THIS shall be a short Chapter, I am determined; because it is one of the most important in the whole book.
During the absence of the King and Chavigni in the chase, two arrivals had taken place at Chantilly very nearly at the same moment. Luckily, however, the Queen had just time to alight from her carriage, and seek her apartments, before the Cardinal de Richelieu entered the court-yard, thus avoiding an interview with her deadly enemy on the very threshold,—an interview, from which she might well have drawn an inauspicious augury, without even the charge of superstition.
As soon as Chavigni had (as far as possible) provided for his own safety by despatching the order for Philip’s arrest, he proceeded to the apartments of Richelieu, and there he gave that Minister an exact account of all he had heard, observed, and done; commenting particularly upon the violent and irascible mood of the King, and the advantages which might be thence derived, if they could turn his anger in the direction that they wished.
In the mean while Louis proceeded to the apartments of the Queen, not indeed hurried on by any great affection for his wife, but desirous of seeing his children, whom he sincerely loved, notwithstanding the unaccountable manner in which he so frequently absented himself from them.
Never very attentive to dress, Louis the Thirteenth, when any thing disturbed or irritated him, neglected entirely the ordinary care of his person. In the present instance he made no change in his apparel, although the sports in which he had been engaged had not left it in a very fit state to grace a drawing-room. Thus, in a pair of immense jack-boots, his hat pressed down upon his brows, and his whole dress soiled, deranged, and covered with dust, he presented himself in the saloon where Anne of Austria sat surrounded by the young Princes and the ladies who had accompanied her to Chantilly.
The Queen immediately rose to receive her husband, and advanced towards him with an air of gentle kindness, mixed however with some degree of apprehension; for to her eyes, long accustomed to remark the various changes of his temper, the disarray of his apparel plainly indicated the irritation of his mind.
Louis saluted her but coldly, and without taking off his hat. “I am glad to see you well, Madam,” said he, and passed on to the nurse who held in her arms the young Dauphin.
The child had not seen its father for some weeks, and now perceiving a rude-looking ill-dressed man, approaching hastily towards it, became frightened, hid its face on the nurse’s shoulder, and burst into tears.
The rage of the King now broke the bounds of common decency.
“Ha!” exclaimed he, stamping on the ground with his heavy boot, till the whole apartment rang: “is it so, Madam? Do you teach my children, also, to dislike their father?”