“Who is it?” I said curtly.
“M. Pimentel.”
“Ah! And the Queen?”
“Has made his suit her own. Doubtless her Majesty,” Madame de Sully continued with grimness, “who plays with him so much, is under obligations to him, and has her reasons. The King, too, is on his side, so that Mademoiselle—”
“Who has another lover, I suppose?” I said harshly.
My wife looked at me in trepidation. “It may be so, Monsieur,” she said hesitating.
“It is so, Madame; and you know it,” I answered in the same tone. “M. Vallon is the man.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed with a gesture of alarm. “You know!”
“I know, Madame,” I replied, with vigour, “that to please this love-sick girl you have placed me in a position of the utmost difficulty; that you have jeopardised the confidence which my master, whom I have never willingly deceived, places in me; and that out of all this I see only one way of escape, and that is by a full and frank confession, which you must make to the Queen.”
“Oh, Monsieur,” she said faintly.
“The girl, of course, must be immediately given up.”
My wife began to sob at that, as women will; but I had too keen a sense of the difficulties into which she had plunged me by her deceit, to pity her over much. And, doubtless, I should have continued in the resolution I had formed, and which appeared to hold out the only hope of avoiding the malice of those enemies whom every man in power possesses — and none can afford to despise — if La Trape’s words, when he betrayed the secret to me, had not recurred to my mind and suggested other reflections.
Doubtless, Mademoiselle had been watched into my house, and my ill-wishers would take the earliest opportunity of bringing the lie home to me. My wife’s confession, under such circumstances, would have but a simple air, and believed by some would be ridiculed by more. It might, and probably would, save my credit with the King; but it would not exalt me in others’ eyes, or increase my reputation as a manager. If there were any other way — and so reflecting, I thought of La Trape and his story.
Still I was half way to the door when I paused, and turned. My wife was still weeping. “It is no good crying over spilled milk, Madame,” I said severely. “If the girl were not a fool, she would have gone to the Ursulines. The abbess has a stiff neck, and is as big a simpleton to boot as you are. It is only a step, too, from here to the Ursulines, if she had had the sense to go on.”
My wife lifted her head, and looked at me eagerly; but I avoided her gaze and went out without more, and downstairs to my study, where I found La Trape awaiting me. “Go to Madame la Duchesse,” I said to him. “When you have done what she needs, come to me in my closet.”
He obeyed, and after an interval of about half an hour, during which I had time to mature my plan, presented himself again before me. “Pimentel had a notion that the young lady was here then?” I said carelessly.
“Yes, your excellency.”
“Some of his people fancied that they saw her enter, perhaps?”
“Yes, your excellency.”
“They were mistaken, of course?”
“Of course,” he answered, dutifully.
“Or she may have come to the door and gone again?” I suggested.
“Possibly, your excellency.”
“Gone on without being seen, I mean?”
“If she went in the direction of the Rue St. Marcel,” he answered stolidly, “she would not be seen.”
The convent of the Ursulines is in the Rue St. Marcel. I knew, therefore, that Madame had had the sense to act on my hint; and after reflecting a moment I continued, “So Pimentel wished to know where she was lodged?”
“That, and to have the key, your excellency.”
“To-night?”
“Yes, your excellency.”
“Well, you are at liberty to accept the offer,” I answered carelessly. “It will not clash with my service.” And then, as he stood staring in astonishment, striving to read the riddle, I continued, “By the way, are the rooms in the little Garden Pavilion aired? They may be needed next week; see that one of the women sleeps there to-night; a woman you can depend on.”
“Ah, Monsieur!”
He said no more, but I saw that he understood; and bidding him be careful in following my instructions, I dismissed him. The line I had determined to take was attended by many uncertainties, however; and more than once I repented that I had not followed my first; instinct, and avowed the truth. A hundred things might fall out to frustrate my scheme and place me in a false position; from which — since the confidence of his sovereign is the breath of a minister, and as easily destroyed as a woman’s reputation — I might find it impossible to extricate myself with credit.
I slept, therefore, but ill that night; and in conjunctures apparently more serious have felt less trepidation. But experience has long ago taught me that trifles, not great events, unseat the statesman, and that of all intrigues those which revolve round a woman are the most dangerous. I rose early, therefore, and repaired to Court before my usual hour, it being the essence of my plan to attack, instead of waiting to be attacked. Doubtless my early appearance was taken to corroborate the rumour that I had made a false step, and was in difficulties; for scarcely had I crossed the threshold of the ante-chamber before the attitude of the courtiers caught my attention. Some who twenty-four hours earlier would have been only too glad to meet my eye and obtain a word of recognition, appeared to be absorbed in conversation. Others, less transparent or better inclined to me, greeted me with unnatural effusion. One who bore a grudge against me, but had never before dared to do more than grin, now scowled openly; while a second, perhaps the most foolish of all, came to me with advice, drew me with insistency into a niche near the door, and adjured me to be cautious.
“You are too bold,” he said; “and that way your enemies find their opening. Do not go to the King now. He is incensed against you. But we all know that he loves you; wait, therefore, my friend, until he has had his day’s hunting — he is just now booting himself and see him when he has ridden off his annoyance.”
“And when my friends, my dear Marquis, have had time to poison his mind against me? No, no,” I answered, wondering much whether he were as simple as he looked.
“But the Queen is with him now,” he persisted, seizing the lappel of my coat to stay me, “and she will be sure to put in a word against you.”
“Therefore,” I answered drily, “I had better see his Majesty before the one word becomes two.”
“Be persuaded,” he entreated me. “See him now, and nothing but ill will come of it.”
“Nothing but ill for some,” I retorted, looking so keenly at him that his visage fell. And with that he let me go, and with a smile I passed through the door. The rumour had not yet gained such substance that the crowd had lost all respect for me; it rolled back, and I passed through it towards the end of the chamber, where the King was stooping to draw on one of his boots. The Queen stood not far from him, gazing into the fire with an air of ill-temper which the circle, serious and silent, seemed to reflect, I looked everywhere for the Portuguese, but he was not to be seen.
For a moment the King affected to be unaware of my presence, and even turned his shoulder to me; but I observed that he reddened, and fidgeted nervously with the boot which he was drawing on. Nothing daunted, therefore, I waited until he perforce discovered me, and was obliged to greet me. “You are early this morning,” he said, at last, with a grudging air.
“For the best of reasons, sire,” I answered hardily. “I am ill placed at home, and come to you for justice.”
“What is it?” he said churlishly and unwillingly.
I was about to answer, when the Queen interposed with a sneer. “I think that I can tell you, sire,” she said. “M. de Sully is old enough to know the adage, ‘Bite before you are bitten.’”
“Madame,” I said, respectfully but with firmness. “I know this only, that
my house was last night the scene of a gross outrage; and by all I can learn it was perpetrated by one who is under your Majesty’s protection.”
“His name?” she said, with a haughty gesture.
“M. Pimentel.”
The Queen began to smile. “What was this gross outrage?” she asked drily.
“In the course of last night he broke into my house with a gang of wretches, and bore off one of the inmates.”
The Queen’s smile grew broader; the King began to grin. Some of the circle, watching them closely, ventured to smile also. “Come, my friend,” Henry said, almost with good humour, “this is all very well. But this inmate of yours — was a very recent one.”
“Was, in fact, I suppose, the rebellious little wench of whom you knew nothing yesterday!” the Queen cried harshly, and with an air of open triumph. “There can be no stealing of stolen goods, sir; and if M. Pimentel, who had at least as much right as you to the girl — and more, for I am her guardian — has carried her off, you have small ground to complain.”
“But, Madame,” I said, with an air of bewilderment, “I really do not — it must be my fault, but I do not understand.”
Two or three sniggered, seeing me apparently checkmated and at the end of my resources. And the King laughed out with kindly malice. “Come, Grand Master,” he said, “I think that you do. However, if Pimentel has carried off the damsel, there, it seems to me, is an end of the matter.”
“But, sire,” I answered, looking sternly round the grinning circle, “am I mad, or is there some mystery here? I assured your Majesty yesterday that Mademoiselle D’Oyley was not in my house. I say the same to-day. She is not; your officers may search every room and closet. And for the woman whom M. Pimentel has carried off, she is no more Mademoiselle D’Oyley than I am; she is one of my wife’s waiting-maids. If you doubt me,” I continued, “you have only to send and ask. Ask the Portuguese himself.”
The King stared at me. “Nonsense!” he said, sharply. “If Pimentel has carried off anyone, it must be Mademoiselle D’Oyley.”
“But it is not, sire,” I answered with persistence. “He has broken into my house, and abducted my servant. For Mademoiselle, she is not there to be stolen.”
“Let some one go for Pimentel,” the King said curtly.
But the Portuguese, as it happened, was at the door even then, and being called, had no alternative but to come forward. His face and mien as he entered and reluctantly showed himself were more than enough to dissipate any doubts which the courtiers had hitherto entertained; the former being as gloomy and downcast as the latter was timid and cringing. It is true he made some attempt at first, and for a time, to face the matter out; stammering and stuttering, and looking piteously to the Queen for help. But he could not long delay the crisis, nor deny that the person he had so cunningly abducted was one of my waiting-women; and the moment that this confession was made his case was at an end, the statement being received with so universal a peal of laughter, the King leading, as at one and the same time discomfited him, and must have persuaded any indifferent listener that all, from the first, had been in the secret.
After that he would have spent himself in vain, had he contended that Mademoiselle D’Oyley was at my house; and so clear was this that he made no second attempt to do so, but at once admitting that his people had made a mistake, he proffered me a handsome apology, and desired the King to speak to me in his behalf.
This I, on my side, was pleased to take in good part; and having let him off easily with a mild rebuke, turned from him to the Queen, and informed her with much respect that I had learned at length where Mademoiselle D’Oyley had taken refuge.
“Where, sir?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously and with no little disfavour.
“At the Ursulines, Madame,” I answered,
She winced, for she had already quarrelled with the abbess without advantage. And there for the moment the matter ended. At a later period I took care to confess all to the King, and he did not fail to laugh heartily at the clever manner in which I had outwitted Pimentel. But this was not until the Portuguese had left the country and gone to Italy, the affair between him and Mademoiselle D’Oyley (which resolved itself into a contest between the Queen and the Ursulines) having come to a close under circumstances which it may be my duty to relate in another place.
X.
FARMING THE TAXES.
In the summer of the year 1608, determining to take up my abode, when not in Paris, at Villebon, where I had lately enlarged my property, I went thither from Rouen with my wife, to superintend the building and mark out certain plantations which I projected. As the heat that month was great, and the dust of the train annoying, I made each stage in the evening and on horseback, leaving my wife to proceed at her leisure. In this way I was able, by taking rough paths, to do in two or three hours a distance which her coaches had scarcely covered in the day; but on the third evening, intending to make a short cut by a ford on the Vaucouleurs, I found, to my chagrin, the advantage on the other side, the ford, when I reached it at sunset, proving impracticable. As there was every prospect, however, that the water would fall within a few hours, I determined not to retrace my steps; but to wait where I was until morning, and complete my journey to Houdan in the early hours.
There was a poor inn near the ford, a mere hovel of wood on a brick foundation, yet with two storeys. I made my way to this with Maignan and La Trape, who formed, with two grooms, my only attendance; but on coming near the house, and looking about with a curious eye, I remarked something which fixed my attention, and, for the moment, brought me to a halt. This was the spectacle of three horses, of fair quality, feeding in a field of growing corn, which was the only enclosure near the inn. They were trampling and spoiling more than they ate; and, supposing that they had strayed into the place, and the house showing no signs of life, I bade my grooms fetch them out. The sun was about setting, and I stood a moment watching the long shadows of the men as they plodded through the corn, and the attitudes of the horses as, with heads raised, they looked doubtfully at the newcomers.
Suddenly a man came round the corner of the house, and seeing us, and what my men were doing, began to gesticulate violently, but without sound. The grooms saw him too, and stood; and he ran up to my stirrup, his face flushed and sullen.
“Do you want to see us all ruined?” he muttered. And he begged me to call my men out of the corn.
“You are more likely to be ruined that way,” I answered, looking down at him. “Why, man, is it the custom in your country to turn horses into the half-ripe corn?”
He shook his fist stealthily. “God forbid!” he said. “But the devil is within doors, and we must do his bidding.”
“Ah!” I replied, my curiosity aroused “I should like to see him.”
The boor shaded his eyes, and looked at me sulkily from under his matted and tangled hair. “You are not of his company?” he said with suspicion.
“I hope not,” I answered, smiling at his simplicity. “But your corn is your own. I will call the men out.” On which I made a sign to them to return. “Now,” I said, as I walked my horse slowly towards the house, while he tramped along beside me, “who is within?”
“M. Gringuet,” he said, with another stealthy gesture.
“Ah!” I said, “I am afraid that I am no wiser.”
“The tax-gatherer.”
“Oh! And those are his horses?” He nodded.
“Still, I do not see why they are in the corn?”
“I have no hay.”
“But there is grass.”
“Ay,” the inn-keeper answered bitterly.
“And he said that I might eat it. It was not good enough for his horses. They must have hay or corn; and if I had none, so much the worse for me.”
Full of indignation, I made in my mind a note of M. Gringuet’s name; but at the moment I said no more, and we proceeded to the house, the exterior of which, though meagre, and even miserable, gave me an impression of ne
atness. From the inside, however, a hoarse, continuous noise was issuing, which resolved itself as we crossed the threshold into a man’s voice. The speaker was out of sight, in an upper room to which a ladder gave access, but his oaths, complaints, and imprecations almost shook the house. A middle-aged woman, scantily dressed, was busy on the hearth; but perhaps that which, next to the perpetual scolding that was going on above, most took my attention was a great lump of salt that stood on the table at the woman’s elbow, and seemed to be evidence of greater luxury — for the GABELLE had not at that time been reduced — than I could easily associate with the place.
The roaring and blustering continuing upstairs, I stood a moment in sheer astonishment. “Is that M. Gringuet?” I said at last.
The inn-keeper nodded sullenly, while his wife stared at me. “But what; is the matter with him?” I said.
“The gout. But for that he would have been gone these two days to collect at Le Mesnil.”
“Ah!” I answered, beginning to understand. “And the salt is for a bath for his feet, is it?”
The woman nodded.
“Well,” I said, as Maignan came in with my saddlebags and laid them on the floor, “he will swear still louder when he gets the bill, I should think.”
“Bill?” the housewife answered bitterly, looking up again from her pots. “A tax-gatherer’s bill? Go to the dead man and ask for the price of his coffin; or to the babe for a nurse-fee! You will get paid as soon. A tax-gatherer’s bill? Be thankful if he does not take the dish with the sop!”
She spoke plainly; yet I found a clearer proof of the slavery in which the man held them in the perfect indifference with which they regarded my arrival — though a guest with two servants must have been a rarity in such a place — and the listless way in which they set about attending to my wants. Keenly remembering that not long before this my enemies had striven to prejudice me in the King’s eyes by alleging that, though I filled his coffers, I was grinding the poor into the dust — and even, by my exactions, provoking a rebellion I was in no mood to look with an indulgent eye on those who furnished such calumnies with a show of reason. But it has never been my wont to act hastily; and while I stood in the middle of the kitchen, debating whether I should order the servants to fling the fellow out, and bid him appear before me at Villebon, or should instead have him brought up there and then, the man’s coarse voice, which had never ceased to growl and snarl above us, rose on a sudden still louder. Something fell on the floor over our heads and rolled across it; and immediately a young girl, barefoot and short-skirted, scrambled hurriedly and blindly down the ladder and landed among us.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 199
