“Do you not perceive,” he said, “how terribly your silence affects me? Oh! Mademoiselle, how pitilessly inexorable you would become if you were ever to resolve to break off all acquaintance with anyone; and then, too, I think you changeable; in fact—in fact, I dread this deep affection which fills my whole being.”
“Oh! sire, you are mistaken,” said La Vallière; “if ever I love, it will be for all my life.”
“If you love, you say,” exclaimed the king; “you do not love now, then?”
She hid her face in her hands.
“You see,” said the king, “that I am right in accusing you; you must admit you are changeable, capricious, a coquette, perhaps.”
“Oh, no! sire, be perfectly satisfied as to that. No, I say again; no, no!”
“Promise me, then, that to me you will always be the same.”
“Oh! always, sire.”
“That you will never show any of that severity which would break my heart, none of that fickleness of manner which would be worse than death to me.”
“Oh! no, no.”
“Very well, then! but listen. I like promises, I like to place under the guarantee of an oath, under the protection of Heaven in fact, everything which interests my heart and my affections. Promise me, or rather swear to me, that if in the life we are about to commence, a life which will be full of sacrifice, mystery, anxiety, disappointment, and misunderstanding; swear to me that if we should in any way deceive, or misunderstand each other, or should judge each other unjustly, for that indeed would be criminal in love such as ours; swear to me, Louise—”
She trembled with agitation to the very depths of her heart; it was the first time she had heard her name pronounced in that manner by her royal lover. As for the king, taking off his glove, and placing his hand within the carriage, he continued:—“Swear, that never in all our quarrels will we allow one night even to pass by, if any misunderstanding should arise between us, without a visit, or at least a message, from either, in order to convey consolation and repose to the other.”
La Vallière took her lover’s burning hand between her own cool palms, and pressed it softly, until a movement of the horse, frightened by the proximity of the wheels, obliged her to abandon her happiness. She had vowed as he desired.
“Return, sire,” she said, “return to the queen. I foresee a storm yonder, which threatens my peace of mind and yours.”
Louis obeyed, saluted Mademoiselle de Montalais, and set off at a gallop to rejoin the queen. As he passed Monsieur’s carriage, he observed that he was fast asleep, although Madame, on her part, was wide awake. As the king passed her she said, “What a beautiful horse, sire! Is it not Monsieur’s bay horse?”
The young queen kindly asked, “Are you better now, sire?”
163
Triumfeminate
On the king’s arrival in Paris, he sat at the council which had been summoned, and worked for a certain portion of the day. The queen remained with the queen-mother, and burst into tears as soon as she had taken leave of the king. “Ah, Madame!” she said, “the king no longer loves me! What will become of me?”
“A husband always loves his wife when she is like you,” replied Anne of Austria.
“A time may come when he will love another woman instead of me.”
“What do you call loving?”
“Always thinking of a person—always seeking her society.”
“Do you happen to have remarked,” said Anne of Austria, “that the king has ever done anything of the sort?”
“No, Madame,” said the young queen, hesitatingly.
“What is there to complain of, then, Marie?”
“You will admit that the king leaves me?”
“The king, my daughter, belongs to his people.”
“And that is the very reason why he no longer belongs to me; and that is the reason, too, why I shall find myself, as so many queens before me, forsaken and forgotten, whilst glory and honors will be reserved for others. Oh, my mother! the king is so handsome! how often will others tell him that they love him, and how much, indeed, they must do so!”
“It is very seldom, indeed, that women love the man in loving the king. But if such a thing happened, which I doubt, you would do better to wish, Marie, that such women should really love your husband. In the first place, the devoted love of a mistress is a rapid element of the dissolution of a lover’s affection; and then, by dint of loving, the mistress loses all influence over her lover, whose power of wealth she does not covet, caring only for his affection. Wish, therefore, that the king should love but lightly, and that his mistress should love with all her heart.”
“Oh, my mother, what power may not a deep affection exercise over him!”
“And yet you say you are resigned?”
“Quite true, quite true; I speak absurdly. There is a feeling of anguish, however, which I can never control.”
“And that is?”
“The king may make a happy choice—may find a home, with all the tender influences of home, not far from that we can offer him—a home with children round him, the children of another woman. Oh, Madame! I should die if I were but to see the king’s children.”
“Marie, Marie,” replied the queen-mother with a smile, and she took the young queen’s hand in her own, “remember what I am going to say, and let it always
