Angelique - Part 1. Marquise of the Angels Chapter 8 - Read online

“Do YOU REALISE,” said Baron Armand to Angllique, “how much trouble all of you get me into?”
Strolling along a wooded path, she had come across her father sitting on a tree-stump, while his horse browsed near-by.
“Aren’t the mules doing well, Father?”
“Oh yes, they are all right. I am just back from seeing Molines. You see, Angelique, Aunt Pulcherie has convinced your mother and me that it is impossible to keep you at home any longer. You must be put in a convent. So I decided on a very humiliating step which I had wanted to avoid at all cost. I’ve been to see Molines to ask him for that advance he had proposed, to aid my family.”
He spoke in a sad, gentle voice, as if something had snapped inside him, as if this latest blow was more painful than his father’s death or his eldest son’s departure.
“Poor Papa!” murmured Angelique.
“But it is not so easy,” went on the Baron. “It would be hard enough if all I had to do was to hold out my hand to a commoner. But what worries me is that I can’t fathom that fellow’s secret intentions. He has made odd conditions for this new loan.”
“What conditions, Father?”
He looked at her thoughtfully and caressed her magnificent auburn- gold hair with his calloused hand.
“It’s strange . . . I find it easier to confide in you than in your mother. You are a wild colt, but already you seem able to understand everything. Naturally I suspected that Molines was after a substantial profit in this mule business, but I couldn’t understand why he’d come to me rather than to a plain mule-dealer. Actually, what interests him is the fact that I’m a noble¬man. He told me today that he was counting on me to obtain, through my family or other connections, complete exemption from the Customs in¬spection and toll dues for a quarter of our mule production, from Fouquet, the Controller-General of Finance, as well as the guaranteed right to
export this proportion to England, or to Spain when the war is over.”
“But that's wonderful!” exclaimed Ang&que enthusiastically. “This
seems a very shrewd business deal. On the one hand there is Molines, a
commoner and a clever fellow, on the other hand there you are, a noble- »
man . . .
“And not very clever . . ."smiled her father.
“No, just not au courant. But you have titles and connections. You’re bound to succeed. You yourself said the other day that sending the mules abroad seems impossible to you on account of all those tolls and taxes that increase the cost. And since you’ll request exemption for a quarter of the output only, the Controller-General is sure to find the request reasonable! What will you do with the others?”
“The Quartermaster-General’s department will be entitled to an option on their purchase at the current price at the market of Poitiers.”
“It’s all taken care of , then. That Molines fellow is a man of experience! You must see Monsieur du Plessis and perhaps write to the Duke de la Tremoille. But I believe all these great persons will soon be coming down here to have another try at their Civil War.”
“There is talk of it, indeed,” said the Baron, displeased. “Don’t con¬gratulate me too soon, though. Whether the Princes do come or not, it’s not sure that I’ll obtain their agreement. Besides, I haven’t yet told you the most surprising part.”
“What is it?”
“Molines wants me to start working that old lead-mine which we own over at Vauloup,” sighed the Baron. “I sometimes wonder whether that man has all his wits about him, and I admit I don’t quite understand such devious business . . . that is, supposing it is business! In fine, he’s asked me to entreat the King to renew the privilege granted to my ancestors of mining for lead and silver there. You know that abandoned mine at Vauloup? . . .” asked Armand de Sance, seeing his daughter’s abstracted look.
Angeliquc nodded.
“What can that infernal steward hope to get out of those old stones? . . . For, obviously, the mine will be re-equipped under my name, but at his expense. A secret agreement between us will stipulate that he will have a ten-year lease of the lead-mine, with him taking over my rights as owner of the soil for the exploitation of the mine. But there again it’s up to me to get from the Controller-General the same tax exemption on a quarter of the future output, as well as the same export guarantees. All this seems rather complicated to me,” concluded the Baron,1 getting up.
As he did so, his purse tinkled with the crowns which Molines had given him, and this pleasant sound cheered him.
He called his horse and looked at the thoughtful Angelique with what he hoped was a stem glance.
“Try and forget what I’ve just told you, and attend to your outfit. For this time it’s final, my girl. You’ll be going to the convent.”
So Angelique prepared her outfit. Hortense and Madelon were leaving, too. Raymond and Gontran were to accompany them and, after leaving their sisters with the ladies of St. Ursula, would proceed to the Jesuit fathers of Poitiers, who were educators of great renown.
There was even talk of including nine-year-old Denis in this emigration. But Fantine rebelled. After loading her with the care of ten children, they were now going to deprive her of them ‘all’. She detested these extreme measures, she said. [So Denis remained. With him, in addition to Marie- Agnes, Albert and a last little boy of two whom everybody called ‘the baby’, to look after, Fantine Lozier’s ‘leisure* would be fully occupied.
However, a few days before their departure, an incident almost changed the course of Angelique’s destiny. One September morning, Monsieur de Sance returned, much agitated, from the chateau du Plessis.
“Angelique!” he cried, as he came into the dining-room, where the family was waiting for him to sit down to table, “are you there, Angelique?”
“Yes, Father.”
He eyed his daughter critically. She had grown even more during the last months and her hands were clean and her hair well combed. Every¬body agreed that Angelique was beginning to get some sense.
“That’ll do,” he murmured.
And turning to his wife:
“Imagine, the entire Plessis clan—Marquis, Marquise, son, pages, valets, dogs, have moved into the chateau. They have an illustrious guest, the Prince de Conde and all his Court. I ran into the lot of them and was quite ill at ease. But my cousin acted very amiably. He called me, inquired after you, and do you know what he asked me? To take Angelique to him, to replace one of the maids-of-honour. The Marquise had to leave behind in Paris practically all the girls who dress her hair, amuse her and play the lute. The Prince de Conde’s coming has got her in a flutter. She says she needs a few graceful little maids-in-waiting to help her.” ’
“And why not me?” exclaimed Hortense, scandalised.
“Because she said ‘graceful’,” was her father’s unequivocal reply.
“But the Marquis found I was very witty.”
“But the Marquise wants pretty faces around her.”
“Oh! that's too much!” cried Hortense, rushing to claw her sister.
But the latter had foreseen this move and dodged it nimbly. With beating heart she went up to her room. She called one of the grooms through the window and ordered him to fetch her a pail of water and a tub.
She washed herself with great care and spent a long time brushing her beautiful hair, which she wore over her shoulders like a silken riding- hood. Pulch£rie joined her, bringing the fine dress that had been made for her entry into the convent. Angelique admired the dress, although it was of a grey, rather dull hue. But the material was new, specially bought for the occasion from an important draper in Niort, and a white collar added a note of gaiety to it. It was her first long dress. She put it on with a thrill of delight. Her aunt clasped her hands with emotion.
“My little Angelique, one would take you for a young lady. Perhaps I ought to put your hair up?”
But Angelique refused. Her feminine instinct warned her not to diminish the splendour of her only adornment.
She mounted on a pretty bay mule that her father had had saddled for her and, in his company, set out on the road to the Chateau du Plessis.
The casde had awakened from its spellbound slumber. When the Baron and his daughter had left their mules with Molines and walked up the main drive, strains of music wafted out to greet them. Long greyhounds and tiny griffons were gambolling on the lawns. Lords with curled hair and ladies in shimmering dresses were strolling in the avenues. Some of them stared with surprise at the Baron in his dark cloth and the adolescent girl in convent-school attire.
“Ridiculous, but charming,” said one of the ladies, toying with her fan.
Angelique wondered whether the remark referred to her. Why was she ridiculous? She looked more closely at the sumptuous, gaudy dresses, trimmed with laces, and began to think her grey dress was out of place.
Baron Armand did not share his daughter’s embarrassment. He was anxiously intent on the interview he meant to ask of the Marquis du Plessis. To obtain total exemption for a quarter of his mule and lead-mine production might have been easy enough for a nobleman of such ancient lineage as the present Baron de Ridou£ de Sanc6 de Monteloup. But the poor gentleman realised that, after living for so long far from the Court he had become as awkward as a peasant among these people, whose powdered hair, perfumed breath and parrot-like exclamations utterly dazed him. In King Louis XIII's time, he seemed to remember, one made a show of more simplicity and roughness. Wasn’t it Louis ХШ himself who, shocked by the too bare bosom of a young beauty of Poitiers, had unashamedly spat into the indiscreet—and tempting—opening?
Having, on that distant day, been a witness to the memorable royal act, Armand de Sanc6 now thought back upon it regretfully as he and А^ёк4ие made their way through this beribboned crowd. Musicians perched on a small platform played instruments that produced frail, charming sounds: hurdy-gurdies, lutes, oboes, flutes. In a vast hall lined with mirrors Angёlique perceived young people dancing. She wondered ' whether her cousin Philippe was among them.
Baron de Sance, meanwhile, had reached the last of the rooms and bowed, doffing his old felt hat with its meagre plume. А^ё^ие began to suffer for them both. ‘Poor as we are,’ she thought, ‘arrogance would be the only proper conduct.’ Instead of plunging deep into the curtsy which РикЬёпе had made her rehearse three times, she remained stiff as a wooden doll, staring straight in front of her. The faces around her became a litde blurred, but she knew that they were all dying to giggle at sight of her. A silence had fallen, mingled with stifled laughter as the footman announced:
“Monsieur le Baron de 1Шоиё de Бапсё de Monteloup.”
The face of the Marquise du Plcssis grew quite red behind her fan, and her eyes sparkled with ill-contained merriment. The Marquis came to everyone’s rescue by stepping forward affably.
“My dear Cousin,” he cried, “you delight us by coming so soon and bringing us your charming daughter. А^ё^ие, you are even prettier than when I last saw you at Monteloup. Isn’t she pretty? Doesn’t she look like an angel?” he asked, turning to his wife.
“Absolutely,” the Marquise agreed, having recovered her self-control. “In another dress she’d be divine. Sit down on this stool, my pretty one, so that we can look at you at leisure.”
“Cousin,” said Armand de Бапсё, whose rugged voice rang out oddly in this exquisite salon, “I would like to talk to you without delay of some important business.”
The Marquis raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“Really? I am listening.”
“I am sorry, but these matters must be treated privately.”
Monsieur du Plessis threw around him a glance that was at once resigned and roguish.
“Very well, very well, Cousin. We will go into my study. Ladies, excuse us. We shall join you presently. . . .”
Angllique on her stool was the target of a host of curious eyes. The awful emotion that had strangled her was receding a little. She could now clearly distinguish all the faces around her. All these ladies glittered from top to toe. They wore strange trinkets at their waists: small mirrors, tortoise-shell combs, comfit-boxes and watches. Never would Angelique be able to dress like them. Never would she be able to look at others with such haughtiness, or converse in such a high-pitched, precious voice which seemed perpetually to be sucking sweets.
“My dear,” said one of them, “she has attractive hair butjt’s never had any care.”
“Her breast is undeveloped for a fifteen-year-old.”
“But, my dear, she’s only thirteen.”
“Do you want my opinion, Henriette? It’s too late to refine her.”
‘Am I a mule that’s of fered for sale?’ wondered Angelique, too amazed to take real offence.
“What do you expect?” cried another. “She has green eyes, and green eyes, like emeralds, bring bad luck.”
“It’s a rare hue,” protested another.
“But charmless. Look at the child’s hard expression. No really, I don’t care for green eyes.”
‘Are they going to belittle my only good points—my eyes and hair?’ thought the young girl.
“Philippe! Philippe!” the Marquise at last called out. “Where is my son? Monsieur de Barre, would you be good enough to fetch the colonel ?” And when the sixteen-year-old colonel appeared:
“Philippe, here’s your cousin de Sauce. Take her along to the dance. She will find the company of young people more entertaining than ours.” Angelique had risen promptly. She was annoyed with herself for feeling her heart throb. The young lord looked at his mother with un¬disguised indignation. ‘How dare you,’ he seemed to say, ‘throw me into the arms of such a scarecrow?’
But, holding out his hand to Angelique, he murmured through closed lips: “Do come, Cousin.”
She put her little fingers into his open palm, unaware of their prettiness. Silendy he led her to the entrance of the gallery where the pages and young people of her age were allowed to enjoy themselves.
“Make room! Make room!” he suddenly cried. “My friends, I introduce to you my cousin the Baroness of the Doleful Dress.”
There was a general outburst of laughter, and all the young men rushed towards them. The pages wore odd little puffed trunks which stopped just below their thighs, and with their long, thin, boyish legs perched on high heels they looked like stilt-birds.
‘I am no more ridiculous with my doleful dress than they with those pumpkins around their hips/ thought Angdique.
She would gladly have swallowed her dignity a little to stay on with Philippe. But one of the boys asked:
“Can you dance, Mademoiselle?”
“A little”
“Really? And what dances?”
“The bourrie, the rigadoon, the round dance . . .”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” guffawed the young man. “Philippe, what an odd bird youVe-brought us! Come on, gentlemen, let’s draw lots. Who’s going to dance with the country lass? Where are the volunteers for the bomrtel Plop! Plop! . . . Plop!”
Suddenly, Angelique wrenched her hand out of Philippe’s and fled.
She ran through spacious rooms crammed with footmen and noble¬men, through the entrance-hall paved with mosaics, where dogs were lying asleep on velvet squares. She was looking for her father and, above all, she was trying not to cry. All this wasn’t worth a single tear. It was an incident to be wiped from her memory, like a rather mad and grotesque dream. It isn’t wise for a quail to leave its thicket. Having absorbed some of Aunt Pulcherie’s teaching, Angelique told herself that she had been justly punished for the upsurge of vanity that she had felt on hearing the Marquis du Plessis’s flattering request.
At last she heard the somewhat shrill voice of the Marquis coming out of a small room.
“But not at all! Not at all! You’re all wrong, my poor friend,” he was saying in a regretful crescendo. “You’re only imagining that it’s easy for us noblemen to obtain exemptions, weighed down as we are by expenses. Besides, neither myself nor the Prince de Conde is empowered to grant them.”
“I am merely asking you to make yourself my spokesman with the Superintendent of Finance, Monsieur de Tremant, whom you know personally. The matter is not without interest for him. He exempts me from taxes and all transport dues solely throughout the province of Poitou as far as the ocean. This exemption to apply, moreover, to no more than one quarter of my mule and lead output. In exchange, the King’s Quartermaster-General reserves the right to buy the rest of my mules at current prices, and the Royal Treasury is likewise free to acquire my lead and silver at the of ficial rate. It’s not a bad thing for the State to be able to count for various commodities on reliable producers at home rather than to have to buy them abroad. Thus I have some fine beasts for pulling cannon, sturdy and sound in limb. . . .”
“Your words reek of dung and sweat/' protested the Marquis, putting his hand to his nose with disgust. “I wonder whether you aren’t lowering yourself to some extent as a gentleman by launching into an enterprise which bears a strong resemblance—if you’ll pardon the word—to trade.”
“Trade or no trade, I have to live,” retorted Armand de Sance with a tenacity which was balm to Angelique.
“What about me?” cried the Marquis, throwing up his arms. “Do you think I have no difficulties? Well, I’ll have you know that until my dying day I’ll reject all commoners' pursuits that would be detrimental to my rank.”
“Your revenues, Cousin, don't compare with mine. In fact, I am reduced to plain beggary both as regards the King, who refuses me his assistance, and as regards the Niort moneylenders, who devour me.”
“I know, I know, my good Armand. But did you ever ask yourself how I, a courtier with two important royal posts, manage to balance my budget? No, I am certain you didn’t. Well, know that my expenses necessarily exceed my income. It's true that with the revenues of my Plessis estate, with those of my wife’s in Touraine, my post as an of ficer of the royal bedchamber—about 40,000 livres—and that of camp- master of the Poitou brigade, I have an average gross income of 160,000 livres. . . .”
“I’d be content with a tenth of that,” said the Baron.
“One moment, Country Cousin. I have an income of 160,000 livres. But what with my wife's expenses, my son’s regiment, my Paris house, my Fontainebleau pavilion, my travels to follow the Court on its journeys, the interest payable on divers loans, plus receptions, clothes, carriages, servants, etc., I spend 300,000 livres.”
“So you’re losing 140,000 livres per year?”
“Figure it out yourself, Cousin. If I have allowed myself to expatiate on this boring explanation, it’s in order to make you see my point of view when I tell you that I simply cannot at present approach Monsieur de Tremant.”
“Yet you know him.”
“I know him, but no longer see him. I keep telling you that Monsieur de Tr6mant is in the King’s and the Queen Regent’s service and is even said to be devoted to Mazarin.”
“Well, precisely ”
“Precisely for this reason we do not see him any more. Don’t you know that the Prince de Cond6, to whom I am loyal, has fallen but with the Court . . . ?”
“How should I know?” asked Armand de Sanc£, bewildered. “I saw you only a few months ago and at that time the Queen Regent had no more faithful servant than the Prince.”
“Oh, times have changed since then,” sighed the Marquis, exasperated. “I can’t tell you the whole story in detail. All you need know is that if the Queen, her two sons and their red devil of a Cardinal have been able to move back into the Louvre in Paris, they owe it entirely to Monsieur de Conde. Yet by way of thanks this great man is treated most shabbily. The break occurred a few weeks ago. Certain of fers from Spain seem interesting to the Prince. He has come down here to study them more fully.”
“Offers from Spain?” repeated the Baron Armand.
“Yes, just between ourselves and upon your honour as a gentleman, imagine that King Philip IV is of fering an army of ten thousand men each to our great General and to Monsieur de Turenne.”
“To do what with?”
“Why, to reduce the Queen and especially that thieving Cardinal! Thanks to the Spanish armies under his direction, Monsieur de Conde would enter Paris and Gaston d* Organs, brother of our late King Louis XIII, would be proclaimed King. The monarchy would be saved and at last be rid of women, children and a foreigner who dishonours it. Now I ask you, with all these great plans afoot, what can I do? To keep up the style of life I’ve been explaining to you, I cannot afford to devote myself to a lost cause. The people, the Parliament, the Court, all hate Mazarin. The Queen keeps clinging to him and will never yield. It’s impossible to describe the sort of existence which the Court and the little King have been leading for the last year or two. You can only compare them to gipsies, what with their flights, returns, quarrels, wars, and so forth.
“We’ve had enough of it. The cause of young King Louis XIV is lost. I may add that Gaston d’Orllans’s daughter, Mademoiselle de Montpensier —you know, that big, loud-spoken girl—is a rabid Frondeuse. She was already fighting on the insurgents’ side a year ago. She’s clamouring to start again. My wife dotes on her, and her affection is returned. But this time I won’t let Alice enrol in a different party from mine. Putting a blue sash around your waist and a wheat-stalk on your hat wouldn’t matter much, if the separation of couples did not provoke other disorders. Now Alice is by nature cut out to be in the opposition. In opposition against garters for silk hose, against a fringe of hair for an uncovered brow, etc. She is quite a character. At present she is against the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, because the latter remarked that the lozenges Alice sucks for the care of her mouth remind her of a purging medicine. Nothing will
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induce the Marquise to return to Court, where she claims one’s bored by the Queen s devoutness and the pranks of the little King and his brother. So I shall follow my wife, since my wife won’t follow me. I am weak enough to find her stimulating and to appreciate certain amorous talents. . . . After all, the Fronde is a pleasant pastime. ...” ~
“But . . . but you don’t mean to say that Monsieur de Turcnne, too? . . .” stammered Armand de Sance, who felt the ground giving way under him.
“Oh! Monsieur deTurenne! Monsieur de Turenne! He’s like every¬body else. He doesn’t like to see his services underrated. He asked to have Sedan for his family. It was refused him. He became angry, as is natural. It appears he has already accepted the King of Spain’s proposals. Monsieur de Conde is in less of a hurry. Before making up his mind he is waiting to hear from his sister, Madame de Longueville, who has accompanied the Princesse de Conde to rouse Normandy. I must tell you that the Duchesse de Beaufort is here, too, and he is not indifferent to her charms. . . . For once, our great hero is not champing at the bit to go to war. You’ll for¬give him when you meet the goddess. . . . Her complexion, dear Cousin . . .”
Angelique, who was leaning against a screen, saw her father at a distance pull out his large handkerchief and wipe his forehead.
‘He’ll get nothing,* she told herself, with an aching heart. ‘What do they care about our mules and silver-lead mines?*