D'Alvimar was touched by these numerous rebuffs. Nothing seemed to profit him, neither his comely face nor his fine manners, nor his respectable birth, nor his learning, his penetration, his courage, his agreeable and instructive conversation: "people did not like him." He made a pleasant impression at first, but then—very quickly too—people were disgusted by a touch of bitterness which he soon displayed; or else they distrusted a flavor of ambition which he inopportunely allowed to appear. He was neither Spanish enough nor Italian enough, or, perhaps, he was too much of both: one day as talkative, persuasive and supple as a young Venetian; the next day as haughty, obstinate and gloomy as an old Castilian.
All his disappointments were intensified by a certain secret remorse which he did not reveal until his last hour, and which, as the narrative proceeds, will be forcibly dragged forth from the oblivion in which he wished to bury it.
Despite our careful investigations, we lose sight of him more than once during the years that elapsed between the death of Concini and the last year of Luynes's life; with the exception of a few words in our manuscript concerning his presence at Blois and at Angers, we find no fact worthy of mention in his obscure and unhappy life until the year 1621, when, while the king was carrying on the siege of Montauban with such ill success, young D'Alvimar was in Paris, still in the suite of the queen-mother, who had been reconciled with her son after the affair of the Ponts-de-Cé.
At that time D'Alvimar had renounced the hope of winning her favor, and perhaps he, too, in his rancorous heart called her balorda, although for the first time she had given proof of good sense by bestowing her confidence—and it was said her heart—upon Armand Duplessis. There was a rival whom D'Alvimar could hardly hope to outshine! Moreover, the queen, under Richelieu's guidance, adopted the policy of Henry IV. and Sully. She combated for the moment the Spanish influence in Germany, and D'Alvimar found himself almost in disgrace, when, to cap the climax of his misfortunes, he became involved in a most unpleasant affair.
He fell into a dispute with another Sciarra, a Sciarra Martinengo, whom Marie de Médicis employed much more freely, and who refused to acknowledge him as a kinsman. They fought: Sciarra Martinengo was severely wounded, and it came to Marie's ears that Monsieur Sciarra d'Alvimar had not scrupulously observed the laws of the duello as practised in France.
She summoned him to her presence and reprimanded him most brutally; whereupon D'Alvimar retorted with the bitterness that had been long heaping up within him. He succeeded in leaving Paris before measures were taken for his arrest, and, early in November, arrived at the château of Ars, in Berry, in the Duchy of Châteauroux.
It will be well enough to state the reasons which led him to seek that place of refuge in preference to any other.
About six weeks before his unfortunate duel, Monsieur Sciarra d'Alvimar had been brought into social relations with Monsieur Guillaume d'Ars, an amiable and wealthy young man, descended in a straight line from the gallant Louis d'Ars, who had effected the honorable retreat from Venouze, in 1504, and was killed at the battle of Pavia.
Guillaume d'Ars had been fascinated by D'Alvimar's wit and by the very great affability of which he was capable when the spirit moved him. He had not had time to become well enough acquainted with him to conceive the species of antipathy which the unfortunate young man almost inevitably inspired, after a few weeks, in those who were much in his company.
Moreover, Monsieur d'Ars was a youth with little experience of the world, and, as may well be believed, without great penetration. He had been reared in the provinces, and had just made his first appearance in Parisian society, when he met D'Alvimar, and became infatuated with him because of the superior skill which he displayed, on occasion, in horsemanship, hunting and tennis-playing. Generous and lavish, Guillaume placed his purse and his arm at the Spaniard's service, and warmly urged him to visit him at his château in Berry, whither he was recalled by business of some sort.