While Lenet was reading, Cauvignac surveyed the assembly with a look of triumph.
‘Madame,’ Lenet said softly, bending to speak in the princess’s ear. ‘Look at this. It is most fortunate. A letter of attestation from Monsieur d’Epernon!’
‘Monsieur,’ the princess said to Cauvignac, with a gracious smile, ‘thank you! Three times thank you – for my husband, for myself and for my son!’
The whole company was struck dumb with surprise.
‘Monsieur,’ Lenet said, ‘this paper is so precious that I am sure you do not mean to hand it over to us without conditions. This evening, after supper, we shall speak, if you will, and you must tell me how we can do you service.’
Lenet folded the letter of attestation into his pocket, and Cauvignac had the delicacy not to ask for it back.
‘Well!’ he said to his companions. ‘Didn’t I tell you that I was inviting you to sup with the Duke d’Enghien?’
‘Now, let us dine,’ said the princess.
The double door at the side of the hall opened at these words, and they saw a splendid supper laid out in the great gallery of the château.
The supper was a thunderous occasion. The prince’s health was proposed more than ten times and always drunk by the guests, kneeling, with swords in hand, hurling curses against Mazarin loud enough to bring the walls down.
Everyone did justice to the good food of Chantilly. Even Ferguzon, the prudent Ferguzon, allowed himself to be seduced by the wines of Burgundy, which he was encountering for the first time. Ferguzon was a Gascon, and he had until then only been in a position to appreciate the wines of his own region, which he considered excellent – but which, if one is to believe the Duke de Saint-Simon,72 were not of great renown.
This was not the case with Cauvignac. Cauvignac, much though he could appreciate the virtues of Moulin-à-Vent, Nuits and Chambertin, consumed them only in moderation. He had not forgotten the crafty smile that Lenet had given him and considered that he would need all his faculties if he were to strike a deal with the sly counsellor that he would not later regret, so he aroused the amazement of Ferguzon, Barabbas and his three other companions, who, not realizing the causes of this temperance, were simple enough to believe that their chief must be repenting of past sins.
Towards the end of the meal, as the toasts started to become more frequent, the princess made herself scarce, taking the Duke d’Enghien with her and leaving her guests entirely free to continue the feast as far into the night as it suited them. Everything had happened as she had wished, and she wrote a detailed account of the scene in the hall and the meal in the gallery, only leaving out one thing, which was Lenet’s remark to her, whispered as she was getting up from the table: ‘Your Highness will not forget that we are leaving at ten o’clock.’
It was nearly nine. The princess began to get ready.
Meanwhile, a look passed between Lenet and Cauvignac. Lenet got up, and Cauvignac did the same. Lenet left through a little door in a corner of the gallery, and Cauvignac, seeing what was required, followed.
Lenet led him into his study, the adventurer walking behind, with a confident, carefree air. Even so, as he walked, his hand was idly toying with the handle of a long dagger at his waist, and his eyes, bright and quick, were glancing through half-opened doors and shifting tapestries.
He was not precisely afraid of being tricked, but he made a point of always being prepared for perfidy.
Once inside the study, only half lit by one lamp, but which a glance confirmed was empty, Lenet motioned him to a seat. Cauvignac sat down on one side of the table, where the lamp was burning, Lenet on the other.
‘Monsieur,’ Lenet said, intending to gain this gentleman’s confidence from the start, ‘here, first and foremost, is your letter. It is yours, I suppose?’
‘It is, Monsieur,’ Cauvignac replied, ‘the possession of whoever has it, since as you can see, there is no name on it except that of the Duke d’Epernon.’
‘When I asked if it was really yours, I was asking if you possessed it with the consent of Monsieur d’Epernon.’
‘I have it from his own hand, Monsieur.’
‘So it was not taken or extorted by violence? I don’t mean by you, but by someone else from whom you might have received it. Perhaps you only have it second-hand?’
‘As I told you, it was given to me by the duke, quite freely and in exchange for a paper that I passed over to him.’
‘Did you put yourself under any obligation to the duke to make a particular use of this paper rather than any other?’
‘I made no commitment to the Duke d’Epernon.’
‘So the person who owns this can use it quite safely?’
‘He can.’
‘So why do you not use it yourself?’
‘Because if I keep this letter of attestation, I can only obtain one thing from it, while if I hand it over, I can obtain two.’
‘And what are those two things?’
‘Money, first of all.’
‘We have none.’
‘I shall be reasonable.’
‘And the second thing?’
‘A commission in the princes’ army.’
‘The princes have no army.’
‘But they will have one.’
‘Would you not prefer to have a licence to raise a company?’
‘I was going to suggest that arrangement.’
‘So all that remains is the money?’
‘Yes, that’s all.’
‘How much would you like?’
‘Ten thousand livres. I told you I should be reasonable.’
‘Ten thousand livres!’
‘Yes, I need an advance to arm and equip my men.’
‘Indeed, it’s not too much.’
‘So you agree?’
‘It’s a deal.’
Lenet took out a licence that was already signed, filled in the names that the young man gave him, stamped it with the seal of the princess and gave it to the holder. Then, opening a sort of cashbox with a secret lock, in which he kept the funds of the rebel army, he withdrew the ten thousand livres in gold, which he set out in piles of twenty louis each.
Cauvignac counted them scrupulously one after another, then at the last one he nodded to Lenet that the letter of attestation was his.
Lenet took it and shut it up in the box, thinking no doubt that such a precious document could not be too closely guarded.
Just as Lenet was putting back the key of the cashbox in his pocket, a valet came in in a state of great excitement and said that he was needed for an affair of importance. So Lenet and Cauvignac went out of the study, Lenet to follow the servant, and Cauvignac to go back to the gallery.
Meanwhile, the princess was making her preparations for leaving, which consisted in changing her grand dress for an amazon’s clothes, suitable both for riding in a carriage and riding on horseback. She also went through her papers, in order to burn those that were not needed and to take the important ones with her, and finally collected together her diamonds, which she had taken out of their settings so that they would occupy less space and be easier to use if she needed them.
As for the Duke d’Enghien, he would have to leave in the clothes that he had worn for the hunt, since there had been no time to make him any other knee-breeches. His groom Vialas was to remain constantly beside the coach door, riding the white horse, which was a pure thoroughbred, ready to take the duke on his own saddle if need be and gallop off with him. At first they had been afraid that he would fall asleep and had brought Pierrot to play with him, but this proved unnecessary: his pride at seeing himself dressed as a man kept him awake.
The coaches, secretly harnessed and prepared as though to take the Viscountess de Cambes back to Paris, had been led out under a dark alleyway of chestnut trees, where they could not be seen. There they stayed, with their doors open and coachmen seated ready, a mere twenty yards from the main entrance. They were waiting only for the signal, which was to be a f
anfare of horns. The princess, looking at the clock which showed five minutes to ten, was already getting up and going over to the Duke d’Enghien to take his hand, when suddenly the door burst open and Lenet, rather than entering, materialized in the room.
The princess, seeing his pale face and anxious look, found herself sharing his pallor and his anxiety.
‘My God!’ she said, going over to him. ‘What’s wrong with you? What’s happened?’
‘What’s happened,’ said Lenet in a voice overcome with emotion, ‘is that a gentleman has just arrived and is asking to speak to you on behalf of the king.’
‘Great heavens!’ the princess exclaimed. ‘We’re lost. My dear Lenet, what can we do?’
‘Just one thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘Get the Duke d’Enghien undressed at once and put his clothes on Pierrot.’
‘But I don’t want my clothes taken off and given to Pierrot!’ the young prince cried, ready to burst into tears at the very idea, while Pierrot, overjoyed, was not sure he could believe his ears.
‘You must, Monseigneur,’ Lenet said in that powerful voice that people find on serious occasions and which can impress even a child. ‘Or else you and your mother will be taken to the same prison as the prince, your father.’
The Duke d’Enghien said nothing, while Pierrot, on the contrary, unable to control his feelings, gave way to an unspeakable outburst of joy and pride. The two of them were taken to a low room next to the chapel, where the metamorphosis was to take place.
‘Fortunately, the dowager is here, or else Mazarin would have beaten us,’ said Lenet.
‘Why is that?’
‘Because the messenger had to start by visiting the dowager, and he is in her antechamber at this moment.’
‘But this messenger from the king is only a spy, I suppose, an agent who has been sent here by the court?’
‘As Your Highness says.’
‘Then his orders must be to keep watch on us.’
‘Yes, but what does that matter, if it is not you whom he is watching?’
‘I don’t understand, Lenet.’
Lenet smiled. ‘But I do understand, Madame, and I shall take charge of everything. Have Pierrot dressed as the prince and the prince as a gardener, and I will make sure that Pierrot learns what to say.’
‘Oh, goodness, no! Let my son leave alone!’
‘Madame, your son will leave with his mother.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Why? If we have found a false Duke d’Enghien, we can just as well find a false Princess de Condé.’73
‘Ah, now! Brilliant! I do understand, my dear Lenet, my good Lenet. But who will stand in for me?’ she asked uneasily.
‘Have no fear, Madame,’ replied the imperturbable counsellor. ‘The Princess de Condé, whom I shall use and whom I intend to be kept under surveillance by Mazarin’s spy, has just hastily got undressed and is at this moment getting into your bed.’
The following are the events that Lenet had just described to the princess.
While the noblemen were continuing to drink toasts to the princes and to curse Mazarin in the gallery, while Lenet was in his study dealing with Cauvignac over the letter of attestation, and while the princess was making her final preparations for departure, a horseman had arrived at the main gate of the château, followed by his lackey, and rung the bell.
The concierge opened it, but behind the concierge, the new arrival found the halberdier whom we have already met.
‘Where have you come from?’ he asked.
‘From Mantes,’ the horseman replied.
So far, so good.
‘Where are you going?’ asked the halberdier.
‘To see the Dowager Princess, then the Princess de Condé and finally the Duke d’Enghien.’
‘No entry!’ said the halberdier, barring the way with his halberd.
‘By order of the king!’ the horseman replied, taking a piece of paper from his pocket.
At these formidable words, the halberd was lowered, the sentry called out, an officer of the house ran up, and His Majesty’s messenger, after showing his credentials, was immediately introduced into the family apartments.
Fortunately, Chantilly was large and the apartments of the Dowager Princess were a long way from the gallery, where the final scenes of the rowdy celebration (the first part of which we described) were being played out.
If the messenger had asked first of all to see the princess and her son, everything would truly have been lost. But etiquette demanded that he should first go and greet the princess’s mother, so the first valet showed him into a large room adjoining Her Highness’s bedroom.
‘Excuse us, Monsieur,’ he said. ‘But Her Highness suddenly felt indisposed the day before yesterday and has just been bled, for the third time, less than two hours ago. I shall announce your arrival to her, and in a minute I shall have the honour to introduce you.’
The gentleman nodded his assent and remained alone, not noticing that, through the locks of the doors, three curious pairs of eyes were watching his appearance and trying to recognize him.
The first pair belonged to Pierre Lenet, the next to Vialas, the prince’s groom, and the third to La Roussière, master of the hunt. In the event of either one of these men recognizing the new arrival, he would have gone in and, under the pretext of keeping him company, would have engaged him in conversation and gained time.
But none of them was able to recognize the person whom they were so interested in persuading. He was a handsome young man in the uniform of the infantry. With a listlessness that one might easily have interpreted as lack of enthusiasm for the mission with which he was charged, he was looking at the family portraits and the furnishings of the room, pausing particularly in front of the portrait of the dowager, to whom he was about to be introduced, a portrait that had been made at the height of her youth and beauty.
Faithful to his promise, the valet returned after just a few moments to fetch the gentleman and take him to see the Dowager Princess.
Charlotte de Montmorency had sat up in bed. Her doctor, Bourdelot, had just left her side and met the officer in the doorway, where he greeted him in a very ceremonious manner, which the officer returned in kind.
When the princess heard the visitor’s steps and the words he exchanged with the doctor, she quickly made a sign on the side of the ruelle,74 and then the heavily fringed tapestry hanging around the bed (except on the side which the dowager had left open to receive her visitor) moved imperceptibly for two or three seconds.
The young Princess de Condé was, in fact, inside the dowager’s ruelle, having entered there by a secret door in the panelling, and with her was Lenet, impatient to know, from the start of the interview, what the king’s messenger could have to do with the princesses at Chantilly.
The officer took three steps into the room and bowed with a respect that was not only demanded by etiquette.
The dowager’s large black eyes were wide open, with the proud look of a queen who is about to lose her temper: her silence was heavy with impending storms. Her hand, its dull whiteness made even whiter by the triple bleeding she had undergone, indicated to the messenger that he should hand over the dispatch he was carrying.
The captain reached out his hand towards that of the Dowager Princess and respectfully placed in it the letter from Anne of Austria. Then he waited for the princess to read the four lines that it contained.
‘Very well,’ said the dowager, folding the paper again with an imperturbability that was too great not to be affected. ‘I understand the queen’s intention, much though it is wrapped round with polite words: I am your prisoner.’
‘Madame!’ the officer exclaimed, with embarrassment.
‘A prisoner who will be easy to guard, Monsieur,’ the Dowager Princess went on. ‘Because I am in no state to run very far. And, as you may have seen as you came in, I have a strict warder: my doctor, Monsieur Bourdelot.’
As she said th
is, the dowager looked more closely at the messenger, whose appearance seemed pleasant enough for her to moderate somewhat the bitter welcome that the bearer of such an order deserved.
‘I knew that Monsieur de Mazarin was capable of many unworthy acts of violence,’ she continued. ‘But I had not believed him so timid yet as to fear a sick old woman, a poor widow and a child – since I assume that the order that you carry also concerns my daughter, the princess, and my grandson, the duke.’
‘Madame,’ the young man said. ‘I should be desperately sorry were Your Highness to judge me according to the mission that I have the misfortune to be obliged to carry out. I arrived in Mantes with a message for the queen. The postscript to this message recommended the messenger to Her Majesty, so the queen had the kindness to ask me to remain with her, since she would in all probability have need of my services. Two days after that, she sent me here. But even as I accepted the mission that Her Majesty deigned to accord me, whatever it was – as my duty required me to do – I might dare to say that I did not ask for this one and should even have refused it, if one could refuse a monarch.’
As he said these words, the officer bowed a second time as respectfully as the first.
‘I am reassured by your explanation, and I hope, now that you have given it to me, that I shall be able to be ill in peace. However, let’s have no false modesty, Monsieur: tell me the truth at once. Shall I have someone to watch me even in my room, as my poor son did in Vincennes? Shall I have permission to write and will my letters be inspected or not? If, contrary to all appearances, this illness should ever allow me to get up again, will my walks be limited?’
‘Madame,’ the officer replied. ‘Here are the instructions that the queen did me the honour to give me herself: “Please assure my cousin, de Condé,” Her Majesty told me, “that I shall do everything for the princes that the safety of the state allows me to do. I beg her by this present letter to receive one of my officers, who can serve as intermediary between her and me for any messages that she sends. This officer,” the queen added, “will be you.” Those, Madame,’ the young man continued, still with the same signs of respect, ‘were Her Majesty’s own words.’