"The right to confer titles of honor being one of the most sublime attributes of supreme power, the Kings, our predecessors, have left us divers monuments of the use they have made of it in favor of persons whose virtues and merits they desired to extol and make illustrious. Considering that our very dear and well-beloved cousin, Deborah Travis, wife of the Comte de Mailly, issues from one of the greatest families of a nation closely allied to us, whom we delight to honor; that she is attached as lady of the palace to the Queen, our very dear companion; that she is united by marriage to one of the most ancient and illustrious families in our realm, whose ancestors have, for several centuries, rendered important services to our crown; and that she joins to all these advantages those virtues and qualities of heart and mind which have gained for her a just and universal consideration, we take the highest satisfaction in proclaiming her succession to the title and estate of that esteemed and honored lady, her cousin, Marie Anne de Mailly, and we hereby invest her with the Duchy of Châteauroux, together with all its appurtenances and dependencies, situated in Berry,"*
* This form is taken from the letters-patent used in the case of Marie Anne de Mailly.
Deborah, having finished the perusal of this document, let it float from her fingers to the floor, while she stood perfectly still, staring at the face of the man seated before her. Her expression, first of amazement, then of horror, was changing now to something puzzled and undecided, which the King beheld with relief.
"Madame," he observed, "you should thank me. I make you first lady of the Court. I give you title, wealth, power. I place a Queen below you in my own esteem. I give you ministers to command, no one to obey. I make your antechamber a room more frequented than my own cabinet. I leave it for you, if you wish it, to rule France. And what is it that I ask in return? Nothing! Nothing that your own generosity will not grant without the asking. Think of what you are, and of what you will become. Have you, then, no word in which to thank me?"
He also had risen now, and was looking at her, as she stood, with a mixture of curiosity, admiration, and impatience.
Deborah was still—so still that she might have been taken for a man-made thing. And by the expression of her face Louis knew that he must not speak more now. She was fighting her battle; his forces must win or lose as they stood, augmented no further. Before her had risen the picture of two lives, the one that was opening to her and the one that she had thought to live. As she thought, the real life, for a little, grew dim, distant, unimportant. The other, with its scarce imaginable power, glory, position, became clearer and still more clear till she could see into its inmost depths. Adulation, pleasure, riches, ease, universal sway, a court at her feet, a King to bar malice from her door, an existence of beauty, culture, laughter, light, founded on—what? ending—how? Yes, these questions came, inevitably. To answer the first, she looked slowly over the man before her, as he stood in all the beauty of his young manhood and majesty. Nevertheless, through that beauty his true nature was readable, showing plainly through his eyes, in the expression of his heavy lower lip, in his too weak chin—that sullen, morose, pettish, carnal, warped nature, best fitted for the peasant's hut, destined by Fate, lover of grim comedy, for the greatest palace of earth. This man, who had no place in her soul-life, must build her pedestal, must place her thereon. And the end of all—when end should come—ah! Now Deborah saw again the bed of Marie Anne de Châteauroux, with the Duchess upon it, as she had lain there for the last time. And Marie Anne de Mailly had been Claude's cousin—Claude's—
"Mme. de Châteauroux, will you examine to-night your apartments in the little courts? Will you take possession at—"
"Oh!—O God!—Help me!"
"What are you saying!" uttered the King, sharply.
Then she turned upon him with that which for the moment she had let lie dormant in her heart, now all awake and quivering with life—her love for Claude. It was, perhaps, God, who was helping as she asked.