Angelique - Part 3. The Corridors of the Louvre Chapter 9 - Read online

ANGELIQUE ROSE, with a throbbing heart, from her deep curtsy. The King was before her. His high heels of varnished wood made no sound on the thick woollen carpet. Angelique noticed that the door of the litde study had closed again and that she was alone with the sovereign. She had a feeling of embarrassment, almost of panic. She had always seen the King amidst an innumerable throng. He had never seemed completely real and alive; he was like an actor on the stage of a theatre. Now she felt the presence of this rather husky man, who had about him the faint scent of the iris powder which he used to whiten his abundant brown hair. And this man was the King.
She forced herself to raise her eyes. Louis XIV was grave and im¬passive. He looked as if he were trying to remember the name of his visitor, although the Grande Demoiselle had announced her but a few moments earlier. Angelique felt paralysed by the coldness of his glance. She did not know that Louis XIV, though lacking the simplicity of his father Louis XIII, had inherited his shyness. A passionate lover of pomp and honours, he controlled as best he could a feeling of inferiority that ill- befitted the majesty of his rank. But, although married and very much of a gallant, he still could not approach a woman, and especially a lovely woman, without losing countenance.
And Angelique was lovely. Above all, she had a proud carriage and in her eyes an expression that was at once reserved and bold. These eyes could at times transmit insolence, a challenge, but also the innocence of a very young and sincere person. Her smile transformed her, revealing the warmth of feeling she bore to her fellow-creatures and to life.
Just now, however, Angelique did not smile. She must wait for the King to speak and her throat contracted during this long-drawn-out silence. *
At last the King spoke:
“Madame, I did not recognise you. Have you no longer the marvellous gold dress which you wore at Saint-Jean-de-Luz?”
“Unfortunately not, Sire, and I am ashamed to appear before you in such a plain and faded dress. But it’s the only dress I am left with. Your Majesty is not unaware that all my possessions have been put under seal.”
The King’s face froze. Then, suddenly, he decided to smile.
“You come straight to the point, Madame. But, after all, you are right. You remind me that the minutes of a King are numbered and that he has no time to lose on trifling. You are, however, a little severe, Madame.”
A delicate blush spread over the pale cheeks of the young woman and she smiled in confusion.
“Far be it from me to remind you, Sire, of the countless duties you are burdened with. I was merely answering your question. I would not like Your Majesty to think I was negligent in appearing before you in a worn dress and with such modest jewels.”
“I did not give orders for your personal property to be seized. I even recommended that Madame de Peyrac be left free and not incommoded in any way.”
“I am infinitely grateful to Your Majesty for the attentions extended to my person,” said Angelique, curtsying. “But I have no personal belong¬ings, and in my haste to know what had become of my husband, I came to Paris with nothing but my clothes and a few jewels. But I have not come to complain to you of my poverty, Sire. My husband’s fate is my only concern.”
She fell silent, pressing her lips shut over the flood of questions she would have liked to pour out: ‘Why have you arrested him? What do you reproach him with? When will you give him back to me?’
Louis XIV gazed at her with unconcealed curiosity.
“Am I to understand, Madame, that you, who are so beautiful, are really in love with this crippled and repulsive husband?”
The sovereign’s contemptuous tone cut Angelique to the quick. A dreadful pain filled her. Indignation made her eyes flash.
“How can you talk like that?” she cried hotly. “And yet you heard him, Sire? You heard the Golden Voice of the Kingdom!”
“It is true that his voice had a charm against which it was hard to defend oneself.”
He came closer and said in an insinuating tone of voice:
“So it is true that your husband has the power of bewitching all women, even the most icy ones? I’ve been told this nobleman was so proud of his power that he boasted of it and even turned it into a sort of teaching, styled Courts of Love, and that the most shameless licentiousness was the rule at those fStes.”
‘A good deal less shameless than what is going on here at the Louvre/ Angelique almost blurted out.
She checked herself with a great effort.
“The meaning of those fashionable parties has been wrongly inter¬preted to you, Your Majesty. My husband revived in his Palace of Gay Learning the medieval traditions of the southern minstrels, who had raised gallantry towards ladies to the height of an institution. The con¬versation, certainly, was light-hearted because it dealt with love, but decency was always preserved.”
“Were you not jealous, Madame, to see your husband, whom you were so much in love with, indulge in debauchery?”
“I have never known him to indulge in debauchery in the way you mean, Sire. These traditions teach faithfulness to a single woman, wife or mistress, and I was the one he had chosen.”
“It took you a long time, though, to bow to this choice. Why did your initial repugnance suddenly change into devouring love?”
“I see that Your Majesty takes an interest in the most intimate details of the life of his subjects,” said Angelique, who was this time unable to check the ironical inflection of her voice.
She was seething with rage. Her mouth was bursting with scathing replies which she longed to hurl at his face. For instance: ‘Do the reports of your spies inform you each morning of the number of times that the lords of your kingdom have made love during the night?*
She restrained herself with difficulty and lowered her head for fear that her feelings might be read on her face.
“You did not answer my question, Madame/* said the King in a freezing tone.
Angelique passed her hand over her brow.
“Why did I begin to love this man?** she murmured. “No doubt because he had all the qualities that make a woman happy to be the slave ofsuchaman.”
“So you recognise that your husband bewitched you?**
“I have lived at his side for five years, Sire. I am prepared to swear on the Gospel that he was neither a wizard nor a magician.**
“You know that he is under a charge of witchcraft?**
She nodded silently.
“It is not only a question of the strange influence he exerts over women, but also of the suspicious origin of his immense wealth; it is said that he obtained the secret of the transmutation of gold by trafficking with Satan.**
“Sire, may my husband be brought before a court of law and he will demonstrate with ease that he has been the victim of the erroneous con-ceptions of alchemists, led astray by their medieval tradition, which in our days has become more harmful than useful.”
The King relaxed a litde.
“Admit, Madame, that neither you nor I know much about alchemy. I confess, however, that the explanations I have been given about Monsieur de Peyrac’s devilish practices remain vague and call for more precision.” Angelique stifled a sigh of relief.
“I am so happy, Sire, to hear you utter words of such clemency and understanding.”
The King smiled sourly and not without annoyance.
“Let us not anticipate, Madame. I merely said that I was asking for details about this tale of transmutations.”
“Exactly, Sire. There has never been any transmutation. My husband perfected a process of dissolving the very fine gold content of certain rocks by means of molten lead, and by applying this method he made his fortune.”
“If this was his fair and honest process, it would have been natural enough that he should offer its exploitation to his King, whereas in fact he never breathed a word of it to anybody.”
“Sire, I am a witness that he made a complete demonstration of his process before several noblemen together with a representative of the Archbishop of Toulouse. But this process applies only to certain rocks in the Pyrenees that are called invisible gold-reefs, and it requires foreign specialists to extract them. It is not, therefore, a cabbalistic formula that he can hand over, but a special science which requires a new kind of prospecting and considerable sums of money.”
“He doubtless preferred to keep the working of this process for himself, since it not only made him rich but also of fered him a pretext for receiving foreigners at his home—Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, and heretics come from Switzerland. This made it very easy for him to prepare the rebellion of Languedoc.”
“Sire, my husband never plotted against Your Majesty.”
“He made, however, a show of arrogance and independence that were revealing, to say the least. You must admit, Madame, that for a gentleman never to ask anything of his King is not very normal to begin with. But when, in addition, he boasts that he has no need of his sovereign, that is really going too far.”
Angelique felt shaken by a fever.
“Your husband wanted to create a State within the State,” said the King harshly. “He had no religious faith either, for, wizard or no, he claimed to rule by means of money and pageantry. Since his arrest Toulouse has been in turmoil and all Languedoc is stirring. Do not think, Madame, that I signed that warrant for his arrest without a more valid reason than a charge of witchcraft, which, disturbing as it is, also carries with it other signs of disorderliness. I had convincing proof of his treason.”
“Traitors see treason everywhere,” said Angelique slowly, her green pupils flashing sparks. “If Your Majesty would name those who have slandered the Comte de Peyrac, I am certain I should find among them persons who, not so long ago, really did plot against the power and even the life of Your Majesty.”
Louis XIV remained impassive, but his face darkened a little.
“You are very bold, Madame, to judge for me those in whom I am to place my confidence. Vicious animals that arc tamed and chained are more useful to me than a distant, proud and free subject who might set himself up as my rival. Your husband’s case will serve as an example to other noblemen who may be inclined to raise their heads too high. We shall see if, with all his gold, he’ll be able to buy his judges, and if Satan will rescue him. It is my duty to defend the people against the pernicious influence of those great lords who want to be masters over bodies and souls and over the King himself.”
‘I ought to throw myself at his feet in tears,’ thought Angelique.
But she was incapable of it. The person of the King had lost its lustre in her eyes. All she saw now was a boy of her own age—twenty-two years— whom she felt a terrible urge to seize by his lace ruffle and shake soundly like a plum-tree.
“So this is the King’s justice,” she said in a jerky voice that sounded strange in her ears. “You are surrounded by powdered murderers, by plumed bandits, by beggars pouring forth the basest flatteries. A Fouquet, a Conde, the Contis, Longuevilles, Bcauforts . . . The man I love never betrayed you. He surmounted the most terrible adversities, he has fed the Royal Treasury with part of the wealth he earned, thanks to his genius and at the cost of incessant toil and effort, and he never asked anyone for anything. And that is what he’ll never be forgiven. . . .”
“That, in fact, is what he’ll never be forgiven,” echoed the King’s voice.
He drew close to Angelique and gripped her arm with a violence that betrayed his anger despite the deliberate calm of his face.
“Madame, you will leave this room a free woman when I could easily have you arrested. Remember this in the future when you doubt the King’s magnanimity. But be careful! I do not wish to hear of you again, for if I do, I’ll be merciless. Your husband is my subject. Let the justice of the State be done. Farewell, Madame.”