“It was magnificent!” said Mazarin, in wonder.
“Well, I could tell ten more such tales.”
Mazarin didn’t reply. He was thinking.
Five or six minutes passed.
“Have you anything more to ask of me, Monseigneur?” said Rochefort.
“So that’s it. And d’Artagnan was one of these four men, you say?”
“It was he who took the lead.”
“And the others, who were they?”
“Monseigneur, allow me to let d’Artagnan name them to you. They were his friends, not mine, and only he would have any influence over them. I never even knew them under their true names.”
“I see you still don’t trust me, Monsieur de Rochefort. Well, I will continue to be frank: I need him—and you—and all of them!”
“Then start with me, Monseigneur, since you sent for me, and here I am. I’m sure it will come as no surprise that after five years in prison, I’m curious to know what plans you have for me.”
“You, my dear Monsieur de Rochefort, will be in charge of security; you will go to Vincennes, where Monsieur de Beaufort is imprisoned, and keep him under careful guard. Well! What do you think?”
“I’m afraid the position you offer me is impossible,” said Rochefort, shaking his head ruefully.
“Impossible? How can it be impossible?”
“Because Monsieur de Beaufort is one of my friends, or rather, I’m one of his. Have you forgotten, Monseigneur, that he’s the one who sponsored me to the queen?”
“Since then, Monsieur de Beaufort has become an enemy of the State.”
“Yes, Monseigneur, that may be. But since I’m neither king, nor queen, nor minister, he’s no enemy to me, and I can’t accept what you offer me.”
“So, this is what you call devotion? Good luck with that. Such devotion won’t get you very far, Monsieur de Rochefort.”
“But Monseigneur,” Rochefort replied, “to come out of the Bastille only to go to Vincennes, for me that’s just changing one prison for another.”
“Just be honest: you’re really on Monsieur de Beaufort’s side, aren’t you?”
“Monseigneur, I was locked up so long I’m not allied to any party, except the party of fresh air. Assign me anywhere else, send me on a mission, give me anything to do so long as it’s active!”
“My dear Monsieur de Rochefort,” said Mazarin archly, “your zeal is admirable, and though I’m sure you have the heart for it, in you the fire of youth has gone out. Trust me, what you need now is rest, and plenty of it. Hey, there, outside!”
“You’re not sure what to do with me, then, Monseigneur?”
“On the contrary, I’ve decided.” Bernouin entered. “Call a bailiff for me,” Mazarin said to him in a low voice, “and stay nearby.”
An officer was summoned. Mazarin wrote a brief note and handed it to him, then nodded. “Adieu, Monsieur de Rochefort,” he said.
Rochefort said, “I see, Monseigneur, that you’re sending me back to the Bastille.”
“Clever man.”
“I’ll go, Monseigneur, but I say again, it’s a mistake not to make use
of me.”
“You, the friend of my enemies!”
“What would you have? I didn’t make them your enemies. I could still be on your side.”
“Do you think you’re the only one for that post, Monsieur de Rochefort? Believe me, I’ll find others just as good.”
“Then it is my turn to wish you luck, Monseigneur.”
“All right, off with you. And by the way, don’t bother to write me any more letters, Monsieur de Rochefort, as I’m afraid they’ll just go astray.”
“Well, I got played for a fool that time,” Rochefort muttered on his way out. “But if d’Artagnan isn’t satisfied with that little tribute I gave him, he’s a hard man to please. Wait a minute, where the devil are they taking me?”
In fact, they took Rochefort out by the secret staircase, instead of passing through the antechamber where d’Artagnan was waiting. In the side courtyard he found the carriage and four-man escort waiting for him, but his friend was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh ho!” Rochefort said to himself. “That changes everything. If the mob still crowds the streets, then by God, we’ll show Mazarin we’re still good for something more than just guarding a prisoner.”
And he leapt into the carriage as lightly as if he were no older than twenty-five.
IV
Anne of Austria at Age Forty-Six
Left alone with Bernouin, Mazarin paused a moment, thinking. He’d learned a lot, but he needed to know more. As Brienne has informed us, Mazarin was a card cheat, which he called just taking advantage of his opportunities. He resolved not to commence the game with d’Artagnan until he knew all of his opponent’s cards.
“Would Monseigneur like anything?” Bernouin asked.
“I would,” Mazarin replied. “Light the way; I’m going to see the queen.”
Bernouin took a candlestick and led the way.
There was a secret passage25 that connected Mazarin’s suite with the queen’s apartments; the cardinal could use that corridor to visit Anne of Austria at all hours.
Arriving in the bedchamber at the end of the passage, Bernouin met Madame Beauvais; he and she were the confidants of this pair of aging lovers. Madame Beauvais went ahead to announce the cardinal to Anne of Austria, who was in her oratory with the young Louis XIV.
Anne of Austria, seated in a grand armchair, elbow leaning on a table and head resting on her hand, watched the royal child as he lay on the carpet, leafing through a big book of battles. Anne of Austria was a queen who knew how to waste her time without losing her dignity; she sometimes spent hours idling in her bedchamber or oratory, neither reading nor praying.
As for the king’s choice of reading matter, it was an edition of Quinte Curce’s History of Alexander26 profusely illustrated with engravings.
Madame Beauvais appeared at the door of the oratory and announced Cardinal Mazarin. The child got up on one knee, frowning, and asked his mother, “Why does he just come right in without asking for an audience?”
Anne colored slightly. “In times like these,” she replied, “it’s important for a prime minister to be able to report what’s happening to the queen at any time of day, without exciting the curiosity or commentary of the whole Court.”
“But it seems to me Monsieur de Richelieu didn’t barge in like that,” replied the child, unappeased.
“How would you know how Monsieur de Richelieu behaved? You were too young to remember.”
“I don’t remember it—I asked about it, and they told me.”
“Who told you that?” asked Anne of Austria, with poorly disguised irritation.
“I know better than to tell on those who answer my questions,” replied the child. “If I tell, they’ll stop answering and I won’t learn anything.”
At that moment Mazarin entered. The king stood, picked up his book, put it on a table, and stood next to it, which compelled Mazarin to remain standing as well.
Mazarin took in the scene with a thoughtful eye, giving the queen an inquiring look. He bowed respectfully to Her Majesty and deeply to the king, who replied with a rather cavalier salute—but at a reproachful look from his mother Louis XIV swallowed the hatred he’d felt toward the cardinal since infancy and greeted the minister with a forced smile.
Anne of Austria tried to guess the reason for this unexpected visit from Mazarin’s expression, as the cardinal usually didn’t come in to her until everyone else had retired. The minister nodded slightly toward the door, and the queen said, “Madame Beauvais, it’s time for the king to go to bed. Call La Porte.”*
The queen had already told young Louis two or three times that it was time to retire, and the child had fondly insisted on staying with her—but this time he made no reply, just pursed his lips and turned pale. La Porte appeared at the door, and the child went straight to him without embracing his mother. “
Louis,” Anne said, “aren’t you going to kiss me good night?”
“I thought you were mad at me, Madame, since you send me away.”
“I’m not sending you away, but you’re just recovering from the smallpox, and I don’t want you to get overly tired.”
“You weren’t worried about that today when you sent me to parliament to issue those nasty edicts the people are complaining about.”
“Sire,” said La Porte, trying to distract him, “who would Your Majesty like to carry your candlestick tonight?”
“Anybody, La Porte,” the child answered, then added, raising his voice, “so long as it’s not Mancini.” Mancini was one of Mazarin’s nephews whom the cardinal had made a child-of-honor to the king, and whom Louis XIV treated with a measure of the disdain he felt for his minister.
And the king marched out without kissing his mother or bowing to the cardinal.
“Excellent!” said Mazarin. “I’m delighted to see His Majesty being brought up to abhor deceit.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the queen, almost timidly.
“It seems to me the king’s exit makes that quite clear. His Majesty doesn’t even try to hide how little affection he has for me—which doesn’t prevent me, however, from being entirely devoted to his service, and to that of Your Majesty.”
“I beg your pardon on his behalf, Cardinal,” said the queen. “The child is too young to understand all the obligations and duties you have.”
The cardinal smiled.
“But you must have some important reason for coming,” the queen continued. “What is it?”
Mazarin sat, or rather lay back, on a large chaise, and said with a melancholy air, “It’s just that, in all probability, we’ll soon be forced to part, unless your devotion is such that you’d go with me back to Italy.”
“And why is that?”
“Because,” Mazarin said, “as they sang in the opera Thisbe,27 ‘The whole world conspires to come between us.’”
“You’re jesting, Monsieur!” said the queen, trying to recover some of her former dignity.
“Alas, no, Madame!” said Mazarin. “It’s no laughing matter. On the contrary, I’m trying my best not to weep. And when I say, ‘The whole world conspires to come between us,’ I have to say you’re part of that world, a part of what’s driving us apart.”
“Cardinal!”
“No? Didn’t I see you the other day smiling very agreeably at Monsieur, the Duc d’Orléans—or rather at what he said?”
“And what was it he said?”
“Madame, he told you, ‘It’s your Mazarin who’s the stumbling block here—once he goes, all will be well.’”
“But what am I supposed to do?”
“What? Why ask me? You’re the queen, it seems to me.”
“Some monarch, disrespected by every scribbler in the Palais Royal, and every petty lord in the realm!”
“Nonetheless, you still have the power to banish from your presence anyone who displeases you.”
“You mean to say, anyone who displeases you!” replied the queen.
“Me!”
“Yes! Who sent away Madame de Chevreuse,* after she’d been persecuted for twelve years under the old regime?”
“She was an intriguer who wanted to continue her conspiracies under Monsieur de Richelieu and turn them against me!”
“Who sent away Madame de Hautefort, that friend so loyal and good that she refused the king’s good graces in order to stay in mine?”
“Bah: a prude who told you every night, as she helped you undress, that it was risking your soul to love a priest—as if being a cardinal makes one a priest!”
“Who arrested Monsieur de Beaufort?”
“A ruffian who boasted of nothing less than planning to have me assassinated!”
“You see, Cardinal,” replied the queen, “that your enemies are made into mine.”
“That’s not enough, Madame—your friends must also be my friends.”
“My friends, Monsieur?” The queen shook her head. “Alas! I no longer have any.”
“How can you have so few friends in prosperity, when you had so many in adversity?”
“Because in prosperity, Monsieur, I’ve forgotten my old friends. Because I acted like Queen Marie de Médicis28 who, upon returning from her first exile, turned her back on those who’d suffered it with her, so that when she was banished a second time, she died friendless in Cologne, abandoned by all the world, even her son.”
“Then it’s past time to try to repair the damage,” said Mazarin. “Think back and recollect your oldest friends.”
“What do you mean, Monsieur?”
“Just what I said: recollect.”
“Looking around now, I seem to have little influence with anyone. Monsieur, the Duc d’Orléans, follows his current favorite around, as always—yesterday it was Choisy, today La Rivière, tomorrow someone else. Monsieur le Prince, Condé, is led around by Coadjutor de Retz,* who himself follows Madame de Guéménée.”29
“Ah, Madame, I didn’t say to consider your friends of today, but to recollect your friends of old.”
“My friends of old?” said the queen.
“Yes, your oldest friends, those who aided you against Monsieur de Richelieu, and even vanquished him.”
“What is he getting at?” the queen said to herself, looking anxiously at the cardinal.
“Yes,” he continued, “under the right circumstances, that powerful will and determination that characterizes Your Majesty was able, with the help of friends, to repel your opponent’s attacks.”
“Me?” said the queen. “I just suffered through those times, that’s all.”
“Yes,” said Mazarin, “as women suffer—by avenging themselves. To the point. Do you know Monsieur de Rochefort?”
“Monsieur de Rochefort was never one of my friends,” said the queen, “quite the opposite. He was one of my bitterest enemies, an agent loyal to the old cardinal. I thought you knew that.”
“I know it so well,” said Mazarin, “that for you I had him put in the Bastille.”
“Is . . . is he out?” asked the queen.
“No, never fear—he’s still inside. I mention him only to bring up another. Do you know Monsieur d’Artagnan?” continued Mazarin, with a shrewd look at the queen.
For Anne of Austria, it was a blow to the heart. “Has the Gascon been indiscreet?” she muttered, then said aloud, “D’Artagnan! Wait a moment . . .
yes, that name is familiar. D’Artagnan, a musketeer, who loved one of my women.30 Poor little thing, she was poisoned because of me.”
“That’s all?” said Mazarin.
The queen looked at the cardinal in surprise. “Monsieur,” she said, “are you subjecting me to an interrogation?”
“Even if I was,” Mazarin said, with his soft voice and eternal smile, “you’d still give only such answers as suit you.”
“Be direct with your questions, Monsieur, and then I’ll be direct with my answers,” said the queen, beginning to lose her patience.
“Well, Madame!” said Mazarin with a bow. “I want only to make your friends mine, so I can share with them what little talent and energy Providence has given me. The situation is serious and calls for active measures.”
“What, again?” said the queen. “I thought we’d settled things when we dealt with Monsieur de Beaufort.”
“Yes! We diverted a torrent that threatened to drown us, but now we’re menaced from deeper pools. There’s a proverb in France about still waters, I believe.”
“Go on,” said the queen.
“Well!” continued Mazarin. “Every day I suffer insults from your princes and your titled minions, all of them marionettes blind to the fact that I’m pulling the strings, nor do they see that, beneath my calm exterior, I’m suppressing the hollow laugh of the injured man who will one day prove their superior. True, we arrested Monsieur de Beaufort, but he may have been the least dangerous. There’s still Monsieur le
Prince . . .”
“The victor of Rocroi! Even he is on your mind?”
“Yes, Madame, and frequently—but patienza, as we Italians say. Then, after the Prince de Condé, there is Monsieur, the Duc d’Orléans.”
“What are you saying? Gaston, the First Prince of the Blood, the king’s own uncle!”
“Not the First Prince of the Blood, not the king’s uncle, but the cowardly conspirator who, under the previous reign, driven by caprice and resentment, eaten up by envy and idle ambition, jealous of all those who were admired for loyalty and courage, disgusted with his own worthlessness, made himself the crier of every slander, the center of every cabal—he who encouraged good men who had the folly to take him at his royal word to conspire on his behalf, then disowned them as they mounted the scaffold! Not the First Prince of the Blood, I say, not the king’s uncle, but the assassin of Chalais, of Montmorency, and of Cinq-Mars,31 who is now trying to play the same game again, and imagines that this time he’ll win because he has a new opponent, a man who doesn’t threaten but instead . . . smiles. But he is mistaken. He has lost by losing Monsieur de Richelieu, as I have no interest in keeping near to the queen this agent of discord whom the late cardinal used for twenty years to make the king’s blood boil.”
Anne blushed and hid her face in her hands.
“I will not have Your Majesty humiliated,” said Mazarin, regaining his calm tone, though beneath it was an unusual firmness. “I want people to respect the queen, and to respect her minister, since in the eyes of the world I am no more than that. Your Majesty knows that, despite what they say, I’m not just some Italian dancing monkey. The rest of the world must know me as Your Majesty knows me.”
“Well, then, what should I do?” said Anne of Austria, submissive before this domineering voice.
“You must search your memory for the names of those loyal and devoted men who crossed the sea despite Monsieur de Richelieu, spilling their blood along the road, to bring back to Your Majesty certain jewels you’d given to the Duke of Buckingham.”
Twenty Years After Page 5
