Angelique Part 1. Marquise of the Angels Chapter 6
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ONE WINTER DAY, as Angelique was watching the falling
rain at the window, she was amazed to see a host of riders and jolting
carriages bumping along the muddy path that led to the drawbridge. Lackeys
in livery with yellow facings preceded the carriages and a cart that seemed
to be piled with luggage, chambermaids and valets.
The coachmen were already jumping down from their high boxes and leading their teams through the narrow gate. The lackeys posted at the back of the first carriage got off and opened the carriage-doors, whose lacquered wood set of f a red-and-gold coat-of-arms.
Angelique (lew down the stairs from the turret and reached the porch in time to see a magnificent lord stumbling through the dung in the court¬yard; his plumed felt hat whisked to the ground, whereupon he aimed a violent blow with his stick at a lackey’s back and let out a volley of curses.
Jumping from paving-stone to paving-stone on the tips of his elegant shoes, the nobleman finally reached the shelter of the entrance hall, where Angelique and some of her younger brothers and sisters were watching him.
He was followed by a youngster of about fifteen years, dressed with the same refinement.
“By Saint Denis, where is my cousin?” shouted the new arrival, glancing around him indignantly.
He noticed Angllique and exclaimed:
“By Saint Hilaire, the very image of my cousin de Sance, when I met her in Poitiers at the time of her marriage! Suffer the old uncle that I am to give you a kiss, little one.”
He lifted her up in his arms and kissed her cordially. Back on the ground, Ang£lique sneezed twice, so overpowering was the perfume that per¬meated the lordly clothes.
She wiped the tip of her nose with her sleeve, with a fleeting thought of Pulch£rie, who would have scolded her for it, but she did not blush, knowing neither shame nor embarrassment.
She curtsied amiably to the visitor, whom she had only just recognised as the Marquis du Plessis de Belliere. Then she stepped forward to kiss her young cousin Philippe.
The latter shrank back a step and threw a horrified glance at the Marquis.
“Father, am I really obliged to kiss this . . . er . . . this young person?”
“Why, of course, greenhorn, gather rosebuds while you may!” cried the noble lord with a burst of laughter.
The youth cautiously placed his lips on Angeliquc’s round checks, then pulled a scented and embroidered handkerchief from his doublet and waved it over his face as if to chase flies.
Baron Armand, muddy to his knees, arrived at a run.
“My lord the Marquis du Plessis, what a surprise! Why did you not send me a courier to advise me of your coming?”
“To tell the truth, Cousin, I meant to go straight to my residence at Plessis, but our journey has not been without mishaps: we broke an axle near Neuchaut. Time lost. Night is falling and we are frozen. Passing near your manor, I thought of asking for your hospitality without more ado. We have our own beds and wardrobe, our valets can set them up in whatever rooms you’ll indicate. And thus we’ll have the pleasure of chatting without waste of time. Philippe, greet your cousin dc Sancc and his charming swarm of heirs.”
Thus addressed, the handsome adolescent stepped forward resignedly and bowed his fair head deeply in a greeting that was somewhat exag¬gerated in view of the rustic look of the person for whom it was intende. He then went on to kiss dobcdiently the grimy bulging cheeks of his young relatives. Whereupon he again pulled out his lace hand¬kerchief and sniffed it with a haughty mien.
“My son is a jackass of a courtier, unaccustomed to the countryside,” declared the Marquis. “He’s only good at scraping the guitar. I had him attached as a page in the service of Monsieur de Mazarin, but I fear he may become an adept there of love a I'italienne. Doesn’t he already look like a pretty girl? . . . You know about the Italian fashion in love?”
“No,” said the Baron naively.
“I’ll tell you one day, when we are far from these innocent ears. But one freezes to death in your entrance hall, dear fellow. May f greet my charming cousin?”
The Baron said he supposed that, at the sight of the carriages, the ladies had hurried into their apartments to dress, but that his father die old Baron would be delighted to see him.
Angelique noticed her young cousin’s contemptuous glance at the dark and decrepit drawing-room. Philippe du Plessis’s eyes were of a very light blue but as cold as steel. The same glance that had brushed the faded tapestries, the sparse fire in the hearth and even the old grandfather with his old-fashioned ruff, now turned towards the door, and the fair eye¬brows rose while a mocking half-smile hovered on his lips.
Madame de Sance was entering, accompanied by Hortense and the two aunts. They had put on their best finery, but even this must have looked ridiculous to the young man, for he began to giggle behind his handker¬chief.
Angelique, who could not keep her eyes of fhim, felt awfully like jump¬ing at him and scratching his face. As if anyone could be more ridiculous than he with all those laces and flowing ribbons on his shoulders and those sleeves slashed from the armpit to the wrist to show his fine linen shirt.
His father, more soberly, bowed before the ladies, sweeping the stone floor with his fine curled plume.
“Forgive my modest attire, Cousin. I’ve come to ask for a night’s lodging. This is my knight, Philippe. He has grown since you last saw him, but is no more agreeable to live with for all that. I shall buy him a colonel’s commission shortly; the army will do him good. The pages at court have no discipline these days.”
Aunt Pulcherie, cordial as always, suggested:
“Surely you will have some refreshment? Some apple wine or sour milk? I sec that you have had a long journey.”
“Thank you. We shall gladly have a thimbleful of wine with fresh water.”
“There’s no more wine,” said Baron Armand, “but we’ll send a valet to fetch some from the vicar.”
The Marquis meanwhile had sat down and, toying with his ebony cane tied with a satin bow, related how he had come straight from Saint- Germain, and how the roads were cesspools, and he again apologised for his simple outfit.
‘What would they look like, had they come sumptuously dressed?’ wondered Angelique.
Grandfather, whom so many sartorial protestations annoyed, touched the bucket tops of his visitor’s boots with his stick.
“If I judge by the laces on your boots and band, the Cardinal’s edict of 163 3 banning all frills and furbelows has no more currency.”
“Pah!” sighed the Marquis, “still too much so. The Queen Regent is poor and austere. There are several of us well-nigh ruining ourselves trying to maintain a little originality at this pious Court. Monsieur de Mazarin has a taste for luxury, but he wears the frock. His fingers are laden with diamonds, but he fulminates like his predecessor Monsieur dc Richelieu against the paltry ribbons that the Princes tie to their doublets. The boot-tops . . . yes. . . .”
He crossed his feet in front of him and scrutinised them with as much attention as the Baron Armand lavished on his mules.
“I believe this fashion of lace-trimmed boots will suddenly be dropped,” he declared. “Some of the young gentlemen have started wearing boot- tops as wide as torch-rims, and their circumference is getting so un¬manageable that they have to walk with legs wide apart. When a fashion becomes dreadful, it dies out by itself. Don’t you think so, my dear Cousin?” he said, turning to Hortense, who blushed with pleasure.
She answered with a bold impulsiveness that was unexpected from this skinny girl.
“Oh, Cousin, I believe a fashion is always right until it disappears. However, I cannot venture an opinion on this point of detail, as I have never seen boots like yours. You are certainly our most fashionable relative.”
“I congratulate myself, Mademoiselle, on the discovery that life in your remote province has not prevented you from being in advance of its spirit and etiquette. For if you consider me modern, you must know that in my time no lady would have deigned to be the first to pay a compliment. Yet that’s exactly what they do in the new generation . . . and it’s not un¬pleasant, far from it. What is your name?”
“Hortense.”
“You must come to Paris, Hortense, and frequent the alcoves where our learned ladies, the prkieuses, meet. Philippe, my son, watch lest you may find yourself up against powerful opposition during your stay in our good land of Poitou.” .
“By heaven,” cried the old Baron, “though I’m familiar with some English, a little German, and am a student of my own French tongue, I must confess, Marquis, that I don’t understand a word of all you’ve been saying to these ladies.”
“The ladies have understood and that’s the main thing when talking of laces,” retorted the Marquis gaily. “And my shoes? What do you think of them?” ,
“Why are they so long with such a square tip?” inquired Madelon.
“Why? Nobody can tell, little Cousin, but it’s the latest fashion. And what a useful one! The other day, while Monsieur de Cond£ was holding forth with passion, Monsieur de Rochefort stuck a nail into the two ends bf Conde’s boots. When the Prince wanted to move, he found himself nailed to the ground. Just think, if his shoes had been less long, he’d have had his feet transfixed.”
“Boots weren’t created for the amusement of people to stick nails into other people’s feet!” muttered the grandfather. “All this is poppycock.”
“Do you know that the King is at Saint-Germain?” asked the Marquis.
“No,” said Armand de Sance, “and why is this such extraordinary news?
“Why, dear fellow, on account of the Fronde.”
This verbiage amused the ladies and children, but the two Barons, accustomed to slow peasant talk, wondered whether their loquacious cousin was not making fun of them as was his custom.
“The Fronde! But that’s a children’s game!”
“A children’s game! That’s a good one, Cousin. What we call the Fronde at Court is no less than the revolt of the Paris Parliament against the King. Have you ever heard anything like it? Some months ago, those square-hatted gentlemen were bandying words with the Regent and her Italian Cardinal—a matter of taxes that didn’t even touch their privileges. But they pose as protectors of the people. And remonstrance follows on remonstrance. The Regent’s temper is beginning to mount. You surely must have heard of the agitation last April?”
“Vaguely.”
“It was the result of Broussel’s arrest. He’s a member of Parliament. The Regent had him arrested one morning while he was taking his medicine. The mob had been roused by the shouts of a servant, and Comminges, the guards’ colonel, wouldn’t wait till Broussel was dressed but dragged him in his dressing-gown from coach to coach. He finally succeeded in carrying him of f, as he had been ordered to do, though not without difficulty. He later remarked to me that this cavalcade among the mutineers would have amused him, if he had kidnapped a pretty damsel rather than this wailing old fool who was in a complete dither.
“Nevertheless, the disappointed rabble started setting up barricades across the streets. It’s a game the people dote on to cool their anger.”
“And the Queen and the little King?” asked Aunt РикЬёпе anxiously, who was sentimental.
“Not much to tell. She gave those gentlemen of Parliament a very haughty reception, then gave in. There have been no end of quarrels and reconciliations ever since. Believe me, though, these last months Paris struck me as a witches’ cauldron seething with passion. It’s a pleasant city, but in its bowels are bidden an incalculable number of beggars and bandits that one can’t get rid of except by burning them in a bonfire like vermin.
“And I mustn’t forget the pamphleteers and slum poetsTwhose pens prick more sharply than a bee’s sting. Paris is flooded with lampoons in rhymes and prose: ‘Down with Mazarin! Down with Mazarin!’ So much so that they are called mazarinades. The Queen finds them even in her bed, and there is nothing more conducive to spending a bad night and spoiling your complexion than those innocent-looking scraps of paper.
“In fine, the storm broke. The gentlemen of Parliament had felt it coming for a long time; they always feared the Queen might take the little King away from Paris and three times they came to the palace after nightfall, a whole troop of them, asking to gaze at the beautiful sleeping child—actually, though, they wanted to make sure he was still there. But the Spanish woman and the Italian are cunning. On Twelfth Night we were dining and wining merrily at Court, partaking of the traditional pancake, without an inkling of what was to come. In the dead of night I get orders to gather my men and horses and make for the gates of Paris. From there, of f we go to Saint-Germain. There I find the Queen and her two sons, their pages and ladies-in-waiting, and all these great lords and ladies stretched out on the straw in the draughty old castle. Monsieur de Mazarin arrived too. Since then Paris has been besieged by the Prince de Conde, who’s taken command of the King’s army. Inside the capital the Parliament is still waving the flag of insurrection, but they are uneasy. The coadjutor of Paris, Cardinal de Retz, the Prince de Gondi, who’s manoeuvring for Mazarin’s position, has sided with the insurgents. As for me, I am following Monsieur de Conde.”
“I am well pleased that you are,” sighed the old Baron. “Never in King Henri’s times would there have been such riots. Parliaments and Princes in rebellion against the King of France! This is surely the pernicious influence of ideas from across the English Channel. Don’t they say that the English Parliament also raised the banner of sedition against their King, even going so far as to imprison him?”
“They have even put his head on a block. His Majesty King Charles I was beheaded in London last month.”
“How horrible!” cried everyone, appalled.
“As you can imagine, the news did not reassure anyone at Court, whither, incidentally, the King of England’s inconsolable widow had repaired with her two children. That’s why it was decided to act with utmost severity towards Paris. In fact, I have been sent, as second-in¬command to Monsieur de Saint-Maur, to raise armies in Poitou and lead them to Monsieur de Turenne, who is the most valiant army commander in the King’s service.
“It would be the very devil if on my lands and yours, dear Cousin, I could not recruit at least a regiment to of fer to my son. Do dispatch your lazy louts4and other undesirables to my sergeants, Baron. We’ll turn them into dragoons.”
“Must there still be talk of wars?” said the Baron slowly. “We were hoping there would be a settlement at last. Didn’t we sign a treaty in Westphalia last autumn, which sealed the defeat of Austria and Germany? We thought we’d have some breathing space. Though I dare say our province is not too badly of f, considering that in Flanders and Picardy they still have to put up with the Spaniards after all that campaigning for thirty years. . .
“Those people are used to it,” said the Marquis lightly. “Dear Cousin, war is a necessary evil, it’s almost a heresy to ask for a peace which God evidently did not intend for us miserable sinners. The whole point is to try and be among those who wage wars and not among those who suffer them. For my part, I shall always choose the former, to which I am entitled by my rank. The trouble is that, in this particular case, my wife has remained in Paris, on the other side—yes, with the Parliament. Not that I think she has a lover among those grave and learned magistrates, who are somewhat lacking in brilliance. But imagine, the ladies adore plotting and the Fronde enchants them. They have gathered around the daughter of Gaston d’Orleans, King Louis XIII’s brother. They carry blue sashes and even tiny swords with lace shields. All this is very pretty, but I can’t help worrying about the Marquise. . . .”
“She may run into trouble,” moaned Pulcherie.
“No, I think she’s excitable but prudent. My worries are of a different nature, and if trouble there is, I’m rather afraid it’ll be for me. Do you see? Separations of this kind are fatal for husbands like myself who don’t like sharing. . . . For my part . . .”
He broke of f and had a violent fit of coughing, for the stable boy, who had been promoted to the rank of valet for the occasion, had just flung an enormous bundle of damp straw into the hearth to kindle the fire. Nothing but coughing could be heard for a while amid the resulting blanket of smoke.
“By Jove, Cousin,” exclaimed the Marquis, as soon as he had recovered his breath, “I sympathise with your desire for fresh air. Your insolent dolt deserves a sound thrashing.”
He treated the incident as a joke, and Angelique found him likeable despite his condescending manner. His gossip had fascinated her. It was as if the old sleepy castle had woken up and opened its heavy doors on another world bristling with life.
His son, however, became ever more sullen. Stiffly seated on his chair, with his fair curls neatly falling on his lace collar, he was casting utterly horrified glances at Josselin and Gontran, who, realising the impression they were producing, exaggerated their slovenly behaviour, even poking their fingers into their noses and scratching their skulls. Their pranks appalled Ang£lique, who felt sick to the point of nausea. She had been ailing for some time. She had stomach-aches and Pulcherie had forbidden her to eat raw carrots as was her habit. But tonight, as a result of the various emotions and distractions provided by the extraordinary visitors, she felt on the verge of becoming ill. So she said nothing and remained quietly on her chair. Whenever she looked at her cousin Philippe du Plessis, something constricted her throat, whether from loathing or admiration she could not tell. She had never seen such a beautiful boy.
His hair, whose silky fringe curled over his brow, was of a brilliant golden hue which made her own curls seem a dull brown. His features were perfect. His fine grey broadcloth suit, trimmed with lace and blue ribbons, was becoming to his pink-and-white complexion. It was true that he could have been taken for a girl, had it not been for the hardness of his gaze, which was quite unfeminine.
His presence turned the evening and the meal into an ordeal for Angelique. Every shortcoming on the part of the servants, every lack of comfort, was underlined by a mocking glance and a sneer from the youngster.
Jean the Cuirass, who acted as butler, brought the plates, a napkin over his shoulder. The Marquis chuckled, remarking that this way of carrying the napkin was customary only at the table of the King and of Princes of the blood, that he was flattered by the honour thus shown him, but would content himself with being served more simply, that is, with the napkin rolled around the arm. Full of good will, the carter endeavoured to twist the dirty cloth around his hairy arm, but his clumsiness and sighs merely increased the Marquis’s hilarity, which was echoed by his son.
“I can see this fellow better as a dragoon than as a footman,” said the Marquis, eyeing Jean the Cuirass. “What do you say, my lad?”
Intimidated, the carter uttered a bear-like growl which hardly honoured his mother tongue. The tablecloth, which had been taken out of a damp cupboard, steamed in the heat of the plates of hot soup. One of the servants, with excessive zeal, kept snuffing the candles, and repeatedly extinguished them.
To cap the disgrace, the boy who had been sent to the vicarage for wine returned and said, scratching his head, that the priest had gone to exorcise the rats of a neighbouring hamlet and Marie-Jeanne, his housekeeper, had refused to part with even the smallest barrel.
“Don’t worry about this detail, Cousin,” remarked the Marquis du Plessis gallandy, “we’ll drink your apple wine, and if Master Philippe doesn’t take to it, he can go without drinking. But, in exchange, will you explain to me just what that lad’s been saying? I remember the dialect well enough, from the time I talked it myself with my nurse, to grasp the gist of the fellow’s speech. ‘The priest has gone to exorcise rats.* What is this rigmarole?”
“Nothing very surprising, Cousin. The people of the next hamlet have been complaining for some time that they are invaded by rats which devour their grain reserves. The priest went there with holy water and will make the customary prayers so that the evil spirits that dwell in these animals will withdraw and cease to be harmful.”
The Marquis stared at Armand de Sance in amazement, then leaned back in his chair and laughed softly.
“I never heard a more amusing story. I shall have to write Madame de Beaufort about it. So to destroy rats, you sprinkle them with holy water?” “Why does that seem so funny?” protested the Baron, whose patience was beginning to run out. “All evil is the work of demons that slip into the hide of beasts to harm mankind. Last year one of my fields was infested with caterpillars. I had them exorcised.”
“And they disappeared?”
“Yes, hardly two days or so after.”
“When there was nothing more to eat in the field.”
Though Madame de Sance adhered to the principle that a woman should humbly hold her tongue, she could not help speaking up in defence of her faith, which she suspected was being attacked.
“I do not see, Cousin, why these sacred practices should not have an influence on malignant animals. Did not Our Lord himself send demons into a herd of swine, as the Gospel tells us? Our priests set great store by this kind of prayer.”
“How much do you pay him for these exorcisms?”
“He asks but a small fee, and is always willing to oblige whenever sent for.”
This time, Ang^liquc caught the meaningful glance that passed between the Marquis du Plessis and his son: these poor people, it seemed to say, are really childish beyond belief.
“I’ll have to talk to Monsieur Vincent of these rural customs,” resumed the Marquis. “It’ll make him ill, poor man, for he has founded an order specially to evangelise the country clergy. Those missionaries are under the patronage of Saint Lazarus, and are called Lazarists. They go out into the countryside in groups of three, preaching and teaching the village priests not to start Mass with a Paternoster and not to lie with their servant-girls. It’s a somewhat unexpected enterprise, but Monsieur Vincent is a partisan of reform of the Church by the Church.”
“Now there’s a word I don’t like!” exclaimed the old Baron. “Reform, always reform! Your words have a Huguenot ring, Cousin. Another step, and you’ll betray the King, I fear. As for your Monsieur Vincent, clergyman though he be, from what I’ve understood and heard of him, there’s something heretical about his ways and Rome would do well to watch him.”
“Nevertheless, it had been His Majesty King Louis XIII’s intention, when he died, to appoint him head of the Council of Conscience.”
“Now what may that be?”
The Lord of Plessis lightly fingered his lawn sleeves to make them fluff.
“How can I explain? It’s something enormous. The conscience of the kingdom! Monsieur Vincent de Paul is the conscience of the kingdom, no less. He sees the Queen almost every day, is received by all the Princes. This notwithstanding, he is as easygoing and gay as they come. His idea is that poverty can be cured and that the great ones of this world should help him to relieve it.”
“Ravings!” exclaimed Aunt Jeanne acrimoniously. “Poverty, just like war, as you said a moment ago, is an evil that God has intended as a punishment for Original Sin. To rise against this necessity is tantamount to revolt against divine discipline!”
“Monsieur Vincent would reply, dear lady, that you are responsible for the evils that surround us. And he would send you, without more ado, to carry remedies and food to the poorest of your labourers, and remark that if you find them too coarse and earthy—these are his terms —you need but turn the medal over to see the face of the suffering Christ. In this way this devil of a man has found a means of enrolling almost all the great personages of the kingdom in his charitable battalions. I myself, such as you see me,” added the Marquis with a pitiful air, “I’d go to the hospital twice a week, when in Paris, to pour and serve soup to the sick.”
“You’ll never cease to surprise me,” exclaimed the old Baron, much agitated. “Noblemen of your kind never seem at a loss to invent new ways of dishonouring their escutcheon. I am forced to conclude that the world is turned upside down: priests are being created to evangelise priests, and a shameless braggart like yourself, practically a libertine, must needs come and preach morals to an honest and wholesome family like ours. I can’t stand any more of it!”
Beside himself, the old man-rose and, as the meal was over, everyone followed suit. Angllique, who had not been able to eat anything, slipped out of the room. She felt inexplicably cold and shivers were running down her spine. All that she had heard kept swirling through her head: the King on the straw, the Parliament in revolt, the great lords pouring out soup, Paris—a world full of life and attraction. Compared with all this excitement and passion, it seemed to her that she herself was buried alive in a cave.
Suddenly she shrank back into a recess in the corridor. Her cousin Philippe passed by without seeing her. She heard him go upstairs and call his servants, who, by the light of some tapers were arranging their master’s room. The youngster’s treble voice rose in anger.
“It is incredible that none of you thought of buying candles for the last lap of the journey. You might have known that the so-called noblemen in these out-of-the-way holes are no better than their peasants. Did you at least heat the water for my bath?”
The man answered something that Angelique could not hear. Philippe went on resignedly:
“Ah well! I’ll wash in a tub. Fortunately my father told me that there are two Florentine bathrooms at the castle at Plessis. I am in a hurry to get there. I feel as if the smell of the Sance tribe would never leave my nostrils.”
‘This time he’ll pay for it,* thought Angelique.
She saw him come down again in the light of a lantern placed on a table of the ante-room.
When he was quite close, she stepped out of the shadow of the winding staircase.
“How dare you speak of us to the lackeys with such insolence?” She spoke in a clear voice that rang out under the vaulted ceiling. “Are you deprived of all sense of a nobleman’s dignity? That’s due no doubt to your descent from a King’s bastard. Whilst our blood is pure.”
“As pure as your skin is dirty,” replied the young man icily.
With a sudden leap, Angelique jumped at his face, all fangs and claws. But the boy gripped her wrists with already manly force, and flung her violently back against the wall. Then he walked away unhurriedly.
Angelique, dazed, felt her heart throb. An unknown sensation of shame and despair gripped her by the throat.
‘I hate him,’ she thought, ‘some day I’ll have my revenge. He will have to bow to me, ask my pardon.*
But for the time being she was but a miserable little girl in the darkness of a dank old castle.
A door creaked and Ang£lique distinguished the massive figure of old Guillaume, who was carrying two pails of steaming water for the young lord. He stopped when he saw her.
“Who is there?”
“It’s me,” answered Angelique in German.
When she was alone with the old soldier, she always used the tongue which he had taught her.
“What are you doing there?” asked Guillaume in the same language. “It’s cold. Why don’t you go into the hall and listen to your uncle the Marquis telling stories? They’ll keep you amused for a year.”
“I detest these people!” said Angelique sombrely. “They are imperti¬nent and too different from us. They destroy everything they touch, and then leave you lonely and empty-handed, while they go back to their beautiful chateaux crammed with marvellous things.”
“What’s the matter, little girl?” asked old Liitzen slowly. “Can’t your mind rise above a few mockeries?”
Angelique’s malaise was getting worse. A cold sweat broke out on her temples.
“Tell me, Guillaume, you who’ve never been at the Court of princes: what do you do when you come across someone who is both wicked and cowardly?”
“That’s a strange question from a child! But since you ask me, I’d say that one should slay the villain and let the coward run away.”
He added after a moment’s thought:
“But your cousin Philippe is neither wicked nor cowardly. A little young, that’s all.”
“So you, too, defend him!” cried Angelique sharply. “You, too! Because he’s beautiful . . . because he’s rich. . . .”
A bitter taste filled her mouth. She swayed and, sliding down the wall, she fell in a faint.
Angelique’s sickness was no more than a natural occurrence. Madame de Sance reassured the child, now a young girl, about the symptoms that had alarmed her, explaining that these would now recur every month until she reached an advanced age.
“Shall I also swoon each month?” inquired Angelique, surprised that she had not noticed the apparently necessary fainting of the women around her.
“No, that was an accident. You’ll recover and get quite used to this state of things.”
“Still, until an advanced age is a long time to go!” sighed the girl “And when f m old, f 11 no longer feel like climbing trees.”
“You can very well go on climbing trees,” said Madame de Sanc£, who showed much delicacy in bringing up her children and who seemed to understand Angelique’s regrets. “But, as you yourself realise, it is indeed time to drop the manners which no longer suit your age and your rank as a noble young lady.”
She added a little speech which dealt with the joy of bringing children into the world and the original punishment that weighed on women as a result of our mother Eve’s sin.
‘Add that to poverty and war/ thought Angelique.
Stretched out under her sheets, listening to the rain falling, she ex¬perienced a certain feeling of well-being. She felt at once weak and grown up. She had the impression of lying on the deck of a ship moving away from a familiar shore to sail towards a new destiny. From time to time she thought of Philippe and clenched her teeth.
Put to bed and watched over by Pulch&ie after her fainting fit, she had not been aware of the departure of the Marquis and his son.
She learnt that they had not stayed long at Monteloup. Philippe com-plained of the bed-bugs that had prevented him from falling asleep.
“And my petition to the King?” asked the Baron de Sanc£ when his illustrious relative was already about to mount into his carriage. “Did you present it to him?”
“My poor friend, I did, but I don’t think you should nurse high hopes. The royal child is at the moment more poverty-stricken than you and hasn’t even, so to speak, a roof to put over his head.”
He added scornfully:
“I am told you are amusing yourself breeding fine mules. Sell some of them.”
“I’ll think over your suggestion,” said Armand de Sance, for once indulging in irony. “It’s certainly better for a gendeman these days to be toiling than to count on the largesse of his peers.”
“Toiling! Pooh! what an ugly word,” said the Marquis with a co¬quettish wave of his hand. “Well, good-bye, Cousin. Send your sons to the army, and your sturdiest yokels to my son’s regiment. Good-bye, I embrace you a thousand times.”
The carriage moved of f with a jolt, while a delicate hand waved through the window.
There were no more visits from the Lords du Plessis. It was learnt that they had given some fStes and, later, that they were returning to the
Ile-de-France with a brand-new army. Recruiting sergeants had passed through Monteloup. At the castle, Jean the Cuirass and one farm-hand let themselves be tempted by the glorious future in store for the King’s dragoons. Nurse Fantine wept bitterly over her son’s departure.
“He was not a bad boy and now he*H become an old ruffian like your¬self,” she said to Guillaume Lutzen.
“A matter of heredity, good woman. Wasn’t his supposed father a hardened old trooper?”
The coachmen were already jumping down from their high boxes and leading their teams through the narrow gate. The lackeys posted at the back of the first carriage got off and opened the carriage-doors, whose lacquered wood set of f a red-and-gold coat-of-arms.
Angelique (lew down the stairs from the turret and reached the porch in time to see a magnificent lord stumbling through the dung in the court¬yard; his plumed felt hat whisked to the ground, whereupon he aimed a violent blow with his stick at a lackey’s back and let out a volley of curses.
Jumping from paving-stone to paving-stone on the tips of his elegant shoes, the nobleman finally reached the shelter of the entrance hall, where Angelique and some of her younger brothers and sisters were watching him.
He was followed by a youngster of about fifteen years, dressed with the same refinement.
“By Saint Denis, where is my cousin?” shouted the new arrival, glancing around him indignantly.
He noticed Angllique and exclaimed:
“By Saint Hilaire, the very image of my cousin de Sance, when I met her in Poitiers at the time of her marriage! Suffer the old uncle that I am to give you a kiss, little one.”
He lifted her up in his arms and kissed her cordially. Back on the ground, Ang£lique sneezed twice, so overpowering was the perfume that per¬meated the lordly clothes.
She wiped the tip of her nose with her sleeve, with a fleeting thought of Pulch£rie, who would have scolded her for it, but she did not blush, knowing neither shame nor embarrassment.
She curtsied amiably to the visitor, whom she had only just recognised as the Marquis du Plessis de Belliere. Then she stepped forward to kiss her young cousin Philippe.
The latter shrank back a step and threw a horrified glance at the Marquis.
“Father, am I really obliged to kiss this . . . er . . . this young person?”
“Why, of course, greenhorn, gather rosebuds while you may!” cried the noble lord with a burst of laughter.
The youth cautiously placed his lips on Angeliquc’s round checks, then pulled a scented and embroidered handkerchief from his doublet and waved it over his face as if to chase flies.
Baron Armand, muddy to his knees, arrived at a run.
“My lord the Marquis du Plessis, what a surprise! Why did you not send me a courier to advise me of your coming?”
“To tell the truth, Cousin, I meant to go straight to my residence at Plessis, but our journey has not been without mishaps: we broke an axle near Neuchaut. Time lost. Night is falling and we are frozen. Passing near your manor, I thought of asking for your hospitality without more ado. We have our own beds and wardrobe, our valets can set them up in whatever rooms you’ll indicate. And thus we’ll have the pleasure of chatting without waste of time. Philippe, greet your cousin dc Sancc and his charming swarm of heirs.”
Thus addressed, the handsome adolescent stepped forward resignedly and bowed his fair head deeply in a greeting that was somewhat exag¬gerated in view of the rustic look of the person for whom it was intende. He then went on to kiss dobcdiently the grimy bulging cheeks of his young relatives. Whereupon he again pulled out his lace hand¬kerchief and sniffed it with a haughty mien.
“My son is a jackass of a courtier, unaccustomed to the countryside,” declared the Marquis. “He’s only good at scraping the guitar. I had him attached as a page in the service of Monsieur de Mazarin, but I fear he may become an adept there of love a I'italienne. Doesn’t he already look like a pretty girl? . . . You know about the Italian fashion in love?”
“No,” said the Baron naively.
“I’ll tell you one day, when we are far from these innocent ears. But one freezes to death in your entrance hall, dear fellow. May f greet my charming cousin?”
The Baron said he supposed that, at the sight of the carriages, the ladies had hurried into their apartments to dress, but that his father die old Baron would be delighted to see him.
Angelique noticed her young cousin’s contemptuous glance at the dark and decrepit drawing-room. Philippe du Plessis’s eyes were of a very light blue but as cold as steel. The same glance that had brushed the faded tapestries, the sparse fire in the hearth and even the old grandfather with his old-fashioned ruff, now turned towards the door, and the fair eye¬brows rose while a mocking half-smile hovered on his lips.
Madame de Sance was entering, accompanied by Hortense and the two aunts. They had put on their best finery, but even this must have looked ridiculous to the young man, for he began to giggle behind his handker¬chief.
Angelique, who could not keep her eyes of fhim, felt awfully like jump¬ing at him and scratching his face. As if anyone could be more ridiculous than he with all those laces and flowing ribbons on his shoulders and those sleeves slashed from the armpit to the wrist to show his fine linen shirt.
His father, more soberly, bowed before the ladies, sweeping the stone floor with his fine curled plume.
“Forgive my modest attire, Cousin. I’ve come to ask for a night’s lodging. This is my knight, Philippe. He has grown since you last saw him, but is no more agreeable to live with for all that. I shall buy him a colonel’s commission shortly; the army will do him good. The pages at court have no discipline these days.”
Aunt Pulcherie, cordial as always, suggested:
“Surely you will have some refreshment? Some apple wine or sour milk? I sec that you have had a long journey.”
“Thank you. We shall gladly have a thimbleful of wine with fresh water.”
“There’s no more wine,” said Baron Armand, “but we’ll send a valet to fetch some from the vicar.”
The Marquis meanwhile had sat down and, toying with his ebony cane tied with a satin bow, related how he had come straight from Saint- Germain, and how the roads were cesspools, and he again apologised for his simple outfit.
‘What would they look like, had they come sumptuously dressed?’ wondered Angelique.
Grandfather, whom so many sartorial protestations annoyed, touched the bucket tops of his visitor’s boots with his stick.
“If I judge by the laces on your boots and band, the Cardinal’s edict of 163 3 banning all frills and furbelows has no more currency.”
“Pah!” sighed the Marquis, “still too much so. The Queen Regent is poor and austere. There are several of us well-nigh ruining ourselves trying to maintain a little originality at this pious Court. Monsieur de Mazarin has a taste for luxury, but he wears the frock. His fingers are laden with diamonds, but he fulminates like his predecessor Monsieur dc Richelieu against the paltry ribbons that the Princes tie to their doublets. The boot-tops . . . yes. . . .”
He crossed his feet in front of him and scrutinised them with as much attention as the Baron Armand lavished on his mules.
“I believe this fashion of lace-trimmed boots will suddenly be dropped,” he declared. “Some of the young gentlemen have started wearing boot- tops as wide as torch-rims, and their circumference is getting so un¬manageable that they have to walk with legs wide apart. When a fashion becomes dreadful, it dies out by itself. Don’t you think so, my dear Cousin?” he said, turning to Hortense, who blushed with pleasure.
She answered with a bold impulsiveness that was unexpected from this skinny girl.
“Oh, Cousin, I believe a fashion is always right until it disappears. However, I cannot venture an opinion on this point of detail, as I have never seen boots like yours. You are certainly our most fashionable relative.”
“I congratulate myself, Mademoiselle, on the discovery that life in your remote province has not prevented you from being in advance of its spirit and etiquette. For if you consider me modern, you must know that in my time no lady would have deigned to be the first to pay a compliment. Yet that’s exactly what they do in the new generation . . . and it’s not un¬pleasant, far from it. What is your name?”
“Hortense.”
“You must come to Paris, Hortense, and frequent the alcoves where our learned ladies, the prkieuses, meet. Philippe, my son, watch lest you may find yourself up against powerful opposition during your stay in our good land of Poitou.” .
“By heaven,” cried the old Baron, “though I’m familiar with some English, a little German, and am a student of my own French tongue, I must confess, Marquis, that I don’t understand a word of all you’ve been saying to these ladies.”
“The ladies have understood and that’s the main thing when talking of laces,” retorted the Marquis gaily. “And my shoes? What do you think of them?” ,
“Why are they so long with such a square tip?” inquired Madelon.
“Why? Nobody can tell, little Cousin, but it’s the latest fashion. And what a useful one! The other day, while Monsieur de Cond£ was holding forth with passion, Monsieur de Rochefort stuck a nail into the two ends bf Conde’s boots. When the Prince wanted to move, he found himself nailed to the ground. Just think, if his shoes had been less long, he’d have had his feet transfixed.”
“Boots weren’t created for the amusement of people to stick nails into other people’s feet!” muttered the grandfather. “All this is poppycock.”
“Do you know that the King is at Saint-Germain?” asked the Marquis.
“No,” said Armand de Sance, “and why is this such extraordinary news?
“Why, dear fellow, on account of the Fronde.”
This verbiage amused the ladies and children, but the two Barons, accustomed to slow peasant talk, wondered whether their loquacious cousin was not making fun of them as was his custom.
“The Fronde! But that’s a children’s game!”
“A children’s game! That’s a good one, Cousin. What we call the Fronde at Court is no less than the revolt of the Paris Parliament against the King. Have you ever heard anything like it? Some months ago, those square-hatted gentlemen were bandying words with the Regent and her Italian Cardinal—a matter of taxes that didn’t even touch their privileges. But they pose as protectors of the people. And remonstrance follows on remonstrance. The Regent’s temper is beginning to mount. You surely must have heard of the agitation last April?”
“Vaguely.”
“It was the result of Broussel’s arrest. He’s a member of Parliament. The Regent had him arrested one morning while he was taking his medicine. The mob had been roused by the shouts of a servant, and Comminges, the guards’ colonel, wouldn’t wait till Broussel was dressed but dragged him in his dressing-gown from coach to coach. He finally succeeded in carrying him of f, as he had been ordered to do, though not without difficulty. He later remarked to me that this cavalcade among the mutineers would have amused him, if he had kidnapped a pretty damsel rather than this wailing old fool who was in a complete dither.
“Nevertheless, the disappointed rabble started setting up barricades across the streets. It’s a game the people dote on to cool their anger.”
“And the Queen and the little King?” asked Aunt РикЬёпе anxiously, who was sentimental.
“Not much to tell. She gave those gentlemen of Parliament a very haughty reception, then gave in. There have been no end of quarrels and reconciliations ever since. Believe me, though, these last months Paris struck me as a witches’ cauldron seething with passion. It’s a pleasant city, but in its bowels are bidden an incalculable number of beggars and bandits that one can’t get rid of except by burning them in a bonfire like vermin.
“And I mustn’t forget the pamphleteers and slum poetsTwhose pens prick more sharply than a bee’s sting. Paris is flooded with lampoons in rhymes and prose: ‘Down with Mazarin! Down with Mazarin!’ So much so that they are called mazarinades. The Queen finds them even in her bed, and there is nothing more conducive to spending a bad night and spoiling your complexion than those innocent-looking scraps of paper.
“In fine, the storm broke. The gentlemen of Parliament had felt it coming for a long time; they always feared the Queen might take the little King away from Paris and three times they came to the palace after nightfall, a whole troop of them, asking to gaze at the beautiful sleeping child—actually, though, they wanted to make sure he was still there. But the Spanish woman and the Italian are cunning. On Twelfth Night we were dining and wining merrily at Court, partaking of the traditional pancake, without an inkling of what was to come. In the dead of night I get orders to gather my men and horses and make for the gates of Paris. From there, of f we go to Saint-Germain. There I find the Queen and her two sons, their pages and ladies-in-waiting, and all these great lords and ladies stretched out on the straw in the draughty old castle. Monsieur de Mazarin arrived too. Since then Paris has been besieged by the Prince de Conde, who’s taken command of the King’s army. Inside the capital the Parliament is still waving the flag of insurrection, but they are uneasy. The coadjutor of Paris, Cardinal de Retz, the Prince de Gondi, who’s manoeuvring for Mazarin’s position, has sided with the insurgents. As for me, I am following Monsieur de Conde.”
“I am well pleased that you are,” sighed the old Baron. “Never in King Henri’s times would there have been such riots. Parliaments and Princes in rebellion against the King of France! This is surely the pernicious influence of ideas from across the English Channel. Don’t they say that the English Parliament also raised the banner of sedition against their King, even going so far as to imprison him?”
“They have even put his head on a block. His Majesty King Charles I was beheaded in London last month.”
“How horrible!” cried everyone, appalled.
“As you can imagine, the news did not reassure anyone at Court, whither, incidentally, the King of England’s inconsolable widow had repaired with her two children. That’s why it was decided to act with utmost severity towards Paris. In fact, I have been sent, as second-in¬command to Monsieur de Saint-Maur, to raise armies in Poitou and lead them to Monsieur de Turenne, who is the most valiant army commander in the King’s service.
“It would be the very devil if on my lands and yours, dear Cousin, I could not recruit at least a regiment to of fer to my son. Do dispatch your lazy louts4and other undesirables to my sergeants, Baron. We’ll turn them into dragoons.”
“Must there still be talk of wars?” said the Baron slowly. “We were hoping there would be a settlement at last. Didn’t we sign a treaty in Westphalia last autumn, which sealed the defeat of Austria and Germany? We thought we’d have some breathing space. Though I dare say our province is not too badly of f, considering that in Flanders and Picardy they still have to put up with the Spaniards after all that campaigning for thirty years. . .
“Those people are used to it,” said the Marquis lightly. “Dear Cousin, war is a necessary evil, it’s almost a heresy to ask for a peace which God evidently did not intend for us miserable sinners. The whole point is to try and be among those who wage wars and not among those who suffer them. For my part, I shall always choose the former, to which I am entitled by my rank. The trouble is that, in this particular case, my wife has remained in Paris, on the other side—yes, with the Parliament. Not that I think she has a lover among those grave and learned magistrates, who are somewhat lacking in brilliance. But imagine, the ladies adore plotting and the Fronde enchants them. They have gathered around the daughter of Gaston d’Orleans, King Louis XIII’s brother. They carry blue sashes and even tiny swords with lace shields. All this is very pretty, but I can’t help worrying about the Marquise. . . .”
“She may run into trouble,” moaned Pulcherie.
“No, I think she’s excitable but prudent. My worries are of a different nature, and if trouble there is, I’m rather afraid it’ll be for me. Do you see? Separations of this kind are fatal for husbands like myself who don’t like sharing. . . . For my part . . .”
He broke of f and had a violent fit of coughing, for the stable boy, who had been promoted to the rank of valet for the occasion, had just flung an enormous bundle of damp straw into the hearth to kindle the fire. Nothing but coughing could be heard for a while amid the resulting blanket of smoke.
“By Jove, Cousin,” exclaimed the Marquis, as soon as he had recovered his breath, “I sympathise with your desire for fresh air. Your insolent dolt deserves a sound thrashing.”
He treated the incident as a joke, and Angelique found him likeable despite his condescending manner. His gossip had fascinated her. It was as if the old sleepy castle had woken up and opened its heavy doors on another world bristling with life.
His son, however, became ever more sullen. Stiffly seated on his chair, with his fair curls neatly falling on his lace collar, he was casting utterly horrified glances at Josselin and Gontran, who, realising the impression they were producing, exaggerated their slovenly behaviour, even poking their fingers into their noses and scratching their skulls. Their pranks appalled Ang£lique, who felt sick to the point of nausea. She had been ailing for some time. She had stomach-aches and Pulcherie had forbidden her to eat raw carrots as was her habit. But tonight, as a result of the various emotions and distractions provided by the extraordinary visitors, she felt on the verge of becoming ill. So she said nothing and remained quietly on her chair. Whenever she looked at her cousin Philippe du Plessis, something constricted her throat, whether from loathing or admiration she could not tell. She had never seen such a beautiful boy.
His hair, whose silky fringe curled over his brow, was of a brilliant golden hue which made her own curls seem a dull brown. His features were perfect. His fine grey broadcloth suit, trimmed with lace and blue ribbons, was becoming to his pink-and-white complexion. It was true that he could have been taken for a girl, had it not been for the hardness of his gaze, which was quite unfeminine.
His presence turned the evening and the meal into an ordeal for Angelique. Every shortcoming on the part of the servants, every lack of comfort, was underlined by a mocking glance and a sneer from the youngster.
Jean the Cuirass, who acted as butler, brought the plates, a napkin over his shoulder. The Marquis chuckled, remarking that this way of carrying the napkin was customary only at the table of the King and of Princes of the blood, that he was flattered by the honour thus shown him, but would content himself with being served more simply, that is, with the napkin rolled around the arm. Full of good will, the carter endeavoured to twist the dirty cloth around his hairy arm, but his clumsiness and sighs merely increased the Marquis’s hilarity, which was echoed by his son.
“I can see this fellow better as a dragoon than as a footman,” said the Marquis, eyeing Jean the Cuirass. “What do you say, my lad?”
Intimidated, the carter uttered a bear-like growl which hardly honoured his mother tongue. The tablecloth, which had been taken out of a damp cupboard, steamed in the heat of the plates of hot soup. One of the servants, with excessive zeal, kept snuffing the candles, and repeatedly extinguished them.
To cap the disgrace, the boy who had been sent to the vicarage for wine returned and said, scratching his head, that the priest had gone to exorcise the rats of a neighbouring hamlet and Marie-Jeanne, his housekeeper, had refused to part with even the smallest barrel.
“Don’t worry about this detail, Cousin,” remarked the Marquis du Plessis gallandy, “we’ll drink your apple wine, and if Master Philippe doesn’t take to it, he can go without drinking. But, in exchange, will you explain to me just what that lad’s been saying? I remember the dialect well enough, from the time I talked it myself with my nurse, to grasp the gist of the fellow’s speech. ‘The priest has gone to exorcise rats.* What is this rigmarole?”
“Nothing very surprising, Cousin. The people of the next hamlet have been complaining for some time that they are invaded by rats which devour their grain reserves. The priest went there with holy water and will make the customary prayers so that the evil spirits that dwell in these animals will withdraw and cease to be harmful.”
The Marquis stared at Armand de Sance in amazement, then leaned back in his chair and laughed softly.
“I never heard a more amusing story. I shall have to write Madame de Beaufort about it. So to destroy rats, you sprinkle them with holy water?” “Why does that seem so funny?” protested the Baron, whose patience was beginning to run out. “All evil is the work of demons that slip into the hide of beasts to harm mankind. Last year one of my fields was infested with caterpillars. I had them exorcised.”
“And they disappeared?”
“Yes, hardly two days or so after.”
“When there was nothing more to eat in the field.”
Though Madame de Sance adhered to the principle that a woman should humbly hold her tongue, she could not help speaking up in defence of her faith, which she suspected was being attacked.
“I do not see, Cousin, why these sacred practices should not have an influence on malignant animals. Did not Our Lord himself send demons into a herd of swine, as the Gospel tells us? Our priests set great store by this kind of prayer.”
“How much do you pay him for these exorcisms?”
“He asks but a small fee, and is always willing to oblige whenever sent for.”
This time, Ang^liquc caught the meaningful glance that passed between the Marquis du Plessis and his son: these poor people, it seemed to say, are really childish beyond belief.
“I’ll have to talk to Monsieur Vincent of these rural customs,” resumed the Marquis. “It’ll make him ill, poor man, for he has founded an order specially to evangelise the country clergy. Those missionaries are under the patronage of Saint Lazarus, and are called Lazarists. They go out into the countryside in groups of three, preaching and teaching the village priests not to start Mass with a Paternoster and not to lie with their servant-girls. It’s a somewhat unexpected enterprise, but Monsieur Vincent is a partisan of reform of the Church by the Church.”
“Now there’s a word I don’t like!” exclaimed the old Baron. “Reform, always reform! Your words have a Huguenot ring, Cousin. Another step, and you’ll betray the King, I fear. As for your Monsieur Vincent, clergyman though he be, from what I’ve understood and heard of him, there’s something heretical about his ways and Rome would do well to watch him.”
“Nevertheless, it had been His Majesty King Louis XIII’s intention, when he died, to appoint him head of the Council of Conscience.”
“Now what may that be?”
The Lord of Plessis lightly fingered his lawn sleeves to make them fluff.
“How can I explain? It’s something enormous. The conscience of the kingdom! Monsieur Vincent de Paul is the conscience of the kingdom, no less. He sees the Queen almost every day, is received by all the Princes. This notwithstanding, he is as easygoing and gay as they come. His idea is that poverty can be cured and that the great ones of this world should help him to relieve it.”
“Ravings!” exclaimed Aunt Jeanne acrimoniously. “Poverty, just like war, as you said a moment ago, is an evil that God has intended as a punishment for Original Sin. To rise against this necessity is tantamount to revolt against divine discipline!”
“Monsieur Vincent would reply, dear lady, that you are responsible for the evils that surround us. And he would send you, without more ado, to carry remedies and food to the poorest of your labourers, and remark that if you find them too coarse and earthy—these are his terms —you need but turn the medal over to see the face of the suffering Christ. In this way this devil of a man has found a means of enrolling almost all the great personages of the kingdom in his charitable battalions. I myself, such as you see me,” added the Marquis with a pitiful air, “I’d go to the hospital twice a week, when in Paris, to pour and serve soup to the sick.”
“You’ll never cease to surprise me,” exclaimed the old Baron, much agitated. “Noblemen of your kind never seem at a loss to invent new ways of dishonouring their escutcheon. I am forced to conclude that the world is turned upside down: priests are being created to evangelise priests, and a shameless braggart like yourself, practically a libertine, must needs come and preach morals to an honest and wholesome family like ours. I can’t stand any more of it!”
Beside himself, the old man-rose and, as the meal was over, everyone followed suit. Angllique, who had not been able to eat anything, slipped out of the room. She felt inexplicably cold and shivers were running down her spine. All that she had heard kept swirling through her head: the King on the straw, the Parliament in revolt, the great lords pouring out soup, Paris—a world full of life and attraction. Compared with all this excitement and passion, it seemed to her that she herself was buried alive in a cave.
Suddenly she shrank back into a recess in the corridor. Her cousin Philippe passed by without seeing her. She heard him go upstairs and call his servants, who, by the light of some tapers were arranging their master’s room. The youngster’s treble voice rose in anger.
“It is incredible that none of you thought of buying candles for the last lap of the journey. You might have known that the so-called noblemen in these out-of-the-way holes are no better than their peasants. Did you at least heat the water for my bath?”
The man answered something that Angelique could not hear. Philippe went on resignedly:
“Ah well! I’ll wash in a tub. Fortunately my father told me that there are two Florentine bathrooms at the castle at Plessis. I am in a hurry to get there. I feel as if the smell of the Sance tribe would never leave my nostrils.”
‘This time he’ll pay for it,* thought Angelique.
She saw him come down again in the light of a lantern placed on a table of the ante-room.
When he was quite close, she stepped out of the shadow of the winding staircase.
“How dare you speak of us to the lackeys with such insolence?” She spoke in a clear voice that rang out under the vaulted ceiling. “Are you deprived of all sense of a nobleman’s dignity? That’s due no doubt to your descent from a King’s bastard. Whilst our blood is pure.”
“As pure as your skin is dirty,” replied the young man icily.
With a sudden leap, Angelique jumped at his face, all fangs and claws. But the boy gripped her wrists with already manly force, and flung her violently back against the wall. Then he walked away unhurriedly.
Angelique, dazed, felt her heart throb. An unknown sensation of shame and despair gripped her by the throat.
‘I hate him,’ she thought, ‘some day I’ll have my revenge. He will have to bow to me, ask my pardon.*
But for the time being she was but a miserable little girl in the darkness of a dank old castle.
A door creaked and Ang£lique distinguished the massive figure of old Guillaume, who was carrying two pails of steaming water for the young lord. He stopped when he saw her.
“Who is there?”
“It’s me,” answered Angelique in German.
When she was alone with the old soldier, she always used the tongue which he had taught her.
“What are you doing there?” asked Guillaume in the same language. “It’s cold. Why don’t you go into the hall and listen to your uncle the Marquis telling stories? They’ll keep you amused for a year.”
“I detest these people!” said Angelique sombrely. “They are imperti¬nent and too different from us. They destroy everything they touch, and then leave you lonely and empty-handed, while they go back to their beautiful chateaux crammed with marvellous things.”
“What’s the matter, little girl?” asked old Liitzen slowly. “Can’t your mind rise above a few mockeries?”
Angelique’s malaise was getting worse. A cold sweat broke out on her temples.
“Tell me, Guillaume, you who’ve never been at the Court of princes: what do you do when you come across someone who is both wicked and cowardly?”
“That’s a strange question from a child! But since you ask me, I’d say that one should slay the villain and let the coward run away.”
He added after a moment’s thought:
“But your cousin Philippe is neither wicked nor cowardly. A little young, that’s all.”
“So you, too, defend him!” cried Angelique sharply. “You, too! Because he’s beautiful . . . because he’s rich. . . .”
A bitter taste filled her mouth. She swayed and, sliding down the wall, she fell in a faint.
Angelique’s sickness was no more than a natural occurrence. Madame de Sance reassured the child, now a young girl, about the symptoms that had alarmed her, explaining that these would now recur every month until she reached an advanced age.
“Shall I also swoon each month?” inquired Angelique, surprised that she had not noticed the apparently necessary fainting of the women around her.
“No, that was an accident. You’ll recover and get quite used to this state of things.”
“Still, until an advanced age is a long time to go!” sighed the girl “And when f m old, f 11 no longer feel like climbing trees.”
“You can very well go on climbing trees,” said Madame de Sanc£, who showed much delicacy in bringing up her children and who seemed to understand Angelique’s regrets. “But, as you yourself realise, it is indeed time to drop the manners which no longer suit your age and your rank as a noble young lady.”
She added a little speech which dealt with the joy of bringing children into the world and the original punishment that weighed on women as a result of our mother Eve’s sin.
‘Add that to poverty and war/ thought Angelique.
Stretched out under her sheets, listening to the rain falling, she ex¬perienced a certain feeling of well-being. She felt at once weak and grown up. She had the impression of lying on the deck of a ship moving away from a familiar shore to sail towards a new destiny. From time to time she thought of Philippe and clenched her teeth.
Put to bed and watched over by Pulch&ie after her fainting fit, she had not been aware of the departure of the Marquis and his son.
She learnt that they had not stayed long at Monteloup. Philippe com-plained of the bed-bugs that had prevented him from falling asleep.
“And my petition to the King?” asked the Baron de Sanc£ when his illustrious relative was already about to mount into his carriage. “Did you present it to him?”
“My poor friend, I did, but I don’t think you should nurse high hopes. The royal child is at the moment more poverty-stricken than you and hasn’t even, so to speak, a roof to put over his head.”
He added scornfully:
“I am told you are amusing yourself breeding fine mules. Sell some of them.”
“I’ll think over your suggestion,” said Armand de Sance, for once indulging in irony. “It’s certainly better for a gendeman these days to be toiling than to count on the largesse of his peers.”
“Toiling! Pooh! what an ugly word,” said the Marquis with a co¬quettish wave of his hand. “Well, good-bye, Cousin. Send your sons to the army, and your sturdiest yokels to my son’s regiment. Good-bye, I embrace you a thousand times.”
The carriage moved of f with a jolt, while a delicate hand waved through the window.
There were no more visits from the Lords du Plessis. It was learnt that they had given some fStes and, later, that they were returning to the
Ile-de-France with a brand-new army. Recruiting sergeants had passed through Monteloup. At the castle, Jean the Cuirass and one farm-hand let themselves be tempted by the glorious future in store for the King’s dragoons. Nurse Fantine wept bitterly over her son’s departure.
“He was not a bad boy and now he*H become an old ruffian like your¬self,” she said to Guillaume Lutzen.
“A matter of heredity, good woman. Wasn’t his supposed father a hardened old trooper?”
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