Great was her surprise to see that it contained a pair of bracelets, and a necklace richly set in jewels. She took them out and, as she spoke in admiration of the marvellous workmanship of the necklace, La Martinière cast glances of wonder at the bracelets, and cried, again and again, that Madame de Montespan herself did not possess such jewellery.
“But why is it brought to me?” cried Mademoiselle de Scudéri. “What can this mean?” She saw, however, a little folded note at the bottom of the casket, and in this she rightly thought she would find the key to the mystery. When she had read what was written in the note, it fell from her trembling hands; she raised an appealing look to heaven, and then sank down half fainting in her chair. Baptiste and La Martinière hurried to her, in alarm.
“Oh!” she cried, in a voice stifled by tears, “the mortification! The deep humiliation! Has it been reserved for me to undergo this in my old age? Have I ever been frivolous, like some of the foolish young creatures; are words, spoken half in jest, to be found capable of such a terrible interpretation? Am I, who have been faithful to all that is pure and good from my childhood, to be made virtually an accomplice in the crimes of this terrible confederation.”
She held her handkerchief to her eyes, so that Baptiste and La Martinière, altogether at sea in their anxious conjectures, felt powerless to set about helping her who was so dear to them, as the best and kindest of mistresses, in her bitter affliction.
La Martinière picked up the paper from the floor. On it was written:
“‘Un amant qui craint les voleurs
N’est point digne d’amour.’
“Your brilliant intellect, most honoured lady, has delivered us, who exercise on weakness and cowardice the rights of the stronger, and possess ourselves of treasures which would otherwise be unworthily wasted, from much bitter persecution. As a proof of our gratitude, be pleased kindly to accept this set of ornaments. It is the most valuable that we have been enabled to lay hands on for many a day. Although far more beautiful and precious jewels should adorn you, yet we pray you not to deprive us of your future protection and remembrance.—THE INVISIBLES.”
“Is it possible,” cried Mademoiselle de Scudéri, when she had partially recovered herself, “that shameless wickedness and abandoned insult can be carried further by human beings?”
The sun was shining brightly through the window curtains of crimson silk, and consequently the brilliants, which were lying on the table beside the open casket, were flashing a rosy radiance. Looking at them, Mademoiselle de Scudéri covered her face in horror, and ordered La Martinière instantly to take those terrible jewels away, steeped, as they seemed to be, in the blood of the murdered. La Martinière, having at once put the necklace and bracelets back into their case, thought the best thing to do would be to give them to the Minister of Police, and tell him all that had happened.
Mademoiselle de Scudéri rose, and walked up and down slowly and in silence, as if considering what it was best to do. Then she told Baptiste to bring a sedan chair, and La Martinière to dress her, as she was going straight to the Marquise de Maintenon.
She repaired thither at the hour when she knew Madame de Maintenon would be alone, taking the casket and jewels with her.
Madame de Maintenon might well wonder to see this dear old lady (who was always kindness, sweetness and amiability personified), pale, distressed, upset, coming in with uncertain steps. “In heaven’s name, what has happened to you?” she cried to her visitor, who was scarcely able to stand upright, striving to reach the chair which the Marquise drew forward for her. At last, when she could find words, she told her what a deep, irremediable insult and outrage the thoughtless speech which she had made in reply to the King had brought upon her.
Madame de Maintenon, when she had heard the whole affair properly related, thought Mademoiselle de Scudéri was taking it far too much to heart, strange as the occurrence was—that the insult of a pack of wretched rabble could not hurt an upright, noble heart; and finally begged that she might see the ornaments.
Mademoiselle de Scudéri handed her the open casket, and when she saw the splendid and valuable stones and the workmanship of them she could not repress a loud expression of admiration. She took the bracelets and necklace to the window, letting the sunlight play on the jewels, and holding the beautiful goldsmith’s work close to her eyes so as to see with what wonderful skill each little link of the chains was formed.
She turned suddenly to Mademoiselle de Scudéri, and cried, “Do you know, there is only one man who can have done this work—and that is René Cardillac.”
René Cardillac was then the cleverest worker in gold in all Paris, one of the most artistic, and at the same time extraordinary men of his day. Short rather than tall, but broad-shouldered and of strong and muscular build, Cardillac, now over fifty, had still the strength and activity of a youth. To this vigour, which was to be called unusual, testified also his thick, curling, reddish hair and his massive, shining face. Had he not been known to be the most upright and honourable of men, unselfish, open, without reserve, always ready to help, his altogether peculiar glance out of his grimly sparkling eyes might have brought him under suspicion of being secretly ill-tempered and wicked. In his art he was the most skilful worker, not only in Paris, but probably in the world at that time. Intimately acquainted with every kind of precious stones, versed in all their special peculiarities, he could so handle and treat them that ornaments which at a first glance promised to be poor and insignificant, came from his workshop brilliant and splendid. He accepted every commission with burning eagerness, and charged prices so moderate as to seem out of all proportion to the work. And the work left him no rest. Day and night he was to be heard hammering in his shop; and often, when a job was nearly finished, he would suddenly be dissatisfied with the form—would have doubts whether some of the settings were delicate enough; some little link would not be quite to his mind—in fine, the whole affair would be thrown into the melting-pot, and begun all over again. Thus every one of his works was a real, unsurpassable chef-d’¦uvre, which sent the person who had ordered it into amazement.
But then, it was hardly possible to get the finished work out of his hands. He would put the customer off from one week to another by a thousand excuses—even from month to month. He might be offered twice the price he had agreed upon, but it was useless; he would take no more; and when, ultimately, he was obliged to yield to the customer’s remonstrances, and deliver the work, he could not conceal the vexation—nay, the rage—which seethed within him. If he had to deliver some specially valuable and unusually rich piece of workmanship, worth perhaps several thousand francs, he would get into such a condition that he ran up and down like one demented, cursing himself, his work, and every thing and person about him; but should, then, someone come running up behind him, crying, “René Cardillac, would you be so kind as to make me a beautiful necklace for the lady I am going to marry?” or “a pair of bracelets for my girl?” or the like, he would stop in a moment, flash his small eyes upon the speaker, and say, “Let me see what you have got.” The latter would take out a little case and say “Here are jewels; they are not worth much; only every-day affairs, but in your hands—” Cardillac would interrupt him, snatch the casket from his hands, take out the stones (really not very valuable) hold them up to the light, and cry, “Ho! ho! common stones, you say! Nothing of the kind!—very fine, splendid stones! Just see what I shall make of them; and if a handful of Louis are no object to you, I will put two or three others along with them which will shine in your eyes like the sun himself!” The customer would say: “I leave the matter entirely in your hands, Master René; make what change you please.” Whether the customer were a rich burgher or a gallant of quality, Cardillac would then throw himself violently on his neck, embrace him and kiss him, and say he was perfectly happy again, and that the work would be ready in eight days’ time. Then he would run home a
s fast as he could to his workshop, where he would set to work hammering away; and in eight days’ time there would be a masterpiece ready.
But as soon as the customer arrived, glad to pay the moderate price demanded and take away his prize, Cardillac would become morose, ill-tempered, rude and insolent. “But consider, Master Cardillac,” the customer would say, “tomorrow is my wedding-day.” “What do I care?, Cardillac would answer; “what is your wedding-day to me? Come back in a fortnight.” “But it is finished!—here is the money; I must have it.” “And I tell you that there are many alterations which I must make before I let it leave my hands, and I am not going to let you have it today.” “And I tell you, that if you don’t give me my jewels—which I am ready to pay you for—quietly, you will see me come back with a file of D’Argenson’s men.” “Now, may the devil seize you with a hundred red-hot pincers, and hang three hundredweight on to the necklace, that it may throttle your bride!” With which he would cram the work into the customer’s breast-pocket, seize him by the arm, push him out of the door, so that he would go stumbling all the way downstairs. Then he would laugh like a fiend, out of the window, when he saw the poor wretch go limping out, holding his handkerchief to his bleeding nose. It was not easy to explain either why, when Cardillac had undertaken a commission with alacrity and enthusiasm, he would sometimes suddenly implore the customer, with every sign of the deepest emotion—with the most moving adjurations, even with sobs and tears—not to ask him to go on with it. Many persons, amongst those most highly considered by the King and nation, had in vain offered large sums for the smallest specimen of Cardillac’s work. He threw himself at the King’s feet, and begged him, of his mercy, not to command him to work for him; and he declined all orders of Madame de Maintenon’s; once, when she wished him to make a little ring, with emblems of the arts on it, which she wanted to give to Racine, he refused with expressions of abhorrence and terror.
“I would wager, therefore,” said Madame de Maintenon, “that even if I were to send for Cardillac, to find out, at least, for whom he had made those ornaments, he would somehow avoid coming, for fear that I should give him an order; nothing will induce him to work for me. Yet he does seem to have been rather less obstinate of late, for I hear he is working more than ever, and allows his customers to take away their jewellery at once, though he does so with deep annoyance, and turns away his face when he hands them over.”
Mademoiselle de Scudéri, who was exceedingly anxious that the jewels which came into her possession in such an extraordinary manner should be restored to their owner as speedily as possible, thought that this wondrous René Cardillac should be informed at once that no work was required of him, but simply his opinion as to certain stones. The Marquise agreed to this; he was sent for, and he came into the room in a very brief space, almost as if he had been on the way when sent for.
When he saw Mademoiselle de Scudéri, he appeared perplexed, like one confronted with the unexpected, who for the time loses sight of the demands of courtesy; he first of all made a profound reverence to her, and then turned, in the second place, to the Marquise. Madame de Maintenon impetuously asked him if the jewelled ornaments—to which she pointed as they lay sparkling on the dark-green cover of the table—were of his workmanship. Cardillac scarcely glanced at them but, fixedly staring in her face, he hastily packed the necklace and bracelets into their case, and shoved them away with some violence.
Then with an evil smile gleaming on his red face, he said, “The truth is, Madame la Marquise, that one must know René Cardillac’s handiwork very little to suppose, even for a moment, that any other goldsmith in the world made those. Of course, I made them.”
“Then,” continued the Marquise, “say whom you made them for.”
“For myself alone,” he answered. “You may think this strange,” he continued, as they both gazed at him with amazement, Madame de Maintenon incredulous, and Mademoiselle de Scudéri all anxiety as to how the matter was going to turn out, “but I tell you the truth, Madame la Marquise. Merely for the sake of the beauty of the work, I collected some of my finest stones together, and worked for the enjoyment of so doing, more carefully and diligently than usual. Those ornaments disappeared from my workshop a short time since, in an incomprehensible manner.”
“Heaven be thanked!” cried Mademoiselle de Scudéri, her eyes sparkling with joy. With a smile she sprang up from her seat and, going up to Cardillac quickly and actively as a young girl, she laid her hands on his shoulder, saying, “Take back your treasure, Master René, which the villains have robbed you of!” And she circumstantially related how the ornaments had come into her possession.
Cardillac listened in silence, with downcast eyes, merely from time to time uttering a scarcely audible “Hm! Indeed! Ah! Ho, ho!”, sometimes placing his hands behind his back, or again stroking his chin and cheeks. When she had ended, he appeared to be struggling with strange thoughts which had come to him during her story, and seemed unable to come to any decision satisfactory to himself. He rubbed his brow, sighed, passed his hand over his eyes—perhaps to keep back tears. At last he seized the casket (which Mademoiselle de Scudéri had been holding out to him), sank slowly on one knee, and said: “Esteemed lady! Fate destined this casket for you; and I now feel, for the first time, that I was thinking of you when I was at work upon it—nay, was making it expressly for you. Do not disdain to accept this work, and to wear it; it is the best I have done for a very long time.”
“Ah! Master René,” said Mademoiselle de Scudéri, jesting pleasantly, “how think you it would become me at my age to bedeck myself with those beautiful jewels?—and what should put it in your mind to make me such a valuable present? Come, come! If I were as beautiful and as rich as the Marquise de Fontange, I should certainly not let them out of my hands. But what have my withered arms, and my wrinkled neck, to do with all that splendour?”
Cardillac had risen, and said with wild looks, like a man beside himself, still holding the casket out towards her, “Do me the kindness to take it, Mademoiselle! You have no notion how profound a reverence I bear in my heart for your virtues and your high deserts. Do but accept my little offering, as an attempt, on my part, to prove to you the warmth of my regard.”
As Mademoiselle de Scudéri was still hesitating, Madame de Maintenon took the casket from Cardillac’s hands, saying, “Now, by heaven, Mademoiselle, you are always talking of your great age What have you and I to do with years and their burden? You are like some bashful young thing who would gladly reach out for forbidden fruit, if she could gather it without hands or fingers. Do not hesitate to accept good Master René’s present, which thousands of others could not obtain for money or entreaty.”
As she spoke she continued to press the casket on Mademoiselle de Scudéri; and now Cardillac sank again on his knees, kissed her dress, her hands, sighed, wept, sobbed, sprang up, and ran off in frantic haste, upsetting chairs and tables, so that the glass and porcelain crashed and clattered together.
“In the name of all the saints, what is the matter with the man?” cried Mademoiselle de Scudéri in great alarm.
But the Marquise, in particularly happy temper, laughed aloud, saying, “What is it, Mademoiselle? That Master René is over head and ears in love with you and, according to the laws of galanterie, begins to lay siege to your heart with a valuable present.”
She carried this jest further, begging Mademoiselle de Scudéri not to be too obdurate towards this despairing lover of hers; and Mademoiselle de Scudéri, in her turn, borne away on a current of merry fancies, said that if it were so, she would not be able to refrain from delighting the world with the unprecedented spectacle of a goldsmith’s bride of three-and-seventy summers and unexceptionable descent. Madame de Maintenon offered to twine the bridal wreath herself, and give her a few hints as to the duties of a housewife, a subject on which such a poor inexperienced little chit could not be expected to k
now very much.
But, notwithstanding all the jesting and the laughter, when Mademoiselle de Scudéri rose to depart, she became very grave again as her hand rested upon the jewel casket. “Whatever happens,” she said, “I shall never be able to bring myself to wear these ornaments. They have, in any event, been in the hands of one of those diabolical men, who rob and slay with the audacity of the evil one himself and are very probably in league with him. I shudder at the thought of the blood which seems to cling to those glittering stones—even Cardillac’s behaviour had something about it which struck me as singularly wild and strange. I cannot drive away from me a gloomy foreboding that there is some terrible and frightful mystery hidden behind all this; and yet, when I bring the whole affair, with all the circumstances of it, as clearly as I can before my mental vision, I cannot form the slightest idea what that mystery can be—and, above all, how the good, honourable Master René—the very model of all a good, well-behaved citizen ought to be—can have anything to do with what is wicked or guilty. But at all events, I distinctly feel that I never can wear those jewels—”
The Marquise considered that this was carrying scruples rather too far; yet, when Mademoiselle de Scudéri asked her to say, on her honour, what she would do in her place, she replied, firmly and earnestly, “Far rather throw them into the Seine than ever put them on.”
The scene with Master René inspired Mademoiselle de Scudéri to write some pleasant verses, which she read to the King the following evening at Madame de Maintenon’s. Perhaps it was the thought of Master René carrying off a bride of seventy-three of unimpeachable quarterings—that enabled her to conquer her evil forebodings; but conquer them she did, completely—and the King laughed with all his heart, vowing that Boileau Despreaux had met with his master. So de Scudéri’s poem was reckoned the very wittiest that ever was written.
The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives Page 186
