‘Madame,’ said Canolles, ‘you ask me to be frank, and I am going to speak to you frankly. Yes, when you abandoned me to my painful thoughts, when you left me alone with my past, when you condemned me by your absence to spend my time in low haunts with those foppish simpletons, courting their little women, and when you avoided me with your eyes or made me pay so dearly for a word, a gesture or a look – which maybe I do not deserve… yes, then I regret not having died fighting and reproach myself for surrendering. I feel regret and remorse.’
‘Remorse?’
‘Yes, Madame, remorse, because as truly as God is on this holy altar, in front of which I am telling you that I love you, there is at this moment a woman who weeps, who moans, who would give her life for me, and yet who believes that I am either a coward or a traitor.’
‘Monsieur!’
‘Indeed, Madame: did she not make me everything that I am? Did she not have my word that I would save her?’
‘But you did save her, surely…’
‘Yes, from enemies who might have tormented her life, but not from the despair that is tearing her heart, if that woman knows you are the person to whom I surrendered.’
Claire bowed her head and sighed.
‘Ah, you do not love me!’ she said. And Canolles sighed in turn. ‘I do not wish to tempt you, Monsieur,’ she continued. ‘I do not want to make you lose a friend of whom I am not worthy; yet, as you know, I too love you. I came here to ask for your devoted and exclusive love. I came to tell you: I am free, here is my hand. I offer it to you, because I, for my part, have no one to set against you, and I know no one who is superior to you.’
‘Madame, you have transported me!’ cried Canolles. ‘You make me the happiest of men!’
‘Ah,’ she said, sadly. ‘But you, Monsieur, do not love me.’
‘I love you – I adore you. But words cannot express what I suffered by your silence and your reserve.’
‘Oh, Lord! Do you perceive nothing, you men?’ Claire replied, raising her lovely eyes to heaven. ‘Do you not realize that I wanted to avoid making you play a ridiculous part: I didn’t want it to be possible for anyone to believe that the surrender of Saint-Georges was arranged between us? No, I wanted you to be exchanged by the queen or ransomed by me, so that you would belong to me unreservedly. Alas, you could not wait!’
‘Now, Madame, now I shall wait. An hour like this and a promise in your sweet voice telling me that you love me, and I can wait for hours, days, years…’
‘You still love Mademoiselle de Lartigues,’ Madame de Cambes said, shaking her head.
‘If I were to tell you that I do not have a feeling of grateful friendship for her,’ Canolles replied, ‘I should be lying. Believe me and accept me with that feeling. I give you all the love that I can, and that is a lot.’
‘Alas,’ said Claire, ‘I do not know if I should accept, because you are demonstrating that you have a generous heart, but also a very amorous one.’
‘Listen,’ Canolles continued. ‘I should die to spare you a tear, and I am unmoved at knowing that I am making the person you mention weep. Poor woman, she has enemies indeed, and those who do not know her speak ill of her. You have only friends. Those who do not know you, respect you, and those who do know you, love you. So you may judge the difference in these two feelings: one is dictated by my conscience, the other by my heart.’
‘Thank you, my dear. But perhaps you are giving way to an immediate affection produced by my presence, and you may later relent. So weigh my words. I am giving you until tomorrow to reply. If there is anything you want to tell Mademoiselle de Lartigues, if you want to see her, you are free, Canolles: I shall take you by the hand and lead you through the gates of Bordeaux myself.’
‘Madame, it is pointless to wait until tomorrow,’ Canolles replied. ‘I tell you this with a burning heart, but a cool head. I love you, I love only you, and I shall never love anyone but you.’
‘Thank you, thank you, my friend!’ Claire cried, sliding back the grille and putting her hand through the opening. ‘My hand is yours, my heart is yours.’
Canolles grasped the hand and covered it with kisses.
‘Pompée is signalling to me that it is time to leave,’ she said. ‘No doubt they are going to close the church. Farewell, dear, or rather goodbye until we meet again. Tomorrow you will know what I want to do for you, that is to say for us. Tomorrow you will be happy, because I shall be happy.’
And, unable to restrain the feeling that drew her towards him, she pulled his hand towards her, kissed the ends of his fingers and lightly fled, leaving Canolles as happy as the angels whose celestial choirs seemed to be echoing in his heart.
XIII
Meanwhile, as Nanon had said, the king, the queen, the cardinal and Marshal de La Meilleraie had set out to punish a rebel town that had dared openly to take the side of the princes. They were approaching slowly, but they were approaching.
When they reached Libourne, the king received a deputation of the citizens of Bordeaux, who came to assure him of their respect and devotion. This assurance, given the state of affairs, was strange. So the queen received the ambassadors in her haughtiest Austrian manner.
‘Gentlemen,’ she told them, ‘we are going to continue our route through Vayres, so we shall soon be able to judge for ourselves whether your respect and devotion are as sincere as you say.’
At the mention of Vayres, the envoys, no doubt informed of some circumstance that was unknown to the queen, looked at one another with something like anxiety. Anne of Austria, who missed nothing, did not fail to notice these looks.
‘Let’s go at once to Vayres,’ she said. ‘We are assured by the Duke d’Epernon that the place is good, so we shall put the king up there.’ Then she turned to her captain and the members of her entourage. ‘So who is in charge in Vayres?’ she asked.
‘They say, Madame, that it is a new governor,’ Guitaut10 replied.
‘A reliable man, I hope?’ the queen said, raising an eyebrow.
‘One of the Duke d’Epernon’s men.’
The queen’s face lit up.
‘If that’s the case,’ she said, ‘we’ll march quickly.’
‘Your Majesty must do as she wishes,’ said the Marshal de La Meilleraie. ‘But I think that we should not march faster than the army. A warlike entry into the fortress of Vayres would do wonders. It is good for the king’s subjects to know His Majesty’s forces: it encourages the loyal and discourages plotters.’
‘I think that Marshal de La Meilleraie is right,’ said Cardinal Mazarin.
‘And I think he is wrong,’ the queen retorted. ‘We have nothing to fear from Bordeaux. The king is strong in himself and not through his troops. My household will be enough.’
Marshal de La Meilleraie bowed his head obediently.
‘As Your Majesty demands,’ he said. ‘Your Majesty is queen.’
The queen called Guitaut, ordering him to round up the guards, the musketeers and the light horse. The king mounted a horse and rode to the front. Mazarin’s niece and the ladies-in-waiting got into a carriage, and they all started out for Vayres. The army followed, and, as the distance was only six leagues, it could expect to arrive three or four hours after the king and camp on the left bank of the Dordogne.
The king was barely twelve years old, yet he was already a fine rider, handling his mount elegantly and possessing in all his person the inbred pride that would later make him the most demanding of European kings in the matter of etiquette. Brought up under the eyes of the queen, but persecuted by the cardinal’s unending miserliness that meant he lacked some basic necessities, he was waiting with furious impatience for the time when he would reach the age of majority, on the following fifth of September; and already, in advance, he would occasionally forget himself enough to let slip those royal jests that suggested what he would one day become. He had therefore been very much delighted with this campaign: it was in some sense an anticipation, a training in captaincy, an essay
in monarchy. He rode along proudly, sometimes beside the door of the coach, waving to the queen and making eyes at Madame de Frontenac (with whom he was said to be in love), and sometimes at the head of his household, chatting with Marshal de La Meilleraie and old Guitaut about the campaigns of King Louis XIII and the prowess of the late cardinal.11
Proceeding in this way and chatting as they went, they made good time and were beginning to see the towers and galleries of the fortress of Vayres. The weather was splendid and the countryside picturesque; the sun cast its slanting rays across the river; they appeared to be taking a walk, so much did the queen pretend to be joyful and in good humour. The king was advancing between Marshal de La Meilleraie and Guitaut, keeping his eye on the fortress in which not a movement could be seen, though it was more than probable that the sentries, who were visible, had noticed for their part and reported this brilliant advance party of the king’s army.
The queen’s coach speeded up and took its place at the head of the procession.
‘But one thing astonishes me, Marshal,’ said Mazarin.
‘What is that, Monseigneur?’
‘It seems to me that good governors usually know what is going on around their fortresses and that when a king takes the trouble to march towards one of them, they at least owe him a deputation.’
‘Pooh!’ said the queen, bursting out into a raucous, strained laugh. ‘Mere ceremonies! There’s nothing to that: I prefer loyalty.’
Monsieur de La Meilleraie covered his face with a handkerchief to conceal either a grimace, or at least the desire that he had to make one.
‘But the fact is that no one is moving,’ said the young king, quite displeased by such disregard for the rules of etiquette, respect for which would later form the basis of his greatness.
‘Sire,’ Anne of Austria replied. ‘Monsieur de La Meilleraie here and Guitaut will tell you that a governor’s first duty, especially in enemy country for fear of being surprised, is to keep quiet and under cover behind his fortifications. Do you not see your flag, the flag of Henri IV and François I, flying above the fortress?’
And she pointed proudly to this meaningful emblem, which showed how right she was in her expectation.
The procession continued on its way, and as it did so came across an outwork that seemed to have been put up only a few days earlier.
‘Ha!’ said the marshal. ‘It appears that the governor really is a professional. This outwork is well placed and the retrenchment well designed.’
The queen looked out of the window of her coach, and the king stood up in his stirrups.
A lone sentry was marching on the demi-lune, but apart from that, the retrenchment seemed as silent and solitary as the fortress itself.
‘Be that as it may,’ said Mazarin. ‘Though I am not a soldier, and I do not know the military duties of a governor, I do find this way of behaving towards a royal person a little odd.’
‘Let’s keep on,’ said the marshal. ‘We’ll soon see.’
When the little troop was only a hundred yards from the retrenchment, the sentry, who until then had been marching up and down, halted. Then, after looking for a moment, he cried: ‘Who goes there?’
‘The king!’ Monsieur de La Meilleraie replied.
At this single word, Anne of Austria expected to see soldiers running around, officers hurrying, bridges being lowered, doors opening and raised swords flashing.
Nothing of the kind took place.
The sentry stood to attention, set his musket to bar the way to the newcomers and merely said in a loud, firm voice: ‘Halt!’
The king went pale with anger, while Anne of Austria bit her lips till they bled. Mazarin muttered an Italian swear word which was not current in France, but which he had never managed to discard. The Marshal de La Meilleraie gave just one glance at Their Majesties, but it spoke volumes.
‘I like it when people take precautions in my service,’ said the queen, trying to lie to herself, because despite the artificial look of confidence on her face, she was starting to feel very worried.
‘I like it when they respect my person,’ muttered the young king, fixing a bleak stare at the impassive sentry.
XIV
Meanwhile, the cry: ‘The king! The king!’ – given by the sentry more as a warning than as a mark of respect – was repeated by two or three voices and reached the main fortress. At this, a man was seen to appear on the ramparts, and the garrison formed up around him.
This man raised his baton in the air, and at once the drums started to sound the general salute. The soldiers in the fortress presented arms and the deep, solemn sound of a cannon shot rang out.
‘You see,’ said the queen. ‘They have remembered their duty. Better late than never. Proceed!’
‘Excuse me, Madame,’ said Marshal de La Meilleraie. ‘I don’t see any sign of them opening the gates, and we cannot proceed until the gates are opened.’
‘They have forgotten to open them because of their astonishment and fervour at this unexpected and august visit,’ said a courtier.
‘That is not the sort of thing one forgets,’ the marshal retorted. Then, turning to the king and queen, he added: ‘Might I be allowed to give Their Majesties a piece of advice?’
‘What is that, Marshal?’
‘Their Majesties should withdraw five hundred paces with Guitaut and his guards, while I go and reconnoitre the situation with the musketeers and light horse.’
The queen replied sharply: ‘Proceed! And we’ll see if they dare to refuse us entry.’
The young king, delighted, spurred his horse and in no time was twenty yards ahead of them. The marshal and Guitaut hurried to catch up with him.
‘Halt!’ said the sentry, adopting the same hostile posture as before.
‘It’s the king!’ the pages shouted.
‘Withdraw!’ the sentry cried, with a threatening gesture.
At the same time, the hats and muskets of the soldiers guarding the first retrenchment appeared above the parapet.
A long murmur followed these words and this spectacle. Marshal de La Meilleraie grasped the bit of the king’s horse and forced it to turn about, at the same time ordering the queen’s coachman to move back. The two offended Majesties therefore retired to about a thousand paces from the first retrenchment, while their followers scattered like a flock of birds after a shot from a huntsman’s gun.
At this, Marshal de La Meilleraie, now in control of the situation, left some fifty men to guard the king and queen, then collected the remainder of his troop and returned with it towards the outworks.
When he was a hundred yards from the fortifications, the sentry, who had resumed his calm, measured march, halted once again.
‘Guitaut,’ said the marshal. ‘Take a bugler, put your handkerchief on the end of your sword and go and order this impertinent governor to surrender.’
Guitaut obeyed and, displaying the signs of peace that protect a herald in every country on earth, went forward towards the fortifications.
‘Who goes there?’ shouted the sentry.
‘Parley!’ Guitaut replied, waving his sword with the piece of cloth on it.
‘Let him come,’ said the man, who had already been seen on the ramparts, and who had doubtless reached this forward post by some covered way.
The gate opened, and a bridge was lowered.
‘What do you want?’ asked an officer waiting by the gate.
‘To speak to the governor,’ said Guitaut.
‘I am here,’ said the man, who had already been seen twice, once on the ramparts of the fortress and once on the parapet of the outworks.
Guitaut noticed that the man was very pale, but calm and polite.
‘Are you the Governor of Vayres?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘And you are refusing to open the gate of your fortress to His Majesty the King and the Queen Regent?’
‘I have that misfortune.’
‘And what do you intend
to gain by it?’
‘The freeing of the princes, whose captivity is ruining and laying waste the kingdom.’
‘His Majesty does not barter with his subjects.’
‘Alas, Monsieur, we know that, which is why we are ready to die, knowing that we shall die to serve His Majesty, even though we are apparently making war on him.’
‘Very well,’ said Guitaut. ‘That is all we needed to know.’
And, after calmly saluting the governor, who replied with a most courteous bow, he retired.
On the fort, nothing moved.
Guitaut went back to the marshal and gave him an account of his mission.
‘Let fifty men go at the gallop into this village,’ said the marshal, pointing towards the village of Isson, ‘and immediately bring back all the ladders they can find there.’
Fifty men set off at full tilt, and as the village was not far away they reached it in no time.
‘Now, gentlemen, dismount,’ said the marshal. ‘Half of you, armed with muskets, will cover the attack, while the rest scale the walls.’
This instruction was greeted with cries of joy. The guards, the musketeers and the light horse quickly dismounted and loaded their weapons. Meanwhile, the fifty foragers returned with some twenty ladders.
In the fort, all was still calm. The sentry marched backwards and forwards, and the ends of muskets and tips of hats could still be seen above the parapet.
The king’s household set off, commanded by the marshal himself. It was made up of around four hundred men in total, half of whom, as the marshal had ordered, were preparing to mount an assault, while the other half covered their attack.