Monsieur Voltaire was a picture. The people present shouted with laughter—Monsieur Voltaire never was very popular at court—and my master grinned, and I felt myself grow weak in the knees with all those laughing eyes fixed on me. It was said afterward, that some of the Academicians were sore over this joke of Count Saxe’s. I had my turn at Monsieur Voltaire shortly after, for having occasion to write him a note in my master’s name, I directed it in full to “Monsieur François Marie Voltaire, Member of the French Academy”—which he was not until some time afterward—“at the house of Madame du Châtelet, on the Isle of St. Louis, Paris.” “Voltaire, Paris,” would have taken any letter straight to him, but I chose to assume that very explicit directions were necessary to reach him, as if he were quite unknown, and difficult to find. It made him very angry, so I heard, and that was what I meant it for.
The whole of that winter and spring, I spent running to and fro between Paris and Chambord, for it is no easy thing to get in order such an establishment as Count Saxe set up, in that vast palace. There were four hundred rooms, and thirteen grand staircases, to say nothing of the smaller ones, and there was stabling for twelve hundred horses. The king had given Count Saxe permission to increase his body-guard of Uhlans, in view of the war known to be coming, and all these men and horses had to be assigned to their proper quarters, and provided for otherwise. The hunting establishment 340 alone required the services of more than a hundred men; for there were wolves and wild boars to be hunted besides smaller game, in the forests of Chambord, and the plains of Salon. It is in this region that Thibaut of Champagne, so the peasants believe, follows his ghostly hunt. Often, at midnight, the winding of his horn echoes through the darkness of the forest, and the cry of his dogs from the nether world rings to the night sky—so say the peasants. I never saw or heard this supernatural hunt.
With the internal management of the castle I had nothing to do. Beauvais was promoted to be maître d’hôtel, and a hard enough time he had, losing, in one year, a very good head of hair over it. The only authority I was made to assume was over the pages of honor. There were ten of these brats, all dressed in yellow silk breeches and waistcoats, and black velvet coats, and they gave me more trouble, grief and perplexity than my whole battalion of Uhlans. Will it be believed that these little rascals in yellow silk, of whom the eldest was barely fourteen, kept me perpetually in anxiety about fighting duels among themselves?
They would beg, borrow or steal rapiers, and sneaking away by night or in the early morning, would fight on the edge of the moat on a little embankment, from which they were extremely likely to tumble into the water, if they missed each other’s swordpoints. I could not cure them of it, but whenever I caught them I cuffed them soundly. They made great outcry over this, being of the best blood of France. But when they ran with their tales to my master—particularly one little Boufflers, who was about to run me through—my master always 341 told them that I was of the royal blood of Tatary; so it was rather an honor, than a disgrace, for me to lay hands on them.
Let it not be supposed that all these labors and perplexities put Francezka out of my mind for one hour. Nor had Count Saxe forgotten her. He caused me to write to her more than once, and delicately intimated a desire that she would honor Chambord at some time with her presence. I little thought when I wrote that letter that Francezka would be likely to see Chambord. But events were moving silently but swiftly, and when I least expected it—when Francezka’s sad fate seemed fixed; when her life had apparently adjusted itself finally, a great, a stupendous change was at hand. It came suddenly but quietly, and the news of it met us at the last place and from the last person one might possibly expect. It was May, when being overtaken by sunset on the way to Paris, and the horses being tired, Count Saxe and myself stopped at a little roadside inn, just one stage from Paris. Count Saxe had not even a servant with him, thinking to spend only a few hours in Paris and then to return at once to Chambord.
The inn was a plain, but comfortable place, with good wine, and excellent plain fare. After supper, Count Saxe, being weary, went to bed, the innkeeper valeting him, while I remained out of doors. The evening was softly beautiful. The sun was slowly disappearing; it was not far from eight o’clock, and the sky was all red and gold and amber. The rich and quiet landscape was not unlike that of Capello, though far from being so rich and so lovely. It was the sweet hour at which I always thought of Francezka, the hour 342 she always kept her vigil in the Italian garden—a vigil that had seemed to me to be taking the form of remembrance of the dead, rather than expectation of the living. And knowing exactly what she was doing at that hour often produced in me a sense of nearness to Francezka.
On this evening she seemed to hover near me, and it was not the Francezka I had last seen, the bravely patient, the undyingly courageous; but the Francezka of her first wild, sweet youth, high-hearted, all fire and dew, laughter and tears, haughty and merry—the Francezka who claimed happiness as her right. And with this presence near me, and her voice ringing in my ears, I was suddenly brought back to this earth by seeing before me the unwelcome face of Jacques Haret.
I had not seen the scoundrel for four years, and never wished to see him again. He was sitting at a table in the garden of the inn—for I had unconsciously wandered from the orchard into the garden. He looked more prosperous than I had ever seen him, being well dressed all over, and for the first time evidently in clothes made for him. I was for passing on with a brief word, when he stopped me.
“Have you heard the great news?” he asked. “No, of course you have not. Gaston Cheverny has been found. I compute that he reached the château of Capello this afternoon—probably at this very hour.”
The earth began to rock under my feet, the heavens broke into long waves of light, as if the oceans and a million voices were shouting in my ear at once. In the midst of all this, Jacques Haret’s cool, musical voice continued: