With this remark the queen-mother quitted her daughter-in-law, in order to meet Madame, whose arrival in the grand cabinet had just been announced by one of the pages. Madame had scarcely taken time to change her dress. Her face revealed her agitation, which betrayed a plan, the execution of which occupied, while the result disturbed, her mind.
“I came to ascertain,” she said, “if your Majesties are suffering any fatigue from our journey.”
“None at all,” said the queen-mother.
“A little,” replied Maria Theresa.
“I have suffered from annoyance more than anything else,” said Madame.
“How was that?” inquired Anne of Austria.
“The fatigue the king undergoes in riding about on horseback.”
“That does the king good.”
“And it was I who advised him,” said Maria Theresa, turning pale.
Madame said not a word in reply; but one of those smiles which were peculiarly her own flitted for a moment across her lips, without passing over the rest of her face; then, immediately changing the conversation, she continued, “We shall find Paris precisely the Paris we quitted; the same intrigues, plots, and flirtations going on.”
“Intrigues! What intrigues do you allude to?” inquired the queen-mother.
“People are talking a good deal about M. Fouquet and Madame Plessis-Bellière.”
“Who makes up the number to about ten thousand,” replied the queen-mother. “But what are the plots you speak of?”
“We have, it seems, certain misunderstandings with Holland to settle.”
“What about?”
“Monsieur has been telling me the story of the medals.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the young queen, “you mean those medals struck in Holland, on which a cloud is seen passing across the sun, which is the king’s device. You are wrong in calling that a plot—it is an insult.”
“But so contemptible that the king can well despise it,” replied the queen-mother. “Well, what are the flirtations which are alluded to? Do you mean that of Madame d’Olonne?”
“No, no; nearer ourselves than that.”
“Casa de usted,”13 murmured the queen-mother, and without moving her lips, in her daughter-in-law’s ear, without being overheard by Madame, who thus continued:—“You know the terrible news?”
“Oh, yes; M. de Guiche’s wound.”
“And you attribute it, I suppose, as everyone else does, to an accident which happened to him while hunting?”
“Yes, of course,” said both the queens together, their interest awakened.
Madame drew closer to them, as she said, in a low tone of voice, “It was a duel.”
“Ah!” said Anne of Austria, in a severe tone; for, in her ears, the word “duel,” which had been forbidden in France all the time she reigned over it, had a strange sound.
“A most deplorable duel, which has nearly cost Monsieur two of his best friends, and the king two of his best servants.”
“What was the cause of the duel?” inquired the young queen, animated by a secret instinct.
“Flirtation,” repeated Madame, triumphantly. “The gentlemen in question were conversing about the virtue of a particular lady belonging to the court. One of them thought that Pallas was a very second-rate person compared to her; the other pretended that the lady in question was an imitation of Venus alluring Mars; and thereupon the two gentlemen fought as fiercely as Hector and Achilles.”
“Venus alluring Mars?” said the young queen in a low tone of voice without venturing to examine into the allegory very deeply.
“Who is the lady?” inquired Anne of Austria abruptly. “You said, I believe, she was one of the ladies of honor?”
“Did I say so?” replied Madame.
“Yes; at least I thought I heard you mention it.”
“Are you not aware that such a woman is of ill-omen to a royal house?”
“Is it not Mademoiselle de La Vallière?” said the queen-mother.
“Yes, indeed, that plain-looking creature.”
“I thought she was affianced to a gentleman who certainly is not, at least so I have heard, either M. de Guiche or M. de Wardes?”
“Very possibly, Madame.”
The young queen took up a piece of tapestry, and began to broider with an affectation of tranquillity her trembling fingers contradicted.
“What were you saying about Venus and Mars?” pursued the queen-mother. “Is there a Mars also?”
“She boasts of that being the case.”
“Did you say she boasts of it?”
“That was the cause of the duel.”
“And M. de Guiche upheld the cause of Mars?”
“Yes, certainly; like the devoted servant he is.”
“The devoted servant of whom?” exclaimed the young queen, forgetting her reserve in allowing her jealous feeling to escape.
“Mars, not to be defended except at the expense of Venus,” replied Madame. “M. de Guiche maintained the perfect innocence of Mars, and no doubt affirmed that it was all a mere boast.”
“And M. de Wardes,” said Anne of Austria, quietly, “spread the report that Venus was within her rights, I suppose?”
Oh, de Wardes
, thought Madame, you shall pay dearly for the wound you have given that noblest—best of men!
And she began to attack de Wardes with the greatest bitterness; thus discharging her own and de Guiche’s debt, with the assurance that she was working the future ruin of her enemy. She said so much, in fact, that had Manicamp been there, he would have regretted he had shown such firm regard for his friend, inasmuch as it resulted in the ruin of his unfortunate foe.
“I see nothing in the whole affair but one cause of mischief, and that is La Vallière herself,” said the queen-mother.
The young queen resumed her work with perfect indifference of manner, while Madame listened eagerly.
“I do not yet quite understand what you said just now about the danger of coquetry,” resumed Anne of Austria.
“It is quite true,” Madame hastened to say, “that if the girl had not been a coquette, Mars would not have thought at all about her.”
The repetition of this word Mars brought a passing color to the queen’s face; but she still continued her work.
“I will not permit that, in my court, gentlemen should be set against each other in this manner,” said Anne of Austria, calmly. “Such manners were useful enough, perhaps, in days when the divided nobility had no other rallying-point than mere gallantry. At that time women, whose sway was absolute and undivided, were
