“Madame, she is my friend. Besides, I had but just come.”
“Did you see nobody concealed while you were there?”
“Madame!”
“I saw a man’s hat, I tell you—the hat of that fellow, that good-for-nothing!”
“Madame!” repeated Louise.
“Of that do-nothing Malicorne! A maid of honor to have such company—fie! fie!” and their voices were lost in the depths of the narrow staircase.
Montalais had not missed a word of this conversation, which echo conveyed to her as if through a tunnel. She shrugged her shoulders on seeing Raoul, who had listened likewise, issue from the closet.
“Poor Montalais!” said she, “the victim of friendship! Poor Malicorne, the victim of love!”
She stopped on viewing the tragic-comic face of Raoul, who was vexed at having, in one day, surprised so many secrets.
“Oh, Mademoiselle!” said he; “how can we repay your kindness?”
“Oh, we will balance accounts some day,” said she. “For the present, begone, M. de Bragelonne, for Madame de Saint-Remy is not over indulgent; and any indiscretion on her part might bring hither a domiciliary visit, which would be disagreeable to all parties.”
“But Louise—how shall I know—”
“Begone! begone! King Louis XI knew very well what he was about when he invented the post.”
“Alas!” sighed Raoul.
“And am I not here—I, who am worth all the posts in the kingdom? Quick, I say, to horse! so that if Madame de Saint-Remy should return for the purpose of preaching me a lesson on morality, she may not find you here.”
“She would tell my father, would she not?” murmured Raoul.
“And you would be scolded. Ah, vicomte, it is very plain you come from court; you are as timid as the king. Peste! at Blois we contrive better than that, to do without papa’s consent. Ask Malicorne else!”
And at these words the girl pushed Raoul out of the room by the shoulders. He glided swiftly down to the porch, regained his horse, mounted, and set off as if he had had Monsieur’s guards at his heels.
4
Father and Son
Raoul followed the well-known road, so dear to his memory, which led from Blois to the residence of the Comte de la Fère.
The reader will dispense with a second description of that habitation: he, perhaps, has been with us there before, and knows it. Only, since our last journey thither, the walls had taken on a grayer tint, and the brickwork assumed a more harmonious copper tone; the trees had grown, and many that then only stretched their slender branches along the tops of the hedges, now, bushy, strong, and luxuriant, cast around, beneath boughs swollen with sap, great shadows of blossoms or fruit for the benefit of the traveler.
Raoul perceived, from a distance, the two little turrets, the dovecote in the elms, and the flights of pigeons, which wheeled incessantly around that brick cone, seemingly without power to quit it, like the sweet memories which hover round a spirit at peace.
As he approached, he heard the noise of the pulleys which grated under the weight of the heavy pails; he also fancied he heard the melancholy moaning of the water which falls back again into the wells—a sad, funereal, solemn sound, which strikes the ear of the child and the poet—both dreamers—which the English call splash; Arabian poets gasgachau; and which we Frenchmen, who would be poets, can only translate by a paraphrase—the noise of water falling into water.
It was more than a year since Raoul had been to visit his father. He had passed the whole time in the household of M. le Prince. In fact, after all the commotions of the Fronde, of the early period of which we formerly attempted to give a sketch, Louis de Condé had made a public, solemn, and frank reconciliation with the court. During all the time that the rupture between the king and the prince had lasted, the prince, who had long entertained a great regard for Bragelonne, had in vain offered him advantages of the most dazzling kind for a young man. The Comte de la Fère, still faithful to his principles of loyalty, and royalty, one day developed before his son in the vaults of Saint Denis—the Comte de la Fère, in the name of his son, had always declined them. Moreover, instead of following M. de Condé in his rebellion, the vicomte had followed M. de Turenne, fighting for the king. Then when M. de Turenne, in his turn, had appeared to abandon the royal cause, he had quitted M. de Turenne, as he had quitted M. de Condé. It resulted from this invariable line of conduct, that, as Condé and Turenne had never been conquerors of each other but under the standard of the king, Raoul, however young, had ten victories inscribed on his list of services, and not one defeat from which his bravery or conscience had to suffer.
Raoul, therefore, had, in compliance with the wish of his father, served obstinately and passively the fortunes of Louis XIV, in spite of the tergiversations which were endemic, and, it might be said, inevitable, at that period.
M. de Condé, on being restored to favor, had at once availed himself of all the privileges of the amnesty, to ask for many things back again which had been granted to him before, and among others, Raoul. M. de la Fère, with his invariable good sense, had immediately sent him again to the prince.
A year, then, had passed away since the separation of the father and son; a few letters had softened, but not removed, the pain of absence. We have seen that Raoul had left at Blois another love in addition to filial love. But let us do him this justice—if it had not been for chance and Mademoiselle de Montalais, two great temptations, Raoul, after delivering his message, would have galloped off towards his father’s house, turning his head round, perhaps, but without stopping for a single instant, even if Louise had held out her arms to him.
So the first
