II
Canolles had formed no definite plan of action. Once in his own quarters he began to stride rapidly back and forth, as undecided folk are wont to do, without noticing that Castorin, who was awaiting his return, rose when he saw him, and was following him, holding in his hands a robe de chambre, behind which he was hardly visible.
Castorin stumbled over a chair and Canolles turned about.
"Well," said he, "what are you doing with that robe de chambre?"
"I am waiting for monsieur to take off his coat."
"I don't know when I shall take off my coat. Put the robe de chambre on a chair and wait."
"What! monsieur does not propose to take off his coat?" queried Castorin, who was by nature a capricious rascal, but seemed on this occasion more intractable than ever. "Monsieur does not intend to retire at once?"
"No."
"When does monsieur intend to retire, pray?"
"What's that to you?"
"It's a great deal to me, as I am very tired."
"Ah! indeed!" exclaimed Canolles, pausing in his walk, and looking Castorin in the face, "you are very tired, are you?"
It was easy to read upon the lackey's face the impertinent expression common to all servants who are dying with the longing to be turned out of doors.
Canolles shrugged his shoulders.
"Go and wait in the antechamber," said he; "when I have need of you I will ring."
"I forewarn monsieur that if he delays long, he will not find me in the antechamber."
"Where shall you be, I pray to know?"
"In my bed. It seems to me that after travelling two hundred leagues it is high time to go to bed."
"Monsieur Castorin," said Canolles, "you are a clown."
"If monsieur considers a clown unworthy to be his servant, monsieur has but to say the word, and I will relieve him of my services," rejoined Castorin, with his most majestic air.
Canolles was not in a patient mood, and if Castorin had possessed the power to catch a glimpse even of the shadow of the storm that was brewing in his master's mind, it is certain that, however anxious he might have been to be free, he would have chosen another time to hazard the suggestion. Canolles walked up to him, and took one of the buttons of his doublet between his thumb and forefinger, – the familiar trick, long afterwards, of a much greater man than poor Canolles ever was.
"Say that again," said he.
"I say," rejoined Castorin with unabated impudence, "that if monsieur is not content with me I will relieve monsieur of my services."
Canolles let go the button, and went gravely to get his cane. Castorin was not slow to grasp the meaning of that manœuvre.
"Monsieur," he cried, "beware what you do! I am no longer a common valet; I am in the service of Madame la Princesse!"
"Oho!" said Canolles, lowering the cane which was already in the air; "oho! you are in the service of Madame la Princesse?"
"Yes, monsieur, since half an hour ago."
"Who engaged you to take service with her?"
"Monsieur Pompée, her intendant."
"Monsieur Pompée?"
"Yes."
"Well! why didn't you tell me so at once?" cried Canolles. "Yes, yes, my dear Castorin, you are quite right to leave my service, and here are two pistoles to indemnify you for the blows I was on the point of giving you."
"Oh!" ejaculated Castorin, not daring to take the money; "what does that mean? Is monsieur making sport of me?"
"Not so. On the contrary I bid you by all means be Madame la Princesse's servant. When is your service to begin, by the way?"
"From the moment that monsieur gives me my liberty."
"Very well; I give you your liberty from to-morrow morning."
"And until then?"
"Until to-morrow morning you are my servant and must obey me."
"Willingly! What are monsieur's orders?" said Castorin, deciding to take the two pistoles.
"I order you, as you are so desirous to sleep, to undress and get into my bed."
"What? what is monsieur's meaning? I do not understand,"
"You don't need to understand, but simply to obey. Undress at once; I will assist you."
"Monsieur will assist me?"
"To be sure; as you are to play the part of the Baron de Canolles, I must needs play the part of Castorin."
Thereupon, without awaiting his servant's leave, the baron removed his doublet and hat and put them on himself, and locking the door upon him before he had recovered from his surprise, ran rapidly downstairs.
He was at last beginning to see through the mystery, although certain parts of it were still enveloped in mist. For two hours past it had seemed to him as if nothing of all that he had seen or heard was perfectly natural. The attitude of every one at Chantilly was constrained and stiff; everybody that he met seemed to be playing a part, and yet the various details all seemed to harmonize in a way which indicated to the queen's envoy that he must redouble his watchfulness if he did not choose to be himself the victim of some grand mystification.
The presence of Pompée in conjunction with that of the Vicomte de Cambes cleared away many doubts, and the few which still remained in Canolles' mind were completely dissipated when, as he left the court-yard, he saw, notwithstanding the profound darkness of the night, four men coming toward him and about to enter the door through which he had just passed. They were led by the same valet who ushered him into the presence of the princess. Another man wrapped in a great cloak followed behind.
The little party halted in the doorway awaiting the orders of the man in the cloak.
"You know where he lodges," said the latter, in an imperious tone, addressing the valet, "and you know him, for you introduced him. Do you watch him, therefore, and see that he doesn't leave his apartment; station your men on the stairway, in the corridor, anywhere, so that, without suspecting it, he may be watched himself, instead of watching their Highnesses."
Canolles made himself more invisible than a ghost in the darkest corner he could find; from there, unseen himself, he saw his five keepers pass through the door, while the man in the cloak, having made sure that they were carrying out his orders, returned the same way that he came.
"This gives me no very definite information," said Canolles to himself as he looked after him, "for it may be simply their indignation that leads them to return like for like. If that devil of a Castorin won't cry out or do some idiotic thing! I did wrong not to gag him; unluckily it's too late now. Well, I must commence my round."
With that, Canolles cast a keen glance around, then crossed the court-yard to that wing of the building behind which the stables were located.
All the life of the château seemed to have taken refuge in that locality. He could hear horses pawing the ground, and hurried footsteps. In the harness-room there was a great clashing of bits and spurs. Carriages were being rolled out of the sheds, and voices, stifled by apprehension, but which could be distinguished by listening attentively, were calling and answering one another. Canolles stood still for a moment listening. There was no room for doubt that preparations for departure were in progress.
He swiftly traversed the distance between the wings, passed through an arched gateway, and reached the front of the château.
There he stopped.
The windows of the ground-floor apartments were too brilliantly illuminated for him not to divine that a large number of torches were lighted inside, and as they went and came, causing great patches of light to sweep across the level turf, Canolles understood that that was the centre of activity, and the true seat of the enterprise.
He hesitated at first to pry into the secret which they were trying to hide from him. But he reflected that his position as an agent of the queen, and the responsibility thereby imposed upon him, would excuse many things to the satisfaction of the most scrupulous conscience. So he crept cautiously along the wall, the base of which was made all the darker by the brilliantly lighted windows, which were some six or seven feet from the ground. He stepped upon a stepping-stone, thence to a projection in the wall, clung with one hand to a ring, with the other to the window-sill, and darted through a corner of the window the keenest and most searching glance that ever made its way into the sanctuary of a conspiracy.
This is what he saw.
A woman standing before a toilet-table and putting in place the last pin necessary to hold her travelling-hat upon her head, and near by, several maids dressing a child in hunting costume. The child's back was turned to Canolles, and he could see nothing but his long, blond curls. But the light of two six-branched candelabra, held upon either side of the toilet-table by footmen in the attitude of caryatides, shone full upon the lady's face, in which Canolles at once recognized the original of the portrait he had recently examined in the half-light of the princess's apartment. There were the long face, the stern mouth, the imperiously curved nose of the woman whose living image stood before Canolles. Everything about her betokened the habit of domination, – her imperious gesture, her sparkling eye, the abrupt movement of her head.
In like manner everything in the bearing of those about her betokened the habit of unquestioning obedience, – their frequent bowing, the haste with which they ran to bring whatever she might ask for, their promptness in responding to the voice of their sovereign, or anticipating her commands.
Several officials of the household, among whom Canolles recognized the valet de chambre, were pouring into portmanteaux, trunks, and chests, some jewels, others money, and others the various portions of that woman's arsenal known as the toilet. The little prince, meanwhile, was playing about among the assiduous servitors, but by a strange fatality Canolles was unable to catch a glimpse of his face.
"I suspected it," he muttered; "they are putting a trick upon me, and these people are making preparations to go away. Very good: but I can with a wave of my hand change this scene of mystification into a scene of lamentation; I have only to run out upon the terrace and blow this silver whistle three times, and in five minutes two hundred men will have burst into the château in answer to its shrill blast, will have arrested the princesses and bound all these fellows hand and foot who are laughing together so slyly. Yes," he continued, but now it was his heart that spoke rather than his lips; "yes, but I should bring irretrievable ruin upon that other, who is sleeping, or pretending to sleep, over yonder; she will hate me, and it will be no more than I deserve. "Worse than all, she will despise me, saying that I have acted the spy to the end – and yet, if she obeys the princess, why should not I obey the queen?"
At that moment, as if chance were determined to combat these symptoms of returning resolution, a door of the apartment where the princess was dressing opened, and gave admittance to two persons, a man of fifty years and a woman of twenty, who hurried in with joyful faces. At that sight Canolles' whole heart passed into his eyes, for he recognized the lovely hair, the fresh lips, the speaking eye of the Vicomte de Cambes, as that individual, with smiling face, respectfully kissed the hand of Clémence de Maillé, Princesse de Condé. But on this occasion the viscount wore the garments of her own sex, and made the loveliest viscountess on the face of the earth.
Canolles would have given ten years of his life to hear their conversation; but to no purpose did he glue his ear to the glass; an unintelligible buzzing was all that he could hear. He saw the princess bid the younger woman adieu, and kiss her on the brow, saying as she did so something which made all the others laugh; he then saw the viscountess return to the state apartments with some inferior officials clothed in the uniforms of their superiors. He even saw the worthy Pompée, swollen with pride, in orange coat trimmed with silver-lace, strutting about with noble mien, and like Don Jophet of Armenia, leaning upon the hilt of an enormous rapier, in attendance upon his mistress, as she gracefully raised the train of her long satin robe.
Then, through another door at the left, the princess's escort began to file out noiselessly, led by Madame de Condé herself, whose bearing was that of a queen, not of a fugitive. Next to her came Vialas, carrying in his arms the little Duc d'Enghien, wrapped in a cloak; then Lenet, carrying a carved casket and divers bundles of papers, and last of all the intendant of the château, closing the procession, which was preceded by two officers with drawn swords.
They all left the room by a secret passageway. Canolles immediately leaped down from his post of observation and ran to the gateway, where the lights had meanwhile been extinguished; and he saw the whole cortège pass silently through on the way to the stables; the hour of departure was at hand.
At that moment Canolles thought only of the duties imposed upon him by the mission with which the queen had intrusted him. In the person of this woman who was about to leave the château, he was allowing armed civil war to go abroad and gnaw once more at the entrails of France. Certes, it was a shameful thing for him, a man, to become a spy upon a woman, and her keeper; but the Duchesse de Longueville, who set fire to the four corners of France, she was a woman too.
Canolles rushed toward the terrace, which overlooked the park, and put the silver whistle to his lips.
It would have been all up with the preparations for departure! Madame de Condé would not have left Chantilly, or, if she had done so, would not have taken a hundred steps before she and her escort were surrounded by a force thrice her own; and thus Canolles would have fulfilled his mission without the least danger to himself; thus, at a single blow, he would have destroyed the fortune and the future of the house of Condé, and would by the same blow have built up his own fortune upon the ruins of theirs, and have laid the foundations of future grandeur, as the Vitrys and Luynes did in the old days, and more recently the Guitauts and Miossens, under circumstances which were perhaps of less moment to the welfare of the realm.
But Canolles raised his eyes to the apartment where the soft, sad light of the night-lamp shone behind curtains of red velvet, and he fancied that he could see the shadow of his beloved outlined upon the great white window-blinds.
Thereupon all his resolutions, all his selfish arguments faded away before the gentle beams of that light, as the dreams and phantoms of the night fade away before the first beams of the rising sun.
"Monsieur de Mazarin," he said to himself in a passionate outburst, "is so rich that he can afford to lose all these princes and princesses who seek to escape him; but I am not rich enough to lose the treasure which belongs henceforth to me, and which I will guard as jealously as a dragon. At this moment she is alone, in my power, dependent upon me; at any hour of the day or night I can enter her apartment; she will not fly without telling me, for I have her sacred word. What care I though the queen be deceived and Monsieur de Mazarin lose his temper? I was told to watch Madame la Princesse, and I am watching her. They should have given me her description or have set a more practised spy than myself upon her."
With that, Canolles put the whistle in his pocket, listened to the grinding of the bolts, heard the distant rumbling of the carriages over the bridge in the park, and the clattering of many horses' hoofs, growing gradually fainter, until it died away altogether. When everything had disappeared, when there was nothing more to see or hear, heedless of the fact that he was staking his life against a woman's love, – that is to say, against a mere shadow of happiness, – he glided into the second deserted court-yard, and cautiously ascended the staircase leading to his apartment, the darkness being unrelieved by the faintest gleam of light.
But, cautious as his movements were, when he reached the corridor he unavoidably stumbled against a person who was apparently listening at his door, and who uttered a muffled cry of alarm.
"Who are you? Who are you?" demanded the person in question, in a frightened voice.
"Pardieu!" said Canolles, "who are you yourself, who prowl about this staircase like a spy?"
"I am Pompée."
"Madame la Princesse's intendant?"
"Yes, yes, – Madame la Princesse's intendant."
"Ah! that's a lucky chance; I am Castorin."
"Castorin, Monsieur de Canolles' valet?"
"Himself."
"Ah! my dear Castorin," said Pompée, "I'll wager that I gave you a good fright."
"Fright?"
"Yes! Dame! when one has never been a soldier – Can I do anything for you, my dear friend?" continued Pompée, resuming his air of importance.
"Yes."
"Tell me what it is."
"You can inform Madame la Princesse immediately that my master desires to speak with her."
"At this hour?"
"Even so."
"Impossible!"
"You think so?"
"I am sure of it."
"Then she will not receive my master?"
"No."
"By order of the king, Monsieur Pompée! Go and tell her that."
"By order of the king!" cried Pompée. "I will go."
He ran precipitately downstairs, impelled at once by respect and fear, two greyhounds which are quite capable of making a tortoise run at their pace.
Canolles kept on and entered his room, where he found Castorin snoring lustily, stretched out magisterially in a large easy-chair. He resumed his uniform and awaited the result of his latest step.
"'Faith!" he said to himself, "if I don't do Monsieur de Mazarin's business very successfully, it seems to me that I don't do badly with my own."
He waited in vain, however, for Pompée's return; and after ten minutes, finding that he did not come, nor any other in his stead, he resolved to present himself unannounced. He therefore aroused Monsieur Castorin, whose bile was soothed by an hour's sleep, bade him, in a tone which admitted no reply, to be ready for any thing that might happen, and bent his steps toward the princess's apartments.
At the door he found a footman in very ill humor, because the bell rang just as his service was at an end, and he was looking forward, like Monsieur Castorin, to a refreshing slumber after the fatiguing day.
"What do you wish, monsieur?" he asked when he saw Canolles.
"I request the honor of paying my respects to Madame la Princesse."
"At this hour, monsieur?"
"What's that? 'at this hour'?"
"Yes, it seems to me very late."
"How dare you say that, villain?"
"But, monsieur – " stammered the footman.
"I no longer request, I demand," said Canolles, in a supremely haughty tone.
"You demand? Only Madame la Princesse gives orders here."
"The king gives orders everywhere. By the king's order!"
The lackey shuddered and hung his head.
"Pardon, monsieur," he said, trembling from head to foot, "but I am only a poor servant, and cannot take it upon myself to open Madame la Princesse's door; permit me to go and awaken a chamberlain."
"Are the chamberlains accustomed to retire at eleven o'clock at the château of Chantilly?"
"They hunted all day," faltered the footman.
"In truth," muttered Canolles, "I must give them time to dress some one as a chamberlain. Very well," he added aloud; "go; I will wait."
The footman started off on the run to carry the alarm through the château, where Pompée, terrified beyond measure by his unfortunate encounter, had already sown unspeakable dismay.
Canolles, left to his own devices, pricked up his ears and opened his eyes.
He heard much running to and fro in the salons and corridors; he saw by the light of expiring torches men armed with muskets taking their places at the angles of the stairways; on all sides he felt that the silence of stupefaction which reigned throughout the château a moment before was succeeded by a threatening murmur.
Canolles put his hand to his whistle and drew near a window, whence he could see the dark mass of the trees, at the foot of which he had stationed the two hundred men he brought with him.
"No," said he, "that would simply lead to a pitched battle, and that is not what I want. It's much better to wait; the worst that can happen to me by waiting is to be murdered, while if I act hastily I may ruin her."
Canolles had no sooner come to the end of this reflection than the door opened and a new personage appeared upon the scene.
"Madame la Princesse is not visible," said this personage, so hurriedly that he had not time to salute the gentleman; "she is in bed, and has given positive orders that no one be admitted."
"Who are you?" said Canolles, eying the new-comer from head to foot. "And who taught you to speak to a gentleman with your hat on your head?"
As he asked the question Canolles coolly removed the man's hat with the end of his cane.
"Monsieur!" cried the latter, stepping back with dignity.
"I asked you who you are."
"I am – I am, as you can see by my uniform, captain of her Highness's guards."
Canolles smiled. He had had time to scrutinize his interlocutor, and saw that he was dealing with some butler with a paunch as round as his bottles, some prosperous Vatel imprisoned in an official doublet, which, from lack of time, or superabundance of belly, was not properly secured.
"Very good, master captain of the guards," said Canolles, "pick up your hat and answer."
The captain executed the first branch of Canolles' injunction like one who had studied that excellent maxim of military discipline: "To know how to command, one must know how to obey."
"Captain of the guards!" continued Canolles. "Peste! that's a fine post to hold!"
"Why, yes, monsieur, well enough; but what then?" observed that official, drawing himself up.
"Don't swell out so much, Monsieur le Capitaine," said Canolles, "or you will burst off the last button, and your breeches will fall down about your heels, which would be most disgraceful."
"But who are you, monsieur?" demanded the pretended captain, taking his turn at asking questions.
"Monsieur, I will follow the example of urbanity set by you, and will answer your question as you answered mine. I am captain in the regiment of Navailles, and I come hither in the king's name as his ambassador, clothed with powers – which will be exerted in a peaceful or violent manner, according as his Majesty's commands are or are not obeyed."
"Violent!" cried the pretended captain. "In a violent manner?"
"Very violent, I give you warning."
"Even where her Highness is personally concerned?"
"Why not? Her Highness is his Majesty's first subject, nothing more."
"Monsieur, do not resort to force; I have fifty men-at-arms ready to avenge her Highness's honor."
Canolles did not choose to tell him that his fifty men-at-arms were simply footmen and scullions, fit troops to serve under such a leader, and that, so far as the princess's honor was concerned, it was at that moment riding along the Bordeaux road with the princess.
He replied simply, with that indifferent air which is more terrifying than an open threat, and is familiar to brave men and those who are accustomed to danger: —
"If you have fifty men-at-arms, Monsieur le Capitaine, I have two hundred soldiers, who form the advance-guard of the royal army. Do you propose to put yourself in open rebellion against his Majesty?"
"No, monsieur, no!" the stout man hastened to reply, sadly crestfallen; "God forbid! but I beg you to bear me witness that I yield to force alone."
"That is the least I can do for you as your brother-in-arms."
"Very well; then I will take you to Madame the Princess Dowager, who is not yet asleep."
Canolles had no need to reflect to appreciate the terrible danger that lay hidden in this snare; but he turned it aside without ceremony, thanks to his omnipotence.
"My orders are, not to see Madame the Princess Dowager, but the younger princess."
The captain of the guards once more bent his head, imparted a retrograde movement to his great legs, trailed his long sword across the floor, and stalked majestically through the door between two sentries, who stood trembling there throughout the scene we have described, and were very near quitting their post when they heard of the presence of two hundred men, – so little disposed were they to become martyrs to fidelity in the sacking of the château of Chantilly.
Ten minutes later the captain returned, followed by two guards, and with wearisome formality undertook to escort Canolles to the apartment of the princess, to which he was at last introduced without further delay.
He recognized the room itself, the furniture, the bed, and even the perfume, but he looked in vain for two things: the portrait of the true princess which he had noticed at the time of his first visit, and to which he owed his first suspicion of the trick they proposed to play him; and the figure of the false princess, for whom he had made so great a sacrifice.
The portrait had been removed; and as a precautionary measure, somewhat tardily adopted, the face of the person on the bed was turned toward the wall with true princely impertinence. Two women were standing in the passage between the bed and the wall.
The gentleman would willingly have passed over this lack of courtesy; but as the thought came to his mind that possibly some new substitution had enabled Madame de Cambes to take flight as the princess had done, his hair stood on end with dismay, and he determined to make sure at once of the identity of the person who occupied the bed, by exerting the supreme power with which he was clothed by his mission.
"Madame," said he with a low bow, "I ask your Highness's pardon for presenting myself at this hour, especially after I had given you my word that I would await your commands; but I have noticed a great stir in the château – "
The person in the bed started, but did not reply. Canolles looked in vain for some indication that the woman before him was really the one he sought, but amid the billows of lace and the soft mass of quilts and coverlets it was impossible for him to do anything more than distinguish a recumbent form.
"And," he continued, "I owe it to myself to satisfy myself that this bed still contains the same person with whom I had the honor of half an hour's conversation."
These words were followed, not by a simple start, but by a downright contortion of terror. The movement did not escape the notice of Canolles, who was alarmed by it.
"If she has deceived me," he thought, "if, despite her solemn promise, she has fled, I will leave the château. I will take horse, I will place myself at the head of my two hundred men, and I will capture my runaways, though I have to set fire to thirty villages to light my road."
He waited a moment longer; but the person in the bed did not speak or turn toward him; it was evident that she wished to gain time.
"Madame," said Canolles, at last giving vent to a feeling of impatience, which he had not the courage to conceal, "I beg your Highness to remember that I am sent hither by the king, and in the king's name I demand the honor of seeing your face."
"Oh! this inquisition is unendurable," exclaimed a trembling voice, which sent a thrill of joy through the young officer's veins; for he recognized therein a quality which no other voice could counterfeit. "If it is, as you say, the king who compels you to act thus, the king is still a mere child, and does not yet know the duties of a gentleman; to force a woman to show her face is no less insulting than to snatch away her mask."
"There is a phrase, madame, before which women bend the knee when it is uttered by a king, and kings when it is uttered by destiny. That phrase is: 'It must be.'"
"Very well, since it must be, since I am alone and helpless against the king's order and his messenger's persistence, I obey, monsieur; look at me."
Thereupon the rampart of pillows, bed-clothes, and laces which protected the fair besieged was suddenly put aside, and through the improvised breach appeared the blond head and lovely face which the voice led him to expect to see, – the cheeks flushed with shame, rather than with indignation. With the swift glance of a man accustomed to equivalent, if not strictly similar situations, Canolles satisfied himself that it was not anger which kept those eyes, veiled by velvety eyelashes, bent upon the ground, or made that white hand tremble, as it confined the rebellious waves of hair upon an alabaster neck.
The pseudo-princess remained for an instant in that attitude, which she would have liked to make threatening, but which expressed nothing more than vexation, while Canolles gazed at her, breathing ecstatically, and repressing with both hands the tumultuous, joyful beating of his heart.
"Well, monsieur," said the ill-used fair one after a few seconds of silence, "has my humiliation gone far enough? Have you scrutinized me at your leisure? Your triumph is complete, is it not? Show yourself a generous victor, then, and retire."
"I would be glad to do so, madame; but I must carry out my instructions to the end. Thus far I have performed only that part of my mission which concerns your Highness; but it is not enough to have seen you; I must now see Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien."
A terrible silence followed these words, uttered in the tone of a man who knows that he has the right to command, and who proposes to be obeyed. The false princess raised herself in bed, leaning upon her hand, and fixed upon Canolles one of those strange glances which seemed to belong to none but her, they expressed so many things at once. It seemed to say: "Have you recognized me? Do you know who I really am? If you know, forgive me and spare me; you are the stronger, so take pity on me."
Canolles understood all that her glance said to him; but he hardened himself against its seductive eloquence, and answered it in spoken words: —
"Impossible, madame; my orders are explicit."
"Let everything be done as you choose, then, monsieur, as you have no consideration for rank or position. Go; these ladies will take you to my son's bedside."
"Might not these ladies, instead of taking me to your son, bring your son to you, madame? It seems to me that that would be infinitely preferable."