La Corne was deeply agitated; his lips quivered, and tears gathered in the thick gray eyelashes that formed so prominent a feature of his rugged but kindly face. He concluded his reading in silence, and handed the paper to De Beaujeu, with the single remark, “Le Gardeur is dead! Poor fellow! He was more sinned against than sinning! God pardon him for all the evil he meant not to do! Is it not strange that she who was the cursed cause of his ruin still flourishes like the Queen of the Kingdom of Brass? It is hard to justify the ways of Providence, when wickedness like hers prospers, and virtues like those of the brave old Bourgeois find a bloody grave! My poor Amélie, too! poor girl, poor girl!” La Corne St. Luc sat silent a long time, immersed in melancholy reflections.
The Canadian officers read the paragraph, which revived in their minds also sad recollections of the past. They knew that, by her who had been the cursed cause of the ruin of Le Gardeur and of the death of the Bourgeois, La Corne referred to the still blooming widow of the Chevalier de Pean,—the leader of fashion and gaiety in the capital now, as she had been thirty years before, when she was the celebrated Angélique des Meloises.
Angélique had played desperately her game of life with the juggling fiend of ambition, and had not wholly lost. Although the murder of Caroline de St. Castin pressed hard upon her conscience, and still harder upon her fears, no man read in her face the minutest asterisk that pointed to the terrible secret buried in her bosom, nor ever discovered it. So long as La Corriveau lived, Angélique never felt safe. But fear was too weak a counsellor for her to pretermit either her composure or her pleasures. She redoubled her gaiety and her devotions; and that was the extent of her repentance! The dread secret of Beaumanoir was never revealed. It awaited, and awaits still, the judgment of the final day of account.
Angélique had intrigued and sinned in vain. She feared Bigot knew more than he really did, in reference to the death of Caroline, and oft, while laughing in his face, she trembled in her heart, when he played and equivocated with her earnest appeals to marry her. Wearied out at length with waiting for his decisive yes or no, Angélique, mortified by wounded pride and stung by the scorn of Le Gardeur on his return to the Colony, suddenly accepted the hand of the Chevalier de Pean, and as a result became the recognized mistress of the Intendant,—imitating as far as she was able the splendor and the guilt of La Pompadour, and making the Palace of Bigot as corrupt, if not as brilliant, as that of Versailles.
Angélique lived thenceforth a life of splendid sin. She clothed herself in purple and fine linen, while the noblest ladies of the land were reduced by the war to rags and beggary. She fared sumptuously, while men and women died of hunger in the streets of Quebec. She bought houses and lands, and filled her coffers with gold out of the public treasury, while the brave soldiers of Montcalm starved for the want of their pay. She gave fêtes and banquets while the English were thundering at the gates of the capital. She foresaw the eventual fall of Bigot and the ruin of the country, and resolved that, since she had failed in getting himself, she would make herself possessor of all that he had.
The fate of Bigot was a warning to public peculators and oppressors. He returned to France soon after the surrender of the Colony, with Cadet, Varin, Penisault, and others of the Grand Company, who were now useless tools, and were cast aside by their court friends. The Bastille opened its iron doors to receive the godless and wicked crew, who had lost the fairest Colony of France, the richest jewel in her crown. Bigot and the others were tried by a special commission, were found guilty of the most heinous malversations of office, and sentenced to make full restitution of the plunder of the King's treasures, to be imprisoned until their fines and restitutions were paid, and then banished from the kingdom forever.
It is believed that, by favor of La Pompadour, Bigot's heavy sentence was commuted, and he retained a sufficiency of his ill-gotten wealth to enable him, under a change of name, to live in ease and opulence at Bordeaux, where he died.
Angélique had no sympathy for Bigot in his misfortunes, no regrets save that she had failed to mould him more completely to her own purposes, flattering herself that had she done so, the fortunes of the war and the fate of the Colony might have been different. What might have been, had she not ruined herself and her projects by the murder of Caroline, it were vain to conjecture. But she who had boldly dreamed of ruling king and kingdom by the witchery of her charms and the craft of her subtle intellect, had to content herself with the name of De Pean and the shame of a lawless connection with the Intendant.
She would fain have gone to France to try her fortunes when the Colony was lost, but La Pompadour forbade her presence there, under pain of her severest displeasure. Angélique raved at the inhibition, but was too wise to tempt the wrath of the royal mistress by disobeying her mandate. She had to content herself with railing at La Pompadour with the energy of three furies, but she never ceased, to the end of her life, to boast of the terror which her charms had exercised over the great favorite of the King.
Rolling in wealth and scarcely faded in beauty, Angélique kept herself in the public eye. She hated retirement, and boldly claimed her right to a foremost place in the society of Quebec. Her great wealth and unrivalled power of intrigue enabled her to keep that place, down to the last.