“And well met, gallant Cinq Mars, the noble and the true,” replied De Blenau. “But tell me, in heaven’s name, Cinq Mars, what makes all this change at St. Germain’s? Why, it looks as if the forest were a fair, and that the old town had put on its holiday suit to come and see it.”
“Nay, nay! rather, like a true dame that dresses herself out for her lover’s return, it has made itself fine to receive you back again,” replied the Master of the Horse. “But if you would really know the secret of all the change that you see now, and will see still more wonderfully as you look farther, it is this. Richelieu is ill at Tarascon, and his name is scarcely remembered at the Court, though Chavigni, that bold rascal, and Mazarin, that subtle one, come prowling about to maintain, if possible, their master’s sway. But the spell is broken, and Louis is beginning to be a King again: so we shall see bright days yet.”
“I hope so; in truth I hope so, Cinq Mars,” replied De Blenau. “But, at all events, we will enjoy the change so far as it has gone. And now, what news at the Palace? How fare all the lovely ladies of the Court?”
“Why well,” answered Cinq Mars; “all well; though I know, De Blenau, that your question, in comprising a hundred, meant but one only. Well, what say you?—I have seen thy Pauline, and cannot but allow that thy taste is marvellous good. There is a wild grace about her, well worth all the formal dignity of a court. One gets tired of the stiff courtesy and the precise bow; the kissing of hands and the lisping of names; the Monseigneurings and the Madamings. Fie! one little touch of nature is worth it all.”
“But answer me one question, Monsieur le Grand,” said De Blenau. “How came there a report about, that Pauline had been carried off by some of the Cardinal’s people, and that no one knew where she was? for such a tale reached me even in Bourbon.”
“Is it possible that you are the last to hear that story?” exclaimed Cinq Mars. “Why, though the old Marquise, and the rest at the Palace, affect to keep it a secret, every one knows the adventures of your demoiselle errante.”
De Blenau’s cheek flushed to hear such a name applied to Pauline; but Cinq Mars continued, observing that his friend was hurt—“Nay, nay, every one admires her for the whole business, and no one more than I. But, as I was saying, all the world knows it. The Queen herself told it to Monsieur de Lomenie, and he to his cousin De Thou, and De Thou to me; and so it goes on. Well, but I must take up the gossip’s tale at the beginning. The Queen, wishing to communicate with you in prison, could find no messenger, who, for either gold or fair words, would venture his head into the rat-trap, except your fair Pauline; and she, it seems, attempted twice to get into the Bastille, once by day and once at night, but both times fruitlessly. How it happened I hardly remember, but by some means Chavigni, through some of his creatures, winded the whole affair; and posting from Chantilly to Paris, catches my fair lady in the very effort, disguised as a soubrette; down he pounces, like a falcon on a partridge, and having secured the delinquent, places her in a carriage, which, with the speed of light, conveys her away to his castle in Maine, where Madame la Comtesse de Chavigni—who, by the way, is an angel according to all accounts—receives the young lady and entertains her with all kindness. In the mean while, Monsieur le Comte de Blenau is examined by the King in person, and instead of having his head cut off, is merely relegué in Bourbon; upon which Chavigni finds he has lost his labour, and is obliged to send for the pretty prisoner back again with all speed.”
Although De Blenau was aware, from his own personal experience, that Cinq Mars had mistaken several parts of his history, he did not think fit to set him right; and the Master of the Horse proceeded: “However, let us into thy hotel. Get thy dinner, wash the dust from thy beard, array thyself in an unsullied doublet, and we will hie to the dwelling of thy lady fair, to glad her eyes with the sight of thy sweet person.”
De Blenau smiled at his friend’s raillery, and as the proposal very well accorded with his wishes, every moment seeming mis-spent that detained him from Pauline, he changed his dress as speedily as possible, and was soon ready to accompany Cinq Mars to the Palace.
As they proceeded on their way towards the gates of the Park, a figure presented itself, which, from its singularity, was worthy of notice. It was that of a tall, thin raw-boned man, who, naturally possessing a countenance of the ugliest cast of Italian ugliness, had rendered it still more disagreeable by the enormous length of his mustaches, which would have far overtopped his nose, had it been a nose of any ordinary proportion; but a more extensive pear-shaped, ill-adapted organ never projected from a human countenance; and this, together with a pair of small, flaming black eyes, which it seemed to bear forward with it above the rest of the face, protruding from a mass of beard and hair, instantly reminding the beholder of a badger looking out of a hole. The chin, however, bore no proportion to the nose, and seemed rather to slink away from it in an oblique direction, apparently overawed by its more ambitious neighbour.