“There is one thing which even the bravest men assault in vain,” and the regent’s manner had a certain majesty which became him well. “That is the state. They may break themselves against it as they will, they may think that they have victory within their grasp, but in the end the state stands firm, unshaken. It cannot stop to examine every heart, M. de Brancas. It must move steadily forward towards the goal it has in view. Some hearts may be crushed, some lives embittered, but the state lives, and the state is above everything.”
“But did the state demand this sacrifice?” I asked.
“The state demanded it, yes, M. de Brancas,” and a cloud descended upon the regent’s face. “I love my daughters, monsieur. I do not delight in torturing them. But the father must yield to the regent, just as the man must yield to the state. I tell you plainly that no other price could have bought the head of Richelieu. I was determined that no member of my house—the reigning house—should continue a liaison with a traitor. I was determined that treason should not be permitted to conceal itself behind the throne, ready to hurl it down at any moment; and had there been no other way, that traitor’s head should have fallen on the Place de Greve as a warning to other traitors. But there was another way, and it has been accomplished. A severed neck has never been known to heal, monsieur, but broken hearts are not so fatal, for Time is a wonderful surgeon. I will govern France with justice and kindness if I can; but when treason raises its head, I will strike and without mercy. Above everything, it shall be I who governs France, and no one else. My daughter’s marriage with this Italian prince has strengthened France, and she needs all the strength the devotion of her subjects can give her.”
He paused for a moment, the cloud still on his brow.
“You have doubtless heard many stories about me, M. de Brancas,” he continued. “Some of them are true, perhaps, but there is one which is not true. It is the most monstrous of all. Chancel has made the most of it in his last philippic.”
I knew what he meant. Indeed, I had heard Chancel reciting it at the house of Madame du Maine, and had turned away in disgust at the statement that Orleans aimed to poison the king and seize the throne himself.
“Shall I tell you what is the greatest ambition of my life? It is to place in the hands of Louis XV., when he ascends the throne, a kingdom greater than the one which I now hold in trust; a kingdom free from debt and from the abuses which grind the people into the earth. I may have mistresses, M. de Brancas, but no one has ever yet been able to say truthfully that I deliver the kingdom into their hands, as other and greater rulers than I have done.”
He had risen as he spoke, and at these words he stood beside my chair and laid his hand upon my shoulder. I was strangely moved. Assuredly there was no enmity in my heart for this man, however great the sorrow he had caused my dearest friend.
“I do not know why I tell you this,” he continued, in a calmer voice, “unless it be that I know you for a brave and loyal gentleman, with whom I am proud to measure myself. The bravest act of all, monsieur, was the one you did last night in the apartments of my daughter.”
“You knew of it, then?” I asked in wonderment.