"Again!" cried the Queen indignantly. "See who waits, Madame du Fargis."
The Countess proceeded to draw aside the tapestry. "Madame," she said, as she retired a pace or two with a profound curtsey, "his Majesty the King."
"Ha!" exclaimed the Regent, starting from her seat, and advancing towards the young sovereign, whom she tenderly embraced, "your visit could not have been more welcome or better-timed, my son. The death of M. de Fervaques has created a vacancy which must be at once filled, and I have a marshal's commission for you to sign."
The wife of Concini gazed eagerly into the face of her royal mistress. Marie smiled. "Go, Madame," she said affectionately, "and bid the Marquis d'Ancre hasten here upon the instant to kiss the gracious hand from which he is about to receive a marshal's bâton."
Leonora knelt before the startled King, who suffered her in silence to perform the same ceremony; and then radiant with happiness she pressed the jewelled fingers of the Queen to her quivering lips. "And hark you, Leonora," pursued Marie, "cause Concini to be announced by his new title when he seeks admission here. This will at once put an end to a host of rivalries which are now unavailing."
Madame d'Ancre hastily withdrew; but as she passed through the apartments of the Queen she remarked that the antechamber was already thronged with a crowd of courtiers, who had been attracted thither by curiosity; while they, in their turn, did not fail to detect in the flushed cheek and flashing eye of the Marquise the indications of some new triumph. Little, however, were they prepared for its extent; and when Concini, some minutes afterwards, appeared, with a sarcastic smile upon his lips, and glanced a look of defiance around him, even while he bowed right and left alike to his friends and to his enemies, every pulse quickened with anxiety. The suspense was but momentary. The Italian was preceded by one of the royal pages, who, as the captain of the guard flung back the door of the cabinet in which Louis XIII was still closeted with his mother, announced in a voice so audible that it was heard throughout the apartment, "Monseigneur le Maréchal d'Ancre."
"Concini a Marshal of France!" exclaimed simultaneously the Ducs de Guise, d'Epernon, and de Bellegarde, who were standing together; and then there was a dead silence as the draperied door closed upon the exulting favourite.
FOOTNOTES:
[158] Siri, Mém. Rec. vol. iii. pp. 23, 24. D'Estrées, Mém. pp. 398, 399. Bassompierre, Mém. p. 80. Mézeray, vol. xi. pp. 40, 41.