V
When the chevalier arrived at the château he found another doorkeeper in front of the peristyle:
“By the King’s order,” said the young man, who this time no longer feared halberds, and, showing his letter, he passed gaily between half a dozen lackeys.
A tall usher, planted in the middle of the vestibule, seeing the order and the royal seal, gravely inclined himself, like a poplar bent by the wind—then, smiling, he touched with one of his bony fingers the corner of a piece of paneling.
A little swinging door, masked by tapestry, at once opened as if of its own accord. The bony man made an obsequious sign, the chevalier entered, and the tapestry, which had been drawn apart, fell softly behind him.
A silent valet introduced him into a drawing-room, then into a corridor, in which there were two or three closed doors, then at last into a second drawing-room, and begged him to wait a moment.
“Am I here again in the château of Versailles?” the chevalier asked himself. “Are we going to begin another game of hide-and-seek?”
Trianon was, at that time, neither what it is now nor what it had been. It has been said that Madame de Maintenon had made of Versailles an oratory, and Madame de Pompadour a boudoir. It has also been said of Trianon that ce petit château de porcelaine was the boudoir of Madame de Montespan. Be that as it may, concerning these boudoirs, it appears that Louis XV put them everywhere. This or that gallery, which his ancestor walked majestically, was then divided oddly into an infinity of apartments. There were some of every color, and the King went fluttering about in all these gardens of silk and velvet.
“Do you think my little furnished apartments are in good taste?” he one day asked the beautiful Comtesse de Sérrant.
“No,” said she, “I would have them in blue.”
As blue was the King’s color, this answer flattered him.
At their next meeting, Madame de Sérrant found the salon upholstered in blue, as she had wished it.
That in which the chevalier now found himself alone was neither blue nor pink, it was all mirrors. We know how much a pretty woman with a lovely figure gains by letting her image repeat itself in a thousand aspects. She bewilders, she envelops, so to speak, him whom she desires to please. To whatever side he turns, he sees her. How can he avoid being charmed? He must either take to flight or own himself conquered.
The chevalier looked at the garden, too. There, behind, the bushes and labyrinths, the statues and the marble vases, that pastoral style which the marquise was about to introduce, and which, later on, Madame Du Barry and Marie Antoinette were to push to such a high degree of perfection, was beginning to show itself. Already there appeared the rural fantasies where the blasé conceits were disappearing. Already the puffing tritons, the grave goddesses, and the learned nymphs, the busts with flowing wigs, frozen with horror in their wealth of verdure, beheld an English garden rise from the ground, amid the wondering trees. Little lawns, little streams, little bridges, were soon to dethrone Olympus to replace it by a dairy, strange parody of nature, which the English copy without understanding—very child’s play, for the nonce the pastime of an indolent master who tried in vain to escape the ennui of Versailles while remaining at Versailles itself.
But the chevalier was too charmed, too enraptured at finding himself there for a critical thought to present itself to his mind. He was, on the contrary, ready to admire everything, and was indeed admiring, twirling his missive between his fingers as a rustic does his hat, when a pretty waiting-maid opened the door, and said to him softly:
“Come, monsieur.”
He followed her, and after having once more passed through several corridors which were more or less mysterious, she ushered him into a large apartment where the shutters were half-closed. Here she stopped and seemed to listen.
“Still at hide-and-seek!” said the chevalier to himself. However, at the end of a few moments, yet another door opened, and another waiting-maid, who seemed to be even prettier than the first, repeated to him in the same tone the same words:
“Come, monsieur.”
If he had been the victim of one kind of emotion at Versailles, he was subject to another, and still deeper feeling now, for he stood on the threshold of the temple in which the divinity dwelt. He advanced with a palpitating heart. A soft light, slightly veiled by thin, gauze curtains, succeeded obscurity; a delicious perfume, almost imperceptible, pervaded the air around him; the waiting-maid timidly drew back the corner of a silk portière, and, at the end of a large chamber furnished with elegant simplicity, he beheld the lady of the fan—the all-powerful marquise.
She was alone, seated before a table, wrapped in a dressing-gown, her head resting on her hand, and, seemingly, deeply preoccupied. On seeing the chevalier enter, she rose with a sudden and apparently involuntary movement.
“You come on behalf of the King?”
The chevalier might have answered, but he could think of nothing better than to bow profoundly while presenting to the marquise the letter which he brought her. She took it, or rather seized upon it, with extreme eagerness. Her hands trembled on the envelope as she broke the seal.
This letter, written by the King’s hand, was rather long. She devoured it at first, so to speak, with a glance, then she read it greedily, with profound attention, with wrinkled brow and tightened lips. She was not beautiful thus, and no longer resembled the magic apparition of the petit foyer. When she reached the end, she seemed to reflect. Little by little her face, which had turned pale, assumed a faint color (at this hour she did not wear rouge), and not only did she regain that graceful air which habitually belonged to her, but a gleam of real beauty illumined her delicate features; one might have taken her cheeks for two rose-leaves. She heaved a little sigh, allowed the letter to fall upon the table, and, turning toward the chevalier, said, with the most charming smile:
“I kept you waiting, monsieur, but I was not yet dressed, and, indeed, am hardly so even now. That is why I was forced to get you to come through the private rooms, for I am almost as much besieged here as though I were at home. I would like to answer the King’s note. Would it be too much trouble to you to do an errand for me?”
This time he must speak; the chevalier had had time to regain a little courage:
“Alas! madame,” said he, sadly, “you confer a great favor on me, but, unfortunately, I can not profit by it.”
“Why not?”
“I have not the honor to belong to his Majesty.”
“How, then, did you come here?”
“By chance; I met on my way a page who had been thrown and who begged me—”
“How ‘thrown’?” repeated the marquise, bursting out laughing. She seemed so happy at this moment that gaiety came to her without an effort.
“Yes, madame, he fell from his horse at the gate. I luckily found myself there to help him to rise, and, as his dress was very much disordered, he begged me to take charge of his message.”
“And by what chance did you find yourself there?”
“Madame, it was because I had a petition to present to his Majesty.”
“His Majesty lives at Versailles.”
“Yes, but you live here.”
“Oh! So it is you who wished to entrust me with a message.”
“Madame, I beg you to believe—”
“Do not trouble yourself, you are not the first. But why do you address yourself to me? I am but a woman—like any other.”
As she uttered these words with a somewhat ironical air, the marquise threw a triumphant look upon the letter she had just read.
“Madame,” continued the chevalier, “I have always heard that men exercise power, and that women—”
“Guide it, eh? Well, monsieur, there is a queen of France.”
“I know it, madame; that is how it happened that I found myself here this morning.”
The marquise was more than accustomed to such compliments, though they were generally made in a whisper; but, in the present circumstances, this appeared to be quite singularly gratifying to her.
“And on what faith,” said she, “on what assurance, did you believe yourself able to penetrate as far as this? For you did not count, I suppose, upon a horse’s falling on the way.”
“Madame, I believed—I hoped—”
“What did you hope?”
“I hoped that chance—might make—”
“Chance again! Chance is apparently one of your friends; but I warn you that if you have no other, it is a sad recommendation.”
Perhaps offended Chance wished to avenge herself for this irreverence, for the chevalier, whom these few questions had more and more troubled, suddenly perceived, on the corner of the table, the identical fan that he had picked up the night before. He took it, and, as on the night before, presented it to the marquise, bending the knee before her.
“Here, madame,” he said to her, “is the only friend that could plead for me—”
The marquise seemed at first astonished, and hesitated a moment, looking now at the fan, now at the chevalier.
“Ah! you are right,” she said at last, “it is you, monsieur! I recognize you. It is you whom I saw yesterday, after the play, as I went by with M. de Richelieu. I let my fan drop, and you ‘found yourself there,’ as you were saying.”
“Yes, madame.”
“And very gallantly, as a true chevalier, you returned it to me. I did not thank you, but I was sure, all the same, that he who knows how to pick up a fan with such grace would also know, at the right time, how to pick up the glove. And we are not ill-pleased at that, we women.”
“And it is but too true, madame; for, on reaching here just now, I almost had a duel with the gatekeeper.”
“Mercy on us!” said the marquise, once more seized with a fit of gaiety. “With the gatekeeper! And what about?”
“He would not let me come in.”
“That would have been a pity! But who are you, monsieur? And what is your request?”
“Madame, I am called the Chevalier de Vauvert. M. de Biron had asked in my behalf for a cornetcy in the Guards.”
“Oh! I remember now. You come from Neauflette; you are in love with Mademoiselle d’Annebault—”
“Madame, who could have told you?”
“Oh! I warn you that I am much to be feared. When memory fails me, I guess. You are a relative of the Abbé de Chauvelin, and were refused on that account; is not that so? Where is your petition?”
“Here it is, madame; but indeed I can not understand—”
“Why need you understand? Rise and lay your paper on the table. I am going to answer the King’s letter; you will take him, at the same time, your request and my letter.”
“But, madame, I thought I had mentioned to you—”
“You will go. You entered here on the business of the King, is not that true? Well, then, you will enter there in the business of the Marquise de Pompadour, lady of the palace to the Queen.”
The chevalier bowed without a word, seized with a sort of stupefaction. The world had long known how much talk, how many ruses and intrigues, the favorite had brought to bear, and what obstinacy she had shown to obtain this title, which in reality brought her nothing but a cruel affront from the Dauphin. She had longed for it for ten years; she willed it, and she had succeeded. So M. de Vauvert, whom she did not know, although she knew of his love, pleased her as a bearer of happy news.
Immovable, standing behind her, the chevalier watched the marquise as she wrote, first, with all her heart—with passion—then with reflection, stopping, passing her hand under her little nose, delicate as amber. She grew impatient: the presence of a witness disturbed her. At last she made up her mind and drew her pen through something; it must be owned that after all it was but a rough draft.
Opposite the chevalier, on the other side of the table, there glittered a fine Venetian mirror. This timid messenger hardly dared raise his eyes. It would, however, have been difficult not to see in this mirror, over the head of the marquise, the anxious and charming face of the new lady of the palace.
“How pretty she is!” thought he; “it is a pity that I am in love with somebody else; but Athénaïs is more beautiful, and moreover it would be on my part such a horrible disloyalty.”
“What are you talking about?” said the marquise. The chevalier, as was his wont, had thought aloud without knowing it. “What are you saying?”
“I, madame? I am waiting.”
“There; that is done,” the marquise went on, taking another sheet of paper; but at the slight movement she had made in turning around the dressing-gown had slipped on her shoulder.
Fashion is a strange thing. Our grandmothers thought nothing of going to court in immense robes exposing almost the entire bosom, and it was by no means considered indecent; but they carefully hid the back of their necks, which the fine ladies of to-day expose so freely in the balcony of the opera. This is a newly invented beauty.
On the frail, white, dainty shoulder of Madame de Pompadour there was a little black mark that looked like a fly floating in milk. The chevalier, serious as a giddy boy who is trying to keep his countenance, looked at the mark, and the marquise, holding her pen in the air, looked at the chevalier in the mirror.
In that mirror a rapid glance was exchanged, which meant to say on the one side, “You are charming,” and on the other, “I am not sorry for it.”
However, the marquise readjusted her dressing-gown.
“You are looking at my beauty-spot?”
“I am not looking, madame; I see and I admire.”
“Here is my letter; take it to the King with your petition.”
“But, madame—”
“Well?”
“His Majesty is hunting; I have just heard the horn in the wood of Satory.”
“That is true. I did not think of it. Well, to-morrow. The day after; it matters little. No, immediately. Go. You will give that to Lebel. Good-by, monsieur. Try and remember the beauty-spot you have just seen; the King alone in the whole kingdom has seen it; and as for your friend, Chance, tell her, I beg of you, to take care and not chatter to herself so loud, as she did just now. Farewell, chevalier.”
She touched a little bell, then, lifting a flood of laces upon her sleeve, held out to the young man her bare arm. He once more bent low, and with the tips of his lips scarcely brushed the rosy nails of the marquise. She saw no impoliteness in it—far from it—but, perhaps, a little too much modesty.
At once the little waiting-maids reappeared (the big ones were not yet up), and, standing behind them, like a steeple in the middle of a flock of sheep, the bony man, still smiling, was pointing the way.