Florian’s father had leaned back, he had put off his provisional plan of going in to supper. You could not say that the good gentleman exactly took pride in his ancestry: rather, he found his lineage worthy of him, and therefore he benevolently approved of it.
So he said now, complacently enough: “Yes, our house has prospered. Steadily our fortunes have been erected, and in dignity too we have been erected. Luck seems to favor us, however, most heartily when a woman rules France, and it is to exalted ladies that we owe most of our erections. Thus Queen Ysabeau the Bavarian notably advanced the Puysange of her time, very much as Anne of Beaujeu and Catherine de Medici did afterward. Many persons have noted the coincidence. Indeed, it was only sixty years ago that Marion de Lorme spoke privately to the Great Cardinal, with such eloquence that the Puysange of the day—another Florian, and a notably religious person,—had presently been made a duke, with an appropriate estate in the south—”
“I know,” said Florian, not a bit humble about his erudition. “That is how we came to be here in Poictesme. Mademoiselle de Lorme was a very kind lady, was she not, monsieur my father?”
“She was so famed, my son, for all manner of generosity that when my grandfather remodeled Bellegarde, and erected the Hugonet wing of the present château, he sealed up in the cornerstone, just as people sometimes place there the relics of a saint, both of Mademoiselle de Lorme’s garters. Probably there was some salutary story connected with his acquiring of them; for my pious grandfather cared nothing for such vanities as jeweled garters, his mind being wholly set upon higher things.”
“I wish we knew that story,” said Florian.
“But nobody does. My grandfather was discreet. So he thrived. And his son, who was my honored father, also thrived under the regency of Anne of Austria. He thrived rather unaccountably in the teeth of Mazarin’s open dislike. There was some story—I do not know what,—about a nightcap found under the Queen’s pillow, and considered by his eminence to need some explaining. My honored father was never good at explaining things. But he was discreet, and he thrived. And I too, my son, was lucky in Madame de Montespan’s time.”
Now Madame de Montespan’s time antedated Florian’s thinking: but about the King’s last mistress,—and morganatic wife, some said,—Florian was better informed.
“Madame de Maintenon also is very fond of you, monsieur my father, is she not?”
The Duke slightly waved his hand, as one who disclaims unmerited tribute. “It was my privilege to know that incomparable lady during her first husband’s life. He was a penniless cripple who had lost the use of all his members, and in that time of many wants I was so lucky as to comfort Madame Scarron now and then. Madame de Maintenon remembers these alleviations of her unfortunate youth, and notes with approval that I have forgotten them utterly. So Madame is very kind. In short,—or, rather, to sum up the tale,—the lords of Puysange are rumored, by superstitious persons, to have a talisman which enables them to go farther than may most men in their dealings with ladies.”
“You mean, like a magic lamp or a wishing cap?” said Florian, “or like a wizard’s wand?”