The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen (epub e reader txt) đź“–
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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the first time for many months, snatched at Luc’s coat in gratitude it
was more than he could endure; he drew back sharply against the wall.
“Eh, Monseigneur,” mumbled the fellow, crouching away, “pardon me, and
may the good saints bless you.”
Luc’s tender heart was instantly moved; he regretted that he had been
betrayed into an act of pride which had further humbled one so
unfortunate.
“God pity you and release you,” he said; then he noticed that the beggar
had only one leg and dragged himself awkwardly by means of a rude
crutch. The fellow saw his benefactor’s glance, and with a sudden odd
animation in his voice said—
“I lost that in Bohemia, Monsigneur.”
“You were a soldier!” exclaimed Luc.
“Yes, Monseigneur—was wounded; then the cold and the smallpox.” He
dropped into his mumble again; his senses seemed clouded. “There were
not many came home at all,” he muttered, and hopped off with the coin
between his teeth.
Luc stood gazing after him. That pitiful object had perhaps been a gay
soldier a couple of years ago. He did not care to follow out his
reflections, but abruptly drew his cloak about him and returned to his
lodgings.
He found awaiting him a letter from M. Amelot, requesting his attendance
at the Louvre on the following day.
A gorgeous young man, with beautiful dark blue eyes and a face set in
lines of gloom and discontent, lounged on a sofa piled with white satin
cushions with silver tassels, eating elaborate bonbons out of a gold
dish on a small table beside him. The window near looked on to the river
and Paris; it was a private apartment in the Louvre, extravagantly
furnished.
By the window stood M. de Richelieu looking often at the river and
occasionally at his companion.
“I ask it as a favour,” he said.
The other did not trouble to raise his lids.
“Ask M. Amelot,” he replied; “I can do nothing.”
“You can advise him—make a suggestion.”
“I have no influence with him,” returned the young man with weary
peevishness. “Besides, it is too much trouble.”
The sunlight shot a ray between the heavy silk curtains and shone on the
speaker’s handsome face and disarranged dark hair that flowed over his
shoulders .and was only partially powdered.
“You know M. Amelot will do nothing to oblige me,” persisted M. de
Richelieu; “he is a tiresome fool at best.”
The other half raised himself on the couch and turned his superb eyes on
the Duke.
“Maréchal,” he said with an air of authority, “I am tired of the
subject.”
“Oh, it is as good a subject as another, sire,” returned M. de Richelieu
good-humouredly, “and I do not often ask your Majesty for favours.”
“No,” retorted Louis; “you generally take them.”
He yawned, and sighed, and glanced distastefully round the room.
“Come, sire,” urged M. de Richelieu, “it is only a few words to M.
Amelot.”
“I tell you he never takes my advice,” answered the King; “and I really
know nothing about his business, so I have to be silent when he speaks,
which makes our interviews very dull. Besides, I do not like him, and I
do not wish to see him.”
“Write him a note, then,” returned M. de Richelieu, coming from the
window.
“Mon Dieu, Maréchal,” said Louis peevishly, “I am not sure that I like
your protégé either.”
“You do not know him, sire,” replied the Maréchal, surprised.
“Yes, I do. He wandered into my pavilion at Versailles. I think he is a
little insane. Besides,” added His Majesty with some touch of animation,
“he does not believe in God.”
“Neither do I,” responded the Duke gaily.
“I know, my dear Maréchal, and it lies on my conscience that I give you
my countenance,” said the King with a melancholy sigh. “But I pray for
you,” he added sincerely.
“Your Majesty can pray for M. de Vauvenargues,” replied M. de Richelieu.
Louis frowned.
“Do you think I can put up prayers for every heretic and disbeliever in
the kingdom? As for your Vauvenargues, why are you so eager to oblige
him?”
The Maréchal lifted his eyebrows and gave a whimsical little smile.
“Because he obliged me once, and I do not wish to be indebted to the
fellow.”
“You can give him a post in Languedoc,” said the King obstinately.
“He will not take it—he must not know that I am behind this—he thinks
anything from me would be a bribe.”
“Oh, he is one of that type, is he?” said Louis, leaning back on his
cushions wearily. “I thought so. Well, I do not like them.” He selected
another bonbon, then threw it down with disgust.
“Nevertheless,” persisted M. de Richelieu calmly, “your Majesty is going
to ask M. Amelot to give this young man a post in the next embassy to
Madrid.”
Louis was silent a moment; his soft, great eyes had a brooding look.
“What does he know about you?” he asked at length with some interest.
“Oh, it is not an amusing story,” replied the Maréchal, seating himself
at a little desk that stood in a corner and commencing to write.
Louis rose to his full splendid height and crossed to the chimneypiece;
his dark blue satins, embroidered with steel, his paste buttons and
buckles glittered from the head to the foot of his magnificent person.
He yawned, took a spray of jasmine from a black enamel vase, and
fastened it into the rich folds of his cravat.
“What are you writing, Maréchal?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“Your letter to M. Amelot, sire.”
“How I dislike people who make me do what I do not want to do,”
complained the King reflectively.
M. de Richelieu brought the letter and a quill over to the King.
Louis eyed both with distaste.
The Maréchal smiled and waited.
“If I sign, will you help me with La Chateauroux?” asked Louis at
length.
M. de Richelieu lifted his shoulder with an expressive gesture.
“What do you want me to do with her?” he demanded, putting letter and
pen on the mantelpiece.
“Do with her?” repeated the King impatiently. “Get her into a convent,
send her back to her husband, find her another, banish her to the
country, promise her anything, as long as you get her out of the palace.
The Marquise absolutely refuses to allow her to remain.”
“If I make Madame de Chateauroux leave the Louvre peaceably I shall want
more than your Majesty’s signature to that paper,” replied the Maréchal.
“You promised yesterday you would see her for me,” protested Louis.
“When I was not sober,” said M. de Richelieu; “and afterwards you told
her she should stay.”
“Well, I was not sober either,” responded the King sullenly. “Can you
not accuse her of treason and get her into the Bastille? Nothing less
will stop her tongue. Get rid of her so that I never see her again, and
I will make your Vauvenargues anything you wish.”
“Mon Dieu,” responded the Maréchal, “your Majesty drives a hard bargain;
if Madame la Duchesse was to hear you she would buy us both a potion
from the old witch in the Rue du Bac.”
Louis shivered.
“I consulted her yesterday,” he said, lowering his voice; “she was very
vague. I think Madame la Duchesse pays her to deceive me, for she said I
had better beware of the Marquise and the atheist who is her
friend—that is M. de Voltaire.”
The Duke took the now dry quill, redipped it in the ink, and presented
it to Louis.
“Sign, sire,” he said amiably, “and we will discuss La Chateauroux
afterwards.”
With an impatient exclamation the King scrawled his signature to the few
lines of writing in the Maréchal’s beautiful hand.
“That appoints M. de Vauvenargues secretary to the next embassy to
Spain,” remarked M. de Richelieu, “and is a clear affront to M. Amelot,
who has his nephew preparing for the post,” he added with malicious
levity as he rang the silver and sardonyx hand-bell on the desk.
An usher in white livery instantly appeared. M. de Richelieu gave him
the note, folded carelessly across.
“For the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” he said.
When they were alone again Louis sighed discontentedly.
“I shall be plagued out of my life,” he complained.
“No, sire,” replied M. de Richelieu. “I told M. Amelot yesterday to
write to this young man and command him to the Louvre to-day, and that
your Majesty intended giving him a post.”
“Impudent!” cried Louis. “You took all this upon yourself? Really,
Maréchal, you might as well be King of France.”
“I suppose,” replied the Duke, “I should fill the position as well as
your Majesty.”
“I suppose you would,” agreed the King indifferently.
“Meanwhile—suggest something to pass the time.”
The Maréchal mentioned several amusements, all of which the King
languidly rejected.
“Well, then, some business!” exclaimed M. de Richelieu. He snatched
up a blue portfolio with gold ribbons and opened it, scattering
the papers over the desk. “All these to be read, considered, and
signed—M. de Voltaire’s instructions on his secret embassy to
Berlin—the war—the question about the Chevalier St. George—the
Austrian affair—Canada—Flanders—”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Louis impatiently. “How many more?”
“A great many, sire.”
Louis cursed his Minister wearily, crossed to the desk, took up the pen,
and began signing the documents, one after another, as the Maréchal,
laughing, put them before him.
“I would never have employed this Voltaire,” he remarked with an air of
distaste, “but the Marquise says he is a great man.”
The volatile Duke was soon weary of handing out the papers; he hurried
them, signed and unsigned, back into the portfolio.
“It is time for the audience with the new envoy from Russia,” he said,
glancing at the pale pink marble clock.
Louis cast down his pen and moved away towards the window, from which he
could see the dusty gold prospect of Paris, and the tawny glitter of the
river, and the flutter of the trees in the palace garden and along the
quays.
“Maréchal,” he said reflectively, “I am much loved in Paris. Yesterday
when I drove out there was the very mob shouting. I think I shall go to
the war again,” he added—“to Flanders.”
“To please Paris, sire?” asked the Maréchal, who, now the King’s back
was turned, was skilfully abstracting from the portfolio some of the
papers which happened to be against the interest of certain friends of
his. “Certainly the people like nothing better than a hero.”
Louis laughed with a depth of bitterness that was surprisingly in
contrast to the almost stupid apathy of his usual demeanour.
“I was well trained to be a hero to please the French,” he said. He
turned and laid his white right hand, still strong for all its idle
slackness, on M. de Richelieu’s shoulder. “Come, Maréchal, let us attend
our audience.”
The Duke closed the portfolio with an air of nonchalance and rose; the
King’s hand slipped to his arm and rested there on the Duke’s black
sleeve that was stiff with coloured sequin embroidery.
The two—the King still leaning on the Maréchal’s arm left His Majesty’s
private apartments for the long galleries of the Louvre.
As M. de Richelieu was lifting the purple curtain from the entrance of
the
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