Angelique - Part 3. The Corridors of the Louvre Chapter 1 - Read online

“ENOUGH ! I-am bowed down with grief, and yet I must also suffer stupid people around me. If I weren't conscious of my rank, nothing would stop me from jumping of f this balcony to put an end to this existence!”
These bitter words, uttered in a piercing voice, brought Angelique running to the window of her own room. She saw a big woman in night attire, her face buried in a handkerchief, leaning from a neighbouring balcony. A lady approached as the sobbing continued, whereupon the woman started flailing her arms like a windmill.
“Idiot! Idiot! Leave me, I tell you! Thanks to your stupidity I’ll never be ready. Not that it matters, anyway. I am in mourning and need but shroud myself in my grief. Who cares if my head looks like a scarecrow!"
She ruffled her abundant hair and showed a face speckled with tears. She was a woman in her thirties with fine, aristocratic, but somewhat sagging, features.
“If Madame de Valbin is ill, who will dress my hair?" she cried dramatically. “You all have clumsier paws, the lot of you, than a bear at the fair of Saint-Germain !”
“Madame . . .“broke in Angelique.
The two balconies were at arm's length in this narrow street of Saint- Jcan-de-Luz, with its courtier-crammed hotels. Everyone knew what was going on at his neighbour's. Though dawn was just breaking, a pale, rosy dawn, the town was already buzzing like a bee-hive.
“Madame," Angelique repeated, “can I be of any help? I hear you're in trouble over your hair. I have a wigmaker who is clever with his irons and powders. He is at your disposal."
The lady dabbed her long red nose and uttered a deep sigh.
“You are very kind, my dear. I accept your proposal. I can't get any¬thing out of my servants this morning. The Spaniards' arrival puts them in as much of a frenzy as if they were on a battlefield in Flanders. And yet, I ask you, who’s the King of Spain?”
“He’s the King of Spain,” answered Angelique, laughing.
“Pah! His family, after all, does not approach ours in lineage. They're wading in gold, that’s a fact, but they are turnip-eaters and more boring than crows.”
“Oh, Madame, don’t deflate my enthusiasm. I am so delighted at the prospect of meeting all these princes. They say that King Philip IV and the Infanta, his daughter, will reach the Spanish shore today.”
“That’s possible. I, at any rate, shall not be able to greet them, for I’ll never finish dressing at this rate.”
“Have patience, Madame. Give me time to dress myself and I’ll bring you my wigmaker.” •
Angelique hurried back into her room, which was in a most appalling state of disorder. Margot and the maids were putting the finishing touches to their mistress’s sumptuous dress. The trunks were wide open, so were the jewel-boxes, and Florimond, bare-bottomed and on all fours, was crawling blissfully among these splendours.
‘Joffrey must tell me what jewels I should wear with this gold cloth dress,’ thought Angelique, removing her dressing-gown and slipping into a simple dress and a cloak.
She found Master Francois Binet on the ground floor of their lodgings, where he had spent the night curling the hair of the ladies of Toulouse, Angelique’s friends, and even of the maids, who wanted to look their best. He picked up his copper basin in case there were gentlemen to be shaved, and, his case filled to overflowing with combs, irons, ointments and false switches, and accompanied by a boy who carried his small stove, followed Angelique into the neighbouring house.
This dwelling was even more crowded than the one in which the Comte de Peyrac had been put up by an old aunt. Angelique noticed the beautiful livery of the servants and surmised that the tearful lady must be a person of high rank. To be on the safe side, she dropped a deep curtsy when she found herself in front of her.
“You are charming,’-’ said the lady with a doleful face, while the wig- maker was arranging his instruments on a stool. “If it weren’t for you, I’d have ruined my face with tears.”
“This isn’t a day for weeping,” protested Angelique.
“What can I do, my dear? I don’t feel up to all this rejoicing.”
Her lower lip drooped in a sad pout.
“Did you not notice my black dress? I have just lost my father.”
“Oh! I am so sorry. . . .”
“We detested each other and quarrelled so much that this very thought doubles my grief. But how annoying to be in mourning just during the celebrations! Knowing my father’s spiteful character, I suspect him . . .” She broke of f to bury her face in a cardboard cone which Binet was holding out to her while he sprinkled his client’s hair copiously with a scented powder. Angelique sneezed.
. . I suspect him of having done it on purpose,” concluded the lady as she emerged.
“Having done it on purpose? Done what, Madame?”
“Why, died, of course. But never mind. I forgive and forget. I am always a generous soul, whatever they may say. And my father had a Christian death—that is a great comfort to me. But what vexes me is that they should have taken his body to Saint-Denis with only a few guards, and almoners, no pomp, no expenses. . . . Don’t you think it’s intoler¬able?”
“I certainly do,” agreed Angelique, who was beginning to fear she might make a blunder. This lord who was buried at Saint-Denis must have belonged to the royal family. Unless she had misunderstood . . .
“If I’d been there, things would have been handled differently, believe me,” the lady went on, with a proud jerk of her chin. “I like pomp and keeping one’s rank.”
She fell silent and examined herself in the mirror which Francois Binet of fered her, kneeling, and her face lit up.
“Why, this is very good,” she cried. “What a becoming and flattering coiffure. Your wigmaker is an artist, my dear. I am quite aware that I have difficult hair.”
“Your Highness has fine but supple and abundant hair,” said the wig- maker with a learned air. “It’s with hair of this quality that one can com¬pose the most beautiful hair-styles.”
“Really! You flatter me. I shall give you a hundred crowns. Ladies!
. . . Ladies! This man simply must frizz the little ones.”
From the adjoining room, where ladies-of-honour and chambermaids were chattering, the ‘little ones’, two adolescent girls of an awkward age, appeared.
“These are your daughters, I presume?” inquired Angelique.
“No, they are my younger sisters. They are insufferable. Look at the little one: the only good thing about her is her complexion, and she managed to get herself bitten by those flies they call gnats, and now she’s all swollen. And on top of it she cries.”
“No doubt she is sad too about her father’s death?”
“Not at all. But she’s been told too of ten that she would marry the King; they called her nothing but ‘the little Queen*. Now she is vexed that he is marrying another.”
While the wigmaker was busying himself with the girls, there was a stir on the narrow staircase, and a young nobleman appeared on the doorstep. He was very small, with a doll-like fare that emerged from a frothy lace ruffle. There were several lace frills, too, at his cuffs and.
knees. Despite the early morning hour he was very carefully dressed.
“Cousin,” he said in a mannered voice, “I’ve been told that you have a wigmaker who's doing absolute wonders.”
“Ah, Philippe! You’re more wily than a pretty woman in picking up rumours of this sort. Tell me at least that I look beautiful.”
The young gentleman pursed his lips, which were very red and full, and scrutinised the hair-style with half-closed eyes.
“I must admit that this artist has made the most of your face, more than one could hope for,” he said with insolence tempered by a coquettish smile.
He went back into the ante-room and leaned over the balustrade.
“De Guiche, my dearest, do come, it’s the right place.”
Angelique recognised the gentleman who came in—a handsome, very dark and well-built lad—the Comte de Guiche, elder son of the Due de Gramont, Governor of the Bearn. The man called Philippe seized the Comte de Guiche by the arm and bent tenderly over his shoulder.
“Oh, how happy I am! We shall certainly have the most elegant hair¬styles at Court. Peguilin and the Marquis de Humieres will blench with jealousy. I saw them tearing after their barber, whom Vardes had snatched from them by means of a well-filled purse. These glorious captains of the bec$-de-corbin household guard will be reduced to appearing before the King with chins as bristly as chestnut-husks.”
He broke into somewhat shrill laughter, passed his hand over his freshly-shaved chin, then with a graceful gesture also caressed the Comte de Guiche’s check. He leaned against the young man with much abandon, and raised lovelorn eyes towards him. The Comte de Guiche, with a fatuous smile, received this homage without embarrassment. Angelique had never seen two men indulge in such behaviour and it nude her feel ill at ease. It did not seem to the liking of the mistress of the place, either, for she suddenly cried:
“Ah! Philippe, don’t come and parade your fawning ways here. Or else your mother will again accuse me of encouraging your perverse instincts. Ever since the ball at Lyons where you, I and Mademoiselle de Villeroy dressed up as peasant-women of the Bresse, she’s been reproach¬ing me on your account. And don’t tell me that little Peguilin is in trouble or I’ll send a man to bring him here. Let’s see if I can’t get a glimpse of him. He is the most remarkable fellow I know, and I adore him.”
In her noisy and impulsive manner, she rushed out on the balcony again, then recoiled with a hand over her \ast bosom.
“Oh, my God, here he is!”
“Peguilin?” inquired the little nobleman.
“No, the gentleman from Toulouse who frightens me so.”
Angelique too went out on the balcony and saw her husband, the Comte Joffrey de Peyrac, coming down the street followed by Kouassi-Ba.
“Why, it’s the Great Lame Man of Languedoc!” exclaimed the young lord, who had joined them. “Why are you afraid of him, Cousin? He has the most gentle eyes, a caressing hand and a brilliant mind.”
“You talk like a woman,” said the lady with disgust. “It seems that all the women are crazy about him.”
“Except you.”
“I never stray into sentimentality. I only know what I sec. Don’t you think this sombre, hobbling man with his hell-blade Moor has something terrifying about him?”
The Comte de Guiche was throwing agonised glances at Angelique and twice was about to open his mouth. She motioned to him to keep silent. This conversation amused her greatly.
“That’s just it: you don’t know how to look at a man with a woman’s eyes,” said young Philippe. “You remember that this nobleman refused to bend his knee before Monsieur d’Orleans, and that’s enough to put your back up.”
“It’s true that he did, at the time, show rare insolence. . . .”
At this moment Joffrey raised his eyes towards the balcony. He stopped, then doffing his plumed hat, bowed very deeply several times.
“You see how unfair public rumour is,” said the young lord. “This man is said to be full of arrogance and yet . . . could one possibly salute more gracefully? What do you think, my dear boy?”
“The Comte de Peyrac de Morens is certainly well known for his courtesy,” the Comte de Guiche hastened to reply, “and remember the marvellous reception we had in Toulouse.”
“Yes, it’s still rankling in the King’s memory. This doesn’t prevent His Majesty being most impatient to know if the lame man’s wife is really as beautiful as they say. It seems to him inconceivable that such a man can be loved. . . .”
Angelique withdrew on tiptoe and, taking Francois Binet aside, lightly pinched his ear.
“Your master is back and will be asking for you. Don’t let your head be turned by the crowns you get from all these people, or I’ll have you soundly thrashed.”
“Don’t worry, Madame. I shall finish attending to this young lady and then I’ll slip away.”
She went downstairs and returned to her own house. She was thinking that she liked this Binet, not only for his good taste and skill, but also for his shrewd cunning, his underling’s philosophy. He used to say that he addresses everyone of the nobility as a ‘highness* to be sure of not offend¬ing anybody.
In her room, which was in even worse disarray than before, Angelique found her husband with a napkin tied around his neck, waiting for the barber.
“Well, little lady,” he cried, “you’re losing no time. I leave you, fast asleep, to gather news and learn the order of the ceremonies, and an hour later I find you leaning over a balcony elbow-to-clbow with the Duchesse de Montpensier and Monsieur, the King’s brother.”
“The Duchesse de Montpensier! The Grande Mademoiselle!” ex¬claimed Angelique. “By all the Saints! I should have guessed it when she talked of her father being buried at Saint-Denis.”
As she undressed, Angelique related how, quite by chance, she had made the acquaintance of the famous lady rebel, the old maid of the kingdom, who now, after the death of her father, Gaston d’Orleans, was the richest heiress in France.
“So her young half-sisters, the Mcsdemoiselles de Valois and d’Alen^on are those who will carry the Queen’s train at the wedding. Binct has dressed their hair too.”
The barber appeared, out of breath, and started lathering his master’s chin. Angelique was in her chemise, but propriety hardly mattered at this stage. What mattered was to make haste to join the King, who had asked that all the nobles of his Court come and greet him that very morning. Afterwards, with all the excitement of the meeting with the Spaniards, there would be no more time for presentations.
Margot, with her mouth full of pins, handed Angelique a petticoat of gold cloth, then a second one of gold lace as fine as filigree, with a pattern outlined in precious stones.
“And you say that effeminate young man is the King’s brother?” inquired Angelique. “He behaved strangely with the Comte de Guiche; one might positively think he was in love with him. Oh,Joffrey! do you really think that . . . that they . . .”
“That’s what is called the Italian fashion of love,” said the Comte, laughing. “Our neighbours beyond the Alps are people of such refine¬ment that they are not content with the simple pleasures of nature. We owe to them the birth of letters and the arts, to be sure, as well as a rascally Minister whose cleverness has at times been useful to France, but we are also indebted to them for the introduction of those peculiar ways. It’s a pity the King’s own brother should have taken to them.”
Angelique frowned.
“The Prince said that you had a caressing hand. I’d like to know how he found out.”
“My word, the Petit Monsieur is so fond of rubbing up against men, he may have asked me to help him straighten his cuffs. He never loses an opportunity to get himself petted.”
“He spoke of you in terms that almost roused my jealousy.”
“Oh, my darling, if you start to get ruffled, you’ll soon be submerged in intrigues. The Court is one immense, sticky spider’s web. You’ll get caught up in it if you don’t look at things from a high point of vantage.”
Francois Binet, who was as talkative as all men of his profession, spoke
UP;
“I’ve been told that Cardinal Mazarin encouraged the Petit Monsieur’s taste so as to avoid any clash between him and his brother. He ordered him to be dressed as a girl and had his little friends put on the same disguise. As the King’s brother, there is a constant fear that he might start plotting, like the late Monsieur Gaston d’Orleans, who was so insuffer¬able.”
“You judge your Princes rather harshly, barber,” said Joffrey de Peyrac.
“The only thing I own, your lordship, is my tongue and the right to wag it.”
“Liar! I made you richer than the King’s wigmaker.”
“That is true, your lordship, but I am not boasting of it. It’s imprudent to arouse envy.”
Joffrey dc Peyrac dipped his face into a bowl of rose water to cool it from the razor’s smart. His scar-seamcd face always turned shaving into a long and delicate operation, to which Binet’s remarkable lightness of touch was essential. He slipped of f his dressing-gown and started to dress with the help of his valet and Alphonso.
Angelique, meanwhile, had put on her cloth of gold bodice and stood motionless while Marguerite fastened the front, a genuine work of art of filigree gold interlaced with silks. A gold lace put a sparkling froth around her bare shoulders, giving her flesh a pale shimmer, a porcelain translucency. With the soft pink glow of her cheeks, her blackened eyebrows and lashes, her wavy hair that reflected the same glints as her dress, the startling transparency of her eyes, she saw herself in the mirror like a strange idol made entirely of precious stuffs: gold, marble, emerald.
Margot suddenly gave a cry and rushed towards Florimond, who was about to put a six-carat diamond in his mouth. . . .
“Joffrey, what jewels should I wear? Pearls seem to me too demure, diamonds too hard.”
“Emeralds,” he said, “in harmony with your eyes; all this gold is insolent, it is rather heavy. Your eyes lighten it, make it come alive. You need ear-rings and the gold-and-emerald choker. You can slip in a few diamonds with your rings.”
Bending over her jewel-box, Angelique concentrated on the choice of trinkets. She was not yet blase, and this profusion still enchanted her. When she turned round, the Comte de Peyrac was fastening his sword to a diamond-studded belt.
She gave him a long look and an unfamiliar shiver ran through her.
“I believe the Grande Demoiselle wasn't altogether wrong when she said there was something terrifying about you.”
“It would be vain for me to try and hide my deformities,” said the Comte. “If I tried to dress like a fop, I’d be ridiculous and pitiful. So I attune my costume to my face.”
She looked at his face. It belonged to her. She had caressed it, she knew its slightest furrows. She smiled and murmured: “My love!”
The Comte was clothed entirely in black and silver. His cloak of black watered silk was veiled with silver lace fastened with diamond studs. Underneath the cloak could be seen a silver brocade doublet trimmed with black lace of a very intricate needle-point. The same lace fell in three frills from his knees below the dark velvet petticoat-breeches. The shoes had diamond buckles. The cravat, which did not take the form of a band but of a large bow, was also embroidered with very small diamonds. His fingers wore a multitude of diamonds and one very large ruby.
The Comte put on a hat with white plumes and asked if Kouassi-Ba had taken care of the presents that they would of fer the King for his fiancee. The negro was outside, in front of the door, an object of admiration for all the sightseers, with his cherry-red velvet doublet, his ample Turkish- style pantaloons and his turban, both of white satin. People pointed to his curved sabre. He was carrying, on a cushion, a very beautiful red morocco case with gold studs.
Two sedan-chairs were waiting for the Comte and Angelique.
They quickly reached the mansion where the King, his mother and the Cardinal were staying. Like all the residences in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, it was a house in Spanish style, garlanded with balustrades and twisted gilt-wood banisters. The courtiers overflowed into the square, where the plumes on their hats fluttered in the wind, which carried with it the salty tang of the sea.
Angelique felt her heart beating fast as she crossed the threshold.
‘I am going to see the King/ she thought, ‘the Queen Mother, the Cardinal !’
How dose to her this young King had always been—assailed by hostile Paris crowds, fleeing through a France ravaged by civil war, driven from town to town, from chateau to chateau, at the mercy of the princely factions, betrayed, deserted, and eventually victorious. Now he was harvesting the fruit of his struggles. And even more than the King, the woman whom Angelique perceived at the far end of the room—her black veils, her mat Spanish complexion, her distant yet affable air, her perfect little hands lying on her dark dress—the Queen Mother was relishing this hour of triumph.
Angelique and her husband moved across the chamber with its shiny parquet floor. Two little blackamoors held up Angelique’s court mantle, which was of curled and chiselled gold cloth in contrast to the gleaming gold lame of her skirt and bodice. The giant Kouassi-Ba followed them. It was hard to see, and it was very warm because of the heavy tapestries and the throng.
The First Gentleman of the King’s Household announced:
“Comte de Peyrac de Morens d’lrristru.”
Angelique curtsied deeply. Her heart was in her throat. Before her loomed a black mass and a red mass: the Queen Mother and the Cardinal.
She thought:
‘Joffrey ought to bow more deeply. He bowed so beautifully to the Grande Mademoiselle. But in front of the mightiest he affects merely to move his foot a little. . . . Binet is right . . . Binet is right. . . /
It was silly to be thinking of Binet and to keep telling herself that he was right. What made her do it?
A voice was saying:
“We are pleased to see you again, Monsieur, and to compliment ... to admire the Comtesse, of whom we had already such favourable reports. But, contrary to the rule, we find that for once the fame falls short of the reality.”
Angelique raised her eyes. They met a brown, bright pair of eyes that rested on her very attentively: the King’s eyes.
Richly dressed, and of medium height, he held himself so erect that he looked more imposing than any of his courtiers. Angelique found his skin rather pitted from smallpox and his nose too long, but his mouth was strong and sensuous under the lightly-traced brown line of his moustache. His abundant, chestnut-coloured hair fell in cascading curb that owed nothing to the artifice of a wig. Louis had fine legs and graceful hands.
Under the laces and ribbons, one sensed a supple, vigorous body, used to hunting and horsemanship.
‘Nounou would say: “He is a handsome так.” They are wise to marry him of f/ thought Angelique.
She again upbraided herself for having such vulgar thoughts at such a solemn moment of her life.
The Queen Mother asked to see the inside of the case which Kouassi-Ba had just presented, kneeling, his forehead touching the ground, in the attitude of one of the Three Wise Men. There were exclamations of delight at the sight of the little travelling-case of trifles, with its boxes and combs, scissors, crochet-hooks, seals, all in massive gold and island tortoise-shell. But the portable shrine particularly delighted the devout ladies who composed the retinue of the Queen Mother. The latter smiled and crossed herself. The crucifix and the two statuettes of Spanish saints, as well as the night-light and censer, were of gold and silver-gilt. Joffrcy de Peyrac had commissioned an Italian artist to paint a gilt-wood triptych representing the scenes of the Passion. These miniatures were beautiful and their colours exquisitely fresh. Anne of Austria declared that the Infanta, who was reputed to be very pious, was sure to be delighted with this present.
She turned towards the Cardinal to show him the paintings, but he was lingering over the dainty instruments in the case, which he was gently turning between his fingers.
“It is said that gold flows from the hollow of your hands, Monsieur de Peyrac, as a spring of water flows from a rock/*
“The image is correct, Your Eminence,” the Comte answered softly, “as a spring from a rock indeed . . . but a rock that had first been mined by dint of quantities of fuse and powder, dug out to unbelievable depths, a rock blown to bits, crushed and ground down. Then indeed, by labour, sweat and effort, gold may well gush forth, and even in abundance.”
“This is a very fine parable about toil that bears fruit. We are not accustomed to hearing people of your rank talk in this way, but I confess it does not displease me.”
Mazarin was still smiling; he raised to his face a small mirror from the dressing-case and cast a quick glance at it. Despite the paints and powder with which he tried to conceal his yellow complexion, a moisture of exhaustion glistened on his temples and dampened his curb under the red cardinal’s cap. For long months he had been worn down by illness; he at least had not lied when he had given his failing health as a pretext for not being the first to appear before Don Luis de Haro, the Spanish ^Minister. Angelique caught a glance from the Queen Mother towards the Cardinal, the glance of an anxious, worrying woman. She was probably dying to say: ‘Don’t talk so much, you’re tiring yourself. It’s time for your herb- tea.*
Was it true that she had loved her Italian, this Queen who had for so long been spurned by her too chaste husband? . . . Everybody said so, but nobody was sure. The hidden stairs of the Louvre kept their secret well. Only one human being, perhaps, knew, and that was this fiercely protected son, the King. In the letters which the Cardinal and the Queen exchanged, did they not call him the Confidant? Confidant of what? . . .
“I should like to discuss your work with you some time,” said the Cardinal.
The young King added with spirit:
“So should I. What I have heard arouses my curiosity.”
“I am at the disposal of Your Majesty and Your Eminence.”
The audience was over.
Angelique and her husband went to greet Monseigneur de Frontenac, whom they noticed in the Cardinal’s immediate entourage. Then they made the round of the great personages and their relatives. Angelique’s back ached from all the curtsies, but she was in such a state of excitement and pleasure that she was not aware of her fatigue. The compliments addressed to her convinced her that she was admired. It was certain that she and Joffrey formed a couple that attracted a good deal of attention.
While her husband was conversing with the Marechal de Gramont, a young man of short build but pleasant features planted himself before Angelique.
“Do you recognise me, Goddess just descended from the Sun’s chariot?”
“Why, of course!” she cried, delighted. “You are Peguilin.”
Then she apologised:
“I’m being very familiar, Monsieur de Lauzun, but I can’t help it: I hear everyone speak of Peguilin. Peguilin here, Peguilin there! Everyone has so much affection for you that, without having seen you again, I fell in with all the rest.”
“You are adorable, and you delight not only my eyes, but my heart. Do you know that you are the most extraordinary woman in this gather¬ing? I know of ladies who are about to break their fans to pieces and tear their handkerchiefs with jealousy over your dress. How will you look on the day of the wedding, if you appear like this today?”
“Oh! on that day I’ll keep in the background before the pageantry of the processions. But today it was my first presentation to the King. I am still so thrilled.”
“Did you find him gracious ?”
“How can one fail to fmd the King gracious?” said Angelique, laughing.
“I see that you are already well primed on what to say and what not to say at Court. I myself, goodness knows by what miracle, am still at Court. I have even been appointed captain of the company that is called ‘the gentlemen of the becs-de-corbin”
“I admire your uniform.”
“It is not unbecoming. . . . Yes, indeed, the King is a charming friend, but look out! You must not scratch him too hard when you play with him.”
He bent over her ear.
“Do you know I was almost sent to the Bastille?”
“What did you do?”
“I no longer remember. I believe I hugged the little Marie Mancini a bit too closely, and the King was madly in love with her. A lettre de cachet, the King’s private warrant of arrest, was ready; I was warned in time. I threw myself in tears at the King’s feet and made him laugh so much that he pardoned me. So instead of sending me to the dark prison, he made me a captain. You see, he is a charming friend . . . when he is not your enemy.”
“Why do you tell me this?” Angelique asked.
Peguiiin de Lauzun gazed at her disarmingly with his bright eyes.
“For no reason at all, my dear.”
He took her arm familiarly and pulled her along.
“Come, I want to introduce you to some friends who are dying to meet you.
The friends turned out to be young members of the King’s suite. She was delighted to fmd herself thus on an equal footing with the foremost persons of the Court. Saint-Thierry, Brienne, Cavois, Ondedei, the Marquis d’Humieres, Louvigny, the Due de Gramont’s second son, all seemed very gay and gallant and were dressed magnificently. She also saw de Guiche, to whom the King’s brother was still clinging. The latter cast her a hostile glance.
“Oh! I recognise her,” he said.
And he turned his back.
“Don’t take of fence at his manners, my dear,” whispered Peguiiin. “The Petit Monsieur sees all women as rivals for de Guiche, and de Guiche made the mistake of giving you a friendly glance.”
“You know, he no longer wishes to be called the Petit Monsieur,” remarked the Marquis d’Humieres. “Since his uncle, Gaston d'Orleans, died, one has to address him as just ‘Monsieur’.”
There was a commotion in the crowd, followed by a jostling, and several eager hands reached out to steady Ang61ique.
“Be careful, gentlemen,” cried Lauzun, raising a schoolmasterly finger, “remember a famous sword in Languedoc!”
But the crush was such that Angelique, laughing and a little confused, could not avoid being pressed against some precious, beribboned doublets that smelled pleasandy of iris powder and amber. The King’s of ficers were making room for a procession of lackeys carrying silver platters and pots. Word went round that Their Majesties and the Cardinal had just retired for a few moments to have a bit to eat and to rest after the ceaseless presentations.
Lauzun and his friends departed to return to their duties. Angelique looked about for her friends from Toulouse. At first she had been appre¬hensive of running into the fiery Carmencita, but she had just learned that Monsieur de Merecourt, having drunk his bitter cup to the dregs, had suddenly decided, in an upsurge of dignity, to send his wife to a convent. He was being repaid for this ill-considered move with a smarting disgrace,
Angelique began to wend her way through the various groups. The smell of roasts, added to that of perfumes, was giving her a headache. The heat was stifling. She had a good appetite. She told herself that the morning must be far advanced and that, if she did not find her husband within the next few moments, she would return to their house alone and have some ham and wine.
The people from her province must have foregathered at one of their own lodgings for a meal. She saw around her nothing but unknown faces. Those accentless voices produced an odd impression on her. Had she herself, during these years spent in Languedoc, perhaps caught that quick-fire, singsong way of speech? The thought was a little humiliating.
Eventually she found herself in a recess under the stairs and sat down on a bench to catch her breath and fan herself. It was definitely no easy matter to find one’s way out of these Spanish houses with their hidden corridors and false doors.
A few steps away, the tapestry-covered wall revealed a narrow open¬ing. Angelique glanced through it and saw the royal family gathered around a table in the company of the Cardinal, the two Archbishops of Bayonne and Toulouse, the Marechal de Gramont and Monsieur de Lionne. The of ficers serving the Princes were coming and going through another door.
The King shook his hair back several times and fanned himself with his napkin.
“The heat in this part of the country spoils the most festive occasions.**
“It's pleasanter on the Pheasant Island. There the breeze blows in from the sea/’ said Monsieur de Lionne.
“I won’t have much opportunity to enjoy it, since I won’t be allowed, by Spanish etiquette, to see my fiancee before the wedding day.”
“But you’ll be going to the Pheasant Island to meet your uncle, the King of Spain, who will become your father-in-law,” the Queen told him. “And then the peace will be signed.”
She turned towards Madame de Motteville, her lady-in-waiting.
“It all moves me very much. I was very fond of my brother and of ten corresponded with him. But imagine, I was twelve years old when I left him on this very shore, and I have never seen him since.”
There were exclamations of sympathy. Nobody seemed to remember that this same brother, Philip IV, had been France’s greatest enemy, and that his correspondence with Anne of Austria had caused Cardinal Richelieu to suspect her of conspiracy and treason. Those events were now far away. Hope in the new alliance was as strong as it had been fifty years ago, when on this same river Bidassoa the two countries had ex¬changed little round-cheeked Princesses, wedged into their stiff, fluted ruffs: Anne of Austria, to marry the young Louis XIII, and Elizabeth of France the little Philip IV. The Infanta Maria-Thercsa, who was expected today, was the daughter of Elizabeth.
With passionate curiosity Angclique watched the great ones of the world in their privacy. The King was eating heartily, but with dignity; he drank little and several times asked for water to be mixed in his wine.
“Upon my word,” he cried suddenly, “the most extraordinary sight this morning was, beyond doubt, that odd black and gold couple from Toulouse. What a woman, my friends! A marvel! I’d been told so but couldn’t believe it. And she seems sincerely in love with him. In fact, that Lame One bewilders me.”
“He bewilders all those who meet him,” said the Archbishop of Toulouse acidly. “I, who have known him for several years, have given up trying to understand him. There is something diabolical beneath it all.”
‘There he goes, drivelling nonsense again,* thought Angelique sadly.
Her heart had throbbed pleasantly at the King’s words, but the Arch-bishop's* remark aroused her worries again. The prelate was unrelenting.
One of the gentlemen of the monarch’s suite said with a little laugh:
“To be in love with one’s husband! It really is ludicrous. This young person would do well to spend a little time at Court. She’d soon lose her silly prejudices.”
“You seem to believe, sir, that the Court is a place where adultery is the only law,” sternly protested Anne of Austria. “As though it were not good and natural for husband and wife to love each other. There is nothing ludicrous about it.”
“But it is so rare,” sighed Madame de Motteville.
“That’s because it is rare for a couple to marry for love,” said the King in a resigned tone of voice.
There was a moment’s constrained silence. The Queen Mother ex¬changed an anxious glance with the Cardinal. Monseigneur de Frontenac raised his hand with unction.
“Sire, do npt distress yourself. If the ways of Providence are unfathom¬able, the ways of the little god Eros are no less so. And since you mention an example that seems to have touched you, I can assure you that that gentleman and his wife had never met before their wedding, which was solemnised by me in the cathedral of Toulouse. And yet, after a union of several years crowned by the birth of a son, the love they bear each other strikes even the most unobservant eye.”
Anne of Austria looked grateful, and Monseigneur puffed himself up.
‘Is he a hypocrite or sincere?’ wondered Angelique.
The Cardinal’s rather lisping voice spoke:
“I had the impression of watching a spectacle this morning. That man is ugly, crippled, disfigured, and yet when he appeared at the side of his gorgeous wife, followed by that huge Moor in white satin, I thought: ‘How beautiful they are!’ ”
“It’s a change from all those boring faces,” said the King. “Is it true he has a magnificent voice?”
“That’s what they say.”
The gentleman who had already spoken gave a little sneer.
“It really is a most touching story, almost a fairy tale. You only hear of the likes of them down in the south.”
“Oh! you’re insufferable to make light of everything,” protested the Queen Mother again. “Your cynicism displeases me, sir.”
The courtier bowed his head and, as the conversation was resumed, he pretended to take an interest in a dog which was worrying a bone in the recess of the door. Seeing him look towards her hiding-place, Angelique quickly got up and moved away. She took a few steps through the ante¬room, but her heavy cloak got caught on the drawer-handles of a pier- table. While she was bending down to disengage herself, the young man kicked the dog aside, came out and closed behind him the little door hidden by the tapestry. Having aroused the Queen Mother’s displeasure, he deemed it wise to make a discreet exit.
He advanced nonchalantly, passed close to Angelique, then turned round to examine her.
“Oh! Why, it’s the woman in gold!”
She gave him a haughty stare and made to continue on her way, but he barred her path.
“Not so fast! Let me contemplate this phenomenon. So you are the lady who is in love with her husband? And what a husband! An Adonis!” She looked at him with quiet contempt. He was taller than she and very well built. His face was not without beauty, but his narrow mouth had an evil expression and his almond-shaped eyes were yellow, speckled with brown. This indeterminate, rather vulgar colour somewhat spoiled his looks. He was dressed with taste and refinement. His fair, almost white, wig contrasted attractively with his youthful features.
Angelique could not help being impressed by him, but she said coldly: “Yes indeed, you can hardly be compared to him. In my province, eyes like yours are called ‘worm-eaten apples*. You see what I mean? As for your hair, my husband’s is at least genuine.”
An expression of hurt vanity darkened the gentleman’s face.
“It’s a lie,” he cried, “he wears a wig.”
“You can always try and pull it of f, if you feel brave enough.”
She had touched a sore point and she suspected him of wearing a wig because he was beginning to go bald. But he recovered his self-control very quickly. He half-closed his eyes till they were mere glowing slits. “So you are trying to bite? This little provincial has too many talents!” He cast a glance round, then seized her wrists and pushed her into the recess under the stairs.
“Let me go!” said Angelique.
“In a moment, my pretty one. But we have a little account to settle first.”
Before she could foresee his action, he had pulled her head back and was cruelly biting her lips. Angelique gave a scream. Her hand promptly lunged forward and came down on her tormentor’s cheek. Years of elegant manners had not diminished her stock of peasant violence coupled with her natural vigour. When her anger was roused, she had the same reactions as in the old days when she would go after her little peasant play¬mates tooth and nail. The slap echoed resoundingly and must have dazed him, for he recoiled with his hand to his cheek.
“Upon my word, a real washerwoman’s slap!”
“Let me pass,” repeated Angelique, “or 1*11 disfigure you so thoroughly you won’t be able to appear before the King.”
He felt she would carry out her promise and moved back a step.
“Oh! I’d like to have you in my power for a whole night,” he mur¬mured through clenched teeth. “I promise you I’d bring you to heel by dawn, you'd be a limp rag.”
“That’s it,” she said, laughing, “ponder over your revenge . . . while holding your cheek.”
She moved of f and pushed her way through to the door. The crowd had thinned, for many people had gone to refresh themselves. Indignant and humiliated, Angelique was dabbing her wounded lip with her handkerchief. ,
‘If only it does not show too much. . . . Whatever shall I say if Joffrey asks a question? I must prevent him from running his sword through that beast. Although he might just laugh. . . . He's the last to harbour any illusions about the manners of these fine gentlemen of the north. . . . I’m beginning to see what he means when he talks of the need of policing Court manners . . . but that’s a task for which I, for one, feel little inclination. . . .'
She tried to distinguish her sedan-chair and her footmen among the jostling throng in the square.
An arm slipped under hers.
“I was looking for you, my dear,” said the Grande Mademoiselle, whose tall frame had loomed up next to her. “I am mortified when I think of all die nonsense I spoke this morning in your presence without knowing who you were. Alas, on a festive day, when you lack your usual comfort, your nerves get the better of you and the tongue wags carelessly.”
“Your Highness has no need to worry, you said nothing that wasn’t true, or else flattering. I recall only the flattery.”
“You are kindness itself. I am delighted to have you as a neighbour. . . . You will lend me your wigmaker again, won’t you? Is your time free? Suppose we sit in the shade and peck at some grapes? What do you think? Those Spaniards take an unconscionable amount of time to arrive. . . .”
“I am at Your Highness’s disposal,” answered Angelique, with a curtsy.
The next morning, the programme called for a visit to the Pheasant Island to watch the King of Spain eat. The whole Court was jostling in the boats and wetting their fine shoes. The ladies uttered little cries as they hitched up their skirts.
Angelique, dressed in green and white satin with silver embroideries, found herself kidnapped by Peguilin and sitting between a witty-looking Princess and the Marquis d'Humieres. The Petit Monsieur, who was among the party, laughed a great deal, recalling the dismal face of his brother, obliged to remain on the French shore. Louis XIV was not allowed to see the Infanta before the marriage by proxy had made her Queen on the Spanish shore. Only then could he himself come to the Pheasant Island, pledge peace and carry away his fabulous conquest. The real wedding would be celebrated at Saint-Jcan-de-Luz by the Bishop of Bayonne.
The boats were gliding over the calm water, laden with their sparkling charges. They touched land. While Angclique was waiting her turn to go ashore, one of the noblemen put his foot on the bench on which she was sitting and with his high wooden heel crushed her fingers. She checked a cry of pain. Looking up, she recognised the gentleman who had so wickedly molested her the previous day.
“That is the Marquis de Vardes,” said the young Princess at her side. “He did it on purpose, of course.*’
“A real brute!” complained Angelique. “How can so gross a person be tolerated in the King’s retinue?”
“He amuses the King with his impudence; besides, he pulls in his claws before His Majesty. But he has a bad name at Court. They have made a little song about him.”
She hummed:
“Without in buffalo hide being clad One can behave like a savage,
A beastly snout sticks out, ’tis sad,
From handsome cloak and carriage.
Who says ‘de Vardcs’ has said ‘the cad*.”
“Be quiet, Henriette!” cried the King’s brother. “If Madame de Soissons were to hear you, she’d fly into a rage and complain to His Majesty that her favourite was being mocked.”
“Pah! Madame de Soissons no longer enjoys His Majesty’s favour. Now that the King takes a wife . . .”
“Where did you learn, Madame, that a wife, be she the Infanta, can have more influence over her husband than a former mistress?” asked Lauzun.
“Oh, gentlemen! Oh, ladies!” whined Madame de Motteville, “for mercy’s sake! Is this a time to indulge in such talk when the grandees of Spain are advancing to meet us?”
Dark and wizened, her face seamed with wrinkles, Madame de Mottc- ville, with her black dress and prudish airs, fitted oddly into this boat-load of wigs and chattering dandies. The presence of Anne of Austria’s lady- in-waiting was not, perhaps, entirely due to chance. The Queen Mother had instructed her to watch over the words of these mad young people, who were used to tearing each other to shreds and who might hurt Spanish susceptibilities.
Angelique was beginning to tire of these frivolous, scandalmongering people, whose vices were only lightly veiled by a complicated courtesy. She heard the dark-haired Duchcsse de Soissons say to one of her women- friends:
“My dear, I found two runners whom I am very proud of . I had indeed heard praise of the Basques as being lighter than the wind. They can cover at a run more than twenty miles a day. Don’t you agree that to be preceded by runners who announce you and barking dogs that scatter the populace is awfully elegant?”
These words recalled to Angelique that Jeffrey, who was fond of dis¬playing luxury, still disapproved of this custom of having runners precede a carriage. As a matter of fact, where was Joffrey ?
She had not seen him since the previous night. He had dropped in at their house to dress and shave, but at that moment she was still with the Grande Demoiselle. Angelique herself had had to change three or four times, in great haste and nervous irritation. She had only slept a few hours, but the liberal amount of good wine of fered on all occasions was keeping her awake. She had given up worrying about Florimond; in three or four days there would be time to inquire whether the servants had given him his food instead of running of f to admire the carriages or to be teased by the pages and footmen of the royal household. Anyway, Margot was keeping watch. Her Huguenot background was out of harmony with festivities and, while she was eagerly attending to every detail of her mistress’s person and wardrobe, she was very strict with the servants under her command.
Angelique at last caught sight of Joffrey in the throng that was pressing inside the house situated in the middle of the island. She squeezed through to him and touched him with her fan. He looked down on her absent- mindedly.
“Ah! there you are.”
“I miss you awfully, Joffrey. But you don’t seem very pleased to see me. Do you too bow to the prejudice that ridicules conjugal love? I believe you are ashamed of me.”
He recovered his frank smile and seized her waist.
“No, my love. But you were in such princely and pleasant com¬pany. . . .”
“Oh! very pleasant,” said Angelique, passing a fmger over her bruised palm. “I may come out of it with my bones broken. What have you been doing since yesterday?”
“I met friends, talked of this and that. Have you seen the King of Spain?”
“No, not yet.”
“Let’s go into this room. They are laying the table. According to Spanish etiquette, the King of Spain must cat alone and follow a very complex ceremonial.”
The room was hung with high tapestries that depicted the history of the Kingdom of Spain in pale bronze shades tinged with red and grey-blue. The place was crowded to the bursting-point.
The two Courts rivalled each other in luxury and magnificence. The Spaniards outdid the French in gold and precious stones, but the latter triumphed in fashion and elegance of attire. The young men of Louis XIV’s suite sported, that day, grey moiri coats covered with gold lace and fastened with flame-coloured studs; the lining was of gold cloth, the doublets were of gold brocade. The hats, adorned with white plumes, were turned up on one side, the brim held with a diamond pin. They laughed and pointed at the old-fashioned long moustaches of the Spanish grandees and their clothes laden with massive and outdated embroideries.
“Did you see those flat hats with their meagre little plumes?” whispered Peguilin, giggling.
“And the ladies! A row of old beanstalks with their bones sticking out under their mantillas.” ,
“In this country, the good-looking wives remain at home behind barred windows.”
“It seems the Infanta still wears a hoop-skirt with iron hoops of such dimensions that she has to go through a door sideways.”
“Her corset is so tight that she seems to have no breasts at all, and yet she is supposed to have pretty ones,” added Madame de Mottetille, making the laces puff out over her own meagre bust.
Joffrey de Peyrac looked down at her with a caustic eye.
“The tailors of Madrid must truly be inexperienced thus to spoil what is beautiful, when our Paris tailors are so clever at making the most of what has ceased to be so.”
Angelique pinched him under his velvet sleeve. He laughed, kissed her hand with an air of connivance. It occurred to her that he was hiding some secret concern from her; then, distracted by other things, she thought no more of it. There fell a sudden silence. The King of Spain had come in. Angelique, who was not very tall, managed to climb on a stool.
“He looks like a mummy,” whispered Peguilin irrepressibly.
Philip IV had, indeed, a complexion of parchment colour. Thin and exhausted blood gave a pink glow to his cheeks. He walked to the table with the steps of an automaton. The big, mournful eyes did not blink. His undershot jaw supported a red lower lip which, adorned with sparse coppery hair, emphasised his sickly appearance. Imbued with his own almost divine grandeur as a sovereign, he made no movement that was not strictly required by etiquette. Paralysed by the bonds of power, lonely at his little table, he ate as if conducting a service.
A commotion in the ever-growing crowd suddenly pushed the first rows forward. The King's table was almost knocked over. The atmo¬sphere became breathless. Philip IV was incommoded by it. He could be seen to raise his hand to his throat and fight for air by loosening his lace ruff a little. But almost immediately he resumed his hieratic pose, like an actor conscientious to the point of martyrdom.
“Who’d think this ghost could beget with the ease of a farmyard cock?” said the incorrigible Peguilin when the meal was over and they were outside again. “His natural children squeal in the corridors of his palace, and his second wife never stops giving birth to puny little things that promptly pass from the cradle to the garbage-heap of the Escorial.” “The last one died during my father’s embassy in Madrid, when he went there to ask for the Infanta's hand,” said Louvigny, the Due de Gramont’s younger son. “Another has been bom since and only has a breath of life.”
The Marquis d’Humieres cried enthusiastically:
“He’ll die, and then who’ll be heiress to the throne of Charles V? The Infanta, our Queen.”
“Your eyes are too big and you look too far ahead,” protested the Due de Bouillon pessimistically.
“How do you know this prospect was not foreseen by His Excellency the Cardinal and even by His Majesty?”
“No doubt, no doubt, but too lofty ambitions are not good for peace.” His long nose pointing towards the wind from die sea, as if he were sniffing something suspicious, the Due de Bouillon grumbled:
“Peace! Peace! It will take less than ten years for it to topple over!”
It didn’t even take two hours. Suddenly, all was lost and there were rumours that the marriage was off.
Don Luis de Haro and Cardinal Mazarin had waited too long to setde the last details of the peace and specify the strategic villages, roads and frontiers which both of them hoped the other would give up in a fine burst of festive enthusiasm. Neither of them would yield. The war would go on. There was half a day of anguished flutters. Then the god of love was made to intervene between the betrothed who had never seen each other, and Ondedei was able to transmit a message to the Infanta in which she was told of the King's impatience to meet her. A daughter has supreme powers over her father s heart. Obedient though she was, the Infanta had no wish to return to Madrid after having been so close to ‘the sun. . . .* She made it clear to Philip IV that she wanted her husband, and the order of ceremonies, after a momentary upset, resumed its course.
The wedding by proxy took place on the Spanish shore at San Sebastian. The Grande Demoiselle took Angelique along with her. The daughter of Gaston d’Orleans, still mourning her father, was not supposed to attend. But she decided to appear incognito, that is to say, she tied a satin scarf over her hair and used no powder.
The procession through the streets of the town seemed a weird mas-querade to the French. A hundred dancers dressed in white, with bells on their legs, advanced juggling with their swords, followed by fifty masked boys beating their Basque drums. After them came three wicker-frame giants dressed up as Moorish kings, reaching to the upper storey of the houses. There followed a giant Saint Christopher, a frightful dragon bigger than six whales and, finally, under a dais, the Holy Sacrament in a gigantic gold monstrance, before which the crowd kneeled.
These baroque pantomimes, this mystical extravaganza left the foreigners agog. Inside the church, behind the tabernacle, a staircase adorned with a million candles rose up towards the roof.
Angelique stared, dazzled, at this burning bush. The heavy smell of incense added to the unusual, Moorish atmosphere in the cathedral. In the darkness of the vaults and side-aisles there gleamed the gilt rope-moulded piers of three superimposed balconies, crammed with men on the one side, and women on the other.
They had to wait a long time. The idle priests chatted with the French-women, and Madame dc Motteville was once again horrified by the words addressed to her in the propitious shelter of the shadows.
“Perdone, Dejeme pasars!” [Let me pass please], suddenly said a hoarse Spanish voice just behind Angelique.
She looked round, then dropped her eyes and saw a weird creature. It was a little dwarf-woman, as broad as she was tall, with an ugly but pleasant face. Her plump hand was resting on the collar of a big black greyhound. A male dwarf followed her, likewise dressed in gold braid and wide ruff, but he had a cunning expression, and looking at him you wanted to laugh.
The crowd opened to let the midgets and the dog pass. .
“That is the Infanta’s dwarf and her buffoon, Tomasini,” someone said. “Apparently she’s taking them with her to France.’’
“What docs she need these midgets for? There are plenty of other things to make her laugh, in France.”
“She says that the dwarf is the only person who can make her cinna-mon-flavoured chocolate.”
Angflique saw, above her, a pale and impressive silhouette. Mon¬seigneur de Frontenac, in mauve satin and an ermine cape, was moving towards one of the gilt-wood balconies. He was bending over the banister. His eyes were gleaming with a destructive fervour. He was talking to someone whom Angelique did not see.
Suddenly alarmed, she shouldered her way through the crowd towards him. Joffrey de Peyrac, at the foot of the stairs, was raising an ironical face towards the Archbishop.
“Remember the ‘gold of Toulouse’,” the latter was saying under his breath. “When Scrvilius Cepion had ransacked the temples of Toulouse, he was vanquished as punishment for his impiousness. That’s why the proverbial phrase, ‘the gold of Toulouse’, implies misfortunes brought about by Ш-gottcn wealth.”
The Comte de Peyrac continued to smile.
“I like you,” he murmured. “I admire you. You have the candour and the cruelty of the pure. I can see the flames of the Inquisition gleam in your eyes. So you will not spare me?”
“Farewell, sir,” said the Archbishop, with compressed lips.
“Farewell, Foulques de Neuilly.”
The tapers illuminated the face of Joffrey de Peyrac. He was staring into the distance.
“What’s happening now?” whispered Angelique.
“Nothing, my beauty. Our eternal squabble . . .”
The King of Spain, pale as a ghost, was walking up the centre aisle, without any pomp, leading the Infanta on his left hand. Her skin was very white, so preserved by the darkness of the austere Madrid palaces,, her eyes were blue, her pale silky hair puffed out by false tresses She looked submissive and peaceful. She seemed more Flemish than Spanish.
The general opinion was that her white wool frock with almost no embroidery was awful.
The King led his daughter to the altar, where she knelt down. Don Luis de Haro, who—goodness knows why—was marrying her in the name of the King of France, stood at her side, but at a distance. When the time had come for the exchange of oaths, the Infanta and Don Luis held out their arms to each other but did not touch. With the same motion, the Infanta put her hand into that of the King and kissed him. Tears were rolling down the sovereign’s ivory cheeks. The Grande Mademoiselle blew her nose noisily.