The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen (epub e reader txt) đ
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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The Duke laughed.
âOld!â he repeated. âOld!â He rose. âMy God! do you think I am old?
Look at me, Monsieurâam I old?â
Luc turned his head towards him.
âI can scarcely see you at all,â he said serenely. âI only see something
gold and purple. I am, Monsieur, half blind.â
The Duke stared at him.
âIf I was stricken like you, I would fall on my sword!â he exclaimed
impulsively.
âEach has his own courage,â replied Luc.
âHow long will you stay here?â asked the MarĂ©chal abruptly.
âUntil I die, Monsieur.â
âBy Heaven, no. Come to the HĂŽtel dâAntin. You are a great man. Since I
am growing old I need a philosopher at my side, andâI always liked you,
Luc de Vauvenargues.â
The Marquis rose.
âI suppose it was you who obtained me the Spanish appointment after
all?â he asked suddenly.
âDo you bear me malice for that?â
âNo,â said Luc, âno. But I am glad that I have chosen a way where I can
walk unaided.â
âWill you come to the HĂŽtel dâAntin?â
âMonseigneur, this time I have not come to Paris to become a pensioner
of the great.â
This answer, spoken with pride, but sweetly, caused the blood to flush
to M. de Richelieuâs side curls.
âSo my philosopher rejects me!â he cried. âAnd I have prostrated myself
at the feet of the wise man without learning the secret of perpetual
youth or happiness! Farewell, Monsieur de Vauvenargues.â
He bowed and stepped towards the door. When he had opened it he paused
with the latch in his hand.
âWhere is she buried?â he asked.
Luc did not answer.
âI mean La Koklinska,â insisted the resplendent MarĂ©chal.
âIn our hearts,â answered the Marquis swiftly. âLet her lie at peace.â
âYour pardon,â said M. de Richelieu. âI would have dedicated something
to her memory.â
âYou can, Monsieurâyour silence.â
The Duke bowed again.
âMy silence, then, until we three meet in the Elysian Fields, when we
shall be able to have an interesting conversation. Again, and till then,
farewell.â
âFarewell, Monsieur le MarĂ©chal.â
The door closed on the gorgeous courtier, and Luc was alone as usual in
the cold, darkening room, with the fire sinking on the hearth and the
sun fading without over the roofs of Paris.
CHAPTER VII # THE ROSES OF M. MARMONTEL
Luc stood again on the bridge, leaning on the parapet, and watching the
river and the people passing to and fro.
It was midsummer of the year â46, and unusually hot. Most of the women
wore rosesâred, white, and pink. There were many boats on the river,
and an air of gay carelessness over Paris; yet the war had not been so
brilliantly successful of late. The English mastery of the seas was
ruining commerce, and the Saxon troops were marching on Provence. The
taxes were heavier than ever, and starved faces and bitter tongues more
frequent in the poorer quarters where Luc lived.
If anyone had remarked a slim young noble, richly dressed, looking with
earnest eyes at the river from this old bridge of St. Germain some three
years ago, and had happened to pass this spot now, they would not have
recognized that graceful figure in the prematurely aged man in the
shabby clothes who leant heavily against the parapet, whose face was so
disfigured and expressionless, who wore no sword, but helped himself
with a black cane.
But Luc de Clapiers was happier than he had been when last he mused
above the Seine. As his body fell into decay and painful feebleness his
spirit seemed to mount more and more triumphantly. Sometimes he felt as
if he held all the thought of all the world in the hollow of his hand;
as if he soared above and beyond his age with the great immortals who
rule over eternity. In his dreams he beheld most beautiful landscapes;
when he lay down on his bed vistas opened up of strange and gorgeous
countries, exquisite almost beyond bearing, and a path would run from
the bare boards of his garret straight to the heart of some woodland
that dipped to uncharted seas of delight.
Music came from a boat that passed beneath the bridge; the sound of it
across the water was tremblingly sweet to Lucâs ears. He thought there
was something sublime and sad in the notes; that there was a message in
them that no human voice could convey.
He straightened himself against the parapet, then went on his way. At
the corner of the bridge he met a beggar woman dragging a child. She
cast an appealing glance at Luc, who paused, fumbled a silver coin from
his pocket, and gave it her. The action reminded him that he had only a
few gold pieces left in the world. He had planned his resources to last
twice as long, but it had been easy to deny himself everything but
charity. That it was not in his nature to forgo, nor were the instincts
of a life at a moment to be altered. He never chaffered, and therefore
paid double what every one else did in the Isle.
Last winter the man who lived in the room opposite his, a clarionet
player at the Opera, had been ill, and Luc had paid to prevent the
fellow being turned into the street, paid the expenses of his short
illness, and finally his humble funeral.
For his book he had received nothing. For the next edition that he was
revising, with the advice of M. de Voltaire, he also expected to receive
nothing. He had friends,âVoltaire himself, Saint Vincent, and
others,âbut the noble blood in him prevented him from ever considering
their possible assistance. He could only think of writing pamphlets, or
doing translations; but he knew little Greek or Latin, and only a scanty
Italian.
As he returned home through the sunny streets he recalled his fatherâs
words: âNot a louis from me, if you are starvingâas, in your folly and
wickedness, you will starve.â
He thought of his parents, of Joseph, and Aix, with great tenderness. He
was glad he had resisted the booksellerâs entreaty to put his name to
his book, even though by his refusal he had probably lost a good chance
of ensuring the success of his labour; for he had spared the proud old
aristocrat the shame of seeing his name on the title-page of a work of
philosophy; of hearing his name associated with Voltaire, with
literature, with poverty, with the ignominy of writing and printing a
book.
âHe would say,â thought Luc, âhow right he wasâwhat an utter failure I
am.â
He opened the door of his room, and entered with great weariness. The
stairs, steep and dark, fatigued him immensely. The garret, being
directly under the roof, was suffocatingly hot. He felt his head ache
and his limbs tremble. The food placed for him on the table near the
window he turned from, though the little girl who waited on him had
arranged glass and plate, salad and meat, black bread, and thin wine in
a tall bottle, neatly enough.
On this same table lay a bundle of proofs tried round with a twist of
twine.
Luc took them up, balanced them in his hand, and put them down again. He
was only able to read them with great difficulty.
âAfter all,â he mused, with a melancholy smile, âperhaps they are
worth nothingâwho knows?â
He sat very still, considering what he was to do for money. The people
he was dealing with were poor. He could not bear the thought of being in
their debt, or of asking them for any kindness that he could not reward.
He reflected that it cost something even to die decently, and he might
live some time longer. He smiled to think that he was balancing the
probable length of his life against the probable length of his purse,
and at the reflection that a hundred pistoles would put him out of all
anxiety. His sweet humour took the whole thing with a laugh.
Presently he went to the window. A foul, stale smell was rising from the
old winding street. Dirty, sharp-faced children played in the brilliant
patch of sunshine that fell between two decayed houses and stained the
cobbles.
At the doorless entrances dishevelled women stood talking, and gathered
round the wine-shop were a few men of a better sort, with their shirts
open for the heat, who emptied their glasses silently, then went about
their business, silently also. Lucâs feeble sight could make out none of
this, nor did he look down, but across the irregular roofs to the
ineffable glory of the gold and purple August sky.
He put his hands on the sill; the stinging heat of it was grateful to
his chill blood. He closed his eyes, and felt the sunshine like a red
sword across his lids. He leant his sick head against the mullions. The
clock of a church near by struck four; it reminded him that this was the
hour and the day when he was generally visited by Voltaire or one of his
friendsâDiderot, dâAlembert, Saint Vincent. Luc loved these men, as he
could not fail to love those whose warm regard was sweetening his
closing years, but he would not live their lives. The Pompadour was
their patroness, and they lived on that corruption that they secretly
laughed at. Luc could not ever have brought himself to kneel at the
footstool of the Marquise; his pure integrity, his absolute
independence, and his complete obscurity divided him as sharply as his
birth from the group of brilliant men to whom by right of genius he
belonged.
All of these men had achieved success; combined, they made a power equal
to that of the ancient royalty itself. They were preparingâin the
Encyclopaedia to which they were devoting their enthusiasm, their gifts
of logic, of reason, of sarcasm, of eloquenceâthunderbolts that would
shake God Himself. Yet they one and all agreed to honour the unknown
young aristocrat whose austere philosophy condemned half their actions,
but whose sweetness and heroism won their admiration and respect.
M. de Voltaire came to Lucâs chamber this blazing afternoon, and not
alone. He brought with him a young man, very splendidly attired, with a
fine ardent face and bold eyes, full of an eager, joyous life. M. de
Voltaire presented him brieflyâ
âM. le MarquisâM. Marmontel.â
Luc caught the young manâs hand, and drew him gently into the sunlight,
straining his half-blind eyes to make out the person of his visitor.
For Jean Français Marmontel was the favourite of Paris, petted,
caressed, extolled; the incarnation of success; one young, vigorous, and
in the seat of glory; one physically what Luc had been before the
Bohemia war, and from the worldly point of view in that position Luc had
so yearned and longed for, so confidently hoped to attain.
Luc had failed in arms, in politics, in letters. He had lost love, and
health, and all hope of material triumph. He had even won hate from
those nearest to him in blood. He was dying, slowly, and in a fashion
humiliating. He was disfigured, feeble, half blind, bowed with weakness
and great pain.
M. de Voltaire thought of this as he watched him looking so earnestly at
the young man who was so crowned with gifts, with success, strength, and
vigour.
M. Marmontel wore roses like the women who had passed to and fro the
Pont St. Germainâsweet-smelling red roses, thrust into the black velvet
ribbon that fastened the long
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