‘What! Three?’
‘Yes, Madame. The first has been seen on the road from Bordeaux, the second is coming from Stenay and the third from La Rochefoucauld.’
The two princesses gave exclamations of happy surprise. Madame de Tourville bit her lip.
‘My dear Pierre,’ she said, in a simpering tone, to disguise her spite and to hide the bitterness of what she was about to say under a sugary coating, ‘it seems to me that a skilled necromancer like yourself should not stop when things are going so well, but tell us what is in the dispatches after announcing that they are coming.’
‘My art, Madame, does not extend as far as you believe,’ he said modestly. ‘It is limited to being a faithful servant. I announce, but do not guess.’
At that moment, as though Lenet had a familiar demon to serve him, they saw two riders coming through the gates of the château and galloping towards them. At once, a flock of curious people, abandoning the alleyways and the lawn, swooped towards the steps in order to have its share of the news.
The two riders dismounted, and one of them, handing over the bridle of his sweating horse to the other, who seemed to be his lackey, ran rather than walked from one end of the gallery towards the princesses, whom he could see at the other end, making their own way towards him.
‘Claire!’ the princess exclaimed.
‘Yes, Your Highness. Please accept my humble respects.’ And, going down on one knee, the young man tried to grasp the princess’s hand and kiss it.
‘In my arms, dear Viscountess, in my arms!’ cried Madame de Condé, lifting her to her feet.
And, after agreeing to be embraced by the princess, with every possible mark of respect, the rider turned towards the Dowager Princess and gave a deep bow.
‘Quickly, dear Claire, tell us,’ said the dowager.
‘Yes, tell us,’ Madame de Condé repeated. ‘Have you seen Richon?’
‘I have, Your Highness, and he gave me a message for you.’
‘Is it good or bad?’
‘I really don’t know. It consists in two words.’
‘What are they? Quickly, I’m dying with impatience.’
There were signs of burning anxiety on the faces of the two princesses.
‘Bordeaux – yes,’ said Claire, herself uneasy at the reaction that these two words might produce.
She was soon reassured. The princesses responded to the two words with a cry of triumph that brought Lenet running from the far end of the gallery.
‘Lenet, Lenet, come here, quickly!’ cried Madame the princess. ‘You don’t know the news that dear Claire has brought us?’
‘But I do, Madame,’ said Lenet with a smile. ‘I do know, and that’s why I was not hurrying.’
‘What! Do you know?’
‘Bordeaux – yes. Isn’t that it?’
‘Truly, my dear Pierre, you are a wizard!’ said the dowager.
‘But if you knew, Lenet,’ said Madame the princess, reproachfully, ‘why did you not relieve us of our anxiety by telling us those two words?’
‘Because I wanted to allow the Viscountess de Cambes to gain the reward for her weariness,’ Lenet replied, bowing to Claire, who was quite overcome. ‘And also because I was afraid of Your Highnesses’ outburst of joy on the terrace in view of everyone.’
‘You’re right – right as ever, my good Pierre,’ said Madame the princess. ‘Let’s keep quiet.’
‘Even so, it is to that fine man Richon that we owe this,’ said the dowager. ‘Aren’t you pleased with him, and didn’t he arrange things well, eh, my good compeer Lenet?’
‘Compeer’ was the Dowager Princess’s pet name for him, a word that she had learned from Henri IV, who often used it.
‘Richon is a man of thought and action, Madame,’ said Lenet. ‘I hope Your Highness realizes that if I had not been as sure of him as I am of myself, I should not have recommended him.’
‘What shall we do for him?’ asked the princess.
‘We’ll have to appoint him to some important place,’ said the dowager.
‘Some important place! Your Highness can’t be serious,’ said Madame de Tourville sharply. ‘You must be forgetting that Monsieur Richon is not a nobleman.’
‘But then neither am I, Madame,’ said Lenet. ‘But this does not apparently prevent the prince from having some confidence in me. I do surely respect and admire the nobility of France, but there are some circumstances when I would venture to say that a big heart is more valuable than an old coat of arms.’
‘And why did he not come to announce this rich news himself, the good Richon?’ asked Madame the princess.
‘He stayed in Guyenne to muster a certain number of men. He told me that he could already count on nearly three hundred soldiers, but he says that, through lack of time, they will be ill trained for campaigning, and he would prefer to be accorded the command of a stronghold such as Vayres or the Ile Saint-Georges. There, he says, he would be sure of being entirely useful to Their Highnesses.’
‘But how can we manage this?’ asked the princess. ‘We are not well enough in favour at court at the moment to recommend anyone, and anyone whom we did recommend would immediately become suspect.’
‘Perhaps, Madame, there might be a way that Monsieur Richon suggested to me himself,’ said the viscountess.
‘Which is?’
‘It appears,’ the viscountess continued, blushing, ‘that Monsieur d’Epernon is head over heels in love with a certain young lady.’
‘Ah, yes! The lovely Nanon,’ the princess said, contemptuously. ‘We know all about that.’
‘Well, it seems that the Duke d’Epernon can refuse this woman nothing and that she grants everything that can be bought from her. Could we not buy a commission for Monsieur Richon?’
‘It would be a good investment,’ said Lenet.
‘Yes, but the treasury is empty, as you very well know, Counsellor,’ said Madame de Tourville.
With a smile, Lenet turned towards Madame de Cambes.
‘This is the time, Madame, to prove to Their Highnesses that you have thought of everything.’
‘What do you mean, Lenet?’
‘Madame, he means that I am fortunate enough to be able to offer you a small sum that I have managed with difficulty to extract from my tenants. It’s a very modest offering, but I was unable to make more. Twenty thousand livres,’ the viscountess continued, lowering her eyes and hesitant, because she was so ashamed to offer such a small amount to the two first ladies of the kingdom after the queen.
‘Twenty thousand livres!’ exclaimed the two princesses.
‘But that’s a fortune in times like ours,’ continued the dowager.
‘Our dear Claire!’ cried the princess. ‘How can we ever repay her?’
‘Your Highness can think about that later.’
‘And where is the money?’ asked Madame de Tourville.
‘In His Highness’s chamber, where my groom Pompée was instructed to take it.’
‘Lenet,’ the princess said. ‘Remember that we owe this sum to Madame de Cambes.’
‘It is already on our list of liabilities,’ said Lenet, taking out his notebook and showing the viscountess’s twenty thousand livres at that day’s date, in a column the sum total of which would have rather terrified the princesses, if they had taken the trouble to add it up.
‘But how did you manage to get through, my dear?’ the princess asked. ‘We were told here that Monsieur de Saint-Aignan controls the roads and inspects men and goods, just like an official of the customs.’
‘Thanks to Pompée’s wisdom, Madame, we avoided that danger,’ said the viscountess, ‘by making a huge detour that cost us a day and a half, but ensured our safe arrival. Otherwise, I should have been with Your Highness the day before yesterday.’
‘Don’t worry, Madame,’ said Lenet. ‘No time has yet been lost. We must just make good use of today and tomorrow. Today, as Your Highnesses will recall, we are expecting three messengers. One
has now arrived, but the other two are still to come.’
‘And can we know the names of these two others?’ Madame de Tourville asked, still hoping to catch out the counsellor, against whom she was waging a war that was nonetheless real for being undeclared.
‘The first, if my prediction is right, will be Gourville; he is coming on behalf of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld.’66
‘I think you mean on behalf of the Prince de Marsillac,’ said Madame de Tourville.
‘The Prince de Marsillac is now the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, Madame.’
‘You mean his father is dead?’
‘A week ago.’
‘Where?’
‘At Verteuil.’
‘And the second?’ the princess asked.
‘The second is Blanchefort, the captain of the prince’s guard. He is coming from Stenay, on behalf of Monsieur de Turenne.’
‘In that case,’ said Madame de Tourville, ‘I think that to avoid loss of time, we can revert to the first plan that I made, in the probable event of Bordeaux joining us and Turenne and Marsillac being allies…’
Lenet smiled in his usual manner.
‘Excuse me, Madame,’ he said in the politest voice. ‘But the plans drawn up by the prince himself are at this moment being carried out and promise complete success.’
‘Plans drawn up by the prince!’ said Madame de Tourville acidly. ‘By the same prince who is in the dungeon at Vincennes and communicates with no one!’
‘These are His Highness’s orders, written in his own hand at yesterday’s date,’ said Lenet, taking a letter from the Prince de Condé out of his pocket. ‘I received it this morning. We correspond with one another.’
The paper was almost torn from the counsellor’s hands by the two princesses, who devoured everything in it with tears of joy.
‘Well, I never! Lenet’s pockets seem to contain the whole of France!’ said the dowager, laughing.
‘Not yet, Madame, not yet,’ he replied. ‘But with God’s help I shall enlarge them enough for that. Now,’ he continued, with a significant nod to the viscountess. ‘Madame must need a rest after this long journey…’
The viscountess appreciated that Lenet wanted to be alone with the two princesses, and, a smile from the dowager confirming this, she made a respectful bow and disappeared.
Madame de Tourville was staying behind, promising herself a fine harvest of mysterious information, but at a barely perceptible sign from the dowager to her daughter-in-law, the two princesses spontaneously performed a noble curtsey, obeying all the rules of etiquette and indicating to Madame de Tourville that they had reached the end of the political discussion in which she had been invited to take part. The lady with the theories perfectly understood what was meant, returned a curtsey even more grave and ceremonious than theirs and withdrew, calling on God to witness the ingratitude of princes.
The two princesses went into their study, and Pierre Lenet followed.
‘Now,’ said Lenet, after ensuring that the door was well shut. ‘If Your Highnesses wish to receive Gourville, he has arrived and is changing his clothes, since he did not dare present himself before you in those he wore for the journey.’
‘What news is he bringing?’
‘The news that Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld will be here this evening with five hundred officers.’
‘Five hundred!’ the princess exclaimed. ‘But that’s a whole army.’
‘Which will make our journey harder. I should have preferred just five or six servants to all that paraphernalia; we should have escaped the attention of Monsieur de Saint-Aignan more easily. Now it will be almost impossible to reach the south without being disturbed.’
‘All the better if we are!’ cried the princess. ‘If we are disturbed, we shall fight and win. The spirit of Monsieur de Condé will be marching with us.’
Lenet looked at the Dowager Princess as if seeking her opinion, but Charlotte de Montmorency, brought up at the time of the civil wars under Louis XIII, who had seen so many noble heads bending as they passed the prison gates or falling on the scaffold because they tried to remain upright, drew her hand sadly across a forehead that was heavy with painful memories.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That is what we are reduced to: hiding or fighting – dreadful! We were living quietly with the little glory that God has brought to our family and we sought nothing – at least, I hope that none of us had any other intention – apart from staying in the rank where we were born. And now the fortunes of the time are driving us to fight against our master…’
‘Madame!’ the young princess said impetuously. ‘I am less afflicted than Your Highness by the necessity to which we are reduced. My husband and my brother are suffering an undeserved captivity. This husband and brother are your sons. Moreover, your daughter is proscribed. This quite certainly justifies anything that we might do.’
‘Yes,’ said the dowager, in a resigned voice, full of sadness. ‘Yes, I can bear this with more patience than you can, Madame, for it appears that it has become our destiny to be outlaws or prisoners. No sooner had I become the wife of your husband’s father than I had to leave France, driven out by King Henri IV’s love. No sooner did we return than we had to go into Vincennes, pursued by the hatred of Cardinal Richelieu. My son, who is today in prison, came into the world in prison and, after thirty-two years, finds himself back in the room where he was born. Alas, your father-in-law, the prince, was right in his dark prophecies when he was informed of the victory of the Battle of Rocroi, and when he was taken into the hall hung with the standards captured from the Spaniards: “God knows the joy that this action of my son’s has given me,” he said, turning to me. “But remember, Madame, the more glory accrues to our house, the more misfortune will befall it. If I did not bear the arms of France, which are too fine to give up, I should like to take as my coat of arms a falcon, with the bells that signal his presence and help his recapture, and the motto: Fama nocet.”67 We have made too much noise, my daughter, and this is what is damaging us. Don’t you agree, Lenet?’
‘Madame,’ said Lenet, pained by the memories that the princess had just awakened. ‘Your Highness is right, but we have gone too far to go back now. Moreover, in the kind of circumstances in which we find ourselves, we must be decisive and have no illusions about our situation. We are only apparently free. The queen is keeping watch on us and Monsieur de Saint-Aignan is constraining us. Very well, we must get out of Chantilly, despite the queen’s vigilance and the constraints imposed by Monsieur de Saint-Aignan.’
‘Let us leave Chantilly, but let us leave with our heads high!’ the princess exclaimed.
‘I agree,’ said the dowager. ‘The Condés are not Spaniards, and they are not traitors. They are not Italians and not plotters. What they do, they do in daylight, with their heads up.’
‘Madame,’ Lenet said, with conviction in his voice. ‘May God be my witness that I should be the first to carry out Your Highness’s order, whatever it might be, but to leave Chantilly as you wish, we should have to fight. I am sure you do not intend to be women on the day of battle when you have been men in council. You will march at the head of your followers, and you will be the ones to launch the war cry at your soldiers. But you are forgetting that as well as your own precious lives, another is starting which is no less precious – that of the Duke d’Enghien, your son and grandson. Would you take the risk of burying the present and the future of your family in a single tomb? Do you believe that the father will not become a hostage to Mazarin when daring deeds are undertaken in the name of the son? Have you forgotten the secrets of the dungeons of Vincennes, which were so dreadfully experienced by the Grand Prior de Vendôme, Marshal d’Ornano and Puy-Laurent? Have you forgotten that deadly cell, which Madame de Rambouillet said was worth its weight in arsenic?68 No, ladies,’ Lenet continued, clasping his hands, ‘no. You will listen to the advice of your old servant and leave Chantilly in a manner appropriate to women who are under persecution. Remember that your
most infallible weapon is weakness. A child deprived of his father, a woman deprived of her husband and a mother deprived of her son must escape in whatever way possible from the trap in which they are held. Wait before you act openly, and speak aloud when you are no longer a surety for those who are stronger than you. While you are captive, your followers will remain silent, when you are free, they will come out into the open, no longer afraid of being dictated the conditions of your ransom. Our plan is agreed with Gourville. We are sure of a good escort, with whom we shall avoid the hazards of the road – because today twenty different parties are in possession of the countryside and live without distinction off their friends and their enemies. Agree. Everything is ready.’
‘Leave in secret! Leave like criminals!’ cried the young princess. ‘What will the prince say when he learns that his mother, his wife and his son have been enduring such shame!’
‘I don’t know what he will say, but if you succeed, he will owe you his freedom, while if you fail, you will not compromise your resources and, above all, your position, as you would if you were to chance them in battle.’
The dowager thought for a moment, then said with a face full of affectionate sadness: ‘Dear Monsieur Lenet, persuade my daughter to go, because I am obliged to stay behind here. I have struggled so far, but I am finally giving way. The pain that is consuming me, and that I am trying in vain to conceal so as not to discourage those around me, will tie me to what may perhaps be my deathbed. But, as you have said, what we must do above all is to save the fortune of the Condés. My daughter and grandson will leave Chantilly, and I hope they will be wise enough to obey your advice – no, I say more than that: your orders. You order us, Lenet, and we shall do as you say.’
‘You are pale, Madame!’ Lenet exclaimed, supporting the dowager, whom the princess, alarmed by the lack of colour in her face, had already taken in her arms.
‘Yes,’ the dowager said, in a steadily weakening voice. ‘Yes, today’s good news has done me more harm than the worries of recent days. I can feel that the fever is devouring me. But we must not show anything: it could damage our cause at such a moment.’