The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen (epub e reader txt) đź“–
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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gracefully, and pleased France, it seemed. For France endured the
Marquise de Pompadour and certain creatures of hers, such as the
brothers Paris, Devernay, and others who flourished and fattened, and
used the country like a pot of gold, into which they could dip their
fists and enrich themselves, under the cynical approval of the
melancholy King.
Luc saw France differently from this poor quarter. Paris had seemed
another city viewed from the Rue du Bac. The war had been different, too,
viewed in the light of the gala lamps of Versailles, or by the camp
fires of Bohemia.
There was no glory to gild these humble lives, no hope, no lure to lead
them on. Luc watched, and was troubled. Could France flower from such a
soil? Would the light of the coming age of freedom ever overcome the
dark windings of the religion of Pompadour and peasant, ever dissipate
the errors taught by the ignorant to the ignorant, by dirty priests to
sullen minds?
Luc watched the sky at evening. That was as pure, as remote, as golden
above the stale odours of the crooked streets as above the unouched
fields of Provence. And he dared to hope that the golden age was coming.
For himself, he did not wince from the ignoble melancholy of his
surroundings. His poverty did not trouble him, nor had he once regretted
the impulse that had driven him from home. He was living on about five
francs a day. His money, that had come from the sale of what was left of
his personal property after the expenses of the war, would, at this
rate, last him three years, and he did not think to live so long.
Indeed, his weakness increased so on him, his attacks of illness were so
frequent and severe, that he often thought it might be weeks only before
the end.
Sometimes he would lie all day alone on his poor bed, gazing up at the
strip of sky, unable to move or sleep, smiling at the sunshine which,
towards evening (the hour he loved the most), would dazzle over his bare
boards like the skirts of Glory herself.
When his strength was with him, he wrote. Many of his papers were with
his brother Joseph, who had once shown a furtive interest in them. Luc
sent a noble letter asking for them, but received no reply. He smiled,
thinking of the furious Joseph casting the manuscripts into the fire.
Such as he had in his own possession, and those his solitary meditations
had produced, he collected, and sent to one of the great booksellers.
The work was taken. For the sake of those who had disowned him, Luc made
the last sacrifice, and the modest little volume appeared without any
name on the title-page.
It made no success whatever, fell dead from its birth, and was
forgotten. No one made any remark upon it, for no one read it.
“They would say I was a complete failure,” smiled Luc.
He sent a copy of his book to M. de Voltaire, with some timidity, for
the great man was now historiographer to the Court and deep in politics,
being the acknowledged protégé of the Marquise; and then, with the slow,
painful effort of his infirmities, he commenced to write another. He had
so elevated himself that he was not even disappointed by the failure of
the book that contained the inmost convictions of his soul. He saw now
that glory was not only reached by the road of success.
Six months after he had come to Paris, and a few days after he had sent
his book to Voltaire, one fair, clear afternoon in October, he sat at his
window, overlooking Paris. It seemed to him that he overlooked the
future too; that this window of his poor room was the outlook of some
watch-tower, from which he could see the doings of posterity unfold into
the distance.
Wars and ministries, kings and soldiers, shrank to the size of
puppet-shows viewed on the fringe of the changing future. Soon,
everything that agitated the world now would be a mere name. Soon
again—not even that—fresh creeds, fresh codes, would replace the old;
and through all the changing dynasties of thought that would reign,
nothing would count but the memory of the few men who had risen above
their age, and handed from one generation to another the pure lamp of
the truth as it had been revealed to them; of virtue, as it had been
permitted to them to practise; of heroism, as they had been able to
accomplish it.
It was easier on the battle-field or in the Cabinet, but it was possible
in a garret. It was easier with a body vigorous and healthy; it was
possible with a body broken and dying. It was easier when surrounded by
encouragement, attention, acclaim; but it was possible, alone and
unnoticed, to win a place in that galaxy of glory that lights eternity.
Luc had on his window-sill an evergreen plant with gold leaves, straight
and tall in shape, like the silver fir of Bohemia, or the poplars of the
Rue Deauville.
He opened the window now, and moved the pot, and admired the glint of
the sun on the glossy leaves. The sight of this little plant, so strong,
so silent, gave him an extraordinary sensation—it was so noble in its
intense life, and yet so helpless. Luc sometimes felt abashed before the
gold foliage rising out of the common pot on the dirty sill.
He thought now that the soil felt dry, and turned to get water. In that
moment the door opened and a man stepped into the room.
“Who are you, Monsieur?” asked Luc pleasantly. The other swept off his
hat.
“Do you not know me, Monsieur le Marquis?”
Luc strained his eyes.
“Come a little nearer. Ah!”—as the other obeyed—“Monsieur de
Richelieu!”
“Yes.”
The Duke glanced round the plaster walls, the raftered ceiling, the
shabby furniture. Then his bold dark eyes rested on the meagre figure of
Luc, clothed in garments still too good for his surroundings, and he
flushed, and a shade came over his broad low brow.
“Do you live here?” he asked.
“Yes, Maréchal.”
Luc indicated a chair, and M. de Richelieu seated himself. The splendour
of his velvets, laces, brilliants, and all his extravagant appointments,
looked strange enough in this room. His charming face was red between
the flowing curls, and he gazed at Luc with an expression of amazement.
“Yesterday,” he said, “M. de Voltaire brought your book to the Hôtel
d’Antin, and I was reading it last night. Good God—a man of your
quality! I wish you could have accepted the Spanish appointment.”
Luc seated himself on the low chair by the hearth, on which a few sticks
were burning.
“I wished so also,” he said quietly. “But you see for yourself,
Monseigneur, that my health would not permit.”
The Maréchal seemed unable to find words.
Luc leant forward and narrowed his weak eyes.
“Have you come to offer me patronage, Monsieur?” he asked.
The Duke answered with a noble air—
“It would not be possible for anyone to offer M. de Vauvenargues
patronage. I heard from M. de Voltaire that you were here, and I came to
be instructed in philosophy.”
“A Maréchal de France comes to be instructed in philosophy in a garret!”
smiled Luc; “and from one with whom he discovered long since that he had
nothing in common!”
The Duke looked down at his open hand, that he lightly struck with his
gauntlet, which was heavily embroidered with wreaths of roses, of gold
ribbon, and of violets.
“We have something in common,” he said—“Madame la Comtesse Koklinska.”
Luc rose and leant against the mean mantelshelf.
“Yes, we have that memory in common,” he answered calmly.
“When did you see her last?” asked the Duke.
“She is dead,” said Luc, looking at him.
M. de Richelieu glanced up swiftly. There was a curious sense of
stillness in the room. When the Duke spoke, his tone was also low.
“When did she die?”
“In a convent in Aix—nearly a year ago. So you did not know?”
“But I might have guessed that no other reason would have prevented her
from coming back.”
“If she had lived, M. de Maréchal, she would never have come back. She
died in the habit of a novice.”
“Ah—well, after all, that is what they all do. Did she speak of me?”
“She said, Monsieur, you had done—what they all do.”
M. de Richelieu laughed softly.
“She was a clever woman. I never knew her deceived. She was, in her way,
quite marvellous. But I did not come to speak of her.”
“No, Monsieur, but to look on a curiosity, I suppose?”
M. de Richelieu rose to his feet with a shimmer of his violet watered
silks, and said a curious thing.
“Are you—with the world forgone—happy?” he asked.
Luc looked over the housetops at the setting sun that glittered over the
roofs of the Isle of St. Louis.
“Yes,” he answered. He coughed, put his hand to the plain linen ruffles
on his bosom, and sat down again in the worn chair.
“And yet you have lost everything!” exclaimed the Maréchal.
“I keep my soul,” smiled Luc; and his pallid, disfigured face glowed for
a second into its old likeness.
“I have my soul,” said the Maréchal, “and all the world besides. What
have you that I have not?”
“Nothing, maybe,” replied Luc gravely.
“Ah,” insisted the Court favourite, “you have the power to come and
live—like this.” His superb gesture was as if he indicated a kennel.
“You have the power to sacrifice things that must be sweet to you. What
inspires you?”
“The love of glory, Monsieur,” smiled Luc. “Call it that. But what is
the use of words? My life marches to a different music from yours.”
“Do you despise me?” asked the Maréchal quickly, eagerly.
Luc considered a moment before he lifted his head and answered quietly
“I think I do.”
“So M. de Voltaire says sometimes; but he is not a man of quality. I
thought you despised me when we first met. Why?”
“You had such great opportunities,” answered Luc.
“I have made great use of them. There is no one more powerful in France,
except La Pompadour.”
“That is a proud boast,” said the Marquis. “I recommend it for your
epitaph, Monsieur le Maréchal.”
The Duke put his hand swiftly to the gold lace on his bosom.
“You hold me in contempt,” he said, with a fine smile, “but I can feel
no scorn for you. How do you do it?”
Luc lifted his head.
“Are you so discontented with your own life that you must come prying
into mine?” he said evenly. “You have what you wanted. Be satisfied, as I
am.”
M. de Richelieu’s face paled with a sudden passion.
“There is nothing can satisfy me! I begin to find the world very
stale, so much of it is foolish. But you seem to have found something
new. Tell me, for I no longer see anything gilded in all the world.
There is a tarnish over the gold pieces, and over the women’s hair—and
both were bright enough to me once.”
Luc leant forward, and with a bent poker stirred the fire into a sparkle
of embers.
“I fear, Monsieur le Maréchal,” he said, “that you
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