Angelique - Part 6. The Inn of the Red Mask Chapter 6 - Read online

As AT THEIR FIRST MEETING, she discovered Claude Le Petit asleep in a hay-barge over by the Arsenal. She woke him up and told him the events of the night. All her hopes had been annihilated. The libertines in lace and ribbons had once again devastated her life as thoroughly as an army of plunderers devastates the country it passes through.
“You must avenge me,” she kept saying, with fever-bright eyes. “You alone can do it. You alone, because you are their greatest enemy. Desgrez said so.”
The poet yawned with a loud snap of his jaws, and rubbed his pale lashes, still dusty with sleep.
“You’re a strange woman,” he said at last.
He took her by the waist to pull her towards him. She freed herself impatiently.
“Do listen to what I am telling you!”
“You aren’t a beggar-wench any more, but a great lady who’s giving her orders. All right: I am at your command, Marquise. Anyhow, I’ve got the idea. With whom do you want me to start? With Brienne? I remember that he courted Mademoiselle de La Valliere, and that he dreamed of having her painted as the Magdalene. Ever since, the King can hardly bear him. Thus we’ll cook Brienne’s goose for His Majesty’s dinner.”
He turned his pale, handsome face towards the east, where the sun was rising.
“Yes, it should be quite possible for dinner. Maitre Gilbert’s press works fast when it’s a question of multiplying the echo of my teeth- gnashing against the powers that be. Did I ever tell you that Maitre Gilbert’s son was sentenced to die galleys long ago for goodness knows what trifling offence? An excellent thing for us, isn’t it?”
And pulling an old goose-quill from his tunic, the Gutter-Poet began to write.
Day was breaking. All the bells of the churches and convents were gaily ringing the Angelus.
Towards the end of the morning, the King, leaving the chapel where he had gone to hear Mass, passed dirough the ante-room where petitioners were waiting for him. He noticed that die stone-floor was littered with white leaflets which an embarrassed footman was hurriedly picking up as if he had only just seen them. But a little farther on, as he was going down the stairs that led to his apartment, Louis XIV came upon the same disorder and showed his displeasure.
“What docs this mean? It’s raining parchments here like autumn leaves on the Cours-la-Reinc. Give me that, please.”
The Due de Crcqui stepped forward, red as a turkey.
“Your Majesty, this rigmarole is of no interest whatsoever. . . .”
“All! I sec what it'is,” said the King, impatiendy holding out his hand. “Some more scurrilous outpourings by the damned Gutter-Poet of the Pont-Neuf, who slips like an eel through the archers’ fingers and manages to deposit his filth right in my palace, under my feet. Give it to me, if you please. . , . It’s his pen, indeed! When you see the Civil
Lieutenant and His Honour the Provost of Paris, you may convey my compliments to them, gentlemen. . . .”
Sitting down to dinner, in front of three partridges stuffed with raisins, a fish casserole, a roast with cucumbers and a dish of whale-tongue fritters, Louis XIV placed on the table before him the grimy piece of paper, on which the printer’s ink was still so wet as to stain his fingers. The King was a hearty eater and had long ago learned to dominate his emotions. So his appetite was not troubled by what he read. But when he had finished reading, the silence reigning in the room, where generally die courtiers chatted pleasantly with their master, was as heavy as in a crypt.
The pamphlet was written in crude, scurrilous language, whose words neverdiclcss stung like darts.
It related the exploits of Monsieur de Briennc, first gentleman to the King, who, not content with trying to snatch ‘the nymph with the moon¬light hair* from a master to whom he owed everything, not content with causing a permanent scandal by his discord with his wife, had gone to an eating-house in the Rue de la Vallec-dc-Misere the night before. There this valiant young man and his companions had first assaulted a young cake-seller, then stabbed him with their swords. They had attacked the landlord, who had died of his wounds, split the head of the latter’s nephew, raped the daughter and capped their sport by setting fire to the shop, of which nothing but ashes remained.
“By Saint Denis!” said the King. “If this thing is true, Brienne deserves the gallows. Has someone among you heard of these crimes, gentlemen?” The courtiers stammered, and alleged that they had little knowledge of the events of the night. The King, perceiving a young page who was helping the officers of the King’s table, asked him point-blank:
“And you, my child, who arc surely inquisitive and prying, as befits one of your age, tell me a little of what’s being said on the Pont-Ncuf this morning.”
The youngster blushed, but answered without too much embarrass¬ment:
“Sire, they’re saying that all that the Gutter-Poet reports is perfectly true and that it happened last night at the tavern of ‘The Red Mask’. I myself was returning from a spree with some friends when we saw the flames, and we ran to see the fire. But the Capuchins had already got the better of it. The district is up in arms.”
“Did they say that the fire was caused by some noblemen?”
“Yes, but they didn’t know the names, because they wore masks.” “What else do you know?”
The King's eyes bored into the page’s. The boy, who was already an adept courtier, trembled lest he utter a word that might injure his career. But, obedient to the command of those imperious eyes, he lowered his head and whispered:
“Sire, I saw the body of the little cake-seller. He was dead, and his belly was ripped open. A woman had pulled him out of the fire and was holding him in her arms. I also saw the innkeeper's nephew, with his forehead bandaged.”
"And the landlord?”
"They hadn't been able to recover his body from the blaze. People »>
say
The page tried to smile with the laudable intention of producing a little light relief, “—people say it was a fine death for a roast meat caterer.”
But the King’s face remained frozen, and the courtiers quickly put their hands over their lips to hide an expression of unseemly gaiety.
"Have Monsieur de Bricnne brought to me,” said the King. "And you, my lord,” he said, turning to the Due de Cr£qui, "convey to Monsieur d’Aubray the following instructions: first, to collect all information and particulars about last night’s incident and have the report brought to me at once; secondly, any carrier or seller of these leaflets is to be immediately arrested and taken to the Chatclet. Finally, any passer-by who is caught picking up or reading one of these leaflets will be heavily fined and risks prosecution and imprisonment. I also want the most energetic measures to be taken immediately to apprehend the printer and the man Claude Le Petit.”
The Comte de Brieime was found at his home, where he had been put to bed by his valets and was heavily sleeping offhis drunkenness.
"My dear friend,” the Marquis de Gcsvres, captain of the guard, told him, "you see me obliged to carry out a painful duty. Though nothing definite has been said, I believe I have actually come to arrest you.”
And he shoved under the other’s nose the poem which he had been reading with relish on the way.
"This is the end of me,” declared Brienne in a thick voice. "News travels fast in this kingdom! I haven’t yet managed to . . . evacuate all the wine I drank in that damn tavern and I’m already called upon to foot the bill.”
"Monsieur,” Louis XIV said to him, "for various reasons, a conversation with you is distasteful to me. Let us be brief. Do you, or do you not, admit having taken part last night in the infamous outrages denounced in this leaflet?”
“Sire, I was there, but I did not commit all those turpitudes. The Gutter-Poet himself admits that I am not the one who murdered the little cake-vendor.”
“Who did, then?”
The Comte de Brienne remained silent.
“I approve of your not entirely throwing upon others a responsibility which you amply share. That much can be seen from your face. Unhap¬pily for you, Monsieur, you were unfortunate enough to be recognised. You will pay for the others. The people are murmuring . . . and they have reason to. So justice must be done, and done quickly. I want people to be able to say on the Pont-Neuf tonight that Monsieur de Brienne is in the Bastille . . . and that he will be severely punished. Personally, I am delighted at this opportunity to rid myself of a face whose sight I have found increasingly hard to bear. You know why.”
Poor Brienne sighed, thinking of the timid kisses he had tried to steal from the tender La Valliere at a time when he was still unaware of his master’s inclination for this pretty person.
It meant that he was paying at the same time for an innocent little flirtation and a shameless orgy. There was one more gentleman in Paris to curse the poet’s pen. On the way to the Bastille, the carriage conveying Brienne was stopped by a flock of fishwives from the central market. They waved the leaflets and their carving-knives and demanded that the prisoner be handed over to them so that they could submit him to the same treat¬ment that had been meted out to the poor master-cook Bourjus.
Brienne breathed freely only after the heavy prison gates had closed upon him.
But the next morning a new shower of white sheets flooded Paris. The King was flabbergasted to find the epigram underneath the plate of a snack which he was just about to eat before setting out for the Bois de Boulogne to go deer-hunting.
The hunt was called off, and Monsieur d’Olonne, Master of the Royal Hunt, left in the opposite direction from that which he had intended to take. That is to say, instead of going down the Cours-la-Reine, he went up the Cours Saint-Antoine, which led to the Bastille.
The new verse did indeed name him specifically as having held down Maitre Bourjus while the latter was being murdered.
Each day to one his account we’ll render,
And the last day we’ll tell by whose sliameful hand Was murdered a child, sweet and tender,
A high-sounding name, known all over the land:
Who killed the little cookie-vendor?
After that came Lauzun’s turn. His name was being shouted in the streets as he was riding in his carriage to the King’s petit levee. Peguilin promptly made the horses turn round and took the road to the Bastille. “Get my apartment ready,” he told the Governor.
“But, your lordship, I have received no orders concerning you.”
“You will, have no fear.”
“But where is your warrant of arrest?”
“Here,” said Peguilin, handing to Monsieur dc Vannois the printed sheet of paper which he had just bought for ten sols from a scrubby ragamuffin.
Frontcnac preferred to flee without waiting his turn. Vardes strongly advised him against this course of action.
“Your flight is tantamount to a confession. It’ll denounce you for certain. Whereas by continuing to act as if you were innocent you might perhaps slip through this cascade of denunciations. Look at me: do I look worried? I joke, I laugh. Nobody suspects me, and the King himself has confided to me how much this business upsets him.”
“You’ll stop laughing when your turn comes.”
“I have an idea that it won’t come. ‘They numbered thirteen,’ says the song. And so far only three have been named and it’s already being asserted that some of the arrested paper-sellers have disclosed under torture the master-printer’s name. In a few days, the shower of leaves will stop, and everything will return to normal.”
“I do not share your optimism as regards the short duration of this painful season,” remarked the Marquis de Frontenac, putting up the collar of his travelling-cloak with a shiver. “Personally, I prefer exile to prison. Farewell.”
He had reached the German frontier when his name appeared, and passed almost unnoticed. Indeed, only the day before, Vardes had been delivered up to public obloquy, and in such terms that the King had been outraged. The Gutter-Poet had in fact gone so far as to accuse this ‘worldly villain’ of being the author of the Spanish letter which, two years ago, had found its way into the Queen’s apartment for the sole purpose of acquainting her charitably with her husband’s infidelities .with Made¬moiselle dc La Vallierc. This accusation opened an unhealed wound in the sovereign’s heart, for he had never been able to put his finger on the guilty party, and more than once had talked about it with Vardes, asking for his advice. While he was questioning the captain of the Swiss guards and summoning Madame dc Soissons, de Vardes’s mistress and accom¬plice; while his sister-in-law, Hcnriette of England, also implicated in the affair of the Spanish letter, threw herself at his feet, and dc Guiche and the Petit Monsieur argued angrily in private with die Chevalier de Lorraine; the list of criminals of the tavern of ‘The Red Mask* imperturbably continued to offer a new victim to the crowd every day. Louvignys and Saint-Thierry, who had resigned themselves beforehand and made the necessary arrangements, learned one fine morning that Paris knew the exact number of their mistresses and their amorous peculiarities. Such details spiced the habitual refrain:
. . . by whose shameful hand
Was murdered a child, sweet and tender?
Who killed the little cookie-vendor? . . .
Profiting by the King’s discomfiture at the revelations made about Vardes, Louvignys and Saint-Thierry were merely requested to re¬linquish their posts and withdraw to their country houses.
A wind of excitement blew over Paris.
“Whose turn next? Whose turn next?” song-sheet sellers yelled each morning. The sheets were tom from the vendors’ hands. From the street up to the windows, people would shout ‘the name’ of the day.
In high society, it became a habit to whisper mysteriously, when meet¬ing one another:
“Now, who may well have killed the cookie-vendor? . . .”
And they would giggle covertly.
Then a rumour began to spread, and the laughter faded. At the Louvre an atmosphere of panic and profound embarrassment superseded the amusement of those who, with their conscience at rest, hilariously followed the developments of this head-chopping game. The Queen Mother was repeatedly seen proceeding in person to the royal palace to converse with her younger son. At the approaches to the palace where the Petit Monsieur was staying, groups of hostile, silent bystanders loitered. Nobody as yet spoke, nobody voiced an assertion, but the rumour got around that the King’s brother had taken part in the orgy at ‘The Red Mask’, and that it was he who had murdered the little cake-vendor. '
Desgrez was the one who told Angelique of the first reactions at Court. On the very morning after the outrage, while Brienne, on his way to the Bastille, was having trouble in getting there, the policeman knocked at the door of the little house in the rue des Francs-Bourgeois, to which Angllique had withdrawn.
She listened with a set face to his report of the King’s words and decisions.
“He imagines he’ll get off with Brienne,” she murmured through clenched teeth. “But look out! It’s only starting. The less guilty ones are the first to be dealt with. It’ll go higher and higher, till the day when the scandal will break and Linot’s blood will splash on the steps of the throne.” She wrung her pale, icy hands with passion.
“I just now brought him to the Churchyard of the Saints-Innoccnts. All the market-wives left their stalls and followed the poor little creature who had received notliing from life but his beauty and sweetness. And vicious princes had to come and snatch his only possession from him: his life. But for his funeral he had the most beautiful procession.”
“Those ladies of the fish-market are at this moment giving a little escort to Monsieur de Brienne.”
“Let them hang him, set his carriage on fire, set the royal palace ablaze! Set fire to all the casdes on the outskirts: Saint-Germain, Versailles. . . .” “Fire-brand! Where would you go and dance, then, once you are a great lady again?”
She looked at him fixedly, and shook her head.
“Never, never again shall I be a great lady. I’ve tried everything, then lost everything again. They are too strong for me. Have you the names I asked you for?”
“Here they are,” said Desgrez, pulling a scroll of parchment from his coat. “The result of a striedy personal investigation, and known only to me: Were seen to enter the tavern of‘The Red Mask’ on this evening of October 1664: Monsieur d’Orleans, the Chevalier de Lorraine, His Lordship the Due de Lauzun.”
“Oh please! spare me the tides,” sighed Angelique.
“I can’t help myself,” said Desgrez, laughingly. “I am, as you know, a most respectful official of the regime. We were saying: ‘de Brienne, de Vardes, du Plessis-Belliere, de Louvignys, de Saint-Thierry, de Frontenac, de Cavois, de Guiche, de La Valliere, d’Olonne, de Tormes.’ ”
“De La Valliere? The favourite’s brother?”
“The very one.”
“That’s too wonderful,” she murmured, her eyes shining with the joy of revenge. “But . . . wait, that makes fourteen. I had counted thirteen.” “To begin with, they were fourteen, for the Marquis de Tormes was with them. He’s a man of middle age who likes to take part in youthful
sprees. However, when he realised Monsieur’s designs on the little boy, he withdrew, saying: 'Good night, gentlemen, I have no wish to accom¬pany you along these tortuous paths. I like to go my quiet little way and shall calmly go to bed with the Marquise de Raquenau.’ As everyone knows, that plump lady is his mistress.”
"An excellent story to make him pay for his cowardice!”
Desgrez gazed for a moment at Angclique’s set face and he smiled thinly.
‘‘Malevolence becomes you well. When I first knew you, you were rather the pathetic type—the type that attracts the hounds.”
‘‘And when I first knew you, you were the frank, gay, affable type. Whereas now I could hate you at times.”
She cast at him the shaft of her green eyes and ground through her teeth:
“Devil’s policeman!”
The policeman gave a laugh of amusement.
“Madame, to hear you talk, one might think that you had hobnobbed with guttersnipes.”
Angelique shrugged her shoulders, went over to the fire-place and picked up a log with a pair of tongs.
“You are frightened, aren’t you?” went on Desgrez, with the drawl of the lower-class Parisian. “You are frightened for your little Gutter-Poet. This time, I might as well warn you, he’ll end up on the gibbet.”
The young woman avoided giving an answer, though she felt like shouting: ‘He’ll never end up on the gibbet! You can’t catch the poet of the Pont-Ncuf. He’ll fly away like a lean bird and perch on the towers of Notre Dame.’
She was in a state of excitement that strained her nerves to breaking- point. She stirred the fire, keeping her face lowered over the flames. There was a small bum on her forehead, caused by a flaming cinder from the night before. Why didn’t Desgrez go away? And yet she was glad he was there. An old habit, probably.
“What name did you say?” she cried suddenly. “Du Plessis-Bclliere? The Marquis?”
“So it’s you who insist on titles now! Well yes, it’s indeed the Marquis du Plessis-Belliere, marshal of the King’s camp ... the victor of Norgen, you know.”
“Philippe!” murmured Angelique.
How had she failed to recognise him when he had pushed up his mask and dropped on her the same cold blue eyes which formerly he used to lower so scornfully on his cousin in her grey dress? Philippe du Plessis-
ВеШёге! The Chateau du Plessis rose before her eyes, floating like a white water-lily above the pond. . . .
“How strange, Desgrez! That young man is a relative, a cousin, of mine who used to live a few miles from our castle.* *
“And now that the little cousin goes to play with you in taverns, you are going to spare him?**
“Perhaps. There were thirteen of them, after all. With the Marquis de Tormes, the score’s complete.**
“Aren’t you somewhat imprudent, my dear, to tell all your secrets to a devil’s policeman?’’
“What I’m telling you won’t help you to discover the Gutter-Poet’s printer, nor how the leaflets get into the Louvre. And, anyway, you won’t give me away!”
“No, Madame, I won’t give you away, but I won’t deceive you either. This time the Gutter-Poet will swing!”
“That we’ll see!”
“Alas, Madame, I’m afraid that we shall indeed,” he retorted. “Good¬bye, Madame.”
After he had left, it took her some time to calm her spasmodic shivering. The autumn wind whistled through the rue dcs Francs-Bourgcois. The storm swept Angelique’s heart along with it. She had never felt such a raging inner turmoil. Anguish, fear, pain, were familiar to her. But this time she sank into a sharp, tearless desperation which refused to be soothed or comforted.