Cinq Mars Part 47

M. DE CINQ-MARS: I write this letter to entreat and conjure you to restore to her duties our well-beloved adopted daughter and friend, the Princesse Marie de Gonzaga, whom your affection alone turns from the throne of Poland, which has been offered to her. I have sounded her heart. She is very young, and I have good reason to believe that she would accept the crown with less effort and less grief than you may perhaps imagine.

It is for her you have undertaken a war which will put to fire and sword my beautiful and beloved France. I supplicate and implore you to act as a gentleman, and n.o.bly to release the d.u.c.h.esse de Mantua from the promises she may have made you. Thus restore repose to her soul, and peace to our beloved country.

The Queen, who will throw herself at your feet if need be,

ANNE.

Cinq-Mars calmly replaced the pistol upon the table; his first impulse had been to turn its muzzle upon himself. However, he laid it down, and s.n.a.t.c.hing a pencil, wrote on the back of the letter;

MADAME: Marie de Gonzaga, being my wife, can not be Queen of Poland until after my death. I die.

CINQ-MARS.

Then, as if he would not allow himself time for a moment's reflection, he forced the letter into the hands of the courier.

"To horse! to horse!" cried he, in a furious tone. "If you remain another instant, you are a dead man!"

He saw him gallop off, and reentered the tent. Alone with his friend, he remained an instant standing, but pale, his eyes fixed, and looking on the ground like a madman. He felt himself totter.

"De Thou!" he cried.

"What would you, my friend, my dear friend? I am with you. You have acted grandly, most grandly, sublimely!"

"De Thou!" he cried again, in a hollow voice, and fell with his face to the ground, like an uprooted tree.

Violent tempests a.s.sume different aspects, according to the climates in which they take place. Those which have spread over a terrible s.p.a.ce in northern countries a.s.semble into one single cloud under the torrid zone--the more formidable, that they leave the horizon in all its purity, and that the furious waves still reflect the azure of heaven while tinged with the blood of man. It is the same with great pa.s.sions.

They a.s.sume strange aspects according to our characters; but how terrible are they in vigorous hearts, which have preserved their force under the veil of social forms? When youth and despair embrace, we know not to what fury they may rise, or what may be their sudden resignation; we know not whether the volcano will burst the mountain or become suddenly extinguished within its entrails.

De Thou, in alarm, raised his friend. The blood gushed from his nostrils and ears; he would have thought him dead, but for the torrents of tears which flowed from his eyes. They were the only sign of life. Suddenly he opened his lids, looked around him, and by an extraordinary energy resumed his senses and the power of his will.

"I am in the presence of men," said he; "I must finish with them. My friend, it is half-past eleven; the hour for the signal has pa.s.sed.

Give, in my name, the order to return to quarters. It was a false alarm, which I will myself explain this evening."

De Thou had already perceived the importance of this order; he went out and returned immediately.

He found Cinq-Mars seated, calm, and endeavoring to cleanse the blood from his face.

"De Thou," said he, looking fixedly at him, "retire; you disturb me."

"I leave you not," answered the latter.

"Fly, I tell you! the Pyrenees are not far distant. I can not speak much longer, even to you; but if you remain with me, you will die. I give you warning."

"I remain," repeated De Thou.

"May G.o.d preserve you, then!" answered Cinq-Mars, "for I can do nothing more; the moment has pa.s.sed. I leave you here. Call Fontrailles and all the confederates: distribute these pa.s.sports among them. Let them fly immediately; tell them all has failed, but that I thank them. For you, once again I say, fly with them, I entreat you; but whatever you do, follow me not--follow me not, for your life! I swear to you not to do violence to myself!"

With these words, shaking his friend's hand without looking at him, he rushed from the tent.

Meantime, some leagues thence another conversation was taking place.

At Narbonne, in the same cabinet in which we formerly beheld Richelieu regulating with Joseph the interests of the State, were still seated the same men, nearly as we have described them. The minister, however, had grown much older in three years of suffering; and the Capuchin was as much terrified with the result of his expedition as his master appeared tranquil.

The Cardinal, seated in his armchair, his legs bound and encased with furs and warm clothing, had upon his knees three kittens, which gambolled upon his scarlet robe. Every now and then he took one of them and placed it upon the others, to continue their sport. He smiled as he watched them. On his feet lay their mother, looking like an enormous animated m.u.f.f.

Joseph, seated near him, was going over the account of all he had heard in the confessional. Pale even now, at the danger he had run of being discovered, or of being murdered by Jacques, he concluded thus:

"In short, your Eminence, I can not help feeling agitated to my heart's core when I reflect upon the dangers which have, and still do, threaten you. a.s.sa.s.sins offer themselves to poniard you. I beheld in France the whole court against you, one half of the army, and two provinces.

Abroad, Spain and Portugal are ready to furnish troops. Everywhere there are snares or battles, poniards or cannon."

The Cardinal yawned three times, without discontinuing his amus.e.m.e.nt, and then said:

"A cat is a very fine animal. It is a drawing-room tiger. What suppleness, what extraordinary finesse! Here is this little yellow one pretending to sleep, in order that the tortoise-sh.e.l.l one may not notice it, but fall upon its brother; and this one, how it tears the other! See how it sticks its claws into its side! It would kill and eat it, I fully believe, if it were the stronger. It is very amusing. What pretty animals!"

He coughed and sneezed for some time; then he continued:

"Messire Joseph, I sent word to you not to speak to me of business until after my supper... I have an appet.i.te now, and it is not yet my hour.

Chicot, my doctor, recommends regularity, and I feel my usual pain in my side. This is how I shall spend the evening," he added, looking at the clock. "At nine, we will settle the affairs of Monsieur le Grand. At ten, I shall be carried round the garden to take the air by moonlight.

Then I shall sleep for an hour or two. At midnight the King will be here; and at four o'clock you may return to receive the various orders for arrests, condemnations, or any others I may have to give you, for the provinces, Paris, or the armies of his Majesty."

Richelieu said all this in the same tone of voice, with a uniform enunciation, affected only by the weakness of his chest and the loss of several teeth.

It was seven in the evening. The Capuchin withdrew. The Cardinal supped with the greatest tranquillity; and when the clock struck half-past eight, he sent for Joseph, and said to him, when he was seated:

"This, then, is all they have been able to do against me during more than two years. They are poor creatures, truly! The Duc de Bouillon, whom I thought possessed some ability, has forfeited all claim to my opinion. I have watched him closely; and I ask you, has he taken one step worthy of a true statesman? The King, Monsieur, and the rest, have only shown their teeth against me, and without depriving me of one single man. The young Cinq-Mars is the only man among them who has any consecutiveness of ideas. All that he has done has been done surprisingly well. I must do him justice; he had good qualities.

I should have made him my pupil, had it not been for his obstinate character. But he has here charged me 'a l'outrance, and must take the consequences. I am sorry for him. I have left them to float about in open water for the last two years. I shall now draw the net."

"It is time, Monseigneur," said Joseph, who often trembled involuntarily as he spoke. "Do you bear in mind that from Perpignan to Narbonne the way is short? Do you know that if your army here is powerful, your own troops are weak and uncertain; that the young n.o.bles are furious; and that the King is not sure?"

The Cardinal looked at the clock.

"It is only half-past eight, Joseph. I have already told you that I will not talk about this affair until nine. Meantime, as justice must be done, you will write what I shall dictate, for my memory serves me well.

There are still some objectionable persons left, I see by my notes--four of the judges of Urbain Grandier. He was a rare genius, that Urbain Grandier," he added, with a malicious expression. Joseph bit his lips.

"All the other judges have died miserably. As to Houmain, he shall be hanged as a smuggler by and by. We may leave him alone for the present.

But there is that horrible Lactantius, who lives peacefully, Barre, and Mignon. Take a pen, and write to the Bishop of Poitiers,

"MONSEIGNEUR: It is his Majesty's pleasure that Fathers Mignon and Barre be superseded in their cures, and sent with the shortest possible delay to the town of Lyons, with Father Lactantius, Capuchin, to be tried before a special tribunal, charged with criminal intentions against the State."

Joseph wrote as coolly as a Turk strikes off a head at a sign from his master. The Cardinal said to him, while signing the letter:

"I will let you know how I wish them to disappear, for it is important to efface all traces of that affair. Providence has served me well.

In removing these men, I complete its work. That is all that posterity shall know of the affair."

And he read to the Capuchin that page of his memoirs in which he recounts the possession and sorceries of the magician.--[Collect. des Memoires xxviii. 189.]--During this slow process, Joseph could not help looking at the clock.

"You are anxious to come to Monsieur le Grand," said the Cardinal at last. "Well, then, to please you, let us begin."

"Do you think I have not my reasons for being tranquil? You think that I have allowed these poor conspirators to go too far. No, no! Here are some little papers that would rea.s.sure you, did you know their contents.

First, in this hollow stick is the treaty with Spain, seized at Oleron.

I am well satisfied with Laubardemont; he is an able man."