THE HISTORY OF A ROSE
The gallery parallel to the course of the Seine, and which joins the Palace of the Tuileries to the Louvre, was designed by Philibert de l'Orme, and finished towards the end of 1663. On the 15th of January, 1664, Louis the Fourteenth descended into the vast greenhouses, where his gardener, Le Nôtre, had collected from all parts of the world the rarest and most beautiful plants and flowers.
The air was soft and balmy as that of spring-time in the south. At the right of the great monarch stood Colbert, silently revolving gigantic projects of state; at the left was Lauzun, that ambitious courtier, who, not possessing sufficient tact to discern royal hatred under the mask of court favor, was afterwards destined to expiate, at Pignerol, the crime of being more amiable and handsomer than the king.
"Messieurs," said Louis, showing to his companions a long and richly-laden avenue of orange trees, "are not these a noble present from our ancient enemy, Philip the Fourth, now our father-in-law? He has rifled his own gardens to deck the Tuileries; and the Infanta, we hope, when walking beneath these trees, will cease to regret the shade of the Escurial."
"Sire," said Colbert gravely, "the Queen mourns a much greater loss—that of your majesty's affections."
"Parbleu!" exclaimed Lauzun, gayly; "in order to lose any thing, one must first have possessed it. Now, if I don't mistake,—"
"Silence! M. le Duc. M. de Colbert, my marriage was the work of Mazarin—quite sufficient to guarantee that the heart was not consulted."
The minister bowed, without replying.
"As to you, M. de Lauzun," continued the king, "beware, henceforward, how you forget that Maria Theresa is Queen of France, and that the nature of our feelings towards her is not to be made a subject of discussion."
"Sire, forgive my—"
"Enough!" interrupted Louis, approaching a man, who, unmindful of the king's presence, had taken off his coat, in order the more easily to prune a tall flowering shrub.
This was the celebrated gardener, Le Nôtre. Absorbed in some unpleasant train of thought, he had not heeded the approach of visitors, and continued to mutter and grumble to himself, while diligently using the pruning-knife.
"What! out of humor?" asked Louis.
Without resuming his coat, the gardener cried eagerly—"Sire, justice! This morning, the Queen Dowager's maids of honor came hither, and, in spite of my remonstrances, did an infinity of mischief. See this American magnolia, the only one your Majesty possesses. Well, Sire, they cut off its finest blossoms: neither oranges nor roses could escape them. Happily I succeeded in hiding from them my favorite child—my beautiful rose-tree, which I have nursed with so much care, and which will live for fifty years, provided care be taken not to allow it to produce more than one rose in the season." Then pointing to the plant of which he spoke, Le Nôtre continued: "'Tis the hundred-leaved rose, Sire! Hitherto I have saved it from pillage; but I protest, if such conduct can be renewed.
"Come, come!" interposed the monarch, "we must not be too hard on young girls. They are like butterflies, and love flowers."
"Morbleu! Sire, butterflies don't break boughs, and eat oranges!"
Louis deigned to smile at this repartee. "Tell us," he said, "who were the culprits?"
"All the ladies, Sire! Yet, no. I am wrong. There was one young creature, as fresh and lovely as this very rose, who did not imitate her companions. The poor child even tried to comfort me, while the others were tearing my flowers: they called her Louise."
"It was Mademoiselle de la Vallière," said Lauzun, "the young person whom your Majesty remarked yesterday in attendance on Madame Henriette."
"She shall have her reward," said Louis. "Let Mademoiselle de la Vallière be the only maid of honor invited to the ball to be given here to-night."
"A ball! Ah, my poor flowers!" cried Le Nôtre, clasping his hands in despair.
Colbert ventured to remind his Majesty that he had promised to give an audience that evening to two architects, Claude Perrault and Liberal Bruant; of whom, the first was to bring designs for the Observatory; the second, a plan for the Hôtel des Invalides.
"Receive these gentlemen yourself," replied the king; "while we are dancing, M. de Colbert will labor for our glory; posterity will never be the wiser! Only, in order to decorate these bare walls, have the goodness to send to the manufactory of the Gobelins, which you have just established, for some of the beautiful tapestry you praise so highly."
Accordingly, to the utter despair of Le Nôtre, the ball took place in the greenhouses, metamorphosed, as if by magic, into a vast gallery, illumined by a thousand lustres, sparkling amid flowers and precious stones. Each fragrant orange-tree bore wax-lights amid its branches, and many lovely faces gleamed amongst the flowery thickets; while bright eyes watched the footsteps of the mighty master of the revel. The cutting north-east wind blew outside; poor wretches shivered on the pavement; but what did that matter while the court danced and laughed amid trees and flowers, and breathed the soft sweet summer air?
Maria Theresa did not mingle in the scene. Timid and retiring, the young Queen fled from the noisy gayety of the court, and usually remained with her aunt, the Queen Mother. On this occasion, therefore, the ball was presided over by Madame Henriette, and by Olympia Mancini, Countess of Soissons. The gentle La Vallière kept, modestly, in the background, until espied by the King, beneath the magnolia, which her companions had so recklessly despoiled of its flowers, and which had cost them exclusion from the fête.
The next moment the hand of Louise trembled in that of her sovereign; for Louis the Fourteenth had chosen the maid of honor for his partner in the dance. At the close of the evening, Le Nôtre, who had received private orders, brought forward his favorite rose-tree, transplanted into a richly-gilded vase. The poor man looked like a criminal approaching the place of execution. He laid the flower on a raised step near the throne; and on the front of its vase every one read the words which had formerly set Olympus in a flame—"To the most beautiful!"
Many rival belles grew pale when they heard the Duc de Lauzun ordered by Louis to convey the precious rose-tree into the apartment of Mademoiselle de la Vallière. But Le Nôtre rejoiced, for the fair one gave him leave to come each day and attend to the welfare of his beloved flower.
The rose-tree soon became to the favorite a mysterious talisman by which she estimated the constancy of Louis the Fourteenth. She watched with anxiety all its changes of vegetation, trembling at the fall of a leaf, and weeping whenever a new bud failed to replace a withered blossom. Louise had yielded her erring heart to the dreams of love, not to the visions of ambition. "Tender, and ashamed of being so," as Madame de Sevigné has described her, the young girl mourned for her fault at the foot of the altar. Remorse punished her for her happiness; and more than once has the priest, who read first mass at the chapel of Versailles, turned at the sound of stifled sobs proceeding from the royal recess, and seen there a closely-veiled kneeling figure.
The fallen angel still remembered heaven.
Thus passed ten years. At their end, the rose-tree might be seen placed on a magnificent stand in the Palace of St. Germain; but despite of Le Nôtre's constant care, the flower bent sadly on its blighted stem. Near it the Duchess de la Vallière (for so she had just been created) was weeping bitterly. Her most intimate friend, Françoise Athenaïs de Montemar, Comtesse de Montespan, entered, and exclaimed, "What, weeping, Louise! Has not the King just given you the tabouret as a fresh proof of his love?"
Without replying, La Vallière pointed to her rose.
"What an absurd superstition!" cried Madame de Montespan, seating herself near her friend. "'Tis really childish to fancy that the affections of a Monarch should follow the destiny of a flower. Come, child," she continued, playfully slapping the fair mourner's hands with her fan, "you know you are always adorable, and why should you not be always adored!"
"Because another has had the art to supplant me."
Athenaïs bit her lip. Louise had at length discovered that her pretended friend was seeking to undermine her. On the previous evening the King had conversed for a long time with Madame de Montespan in the Queen's apartments. He had greatly enjoyed her clever mimicry of certain court personages; and when La Vallière had ventured to reproach him tenderly, he had replied—
"Louise, you are silly; your rose-tree speaks untruly when it calumniates me."
None but Athenaïs, to whom alone it had been confided, could have betrayed the secret. And now, at the entrance of her rival, la Vallière hastened to dry up her tears, but not so speedily as to prevent the other from perceiving them. Her feigned caresses, and ill-disguised tone of triumph, provoked Louise to let her see that she discerned her treachery. But Athenaïs pretended not to feel the shaft.
"Supplant you, dear Louise!" she said in a tone of surprise; "it would be difficult to do that, I should think, when the King is wholly devoted to you!"
Rising with a careless air, she approached the rose-tree, drew from her glove an almost invisible phial, and, with a rapid gesture, poured on its footstalk the corrosive liquid which the tiny flask contained.
This was the third time that Madame de Montespan had practised this unworthy manœuvre, unknown to the sorrowful favorite, who, as her insidious rival well knew, would believe the infidelity of the King, only on the testimony of his precious gift.
Next morning, Le Nôtre found the rose-tree quite dead. The poor old man loved it as if it had been his child, and his eyes were filled with tears as he carried it to its mistress.
Then Louise felt, indeed, that no hope remained. Pale and trembling, she took a pair of scissors, cut off the withered blossom, and placed it under a crystal vase. Afterwards she prayed to Heaven for strength to fulfil the resolution she had made.
The age of Louis the Fourteenth passed away, with its glory and with its crimes. France had now reached that disastrous epoch, when famine and pestilence mowed down the peaceful inhabitants, and Marlborough and Prince Eugene cut the royal army to pieces on the frontiers.
One day, the death-bell tolled from a convent tower in the Rue St. Jacques, and two long files of female Carmelites bore, to her last dwelling, one of the sisters of their strict and silent order. When the last offices were finished, and all the nuns had retired to their cells, an old man came and knelt beside the quiet grave. His trembling hand raised a crystal vase which had been placed on the stone; he took from beneath it a withered rose, which he pressed to his lips, and murmured, in a voice broken by sobs:—
"Poor heart! Poor flower!"
The old man was Le Nôtre; and the Carmelite nun, buried that morning, was Sister Louise de la Miséricorde, formerly Duchesse de la Vallière.