The King’s naturally good feelings and love of justice here at once overcame all doubt. “No, God forbid!” cried he, rousing himself to energy. “What, are we Christians, Monsieur le Cardinal, and shall we put a fellow-creature to the torture, when there is a straight-forward way to gain the information that we want? Fie upon it! No!”
Richelieu’s ashy cheek grew still a shade paler. It was the first time for many a year he had undergone rebuke. He felt that trammels with which he had so long held the King enthralled were but as green lithes twined round the limbs of a giant. He saw that the vast fabric of his power was raised upon a foundation of unsteady sand, and that even then it trembled to its very base.
“Monsieur La Rivière, answer the King!” continued Louis, in a dignified tone. “What says the Queen to the request of our Council, that she would command her Chamberlain to answer those questions, in regard to which he has a scruple on her account?”
“Her Majesty says, Sire,” answered La Rivière, “that she is most willing to do any thing that will please your Majesty; and she has not only ordered me to command, in her name, Monsieur de Blenau to inform the Council of every thing he knows concerning her conduct; but has also written this letter, with her own hand, to the same effect.” And advancing to the table, he bent his knee before the King, and presented the document of which he was the bearer.
Louis took the letter, and read it through. “This looks not like a guilty conscience,” said he, frowning upon Richelieu. “Give that to Monsieur de Blenau,” he continued to one of the officers. “There, Sir Count, is your warrant to speak freely; and though we think you carry your sense of honour too far, so as to make it dangerous to yourself, and almost rebellious towards us, we cannot help respecting the principle, even though it be in excess.”
“May I always have such a judge as your Majesty!” replied De Blenau. “Most humbly do I crave your royal pardon, if I have been at all wanting in duty towards you. Believe me, Sire, it has proceeded not from any fault of inclination, but from an error in judgment. I have now no farther hesitation, all my duties being reconciled; and, I believe, the best way fully to reply to the questions which have been asked me, will be by telling your Majesty, that I have on several occasions forwarded letters from the Queen, by private couriers of my own, or by any other conveyance that offered. None of these letters have been either to the Archduke, to Don Francisco de Mello, or any other person whatever, connected with the Spanish Government, except her Majesty’s brother, Philip, King of Spain, to whom I have assuredly sent several; but before I ever undertook to do so, her Majesty condescended to give me her most positive promise, and to pledge her Royal word, that the tidings she gave her brother should on all occasions be confined to her domestic affairs, nor ever touch upon the external or internal policy of the Government, so that my honour and allegiance should be equally unsullied. These letters have sometimes remained upon my person for weeks, waiting for the fit opportunity to send them; which circumstance having by some means been discovered, has caused me no small inconvenience at times. Farther, I have nothing to tell your Majesty, but that I have ever heard the Queen express the greatest affection for your Royal person, and the warmest wishes for your public and private welfare; and, on my honour, I have never observed her do, by word or action, any thing which could be construed into a breach of the duty she owes your Majesty, either as her sovereign or her husband.
“You see!” exclaimed the King, turning to Richelieu, as De Blenau concluded; “You see—exactly what she confessed herself—not one tittle of difference.”
The anger of the Cardinal, at finding himself foiled, swept away his political prudence. Irritated and weakened by a wearing disease, he was in no frame of mind to see calmly a scheme he had formed with infinite care, so completely overthrown; and forgetting that the King’s energies were now aroused to oppose him, he resolved to let his vengeance fall on the head of De Blenau as the means of his disappointment. His brow darkened, and his eye flashed, and he replied in that stern and haughty manner which had so often carried command along with it.
“If your Majesty be satisfied, of course so am I, whose sole wish was to purge the lily crown from the profaning touch of strangers. But as for Monsieur de Blenau, he has confessed himself guilty of a crime little short of high treason, in forwarding those letters to a foreign enemy. We have already condemned a woman to exile for a less offence; and therefore the mildest sentence that the Council can pronounce, and which by my voice it does pronounce, is, that Claude Count de Blenau be banished for ever from these realms; and that, if after the space of sixteen days he be found within their precincts, he shall be considered as without the pale of law, and his blood be required at the hand of no man that sheds it!”
There was an indignant spot glowing in the King’s face while Richelieu spoke thus, that Chavigni marked with pain; for he saw that the precipitant haste of the Minister was hurrying his power to its fall.