The War of Women. Volume 1

"Dead with love?" queried the duke.

"Let us speak seriously, monsieur; you are well aware that if I give my heart away it will not be to people whom I meet on the high-road. I tell you that the unhappy man was arrested this very day by order of Monsieur de Mazarin."

"Arrested!" exclaimed the duke. "How do you know that? – still by accident?"

"Mon Dieu, yes! I was passing through Jaulnay – Do you know Jaulnay, monsieur?"

"Perfectly; I received a sword-cut in the shoulder there. You were passing through Jaulnay. Why, wasn't that the village where, as the story goes – ?"

"Let us have done with the story, Monsieur le Duc," replied Claire, blushing. "I was passing through Jaulnay, as I tell you, when I saw a party of armed men halting with a prisoner in their midst; the prisoner was he."

"He, do you say? Ah! madame, take care, you said he!"

"The officer, I mean. Mon Dieu! Monsieur le Duc, how deep you are! A truce to your subtleties, and if you have no pity for the poor fellow – "

"Pity! I!" cried the duke. "In God's name, madame, have I time to have pity, especially for people I do not know?"

Claire cast a sidelong glance at La Rochefoucauld's pale face, and his thin lips curled by a joyless smile, and she shuddered involuntarily.

"Madame," he continued, "I would be glad to have the honor of escorting you farther; but I must throw a garrison into Montrond, so forgive me if I leave you. Twenty gentlemen, more fortunate than I, will look to your safety until you have joined Madame la Princesse, to whom I beg you to present my respects."

"Are you not going to Bordeaux?" Claire asked.

"No; just now I am on my way to Turenne to join Monsieur de Bouillon. We are engaged in a contest of courtesy to see which shall not be general; he's a doughty antagonist, but I am determined to get the better of him, and remain his lieutenant."

Upon that the duke ceremoniously saluted the viscountess and rode slowly away in the direction taken by his little band of horsemen. Claire followed him with her eyes, murmuring: —

"His pity! I invoked his pity! He spoke the truth; he has no time to feel pity."

A group of horsemen left the main body and came toward her, while the rest rode into the woods near by.

Behind them, with his reins over his horse's neck, La Rochefoucauld rode dreamily along, the man of the false look and the white hands, who wrote at the head of his memoirs this sentence, which sounds strangely enough in the mouth of a moral philosopher: —

"I think that one should content himself with making a show of compassion, but should be careful to have none. It is a passion which serves no useful purpose within a well-constituted mind, which serves only to weaken the heart, and which should be left to the common people, who, as they never do anything by reason, need to have passion in order to do anything."

Two days later Madame de Cambes was in attendance upon Madame la Princesse.

XII

Many, many times had Madame de Cambes instinctively reflected upon what might be the result of a hatred like Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld's; but feeling strong in her youth, her beauty, her wealth, and her high favor, she did not realize that that hatred, supposing it to exist, was likely to have a baleful effect upon her life.

But when Madame de Cambes knew beyond question that she occupied a sufficient place in his thoughts to lead him to take the trouble to find out all that he knew, she lost no time in broaching the subject to Madame la Princesse.

"Madame," said she, in reply to the compliments with which she was overwhelmed, "do not congratulate me overmuch upon the address which I am said to have exhibited upon that occasion; for there are those who claim that the officer, our dupe, knew the real state of the case as to the true and the false Princesse de Condé."

But as this supposition deprived Madame la Princesse of all credit for her part in the execution of the stratagem, she naturally refused to listen to it.

"Yes, yes, my dear Claire," said she; "now that our gentleman finds that we deceived him, he would be glad to pretend that he favored our plans; unfortunately, it's a little late to make that claim, as he has been disgraced for his fiasco. à propos, I am told that you fell in with Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld on your way hither."

"Yes, madame."

"What news did he tell you?"

"That he was going to Turenne, to come to terms with Monsieur de Bouillon."

"There is a struggle between them, I know, as to which of the two shall be generalissimo of our armies, both making a show of declining the honor. The fact is that when we make peace, the man who has made himself most feared as a rebel will have to pay the heaviest price for his return to favor. But I have a plan of Madame de Tourville's to bring them to terms."

"Oho!" said the viscountess, smiling at that name; "your Highness is reconciled, I judge, to your counsellor in ordinary."

"I was driven to it; she joined us at Montrond, carrying her roll of papers with a gravity which made Lenet and myself almost die of laughing.

"'Although your Highness,' she said, 'pays no attention to these reflections of mine, the fruit of many laborious nights' work, I bring my contribution to the general welfare.'"

"Was it a veritable harangue?"

"Under three heads."

"And your Highness replied to it?"

"Not I; I left that to Lenet. 'Madame,' said he, 'we have never doubted your zeal, still less your extensive knowledge; they are both so invaluable to us that Madame la Princesse and I have regretted your absence every day.' In a word, he said a multitude of such pleasant things to her that he won her heart, and she ended by giving him her plan."

"Which is – ?"

"To appoint neither Monsieur de Bouillon nor Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld generalissimo, but Monsieur de Turenne."

"Well," said Claire, "it seems to me that the counsellor counselled wisely then, at all events; what do you say to it, Monsieur Lenet?"

"I say that Madame la Vicomtesse is right, and that she brings one more judicious voice to our deliberations," replied Lenet, who entered the room at that moment with a roll of paper, and with as serious an expression as Madame de Tourville's face could have worn. "Unfortunately, Monsieur de Turenne cannot leave the army of the North, and our plan provides for his marching upon Paris when Mazarin and the queen march upon Bordeaux."

"You will notice, my dear girl, that Lenet is the man of impossibilities. In fact, neither Monsieur de Bouillon, nor Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld, nor Monsieur de Turenne is our generalissimo, but Lenet! – What has your Excellency there, – a proclamation?"

"Yes, madame."

"Madame de Tourville's, of course?"

"Of course, madame; except for a few necessary changes, in her own words, – the style of the chancellor's office, you know."

"Nonsense!" said the princess, laughing; "let us not attach too much importance to the letter: if the spirit is there, that is all we need."

"It is there, madame."

"And where is Monsieur de Bouillon to sign?"

"On the same line with Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld."

"But you do not tell me where Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld will sign."

"Immediately below Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien."