Chavigny was informed about these additional portraits, which were all done in profile, as Beaufort wasn’t good at full faces. One day, while Monsieur de Beaufort was playing tennis, Chavigny had the portraits sponged off and the walls whitewashed. Beaufort thanked Chavigny for giving him so much clean drawing space and made each wall a new gallery dedicated to some aspect of the life of Cardinal Mazarin.
The first gallery represented the Illustrious Scoundrel Mazarin being soundly thrashed by Cardinal Bentivoglio, in whose service he’d begun his career. In the second, the Illustrious Scoundrel was playing the part of the wounded Ignatius Loyola70 in the tragedy of that name. The third showed the Scoundrel stealing the portfolio of prime minister from Chavigny, who’d thought he was going to have it. In the fourth, the Scoundrel was refusing to give clean sheets to La Porte, the valet of young Louis XIV, saying that clean sheets once per season was often enough for a King of France. These compositions, large and rather complicated, were beyond the prisoner’s ability to depict in detail, so he contented himself with simply drawing their frames and lettering out their long titles.
But these frames and titles were enough to provoke Monsieur de Chavigny, who sent word to Beaufort that if he didn’t give up these artistic projects, he would be denied their means of execution. Beaufort replied that since he’d been denied the opportunity to have a career in arms, and couldn’t be a Bayard or a Trivulce,71 then he would be a Michelangelo or a Raphael.
One day while Beaufort was taking a promenade in the prison yard, his fireplace was swept clean of coal and cinders, so that when he returned there was nothing he could use as a charcoal pencil. Beaufort swore, ranting and raving that they were trying to kill him with cold and damp, the way they’d killed Puylaurens, Marshal Ornano, and the younger Vendôme72—but Chavigny replied that Beaufort had only to give his word to make no more drawings, and he could have all the firewood he wanted. Monsieur de Beaufort refused to give his word and went without heat for the rest of the winter. Furthermore, on another day while the prisoner was out, upon returning he found the room once again whitewashed and without a trace of his frescos.
Monsieur de Beaufort then bought from one of his guards a dog named Pistachio. As there was no rule against a prisoner having a dog, Chavigny didn’t oppose the creature’s change of master. Beaufort then spent many quiet hours with this dog, and though it was suspected he was training Pistachio, no one knew what he was training it to do. One day, when Pistachio’s training was considered complete, Beaufort invited Chavigny and all the officers of Vincennes to a grand performance in his chamber. The guests arrived to find the room lit with every candle Beaufort could get. The performance then began.
The prisoner, with a piece of plaster pried from the wall, had drawn a long white line representing a rope on the floor down the middle of the room. Pistachio, at his master’s command, placed himself on the line, stood up on his hind legs, and holding a stick used to beat clothes between his forepaws, began to follow the line, with all the balancing contortions of a tight-rope walker. After three times walking the length of the line back and forth, he gave the stick to Monsieur de Beaufort, then walked the line again without the stick for balance.
The intelligent animal was lauded with applause. The performance had three acts; the first completed, it moved on to the second: telling time. The audience was asked what time it was. Monsieur de Chavigny showed his watch to Pistachio; the time was half past six. Pistachio raised and lowered his paw six times; on the seventh, he left it in the air. It was as clear as could be and was better than a sundial—for as everyone knows, a sundial tells time only when the sun shines.
Next, the dog was asked to show who was the finest jailer in all the prisons of France. Pistachio went three times around in a circle, then laid down in the most respectful way at the feet of Chavigny. The governor pretended to enjoy the joke, laughing just enough to show his teeth. When he’d finished laughing, he gnawed his lip and began to frown.
Finally, Beaufort put this difficult question to Pistachio: Who was the world’s greatest thief? Pistachio went all around the room but didn’t stop at anyone, then went to the door, where he scratched at the panel and whined.
“See, Messieurs,” said the prince, “this clever animal, not finding what I asked for, wants to look elsewhere. But don’t worry, you’ll get his answer. Pistachio, my friend, come here.” The dog obeyed. “Is the world’s greatest thief Le Camus, the king’s secretary, who came to Paris with only twenty livres, and now has ten million?”
The dog shook his head no.
“Is it Superintendent d’Émery,” continued the prince, “who gave his son Monsieur Thoré, upon his marriage, three hundred thousand livres and a mansion near the Tuileries compared to which the Louvre is a shack?”
The dog shook his head no.
“Not him, eh?” said the prince. “Now listen carefully: is it, by any chance, the Illustrious Scoundrel Mazarini of Piscina, then?”
The dog nodded wildly, raising and lowering his head nine or ten times.
“You see, Messieurs,” said Beaufort to the officers, who this time didn’t dare to laugh, “the Illustrious Scoundrel Mazarini is the world’s greatest thief—at least, according to Pistachio.”
And then it was time for the third and final act.
“Messieurs,” said the Duc de Beaufort into the sudden silence, “you all remember how the Duc de Guise had all the dogs of Paris trained to jump for Mademoiselle de Pons when he declared her the fairest of the fair! Well, Messieurs, that was nothing, because the animals didn’t know the dissidence”—he meant difference, but Monsieur de Beaufort often chose the wrong word—“between those they were to jump for, and those they weren’t. Now Pistachio will show you how superior he is to his canine colleagues. Monsieur de Chavigny, be so kind as to lend me your cane.”
Chavigny handed his walking stick to Beaufort, who held it horizontally one foot above the floor. “Pistachio, my friend,” Beaufort said, “oblige me by jumping for Madame de Montbazon.”73
Everyone laughed, because it was well known that Madame de Montbazon had been Beaufort’s mistress at the time of his arrest.
Pistachio didn’t hesitate and jumped happily over the cane.
“But,” said Chavigny, “it seems to me Pistachio does no more than the other dogs did when they jumped for Mademoiselle de Pons.”
“Wait for it,” said the prince. He raised the cane by six inches. “Now, Pistachio, jump for the queen.”
The dog jumped respectfully over the cane.
The duke raised the cane six more inches. “Now, Pistachio, jump for the king.”
The dog was game, and despite the height of the cane, leapt lightly over it.
“And now, pay attention,” said the duke, lowering the cane nearly to the floor. “Pistachio, my friend, jump for the Illustrious Scoundrel Mazarini of Piscina.”
The dog turned his back on the cane.
“What’s this, then?” said Monsieur de Beaufort, going around the animal from its back to its front. He presented the cane again. “Jump, Monsieur Pistachio.”
But Pistachio again turned around and put his back to the cane.
Monsieur de Beaufort once more stepped in front of the dog and repeated his command—but this time Pistachio lost his patience, seized the cane with his teeth, snatched it from the prince, and chewed it to splinters.
Beaufort pried the cane’s pieces from the dog’s jaws, and then solemnly presented them to Chavigny with his sincerest regrets. He was sorry, but the performance was over—however, if they would return in three months for another session, Pistachio would regale them with a new set of tricks.
Three days later, Pistachio was found poisoned.
They searched for the poisoner, but as may be imagined, the culprit was never identified. Monsieur de Beaufort buried the dog, over which he placed this epitaph: “Here lies Pistachio, One of the Smartest Dogs Who Ever Lived.”
This broke none of the prison rules,
so Monsieur de Chavigny had nothing to complain about.
But then the duke spread the word that in poisoning his dog, they were just testing concoctions to try on him—and one day, after dinner, he went to bed crying out that he had cramps, and Mazarin had had him poisoned.
When news of this latest trick reached the cardinal, he was alarmed. The dungeon of Vincennes was notoriously unhealthy: Madame de Rambouillet had quipped that the chamber wherein Puylaurens, Marshal Ornano, and Grand Prior Vendôme had died was worth its weight in arsenic, and the phrase had become a watchword. Mazarin ordered that the prisoner be served no food or wine that hadn’t been tested. That’s when La Ramée had been appointed to serve near the duke as his taster.
However, Chavigny wasn’t satisfied with the death of the innocent Pistachio, and hadn’t yet pardoned the duke’s impertinence.
Monsieur de Chavigny was a creature of the late cardinal—some even said he was his son—and knew a few of the old tyrant’s tricks. He deliberately began to provoke Monsieur de Beaufort: he removed what he had left of iron knives and silver forks, replacing them with silver knives and wooden forks; when Beaufort complained, Chavigny replied that as the cardinal had recently told Madame de Vendôme that her son was in prison for life, he was afraid this terrible news might result in a suicide attempt. Two weeks later, Beaufort found two rows of saplings newly planted along the path to the tennis court; when he asked about them, he was told they were intended to provide shade for him far into the future. Finally, one morning the gardener came to say that they were planting asparagus shoots for him, which everyone knows take years to mature—five back in those days, though in our time advances in gardening have gotten it down to four.
These provocations drove Beaufort into a fury. The duke thought it was time to start employing his forty methods of escape, starting with the simplest, an attempt to corrupt La Ramée. But as La Ramée had invested fifteen hundred crowns in purchasing his office, he stuck to his duty, and instead of succumbing to the attempted bribe, went and reported it to Chavigny. The governor immediately put eight men in the prince’s rooms, doubled the guard, and tripled the sentries. From that moment, the prince went everywhere like one of those theatrical kings who’s always followed by a chorus, four men before and four men behind, not counting the door-wardens who trailed the rest.
At first Beaufort laughed off this increased security, saying, “It amuses and diversifies me” (he meant diverts). “Besides,” he added, “when I tire of these additional honors bestowed on me, I still have thirty-nine other methods.” But living in a crowd began to wear upon him. He got through the first six months of it on sheer bluster, but eventually, seeing eight other men sit down whenever he sat, rise when he got up, and stop wherever he stopped, his mood darkened, and he began to count the days.
This new persecution provoked a resurgence of his hate for Mazarin. The prince began to swear from morning till night, vowing he’d make mince pie of Mazarin’s ears. This was alarming; the cardinal, who heard everything that happened in Vincennes, pulled his biretta down over his ears.
One day Beaufort assembled all his guards and, despite his notorious speech issues, regaled them with this oratory, which had obviously been prepared in advance: “Messieurs, if you continue to tolerate the grandson of good King Henri IV being subjected to gross insults and ignobilities”—he meant ignominies—“then, ventre-saint-gris, as my grandfather used to swear! I was nearly the ruler of Paris—did you know that? Once I was charged with guarding the king and Monsieur for an entire day, and the queen flattered me and said I was the most honest man in the kingdom. Messieurs, I say to you now: take me outside! With you as my bodyguard, I’ll go to the Louvre, twist Mazarin’s neck for him, and appoint you all officers with fine pensions. Ventre-saint-gris! Forward, march!”
But, as moving as that was, the eloquence of the grandson of Henri IV failed to touch their stony hearts, and no one budged. Seeing this, Beaufort told them they were all blackguards, which made bitter enemies of the lot of them.
Sometimes when Monsieur de Chavigny came to see him, which he did two or three times a week, the duke took advantage of the visit to threaten him. “What will you do, Monsieur,” he’d say, “when one day an army of Parisians appears, all armored and bristling with muskets, come to liberate me?”
“Monseigneur,” answered Chavigny, bowing low, “as I have twenty artillery pieces on my ramparts, and thirty thousand rounds in my magazines, I’d do my best to cannonade them.”
“Yes, but after you’d fired off your thirty thousand rounds, they would take the dungeon, and once the dungeon was taken I’d be forced to let them hang you—for which I’d be very sorry, I’m sure.” And in his turn the prince bowed profoundly and politely to Chavigny.
“But I, Monseigneur,” continued Chavigny, “when the first of the rabble burst in through my posterns, or clambered over my wall, would be forced, to my very great regret, to personally kill you with my own hands, as you have been placed in my particular care, not to be given up dead or alive.” And once again he saluted His Highness.
“Yes,” continued the duke, “but since those brave citizens won’t have come here without first taking the time to hang Monsieur Guilio Mazarini, you would do well to keep your hands off of me, for fear of the Parisians tying you to four horses and quartering you in your own courtyard—which is even less pleasant than hanging, as those things go.”
These exchanges of pleasantries could go on for ten, fifteen, or even twenty minutes, but they always ended the same way, with Chavigny turning toward the door and shouting, “Holà! La Ramée!”
La Ramée would come in. “La Ramée,” Chavigny would say, “I commend Monsieur de Beaufort to your care. Treat him with the respect due to his name and rank, and don’t let him out of your sight for a moment.”
Then he would retire, saluting Beaufort with such ironical politeness that it threw the duke into a blue fury.
La Ramée had therefore become the prince’s virtual twin, his eternal guardian and second shadow—but it must be said that La Ramée, that bon vivant, free liver, jolly drinking companion, fine tennis player, and all-around good fellow, had only one real fault as far as Beaufort was concerned, that of being incorruptible. Instead of being tiresome, he’d become for the prince a genuine diversion.
Unfortunately, La Ramée couldn’t say the same about the prince, and though he valued the honor of being locked up with such an important prisoner, the pleasure of living cheek-by-jowl with the grandson of Henri IV didn’t compensate for almost never seeing his family. He might have had the good fortune to be an officer of the king, but he was also a devoted father and husband. La Ramée adored his wife and children, and though he could see them occasionally from the top of the wall, when to give him some familial consolation they would take a walk along the other side of the moat, it was far too little for him. La Ramée felt that his jovial good humor, which he regarded as the basis of his good health—though in truth it was probably the reverse—was at risk of being lost to so rigorous a routine.
This belief only grew stronger when, the relationship between Beaufort and Chavigny having soured to hatred, Chavigny stopped visiting the prince. La Ramée then felt the burden of his responsibility weighing on him—so when, as mentioned earlier, he was in search of some relief, he found it in the recommendation of Marshal Grammont’s steward that he take on an underling. He immediately brought up the idea with Monsieur de Chavigny, who said he had no objection provided the new subordinate suited him.
We’ll spare our readers a detailed portrait of Grimaud, since if they remember him from the preceding works in this series, they’ll recall his estimable character, which was unchanged except for being twenty years older. The years had made him only more taciturn and stoic—though, considering the role he was to enact, Athos had given him full permission to speak. But by then Grimaud had hardly said a word for a dozen years or more, and so prolonged a habit becomes second nature.
XX
Grimaud Assumes His Post
Grimaud brought all these fine qualities with him to his interview at the dungeon of Vincennes. Monsieur de Chavigny prided himself on having an infallible eye for character, which if true would have been an argument for him really being the son of Cardinal Richelieu, as the persistent story had it. So, he carefully examined the applicant, noting with approval his narrowed eyebrows, thin lips, hooked nose, and sharp cheekbones, all of which recommended him. He addressed Grimaud with twelve words; Grimaud replied with four.
“Here’s an able lad, or I’m no judge of men,” Chavigny said to himself. “Go report to Monsieur La Ramée, and if you satisfy him, you satisfy me.”
Grimaud turned on his heel and went to subject himself to the more rigorous inspection of La Ramée, who was all the more meticulous because he knew Monsieur de Chavigny was relying on him, so he needed to be able to rely on Grimaud.
Grimaud had just the qualities one would look for in a subordinate officer, so, after a thousand questions that received monosyllabic answers, La Ramée, fascinated by the man’s austere economy of words, rubbed his hands in satisfaction and signed Grimaud on.
“Orders?” asked Grimaud.
“They are these: never leave our sole prisoner alone, confiscate all sharp implements, and don’t let him signal to outsiders or speak at length with his guards.”
“That’s all?” asked Grimaud.
Twenty Years After Page 18
