The clock rang eight. The château was beginning to wake up, gradually filling with movement and noise. Canolles waited another half an hour, though with great difficulty. Finally, he could bear it no longer and went down, to find Pompée proudly sniffing the air in the great court, surrounded by servants, to whom he was describing his campaigns in Picardy under the late king.
‘Are you Her Highness’s steward?’ Canolles asked, as though seeing poor Pompée for the first time.
‘Yes, Monsieur,’ Pompée said, with astonishment.
‘Be so good as to tell Her Highness that I wish to have the honour to present my respects.’
‘But, Monsieur, Her Highness…’
‘… has got up.’
‘And yet…’
‘I thought that Monsieur’s departure…’
‘My departure will depend on the interview that I am about to have with Her Highness.’
‘I say that because I have no order from my mistress.’
‘And I say that,’ said Canolles, ‘because I have orders from the king.’
At these words, Canolles imperiously patted the pocket of his jerkin, a gesture that he considered the most satisfying of all that he had used since the previous day.
And yet, even as he carried out this coup d’état, our negotiator felt his courage slipping away. Indeed, since the previous day, his importance had considerably diminished. The princess had left almost twelve hours earlier. She must surely have been travelling all night, so she would be twenty or twenty-five leagues from Chantilly. However much Canolles urged his men to make haste, there was now no means of catching her up, and even if he did so, taking with him a hundred or so of his men, who was to be sure that the fugitive’s own escort had not by now increased to three or four hundred supporters? As he mentioned the day before, Canolles still had the option of getting himself killed; but, did he have the right to get the men accompanying him killed with him and so to make them pay the bloody price for his amorous whims? If he had been mistaken the day before about her feelings towards him and if her anxiety was only a game, then Madame de Cambes could openly make fun of him; in that case, it would be a matter of hisses from the servants, hisses from the soldiers hidden in the forest, disgrace from Mazarin, anger from the queen and, above all of these, the ruin of his burgeoning love, because no woman has ever loved a man, whom she has, for a single instant, considered subjecting to ridicule.
As he was turning these ideas over and over in his head, Pompée returned, with his tail between his legs, saying that the princess was expecting him.
This time, there was no question of ceremonial. The viscountess was waiting in a little salon next to her bedchamber, dressed and standing. On her charming face were traces of sleeplessness that she and her maids had tried in vain to disguise: in particular, a slight, but dark shadow around her eyes showed that those eyes had not shut, or hardly so.
‘As you see, Monsieur,’ she said, without giving him a chance to speak first, ‘I am giving in to your wishes, but in the hope, I must confess, that this interview will be the last and that you will in your turn give in to mine.’
‘Forgive me, Madame,’ said Canolles. ‘But from our talk yesterday evening, I had hoped for less inflexibility in your demands, and I assumed that in exchange for what I have done for you – and for you alone, since I do not know Madame de Condé, you understand – you would have been good enough to allow me to stay longer in Chantilly.’
‘Yes, Monsieur, I must confess,’ said the viscountess, ‘in the first moment… the confusion that was an evident consequence of the situation in which I found myself… the interests of the princess, who wanted me to gain time for her, may have induced me to utter some words that were not wholly consistent with my true thoughts… But through this long night I have been thinking, and any longer stay in this château by either you or myself has become impossible.’
‘Impossible, Madame!’ said Canolles. ‘Are you forgetting that anything is possible to him who speaks in the name of the king?’
‘Monsieur de Canolles, I hope that before all else you are a man of honour and that you will not take advantage of the situation in which my devotion to Her Highness has placed me.’
‘Madame,’ Canolles replied, ‘before all else I am mad – as you have seen, for heaven’s sake! Only a madman would have done what I have done. So, take pity on my madness, Madame, and do not send me away, I beg of you.’
‘In that case, Monsieur, I am the one who will cede the place to you. I am the one, who, despite yourself, will bring you back to your duty. We shall see if you can stop me by force and if you would expose both of us to the embarrassment of a public scandal. No, no, Monsieur,’ the viscountess continued, in an urgent tone that Canolles was hearing for the first time. ‘No, consider that you cannot remain for ever at Chantilly: you will recall that you are expected somewhere else.’
When she said this, it was like a lightning flash bursting in front of Canolles’s eyes, recalling the scene in the inn at Biscarros and Madame de Cambes’s discovery of the young man’s liaison with Nanon. Everything was now clear to him.
Her insomnia had not been caused by present anxieties but by memories from the past. This morning’s resolve to avoid Canolles was not the result of any design, but an expression of jealousy.
There was a moment’s silence between these two people as they stood facing one another, but during this silence each of them was listening to their own thoughts speaking with the beating of the hearts in their breasts.
‘Jealous!’ Canolles thought. ‘Jealous! Ah, now I understand everything. Yes, yes, she wants to be sure that I love her enough to sacrifice everything for our love! It’s a test!’
For her part, Madame de Cambes was thinking: ‘I’m simply an amusement for Monsieur de Canolles. He met me on his way, no doubt at the moment when he was forced to leave Guyenne, and he followed me as the traveller follows a will-o’-the-wisp, but his heart has remained in that little house surrounded by trees where he was going on the evening when I met him. It is therefore impossible for me to keep beside me a man who loves another, and with whom, if I should see him any longer, I might myself be weak enough to fall in love. Oh, were I to be so feeble as to love the agent of her persecutors, that would not only mean betraying my honour, but still more betraying the interests of the princess.’
So she cried out at once, in response to her own thought: ‘No, Monsieur, no! You must leave. Leave or I shall go myself.’
‘You are forgetting, Madame,’ said Canolles, ‘that I have your word that you will not leave without informing me of the fact.’
‘Well, then, Monsieur: I am informing you that I shall be leaving Chantilly at once.’
‘And do you think I shall permit that?’ asked Canolles.
‘What!’ the viscountess exclaimed. ‘Would you keep me here by force?’
‘Madame, I do not know what I shall do. What I do know is that it is impossible for me to leave you.’
‘So I am your prisoner?’
‘You are a woman whom I have already lost on two occasions, and whom I do not wish to lose a third time.’
‘So! Violence!’
‘Yes, Madame, violence,’ Canolles replied. ‘If that is the only way to keep you.’
‘Why! What happiness – keeping a woman who is languishing in agony, begging for her freedom… a woman who does not love you, who hates you!’
Canolles shuddered and tried quickly to unravel what was in the words and in the thought.
He realized that the time had come to hazard everything.
‘Madame,’ he said. ‘The words that you have just spoken with such truth in your voice that no one could doubt their meaning, have settled all my doubts. You, moaning! You, a slave! And would I hold prisoner a woman who did not love me… who hated me? No, Madame, no, have no fear, it will not be so. I had thought, because of the happiness that I felt in seeing you, that you would be able to bear my presence. I had hoped that, after I had lost my reput
ation, the peace of my conscience, my future, perhaps even my honour, that you would compensate me for this sacrifice by the gift of a few hours, which I shall doubtless never have again. All that was possible, if you had loved me… or even if I had been a matter of indifference for you, because you are kind and would have done out of pity, what another might have done for love. But it is not indifference that confronts me, but hatred, and in that case, it is a different matter, you are right. Just forgive me, Madame, for not having realized that one could be hated, when one loves so completely. It is your place to remain queen, mistress and free in this château as everywhere else. My place is to leave here, and I do so. In ten minutes’ time you will have regained all your freedom. Farewell, Madame, farewell for ever.’
Canolles, in a state of dismay, that, though feigned at the beginning, had become real and painful by the end of this speech, bowed to Madame de Cambes, turned on his heels and, searching for the door, but not finding it, repeated ‘Farewell, farewell’, in such a voice of such deep feeling that, coming from the heart, it went to the heart. True love, like a storm, has its own voice.
Madame de Cambes was not expecting such obedience from Canolles: she had gathered her forces for a struggle, not for a victory, and she in her turn was affected by such resignation allied to such love. As the young man was already taking two steps towards the door, feeling his way in front of him with a kind of sob, he suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder, exercising the most significant pressure: he was not merely being touched, he was being stopped.
He turned round.
She was still standing in front of him. Her arm, gracefully extended, was still touching his shoulder, and the expression of dignity that had been a moment before imprinted on her face had melted into a delightful smile.
‘Well, now, Monsieur!’ she said. ‘This is how you obey the queen! You would leave when you have her order to stay here, traitor that you are!’
Canolles gave a cry, fell to his knees and pressed his burning brow on the two hands that she was holding out to him.
‘Oh, I could die of happiness!’ he exclaimed.
‘Alas, do not rejoice too soon,’ said the viscountess. ‘If I have stopped you, it is so that we should not part in this way, so that you should not go away with the idea that I can be ungrateful, so that you can voluntarily release me from the promise that I gave you, and so that you should at least see in me a friend, since the opposing factions to which we belong prevent me from ever being more than that for you.’
‘Oh, my God!’ cried Canolles. ‘I was wrong again. You do not love me.’
‘Let us not speak of feelings, Baron, but of the risks that we are both running if we remain here. Come, now: let’s go – or let me go. We must.’
‘What are you saying to me, Madame?’
‘The truth. Leave me here, go back to Paris. Tell Mazarin and the queen what has happened to you. I shall help you as much as it is in my power to do so, but leave, leave!’
‘Must I repeat it to you?’ said Canolles. ‘To leave you is to die!’
‘No, no, you will not die, because you will keep the hope that in happier times we may meet again.’
‘Chance has put me in your way, Madame – or, rather, has put you in mine – twice already. Chance will grow weary, and if I leave you, I shall not find you again.’
‘Well, then, I am the one who will seek you out.’
‘Madame, ask me to die for you; death is a moment of pain, nothing more. But do not ask me to leave you again. My heart breaks at the very idea. Just think: I have hardly seen you or spoken to you.’
‘So, if I allow you to stay for today, and you can see me and speak to me all day, then will you be satisfied, tell me?’
‘I promise nothing.’
‘Then neither do I. However, I did agree one thing with you, which was to tell you when I was leaving. Well, I am telling you: I leave in an hour.’
‘So must I do whatever you want? Must I obey you in everything? Must I renounce myself in order to follow your will blindly? Well, if that is what you wish, be contented. You have in front of you no more than a slave ready to obey. Order me, Madame, order me!’
Claire held out a hand to the baron and in her softest and most soothing voice said: ‘A new treaty, in exchange for my word. If I do not leave between now and nine o’clock this evening, will you leave here at nine?’
‘I swear.’
‘Come on, then. The sky is blue and promises a delightful day. There is dew on the lawns, perfume in the air, balm in the woods. Hey! Pompée!’
The worthy steward, who had no doubt received an order to wait by the door, immediately came in.
‘My hacking horses,’ said Madame de Cambes, with her princely air. ‘I am going this morning to the ponds and coming back through the farm, where I shall have lunch. You will accompany me, Baron,’ she went on. ‘This is one of the duties ascribed to you, since Her Majesty the queen ordered you not to lose me from sight.’
A stifling cloud of joy swept over the young man and encircled him like one of those vapours that used in antiquity to carry the gods up to heaven. He let himself be led, without opposition and almost without willpower. He was panting, intoxicated, mad. Soon, in the midst of a charming wood, under mysterious alleys of trees whose branches fell down on to his bare forehead, he recovered a sense of the material world. He was on foot, silent, his heart enveloped by a joy almost as intense as pain, walking along, his hand in that of Madame de Cambes, who was as pale, as silent and no doubt as happy as he was.
Pompée followed behind them, close enough to see everything, but far enough away to hear nothing.
III
The end of this intoxicating day arrived as inevitably as the end of a dream. The hours had passed like seconds for the fortunate baron, but it still seemed to him that he was gathering enough memories in this single day for three ordinary lifetimes. Each avenue in the park had been enriched by a word or a memory of the viscountess: a look, a gesture, a finger against the lips… everything had a meaning. As they got into the boat, she had squeezed his hand; when they disembarked again, she had supported herself on his arm; while she was walking beside the park wall, she had felt tired and sat down. And at each of these dazzling events, which had passed like a flash before the eyes of the young man, the landscape, lit by some fantastic light, had stayed in his memory, not only as a whole, but in its smallest details.
For the whole day, Canolles did not leave the viscountess’s side: as they took lunch, she invited him to dinner, and as they dined, to supper.
In the midst of all the formalities that the false princess had to go through to receive the king’s envoy, Canolles perceived the considerate attentions of a woman in love. He forgot the servants, etiquette, society; he even forgot his promise to retire, and thought that he was settled for a happy eternity in this earthly paradise, where he would be Adam and Madame de Cambes would be Eve.
But when night came and supper was finished, as all the other events of the day had passed, that is to say in unspeakable joy; when at dessert a lady-in-waiting had brought on Monsieur Pierrot, still disguised as the Duke d’Enghien, and he had taken advantage of the situation to eat like four princes of the blood together, and when the clock began to strike and Madame de Cambes had looked up and assured herself that it was about to strike ten times, she said with a sigh: ‘Now it is time.’
‘What time?’ Canolles asked, trying to smile and hoping to ward off a great misfortune with a small quip.
‘Time to keep your word.’
‘Oh, Madame,’ Canolles answered sadly, ‘do you never forget?’
‘I might perhaps have forgotten as you did,’ said Madame de Cambes, ‘except that this has reminded me.’
Out of her pocket, she took a letter, which she had received just as they sat down at the table.
‘Who is it from, this letter?’ Canolles asked.
‘From the princess. She demands that I join her.’
‘At
least, you have this pretext! Thank you for having tried to spare my feelings.’
‘Make no mistake, Monsieur de Canolles,’ the viscountess replied with a sadness that she did not try to disguise. ‘Even if I had not received this letter, at the appointed time I should have reminded you of your departure, as I have just done. Do you think that the people around us can go for much longer without noticing the understanding between us? Admit it: our behaviour is not that of a persecuted princess and her persecutor. But now, if this separation is as painful to you as you pretend, let me tell you, Baron, that it is up to you if you wish to ensure that we are not parted.’
‘Tell me!’ Canolles exclaimed. ‘Tell me!’
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘Yes, indeed, Madame! I can, and perfectly well. You are suggesting that I should join you in following the princess?’
‘She herself speaks to me of it in this letter,’ Madame de Cambes said excitedly.
‘I am grateful that the idea does not come from you, and thank you, too, for your hesitation in broaching the subject. Not that my conscience rebels against serving one party or the other – no, I have no principles. Who does, in this war, apart from those directly involved? If the sword is drawn, let the blow strike me from this side or from that: it doesn’t matter. I do not know the court, or the princes. My fortune makes me independent, and I have no ambition, so I expect nothing from either faction. I am an officer, nothing more.’
‘So will you agree to follow me?’
‘No.’
‘Why not, if things are as you tell me?’
‘Because you would think less of me for it.’
‘Is that the only thing that is stopping you?’
‘I swear that it is.’
‘Well, have no fear on that score…’
‘You don’t believe that yourself,’ Canolles said, smiling and holding up a finger. ‘A turncoat is always a traitor: the first word is gentler, but both mean the same thing.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Madame de Cambes. ‘I shall not mention it again. If you had been in an ordinary position, I should have tried to win you over to the princes’ cause, but since you are the king’s envoy, with a confidential mission from Her Majesty the Queen Regent and the prime minister, and honoured with the favour of the Duke d’Epernon, who, despite my original suspicions, is protecting you in a very special way…’ (Canolles blushed.) ‘I shall be as tactful as I can, but listen, Baron: we are not separating for ever, you may be sure of that. My intuition tells me that we shall see one another again.’