“You are a foolish woman,” was the royal reply. The impenetrable eyes cleared for a moment.
André was thrilled by the ripple of laughter that floated through the room. “Ah, Sire, now you jest for the first time—absolutely the first time.”
She rose. “Monsieur le Vicomte,” she said quickly, “you have His Majesty’s permission to retire.” Then as he took his leave, “You are a man, my friend,” she whispered softly, “and you saved us both. I shall not forget,” and behind her Sovereign’s back she blew him an intoxicating adieu.
As the door closed Madame de Pompadour was whispering in Louis’s ear and a hearty royal laugh rang out.
For in such ways do kings permit themselves to be governed.
CHAPTER XV
ANDRÉ IS THRICE SURPRISED
The great historical buildings in Paris bear witness with eloquence and beauty to the genius and ambition of the many royal rulers who during three centuries of a wonderfully dramatic history have led a nation itself gifted with genius and ambition. Versailles alone is the exception, for in Versailles even the most ignorant and cold-blooded of modern sightseers feels at every step that the years have vanished, that he breathes the air of the grand age, that he is face to face with the monument of one historic figure and one alone—Louis XIV. Gone is the bitter memory of 1870; gone is the tragedy of Marie Antoinette. Alike in the stately splendour of the Galerie des Glaces, in the cold loneliness of the chapel, in the ordered magnificence of these haughty gardens, most of all in the imperial pomp of the royal bedroom, dominates the spirit of the Roi Soleil—the King who made kingship the art and the science and the creed of a nation’s life.
As one steps to-day into the empty stillness of that memorable Œil de Bœuf the light from the oval windows seems to fall only on those white and gold doors beyond which lies the state bed-chamber. But wait in patience and the loneliness will vanish; the room is now crowded with the courtiers awaiting the grand lever of majesty; a hundred tongues are discussing eagerly the events of the hour, a hundred eyes watch with feverish eagerness all who have the right to pass and repass those jealously-guarded portals, behind which monarchy, on whose caprice turns the fate of ministers and nobles, is dressing.
“The King,” said Mont Rouge to St. Benôit, “is as playful this morning as he was last night. Ah, you have not heard?” he added. “Well, when the Duke de Richelieu was pulling off His Majesty’s boots, ‘How many times, by the bye, Duke, have you been in the Bastille?’ asked the King. ‘Three times, Sire,’ Richelieu replied stiffly. ‘Odd numbers are unlucky,’ said the King in his slow way, and even Richelieu was annoyed.”
“A pretty plain hint,” St. Benôit remarked. “What has Richelieu been doing? Another love affair and a duel?”