“Endeavor to remember the names of those faithful servants who crossed the Channel, in spite of Monsieur de Richelieu, tracking the roads along which they passed by their blood, to bring back to your majesty certain jewels given by you to Buckingham.”
Anne arose, full of majesty, and as if touched by a spring, and looking at the cardinal with the haughty dignity which in the days of her youth had made her so powerful: “You are insulting me!” she said.
“I wish,” continued Mazarin, finishing, as it were, the speech this sudden movement of the queen had cut; “I wish, in fact, that you should now do for your husband what you formerly did for your lover.”
“Again that accusation!” cried the queen. “I thought that calumny was stifled or extinct; you have spared me till now, but since you speak of it, once for all, I tell you——”
“Madame, I do not ask you to tell me,” said Mazarin, astounded by this returning courage.
“I will tell you all,” replied Anne. “Listen: there were in truth, at that epoch, four devoted hearts, four loyal spirits, four faithful swords, who saved more than my life—my honor——”
“Ah! you confess it!” exclaimed Mazarin.
“Is it only the guilty whose honor is at the sport of others, sir? and cannot women be dishonored by appearances? Yes, appearances were against me and I was about to suffer dishonor. However, I swear I was not guilty, I swear it by——”
The queen looked around her for some sacred object by which she could swear, and taking out of a cupboard hidden in the tapestry, a small coffer of rosewood set in silver, and laying it on the altar:
“I swear,” she said, “by these sacred relics that Buckingham was not my lover.”