He was astounded at the effect of his words. For the queen was propelled upwards, as though forced to her feet in a violent convulsion. Her face turned ghastly; it became a mask of plaster in which were set fiery green eyes. Even her lips whitened. She pressed her clenched hand fiercely against her breast, and her chestnut hair appeared to rise about her head. She regarded Louis with wild fury.
“How dare you?” she said, in a stifled voice. “How dare you come to me with this proposal, you lackey of an infamous scoundrel?”
Louis fell back a step. His hand half lifted. He could hardly control himself from striking that small and frightful face. His efforts at automatic control unnerved him. He shivered. He forced sound to his lips, which felt like hard stone:
“Madame. Though you are the queen, I cannot forgive these words!”
She stared at him, disbelieving, and the fury increased on her features.
“You! You cannot forgive! You, knowing how this man has hounded me, persecuted me, spied upon me, defamed me to all the world—you dare to say this to me! Begone, before I call the guards and have you thrown into the Bastille!”
At this deadly insult, Louis felt his control disintegrate. Could he have summoned strength, he would have struck her down. But he could do nothing but regard her with such a face, such appalling eyes, that she retreated involuntarily, grasping the edge of the table to keep herself from falling. She pressed her fingers to her lips, and gazed at him with open terror, her white breast visibly heaving.
Louis heard his own voice speaking, strange, distorted, muffled: “This is an insult that cannot be overlooked, Madame, even when it is you who have uttered it. I came to you in faith and sincerity, to ask you to receive the Cardinal, and plead with him for the restoration of Christendom, believing that you would have some influence with him; in return I receive unpardonable abuse and coarse threats. I cannot remain any longer in Madame’s presence. I beg you to dismiss me.”
Now astonishment filled the frightened queen. Her hand dropped from her lips. Incredulously, she gazed at him. Wonder appeared in her eyes, for she clearly saw that the young priest was entirely unaware of the lascivious designs the Cardinal had had upon her. How was it possible for him to serve such a man, and live in Paris, and not have heard the snickering tales? But that was apparently true. There was no duplicity in that marble countenance, that infuriated and distended eye. She moistened her lips. She stood upright, and regarded him with deep sadness. She tried to speak, to enlighten him, but at the thought of repeating the details of the Cardinal’s pursuit of her, her cheeks turned scarlet. Now, her expression became gentle, almost compassionate.
“Wait, Monseigneur,” she said, sighing. She put her hands for a moment over her face, and the diamond flashed like a tear. She struggled to compose herself. Louis watched her, bewildered, but still enormously enraged. Then she dropped her hands, and gazed at him, sadly.
“Monseigneur, speak to me frankly. Who sent you on this mission to me? Was it that—man?”
Louis’ uncontrolled anger returned. “Madame!” he exclaimed. “Reflect! The very thought is absurd, and upon a moment’s thought, your Majesty will perceive this.”
He could not understand her long and mournful look. She had caught the corner of her red lip between her teeth. Her eyes flickered with her profound thoughts. Then she fell upon the divan, and her head dropped forward upon her breast.
“Wait,” she murmured. “Let me think, Monseigneur.”
He waited, still shaking with the violence of his past emotions. Then, after a long silence, he said, in a more controlled but still urgent voice:
“I am well aware that Madame has an aversion for his Eminence, because of his foreign policies. This can be understood. And I believe that the Cardinal has some element of malice in him, which helps to force him to pursue a policy repugnant to Madame, because of Madame’s aversion. I have heard that his Eminence has a dislike for Madame, which is completely returned. I know that to receive his Eminence would be to your Majesty a great ordeal. Nevertheless, I beseech Madame to receive him, forgetting all personal considerations, and remembering only that the sacrifice of one personage’s aversion, instincts and reserve are little enough to pay for the accomplishment of our deepest desire.”
The queen flung up her head, and again her eyes glittered with fury. Then, seeing how grave, how solemn, was Louis, she bit her lip and was silent. She rose, slowly, approached the shrouded window, then halted there, not speaking. He saw that her small and fragile figure was trembling, and that she had dropped her face into her hands. Something inexplicable was transpiring here, and it filled him with a perplexed but powerful pity.
He said, gently: “Madame must reflect on the grave issues involved in her decision. Madame will understand that not even herself must stand in the way of these issues.”
She returned to him, very slowly. He saw that her eyes were full of tears, and that they were running over her cheeks. So might a victim about to be immolated appear. Louis thought: How great an emotion, how much despair, what extravagant transports, seem involved in the mere granting of an audience! And he felt some amazed contempt for the young queen.
She said, in a voice trembling with tears: “I have reflected. I see my way clearly. But only God knows with what misery I have made my decision, what loathing, what terror and sickness! How can I endure—” She paused, and again her cheeks flushed to a shameful crimson. Then she lifted her small head imperiously, with terrible courage.
“I shall ask his Eminence to present himself to me tomorrow.”
When he returned to the Palais-Cardinal, Louis found the Capuchin waiting for him in his chamber. He related what had transpired, and his voice and manner expressed his astonishment and contempt for the extreme emotions of the queen. The Capuchin listened with the utmost breathless intensity. Then, when Louis had done, he sank onto the wooden bench and shaded his eyes with his gnarled hand.
Finally, he dropped his hand and gazed in silence at Louis. His mystical eyes were somber, and there was a mysterious red mist in them, as though filled with tears of blood.
CHAPTER XIX
The young queen, Anne of Austria, had chosen the hour, when the King went hunting, to receive the Cardinal.
She dismissed her women, and waited, with rigors of trembling, in the little chamber where she had received Louis de Richepin. Clad in voluminous blue, with a silver bodice, with pale and glowing pearls about her girlish throat, her hair sparkling with golden lights, her aspect was that of a young and defenseless girl. Her face was very white, and in it her full red Habsburg mouth bloomed like a flower. At moments, while she waited, she was seized with uncontrollable agitation, and she would rise from the divan, clasp her hands convulsively together, and pace up and down the chamber feverishly, moaning under her breath, biting her lips hysterically. She shivered at intervals, at the thought of the Cardinal, who had not only inspired her with hatred because of his foreign policy, but with a powerful physical aversion. She was well aware of the truth of the gallant stories about him, and had heard whispered and scandalous tales of his association with her mother-in-law, Marie de Medici. Despising the King’s mother, and influenced by her husband’s loathing stories of her, she could not but be further revolted by the Cardinal.
As she waited, she was periodically stricken by such horror, such detestation and fear, that she would spring at the door leading to her apartments, in an involuntary effort at flight. Then, as at a loud word of command, she would halt stiffly, her hand on the door, shivering so violently that she would almost fall. More than once, she sank, moaning, to her knees, praying desperately for divine help in the ordeal facing her, praying that in some manner the Cardinal would be prevented from coming. Then, less comforted than rendered numb, she would force herself to her feet, wiping away her bitter tears.
When she actually heard his soft knocking on the door, she could not speak for a long moment. Her lips parted, turning pale as death, but no sound would come f
rom them. Her heart seemed to burst her bodice. She was certain that she was about to swoon. She was not aware that she had uttered a word, but, as in a horrific nightmare, she saw the door open noiselessly, and the Cardinal appeared on the threshold. Her eyes dilated at the sight of him, as a doe’s eyes regard the merciless hunter, and all her flesh became encased in ice.
The Cardinal had faced a delicate and excited quandary that morning. Amazed, transported and incredulous at the summons of the Queen, he had wondered how he should array himself for that interview. If he dressed in his majestic ecclesiastical garments, she would be impressed too much with his office, and be horrified at any amorous approaches, and filled with dread and repugnance. If he dressed as a soldier, his favorite apparel, she would receive him as a particularly disliked man. However, if he came as a priest, she would reluctantly defer to his authority with proud submission. He would have more power over her in his gown, but no power as a man. He saw that he must be clothed in authority, but an authority that, while it subdued, did not inhibit.
As much of his physical sufferings were due to the abnormal and sleepless vitality of his mind, events had the power to prostrate or invigorate him. He had awakened that morning with an unusually profound sensation of exhaustion and illness, so that he again was haunted with the belief that death was imminent. He had lain, sunken in his pillows, staring sightlessly at the window, hardly breathing. When Louis de Richepin entered, the Cardinal closed his eyes, wincing. He lifted a feeble hand, and spoke in a failing voice:
“No audiences today, Louis. You must so inform those who wait.”
Louis hesitated. In his hand was a small letter, pale blue and heavily scented, and sealed with a coat of arms. He said, quietly, “I shall inform them. However, there is a letter for Monseigneur and it bears the royal coat of arms.”
The Cardinal’s eyelids tightened over his eyes so fiercely that the delicate skin wrinkled. He groaned. “Another summons to his abominable slaughter, which he calls hunting! Open it, Louis. I am in no condition to read.”
“I do not believe it is from the King,” said Louis.
“What!” The Cardinal’s eyes flew open, revealing their inexhaustible and glittering power. He lifted himself on his pillows. Faint color rushed through his haggard face. He held out his hand for the letter.
His fingers shook so violently that he could hardly open the dainty missive. His eyes devoured the few words with voracious and incredulous hunger. Then, suddenly, he laughed aloud, exultantly, and with discordance.
Immediately, an unbelievable metamorphosis took place in him. His exhaustion was burned away in an uprush of vitality and delight. His pallor was replaced by vivacious color, and the lines about his fragile mouth and in his sloping forehead disappeared. An immense aura of life and potency radiated about him. Years dropped from his flesh. He sprang up from his bed, laughing uncontrollably, with an evil sparkling in his eyes.
“At last!” he cried, and looked at Louis with such powerful exuberance that the young priest was amazed and taken aback.
“The hour, Louis?” demanded the Cardinal with tremendous impatience.
“It is almost ten, your Eminence.”
‘Ten! And the audience is at eleven! Call my infernal valet and lackeys! I have not a moment to waste.”
Louis was more and more amazed. He could not understand this excitement, this fury of vitality, this discordant laughter at the receiving of the Queen’s letter. He tried to find exultant triumph and malice in the Cardinal’s manner, or grimness, all of which a spurned diplomat might reveal at the summoning of a disdainful royal personage. But the Cardinal betrayed none of these. There was something personal, something violently uncontrollable and wicked, something privately joyous. Why did the Cardinal display all this, when it was common knowledge that he despised “the Spaniard,” and joked indecently about her? Louis had had a moment’s apprehension, earlier that morning, that the Cardinal might disdain to answer the summons at all, knowing the young Queen’s impotence to enforce a command.
The Cardinal, forgetting Louis, was plunged into concerned meditation about his dress. He cursed the valets who assisted him, shouting down their suggestions. He was no longer the supple and crafty churchman, the power of France, but a querulous and excited man. Louis, more puzzled than ever, could not understand these nervous doubts, hesitations and passionate discussions with the valets. But something obscure and uneasy stirred in him, as he sat in shadow near the window and watched the vehement proceedings. For the first time, he felt no awe, no reverence, for the Cardinal, but a kind of superior impatience. The Cardinal was revealing himself in all his humanity, scornful of the revelation, absorbed only in his rapturous thoughts.
Finally, the costume, after exhaustive discussion, was decided upon. It was to be of severe but rich black velvet, redolent both of the churchman and the aristocratic nobleman. The collar and cuffs were of the finest lace, delicate as a silver web. The Cardinal buckled on his gemmed sword. Resplendent in his cloak, his sweeping plumed hat, his glittering boots, gemmed fingers and sword, inflamed with his febrile vitality and his eyes flashing lightnings of power, he was an imposing presence. No one, gazing at him, could believe that here was a dying man, sick unto death of himself and life, who, only an hour ago, had lain in a coma of approaching dissolution forgetting everything.
A last flickering of perfume over his shoulders, a touch of perfumed unguent on his thin and noble imperial, a last tucking away of a lace-bordered kerchief, and the Cardinal was ready for his audience with the Queen. Never had he appeared so compelling, so handsome, so virile, and so young. The potency and almost superhuman strength which radiated from him were dazzling. He studied himself closely in the mirror held up for him, and smiled with satisfaction.
When the chamber was at last empty of that passionate man, it yet seemed to ring for a long time afterwards with the electric vibrations of his flesh. The vibrations affected Louis disturbingly. He felt exhausted, himself. Suddenly, he started. He forgot the Cardinal. He glanced through the window at the golden morning, soft in its light and invitation, and crimson color raced over his cold face. He stood up, trembling. He walked to the door, hesitated, breathing deeply. Then, he departed.
In the meantime, the Cardinal arrived at the Louvre in his elaborate coach, and was taken to the chambers of the Queen. He had allowed himself no conjectures on the short journey, thinking only of the young woman who had at last summoned him. That was enough.
The young Queen was so paralyzed with her fear, loathing and hatred at the appearance of that inexorable enemy, that she could only sit upon her divan and stare at him with the fixed gaze of a beautiful image. Never had he seemed so gigantic to her, so appalling, so remorseless and evil, as he did at this moment. He was a man, not a priest, and this further affrighted her. She had need to remember, with the utmost frenzy, that she had summoned him for a grave and momentous purpose, otherwise she would have sprung to her feet involuntarily and fled.
His swift glance assured him that she was alone. He had seen her rarely except by lamplight, in ball rooms, at masquerades, and in great drawing rooms. Now, in the morning light, unpowdered, unrouged, girlish, she was more bewitching than ever in her natural fairness and sweetness. He knew that she was a fool, hysterical, superstitious, shallow and unpredictable. He was not a man who preferred foolishness in women, having too deep a regard for rare human intelligence, and had the Queen been less lovely, less young, less unattainable, he would have despised her for herself, and been her enemy because of her inferior intellect. Even in the moments when he was less lustful for her, he detested her for her sparrowlike mind and silliness. But so fresh, so young, so untouched and charming did she appear this morning, trembling in her agitation, that he forgot his detestation of her mental parts, and felt himself that flaming hunger which came with increasing rarity as time passed. He was grateful to her, then, that she possessed the power to arouse him, to reaffirm in him his hope that he was not poised on the edg
e of dissolution.
He had the amazing ability to fill a room with the aura of his presence. It appeared to the terrified woman that he had the aspect of a huge bird of prey, the walls and ceiling quivering with the vibrations of his dark wings, his eyes devouring her, the very sunlight lessening as at the interference of a great shadow.
He bowed deeply, and advanced towards her. It was not until he stood before her that she extended her cold little hand. When he pressed his lips to its white softness, she felt a rigor stiffen her flesh, and she closed her eyes with repugnant nausea. He had thrown aside his cloak and his hat, and, divested now of his churchly robes, she saw that he was more dangerous than ever.
He spoke quietly, but his feline eyes burned incontrollably.
“Madame, I could hardly believe, this morning, that you had sent for me. I have long languished for this opportunity.”
Remembering her mission, she forced herself to smile, but it was a painful and pathetic grimace. She compelled herself to gaze up at him, and the green brilliance of her eyes was feverish.
“One does not send for another, whom one is convinced is an enemy,” she murmured through dry lips, praying that the wild beating of her heart would subside.
“An enemy, Madame!” he exclaimed, with simulated and passionate disbelief. “I, Madame? I, who have striven at all times to render your Majesty’s life tranquil and secure, to plead your Majesty’s cause against enemies?”
At this hypocrisy, this grandiloquent lie, the young Queen could not restrain herself. She sprang to her feet, clasping her hands to her breast, her face flaming. She panted audibly.
“Monsieur le Duc, I ask you to spare me this dissimulation! I am only a young and foolish woman, but even I am not unaware of your persecution of me, of your enmity, your tales, your laughter! When have you been my friend? You have influenced my husband against me, induced him to regard me with the most shameful of suspicions. You have driven my friends from me, as you caused the assassinations of the Concinis, the servants of his Majesty’s mother! You have made me friendless in an unfriendly land, so that I dare hardly to whisper my prayers for fear that one of your spies is at hand to report my tears and supplications to you! I tremble at shadows; I flee at the rustle of a curtain. On every hand you have set your agents, so that I suspect every smile, every gesture of friendship, every sigh of compassion. Why have you done this to me?” she demanded, bursting into tears. “What is there in me that has inspired such hatred and venge-fulness in a priest of the Church we both serve? In what way have I offended you, set my feeble strength against you?”
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