The Regent's Daughter by Alexandre Dumas père (book recommendations txt) 📖

/> "DEAR NEIGHBOR--The coverlid was not so contemptible as
I supposed; it contained a paper on which was written
the word already spoken by Herment--'Hope!' It also
inclosed this letter for M. de Richelieu; send it to
Dumesnil, who will pass it to the duke.

"Your servant,

"DE LAUNAY."


"Alas!" thought Gaston, "they will miss me when I am gone," and he called Dumesnil, to whom he passed the letter.


CHAPTER XXXI.

STATE AFFAIRS AND FAMILY AFFAIRS.

On leaving the Bastille, the duke took Helene home, promising to come and see her as usual in the evening; a promise which Helene would have estimated all the more highly if she had known that his highness had a bal masque at Monceaux.

On re-entering the Palais Royal the duke asked for Dubois, and was told he was in his study, working. The duke entered without allowing himself to be announced. Dubois was so busy that he did not hear the duke, who advanced and looked over his shoulder, to see what was occupying him so intently.

He was writing down names, with notes by the side of each.

"What are you doing there, abbe?" asked the regent.

"Ah! monseigneur, it is you; pardon; I did not hear you."

"I asked what you were doing?"

"Signing the burial tickets for our Breton friends."

"But their fate is not yet decided, and the sentence of the commission--"

"I know it," said Dubois.

"Is it given, then?"

"No, but I dictated it before they went."

"Do you know that your conduct is odious?"

"Truly, monseigneur, you are insupportable. Manage your family affairs, and leave state affairs to me."

"Family affairs!"

"Ah! as to those, I hope you are satisfied with me, or you would indeed be difficult to please. You recommend to me M. de Chanlay, and on your recommendation I make it a rose-water Bastille to him; sumptuous repasts, a charming governor. I let him pierce holes in your floors, and spoil your walls, all which will cost us a great deal to repair. Since his entrance, it is quite a fete. Dumesnil talks all day through his chimney, Mademoiselle de Launay fishes with a line through her window, Pompadour drinks champagne. There is nothing to be said to all this: these are your family affairs; but in Bretagne you have nothing to see, and I forbid you to look, monseigneur, unless you have a few more unknown daughters there, which is possible."

"Dubois! scoundrel!"

"Ah! you think when you have said 'Dubois,' and added 'scoundrel' to my name, you have done everything. Well, scoundrel as much as you please; meanwhile, but for the scoundrel you would have been assassinated."

"Well, what then?"

"What then! Hear the statesman! Well, then, I should be hanged, perhaps, which is a consideration; then Madame de Maintenon would be regent of France! What a joke! What then, indeed! To think that a philosophic prince should utter such naivetes! Oh, Marcus Aurelius! was it not he who said, 'Populos esse demum felices si reges philosophi forent, aut philosophi reges?' Here is a sample."

Dubois still wrote on.

"Dubois! you do not know this young man."

"What young man?"

"The chevalier."

"Really! you shall present him to me when he is your son-in-law."

"That will be to-morrow, Dubois."

The abbe looked round in astonishment, and looking at the regent, with his little eyes as wide open as possible--

"Ah, monseigneur, are you mad?" he said.

"No, but he is an honorable man, and you know that they are rare."

"Honorable man! Ah, you have a strange idea of honor."

"Yes; I believe that we differ in our ideas of it."

"What has this honorable man done! Has he poisoned the dagger with which he meant to assassinate you? for then he would be more than an honorable man, he would be a saint. We have already St. Jacques Clement, St. Ravaillac; St. Gaston is wanting in the calendar. Quick, quick, monseigneur! you who will not ask the pope to give a cardinal's hat to your minister, ask him to canonize your assassin; and for the first time in your life you would be logical."

"Dubois, I tell you there are few capable of doing what this young man has done."

"Peste! that is lucky; if there were ten in France I should certainly resign."

"I do not speak of what he wished to do, but of what he has done."

"Well, what has he done? I should like to be edified."

"First, he kept his oath to D'Argenson."

"I doubt it not, he is faithful to his word; and but for me would have kept his word also with Pontcalec, Talhouet, etc."

"Yes, but one was more difficult than the other. He had sworn not to mention his sentence to any one, and he did not speak of it to his mistress."

"Nor to you?"

"He spoke of it to me, because I told him that I knew it. He forbade me to ask anything of the regent, desiring, he said, but one favor."

"And that one?"

"To marry Helene, in order to leave her a fortune and a name."

"Good; he wants to leave your daughter a fortune and a name; he is polite, at least."

"Do you forget that this is a secret from him?"

"Who knows?"

"Dubois, I do not know in what your hands were steeped the day you were born, but I know that you sully everything you touch."

"Except conspirators, monseigneur, for it seems to me that there, on the contrary, I purify. Look at those of Cellamare, how all that affair was cleared out; Dubois here, Dubois there, I hope the apothecary has properly purged France from Spain. Well, it shall be the same with Olivares as with Cellamare. There is now only Bretagne congested; a good dose, and all will be right."

"Dubois, you would joke with the Gospel."

"Pardieu! I began by that."

The regent rose.

"Come, monseigneur, I was wrong; I forgot you were fasting; let us hear the end of this story."

"The end is that I promised to ask this favor from the regent, and that the regent will grant it."

"The regent will commit a folly."

"No, he will only repair a fault."

"Ah, now you find you have a reparation to make to M. de Chanlay."

"Not to him, but to his brother."

"Still better. What have you done to his brother?"

"I took from him the woman he loved."

"Who?"----"Helene's mother."

"Well, that time you were wrong; for if you had let her alone we should not have had all this tiresome affair on our hands."

"But we have it, and must now get out of it as well as possible."

"Just what I am working at: and when is the marriage to take place?"

"To-morrow."

"In the chapel of the Palais Royal? You shall dress in the costume of a knight of the order; you shall extend both hands over your son-in-law's head--one more than he meant to have held over you--it will be very affecting."

"No, abbe, it shall not be thus; they shall be married in the Bastille, and I shall be in the chapel where they cannot see me."

"Well, monseigneur, I should like to be with you. I should like to see the ceremony; I believe these kind of things are very touching."

"No, you would be in the way, and your ugly face would betray my incognito."

"Your handsome face is still more easy to recognize, monseigneur," said Dubois, bowing; "there are portraits of Henry the Fourth and Louis the Fourteenth in the Bastille."

"You flatter me."

"Are you going away, monseigneur?"

"Yes, I have an appointment with De Launay."

"The governor of the Bastille?"

"Yes."

"Go, monseigneur, go."

"Shall I see you to-night at Morceaux?"

"Perhaps."

"Have you a disguise?"

"I have La Jonquiere's dress."

"Oh! that is only fit for the Rue du Bac."

"Monseigneur forgets the Bastille, where it has had some success."

"Well, adieu, abbe."

"Adieu, monseigneur."

When Dubois was left alone he appeared to take some sudden resolution. He rang the bell, and a servant entered.

"M. de Launay is coming to the regent, watch him, and bring him here afterward."

The servant retired without a reply, and Dubois resumed his work.

Half an hour afterward the door opened, and the servant announced De Launay. Dubois gave him a note.

"Read that," said he; "I give you written instructions, that there may be no pretext for neglecting them."

"Ah, monseigneur," said De Launay, "you would ruin me.".

"How so?"

"To-morrow when it becomes known."

"Who will tell it? will you?"

"No, but monseigneur--"

"Will be enchanted; I answer for him."

"A governor of the Bastille!"

"Do you care to retain the title?"

"Certainly."

"Then do as I tell you."

"'Tis hard, however, to close one's eyes and ears."

"My dear De Launay, go and pay a visit to Dumesnil's chimney and Pompadour's ceiling."

"Is it possible? You tell me of things I was not at all aware of."

"A proof that I know better than you what goes on in the Bastille; and if I were to speak of some things you do know, you would be still more surprised."

"What could you tell me?"

"That a week ago one of the officers of the Bastille, and an important one too, received fifty thousand francs to let two women pass with--"

"Monsieur, they were--"

"I know who they were, what they went for, and what they did. They were Mademoiselle de Valois and Mademoiselle de Charolais; they went to see the Duc de Richelieu, and they eat bon-bons till midnight in the Tour du Coin, where they intend to pay another visit to-morrow, as they have already announced to M. de Richelieu."

De Launay turned pale.

"Well," continued Dubois, "do you think if I told these kind of things to the regent, who is, as you know, greedy of scandal, that a certain M. de Launay would be long governor of the Bastille? But I shall not say a word, for we must help each other."

"I am at your orders, monsieur."

"Then I shall find everything ready?"

"I promise you; but not a word to monseigneur."

"That is right, M. de Launay. Adieu!"

"Good," said Dubois, when he was gone; "and now, monseigneur, when you want to marry your daughter to-morrow there shall be only one thing missing--your son-in-law."

* * * * *


As Gaston passed on the letter to Dumesnil he heard steps in the corridor, and, hastily signing to the chevalier not to speak, he put out the light and began to undress. The governor entered. As it was not his custom to visit his prisoners at this hour, Gaston saw him with alarm, and he noticed that as M. de Launay placed his lamp on the table his hand trembled. The turnkeys withdrew, but the prisoner saw two soldiers at the door.

"Chevalier," said