“Never, never!” exclaimed the Queen, clasping her hands, “never, so help me Heaven!”
“What!” cried Louis, dashing the paper angrily upon the table. “Darest thou deny what is as evident as the sun in the noonday sky? Remember, Madam, that your minion, De Blenau, is in the Bastille, and will soon forfeit his life upon the scaffold, if his obstinacy does not make him die under the question.”
“For poor De Blenau’s sake, my Lord,” replied the Queen,—“for the sake of as noble, and as innocent a man as ever was the victim of tyranny, I will tell you at once, that I have written to Philip of Spain—my own dear brother. And who can blame me, my Lord, for loving one who has always loved me? But I knew my duty better than ever once to mention even the little that I knew of the public affairs of this kingdom: and far less, your Majesty, did I pry into secret plans of State policy for the purpose of divulging them. My letters, my Lord, were wholly domestic. I spoke of myself, of my husband, of my children; I spoke as a woman, a wife, and a mother; but never, my Lord, as a Queen; and never, never as a spy.
“As to De Blenau, my Lord, let me assure you, that before he undertook to forward those letters, he exacted from me a promise, that they should never contain any thing which could impeach his honour, or his loyalty. This, my Lord, is all my crime, and this is the extent of his.”
There was a degree of simplicity and truth in the manner of the Queen, which operated strongly on the mind of Louis. “But who,” said he, “will vouch that those letters contained nothing treasonable? We have but your word, Madam; and you well know that we are at war with Spain, and cannot procure a sight of the originals.”
“Luckily,” replied Anne of Austria, her countenance brightening with a ray of hope, “they have all been read by one whom your Majesty yourself recommended to my friendship. Clara de Hauteford, you have seen them all. Speak! Tell the King the nature of their contents without fear and without favour.”
Mademoiselle de Hauteford advanced from behind the Queen’s chair; and the King, who, it was generally believed, had once passionately loved her, but had met with no return, now fixed his eyes intently upon the pale, beautiful creature, that, scarcely like a being of the earth, glided silently forward and placed herself directly opposite to him. Clara de Hauteford was devotedly attached to the Queen. Whether it sprang from that sense of duty which in general governed all her actions, or whether it was personal attachment, matters little, as the effect was the same, and she would, at no time, have considered her life too great a sacrifice to the interest of her mistress.
She advanced then before the Council, knowing that the happiness, if not the life of Anne of Austria, might depend upon her answer; and clasping her snowy hands together, she raised her eyes towards Heaven, “So help me God at my utmost need!” she said, with a clear, slow, energetic utterance, “no line that I have ever seen of her Majesty’s writing—and I believe I have seen almost all she has written within the last five years—no line that I have seen, ever spoke any thing but the warmest attachment to my Lord the King; nor did any ever contain the slightest allusion to the politics of this kingdom, but were confined entirely to the subject of her domestic life;—nor even then,” she continued, dropping her full blue eyes to the countenance of the King, and fixing them there, with a calm serious determined gaze, which overpowered the glance of the Monarch, and made his eyelid fall—“nor even then did they ever touch upon her domestic sorrows.”
Richelieu saw that the King was moved: he knew also the influence of Mademoiselle de Hauteford, and he instantly resolved upon crushing her by one of those bold acts of power which he had so often attempted with impunity. Nor had he much hesitation in the present instance, knowing that Louis’s superstitious belief in the predictions of the Astrologer had placed the Monarch’s mind completely under his dominion. “Mademoiselle de Hauteford,” said he in a stern voice, “answer me. Have you seen all the letters that the Queen has written to her brother, Philip King of Spain, positively knowing them to be such?”
“So please your Eminence, I have,” replied Mademoiselle de Hauteford.