"It rested with you. The acknowledgment might have been forthcoming had you desired it."
"Even so. Only it was best to--to--let matters remain as they are."
So far as one so feeble as the princess now was could do so, she bent her head acquiescingly; doubtless she knew also that it was best that this woman should never be an acknowledged queen. She had not been a brilliant figure of the court of France for fifty years without being aware of all that was said, all that was whispered of Françoise d'Aubigné ere she found religion--as well as favour in the eyes of the king! Also, all that was whispered after that favour was found. There were a thousand tongues for ever wagging, as well as innumerable pens--the pen of De Sevignés to hint, the pens of Rabutins and Tallement des Réaux to speak plainly. Also her first lover was remembered and spoken of with many a courtier's tongue thrust in his, or her, cheek.
But now--now! she posed as God's vicegerent in France. Religion, even God himself, as some said bitterly, had been taken under her patronage; the king trembled for his soul as she worked on the fears of his mind, and Jansenists, Calvinists, Huguenots had been driven forth by hundreds of thousands to other lands, or, remaining in France, had been dragooned, sent to the galleys, the wheel, and the flames. The "femme fameuse et funeste" was the greatest living saint in Europe.
And as a saint, a patroness of the Holy Roman Church, she came now to visit the Princesse de Rochebazon once more ere she died.
"Aurore," she said, a moment later, "I have come to you again, hoping to find you not yet gone before me; because--because--oh, Aurore! to--to plead once more for the sacred cause of our Church; to beseech you to consider what you are about to do. Think! Think! You have worked so much good for that Church--yet you may do more."
"More!" the dying woman said, her clear, bright eyes fixed full blaze upon the other. "Madame--well, Françoise, since you insist--what more can I do? There is no de Rochebazon succeeding to title or estate, the power to will the latter, and--and all the movables, the argent comptant, is mine. And it is done. Beyond a few gifts to those who have served me, beyond what I have saved from that which is not justly mine, the Church will have all--all! Can it demand further?"
"'Tis that, 'tis that, Aurore! What you have saved from that which is most justly yours? 'Tis that! You told me," and now her voice, never loud, sank almost to a whisper, as though she feared that even in this vast room there might still be some who could overhear her, "that to this young man, this Martin Ashurst--this Anglais--you have left those savings. A noble heritage, five hundred thousand pistoles. Oh, Aurore! Aurore! think, think! it is French money, and he is--English----"
"He is my own flesh and blood," the other interjected. "My brother's child! And he is of our Church!"
"That alone redeems it. Yet think of all our Church, here in this France of ours, needs. Money to extirpate the heretics--some can even be bought with money, they say; in the Midi there are those who will adopt our religion for a handful of Louis d'ors----"