‘The Duke should choose his confidants better,’ said Eustace. ‘Look here, my nephew. Remember from henceforth that whatever passes in secret council is sacred, and even if told to thee inadvertently should never be repeated. Now leave us; your mother needs you no longer.’
My little boy made his graceful bow at the door, looking much perplexed, and departed. I rose likewise, saying I would forbid him to repeat his dangerous communication, and I trusted that it would do him no harm.
‘Madame,’ said M. Darpent, ‘I will not conceal from you that I shall take advantage of what I have heard to warn these friends of my father.’
‘You cannot be expected to do otherwise,’ said Eustace; ‘and truly the design is so arbitrary and unjust that, Cavalier as I am, I cannot but rejoice that it should be baffled.’
‘And,’ added Darpent, before I could speak, ‘Madame may be secure that no word shall pass my lips respecting the manner in which I received the warning.’
I answered that I could trust him for that. I could not expect any more from him, and indeed none of us were bound in honour. The fault was with the Duke of Anjou, who, as we all know, was an incorrigible chatter-box all his life, and never was trusted with any State secrets at all; but his mother must have supposed him not old enough to understand what she was talking about, when she let him overhear such a conversation.
Gaspard had, however, a private lecture from both of us on the need of holding his tongue, both on this matter and all other palace gossip. He was no longer in waiting, and I trusted that all would be forgotten before his turn came again; but he was to join in the state procession on the following day, a Sunday, when the King and Queen-Regent were return thanks at Notre Dame for the victory at Lens.
Ah, children! we had victories then. Our Te Deums were not sung with doubting hearts, to make the populace believe a defeat a victory—a delusion to which this French nation of ours is only too prone. My countryman, Marlborough, and the little truant Abbe, Eugene of Savoy, were not then the leaders of the opposite armies; but at the head of our own, we had M. le Prince and the Vicomte de Turenne in the flower of their age, and our triumphs were such that they might well intoxicate the King, who was, so to speak, brought up upon them. It was a magnificent sight, which we all saw from different quarters—my mother in the suite of the Queen of England, Gaspard among the little noblemen who attended the King, I among the ladies who followed Mademoiselle, while my brother and sister, though they might have gone among their own Queen’s train, chose to shift for themselves. They said they should see more than if, like us, they formed part of the pageant; but I believe the real reason was, that if they had one early to Queen Henrietta’s apartments in full dress, they must have missed their English prayers at the Ambassador’s, which they never chose to do on a Sunday.
The choir part of the nave was filled with tribunes for the royal family and their suites; and as the most exalted in rank went the last, Mademoiselle, and we ladies behind her, came to our places early enough to see a great deal of the rest of the procession. The whole choir was already a field of clergy and choristers, the white robes of the latter giving relief to the richly-embroidered purple and lace-covered robes of the Bishops, who wore their gold and jeweled mitres, while their richly-gilded pastoral staves and crosses were borne before them. The Coadjutor of Paris, who was to be the Celebrant, was already by the Altar, his robes absolutely encrusted with gold; and just after we had taken our places there passed up the Cardinal, with his pillars borne before him, in his scarlet hat and his robes.
Every lady was, according to the Spanish fashion, which Queen Anne had introduced, in black or in white—the demoiselles in white, the married in black—and all with the black lace veil on their heads. The French ladies had murmured much at this, but there is no denying that the general effect was much better for the long lines of black above and white below, and as there was no restriction upon their jewellery, emeralds, rubies, and diamonds flashed wherever the light fell on them.