent’s desire for mortification that presently the monks no longer had a moment’s respite. Day and night they did nothing but walk upstairs and down to chapel. Their ordinary duties called for matins at midnight, for lauds at sunrise, for prime at six, terce at nine, sext at noon, none at three, vespers at sunset and compline at nine. Now over and above these prayers they were forced to leap up from their bedside, or forsake their work, or forfeit their recreation at any moment and prostrate themselves, night and day, in cell, shop or garden.

  Whether Satan abandoned the struggle or the monks grew weary of it remains unknown. But within three arduous months Séguier reappeared in the world with the reputation of having been possessed of the Devil more thoroughly than any man on record.

  Forsaking monastic life, Séguier took to the law … was promoted President of the High Court in his uncle’s stead … embraced the Cardinalist Party, which showed no little wisdom on his part … became Chancellor … served His Eminence with zeal in the latter’s successive hatred of Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria … prompted the judges in the Chalais affair … encouraged the activities of Monsieur de Laffemas … and finally invested with the Cardinal’s complete confidence—so richly earned—he attained the singular commission he was now about to execute.…

  As Séguier entered the Queen was still standing as etiquette demanded until the King had left. The moment he entered she sat down and motioned to her ladies to be seated again on cushions and taborets. In a tone of extreme hauteur she demanded:

  “Monsieur, what do you wish? Pray what brings you here?”

  “Madame, I am here in the name of the King. My purpose, in all honor and with all respect due to Your Majesty, is to make a thorough examination of Your Majesty’s papers.”

  “What, Monsieur? A search? A search of my papers? This is an outrage!”

  “I most humbly implore Your Majesty’s pardon. In this instance I am but the instrument of the King. His Majesty has just left you, having himself prepared you for my visit.”

  “So, Monsieur, I am a criminal, it seems? Very well, then; pray search my effects. Estefana, give Monsieur the keys to my drawers and my desk.”

  For form’s sake the Chancellor inspected these, but the Queen would not have entrusted so important a letter to drawer or desk. Having opened, closed and re-opened a variety of drawers and rummaged through a congeries of pigeonholes, he must now perforce bring matters to a head. For all his hesitation, it was his duty now to search the person of the Queen herself. He therefore stepped forward and with the most embarrassed and perplexed air imaginable, ventured:

  “Now, Madame, I have come to the principal and most delicate point of my investigation.”

  Either the Queen did not understand or preferred not to. She looked at Monsieur Séguier, Chancellor and Keeper of the Seals:

  “Which is—?”

  “Madame, His Majesty is convinced that Your Majesty has written a certain letter which has not been dispatched as yet. This letter is neither in your desk nor in your cabinets. But it must be somewhere.”

  The Queen drew herself up to her full height and eyed Séguier almost threateningly:

  “Do you dare lay hands upon your Queen?” she demanded.

  “Madame, I am a faithful subject of the King. Whatever His Majesty commands, I am in duty bound to accomplish.”

  “I see!” The Queen looked down scornfully at the Chancellor. “It is true I wrote a letter which has not been sent off. The letter in question is—here!” And she pressed a beautiful, tapering hand against her bosom.

  “I must beg Your Majesty to give me that letter.”

  “I shall give it to none but the King, Monsieur.”

  “Madame, had His Majesty desired to receive the letter in person, he would himself have asked you for it. But, I repeat, it is I who am charged with requesting it of you and if you do not give it up—”

  “Well?”

  “Well, Madame, it is I, again, who am charged to take it from you.”

  “What! I do not understand. What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Madame, that my orders are far-reaching. In fact I am authorized to search for the suspicious paper even on Your Majesty’s person.”

  “How shameful!”

  “I therefore beg Your Majesty to comply with the King’s order.”

  “Such conduct is infamous. Do you realize that, Monsieur?”

  “His Majesty commands, Madame; I can but obey and beg you to excuse me.”

  “I will not suffer it!” The Queen shuddered, at this offense to her dignity. Was she, a daughter of imperial blood, to submit to such humiliation? Angrily she cried: “I would rather die!”

  Séguier made a deep bow. It was quite evident that he did not intend to draw back a single step; he had his mission to accomplish and accomplish it he would. Indeed, he stepped forward to do so, much as an attendant steps forward in a torture chamber to prepare the victim for the executioner. Tears of rage welled up in the Queen’s eyes.

  The Queen was of course a woman of great beauty. The task might well be considered a delicate one; but the King was too desperately jealous of Buckingham to consider being jealous of anyone else.

  At the moment, no doubt, Monsieur Séguier, Chancellor and Keeper of the Seals, looked all about him for the famous bellrope that might save him from temptation. Failing to find it, he determined to obey the King’s instructions and stretched out his hand toward the place where the Queen had admitted the paper lay. The Queen took a step backwards; she turned white as a sheet. Her left hand clutching the edge of a table for support, with her right she drew a paper from her breast and handed it to the Chancellor.

  “Here is the letter, Monsieur,” she said in a tremulous, choking voice. “Pray take it and deliver me of your odious presence.”r />
  The Chancellor, who was trembling with a totally different emotion, took the letter, bowed to the ground, and withdrew. The door had scarcely closed upon him when the Queen fell half-fainting in the arms of her ladies-in-waiting.

  Without pausing to examine the letter, Séguier bore it forthwith to the King who took it with anxious hand, looked for the address which was missing, turned very pale and opened it slowly. Then, seeing by the first words that it was addressed to the King of Spain, he read it rapidly.

  The letter contained a complete plan of attack against the Cardinal. The Queen invited her brother and the Emperor of Austria (offended as they were by Richelieu’s eternal policy of attempting to humble the House of Austria) to threaten war against France unless the Cardinal was dismissed. Of Love, there was not a single word from beginning to end.

  Highly elated, the King inquired whether the Cardinal were still in the Louvre, and, learning that His Eminence awaited His Majesty’s orders in the royal sanctum, rejoined him immediately.

  “You were right, Monsieur le Cardinal, and I was wrong,” he admitted. “The intrigue is wholly political; there is no question whatever of love in this letter. On the other hand, there is a great deal about you.”

  The Cardinal took the letter, read it attentively once, then reread it: “This should convince Your Majesty to what lengths my enemies will go,” he opined. “They threaten you with two wars, Sire, unless you dismiss me. Frankly, were I in Your Majesty’s place, I should yield to such powerful pressure. For my own part I admit I would be genuinely pleased to retire from public affairs.”

  “What, Monseigneur? What?”

  “I mean, Sire, that my health is sinking under this burden of unceasing labor and endless strife. I doubt very much whether I can possibly undergo the fatigues of the Siege of La Rochelle. I honestly think Your Majesty would do well to appoint either Monsieur de Condé or Monsieur de Bassompierre or some other professional soldier to conduct the campaign rather than myself who am a Churchman, constantly diverted from my vocation to undertake matters for which I have scant aptitude. Undoubtedly you will be the better off for it, Sire, both at home and abroad.”