They had forgotten him. This was the supreme insult. He was no more than an earless and voiceless lackey in this lofty chamber, with its embossed gilt and white ceiling, its crimson curtains and soft green carpet. He clenched a fold of the window curtain in his hand and twisted it cruelly, as he might have twisted flesh.
The Cardinal and the Capuchin had plunged into rapid and breathless conversation. Their words tumbled over each other. At intervals they laughed, and then, pausing, exchanged that long deep look which so infuriated and tortured Louis. The Cardinal had become young again, potent, alive, passionate, and gay. His body vibrated with new life. His large reserved eyes sparkled without reticence. He continued to hold the Capuchin’s hand, and to press it.
They talked of personal matters, sometimes bursting into laughter, and eyeing each other significantly remembering past events which gave a fillip to a conversation meaningless to the young priest. He saw for the first time the richness of old memory, which colored the present with shades and tints not possessed by itself, and perceived the hoarded treasures of old friendship. This increased his bitterness and jealousy. There were no memories between himself and the Cardinal.
Now the two, after another pause, plunged into more grave discussion. The Capuchin began to talk of his mission to Rome. He had covered that great distance, back and forth, on foot. His feet, in their rough sandles, were brown and enormous and sinewy. He had traversed the great dark forests of France, threatened by wolves, and even by bears, alone and unprotected, “save by God,” he said, somberly. He had travelled over stony and muddy roads, infested by bandits and robbers, had slept in open fields or in haystacks, carrying his knapsack, on his back. He had begged bread and milk and water at peasant huts. He did not speak of it, but his super-human courage and quiet power were manifest in his every word. As he talked, his hand played with the wooden cross that hung from the cord about his middle, and he kept glancing at it with passionate reverence. As he did so, his capacity for orison betrayed itself in the mystical light which suddenly glowed on his bearded face and in his flaming eyes, and he seemed to lose consciousness of his surroundings, in a kind of catalepsy. He was very nearly blind, and the penetrating effort to see added to his countenance a rapt and piercing immobility.
And as Louis listened, the creeping black ice of his old desolation moved slowly and inexorably over his heart. He knew himself to be a forgotten dim shadow, a shallow image of glass, without substance.
“The Holy Father,” said Père Joseph, with a bend of his head, “is deeply disturbed in his heart at the troubles ominously gathering in the Germanies. Ah, the Germanies! What a Pandora’s box they are, filled with winged pestilences with which to afflict Europe! Who but the Germans could have begotten Luther? They are a seething pot constantly bubbling. That is because they are barbarians. His Holiness confided to me that he cannot sleep; he spends his days in distraction, his nights in prayer. He is impaled on two horns of the dilemma, the Protestants who threaten the Church by their very existence, and the Catholic Habsburgs. Between the two, who is our worst enemy? I do not know. But I know this: the Habsburgs are our most dangerous friends. They are the more sinister for wearing the livery which arrays ourselves. Philip of Spain and the Habsburgs, good Catholics all, are filled with venom against France, and, if to destroy France it were first necessary to destroy the Church, they would not hesitate.”
“I know this,” said the Cardinal sternly. The pale phantom at the window moved, advanced a step into the room. Neither of the older men observed him.
Père Joseph sighed, clasped his great brown hands together, and stared heavily at them.
“I feel,” he said, in a low voice, “that if the Church is to live, France must be made strong. How can we bring this about, Monseigneur? You have done much. You have placated the Huguenots, persuaded them to join with you in the desperate struggle to create and preserve a unity, an integrity, in France. I told the Holy Father this. At first, he thought this a sophistry, a confusion, a bewilderment. Finally, I made it clear to him that if the Church is to live, France must first live. But sometimes he shook his head, sighing, wondering how the support of the French Protestants could possibly react to the welfare of the Church.”
“You told him, my friend, that the Huguenots and the Catholics in France were first of all Frenchmen?”
The Capuchin smiled his dark and twisted smile. He raised his russet brows and looked humorously at the Cardinal.
“He had just heard how the Huguenots in La Rochelle were conspiring with de Buckingham, and how the Duc had promised them English aid in the event that we moved against them.”
“Ah,” said the Cardinal, smoothing his thin pointed beard delicately.
“I informed him,” continued the Capuchin, fixing his eyes pointedly upon Richelieu, “that we would soon ‘reconcile’ the Rochellais.”
“I trust you did not say that this reconciliation would take place by the gallows, the sword, the wheel and the dungeon?” asked the Cardinal sardonically.
Suddenly the two laughed together. Louis drew a hard and savage breath, and his heart burned with anger against this inexplicable laughter.
“But no,” said the Capuchin, “I told him this would be accomplished by means always in the favor of the Roman Curia: prayer, love, persuasion and evangelism.”
He smiled at this, only, but the Cardinal laughed again, deliciously.
“Nevertheless,” said the Cardinal, “those are the means I would employ. The Rochellais are Frenchmen, and French blood must be preserved.” He added:
“His Holiness is a vigorous man. No doubt he would prefer more strenuous methods?”
But Père Joseph only averted his eyes uneasily at this, as if the smell of ridicule had risen to his nostrils.
He said: “His Holiness was faintly annoyed that your Eminence is so absorbed in Frenchmen.”
“Would he prefer the Habsburgs? Let him reflect on that. Once the slave of those barbarians, he, and the Church, would be lost. I hope you made him understand at last that France is the only true sword bared in the defense of the Church.”
“His Holiness is not insensible to the menace of the Habsburgs. I have told your Eminence: he is confused. And vigorous men do not like to be confused.”
He stood up. Though he was short, he seemed to fill the vast chamber like a wind of strength and vitality. He stared into space, while the Cardinal watched him closely.
“The Holy Father is not a Frenchman,” said the Capuchin, musingly, and now his countenance was withdrawn and abstracted. “He cannot share yours and my devotion to France. Nevertheless, I must confess that. I was in some sympathy with his complaints.”
“Ah,” murmured the Cardinal. Louis moved another step into the chamber, his nostrils dilated with his quickening breath.
The Capuchin sighed, compressed his lips, then resumed in his quiet and thrilling voice, which had in it always that hint of suppressed power:
“I have agreed with many things advanced by your Eminence. Nevertheless, I too, believe that there is much in the thought of a collaboration between the Catholic Habsburgs and the Catholic French for the suppression of the heretics. This would recreate a united Christendom.”
The Cardinal had suddenly paled with wrath. He sat bolt upright, and there was an infernal lightening in his tiger eyes.
“You think, then, my dear friend, that Frenchmen, though Catholics, would endure to watch foreigners, though Catholics, murder other Frenchmen, though Huguenots? I thought you understood Frenchmen!”
The Capuchin returned to the bed, and now his own eyes were fiery.
“I am a Frenchman,” he said, slowly and firmly. “But I am also a Capuchin. In the eyes of Almighty God, and Holy Mother Church, men are either the children of light, or the children of darkness. Racial and national boundaries melt away in the sun of this truth. If there is evil in our house, it must be destroyed, lest all the members within that house die of violence and plague.” He added, and now his
tone was both dignified and desperately pleading: “The integrity, the safety, of the Church, must always be our first consideration.”
The Cardinal clenched his hand so that the nails entered his palm.
“And you think the Habsburgs would perserve her safety, and her integrity? Ah, you are silent, my dear Père Joseph! Your eye falters; you sigh.”
He lifted himself on his cushions, and a thin red flame quivered in his narrow cheeks.
“Listen to me! The Habsburgs are diabolical, and extremely wise. They advance this argument of yours to His Holiness, knowing they will have a sympathetic ear. But it is the fiend’s own argument. This hypocritical concern with the integrity of Church has, for its heart, the hatred for France. Madrid and Vienna brewed it in darkness, conspiring only for the destruction of our country and our King. No piety moves them. The Habsburgs desire only the hegemony of Europe, under themselves. If they can enlist the blessing of his Holiness, they will have accomplished much. But is Rome to be used as catspaw for politicians and conquerors and lusters for power? It is an old game. It was played before. It will be played countless times again. But, while I live, it shall not be played against France!”
The Capuchin was silent. The Cardinal’s passion made the air vibrate. He was no longer a priest. He was a soldier, a Frenchman.
In moments of stress, the soldier returned with fury. He cried out:
“Sang de Dieu! It shall not be played against France! I have dedicated my life, my arms, my strength, my passion and all my being to her! I shall not stand idly by and see my heart’s blood poured out in vain on sand. No, not if I have to oppose the world with my bare hands and face all hell alone!”
But the Capuchin looked at him gravely, and the mouth vaguely seen through the russet beard was tight and grim.
However, the Cardinal was beside himself. He had these moments of frenzy, when, discarding his ancient caution, his old craft and self-protectiveness, he flung out the red and bloody flag of his courage, his rage, his hatred and his pride, against black and ominous heavens. Then he forgot everything but that he was Armand-Jean du Plessis, swollen with passion, omniscient and powerful, manipulator of men and kings and priests, maddened with outrage that any dare oppose him for an instant, or say to him: “You shall!”
He sat on the edge of his bed, then sprang to his feet, standing before Père Joseph in his long white silken robe. And now all the dark evil, pride and unconquerable lust was out on that pale and narrow countenance so that it was transformed. The feline eyes were translucent, so that the savage fire of his soul leaped behind and through them. He lifted his clenched hands as if to utter imprecations. His sickly body seemed to shake in unearthly winds. So awful was his aspect that Père Joseph fell back, as at an apparition infernal and supernatural.
Now the Cardinal spoke, in a lower tone which was yet the more appalling:
“This is my France. What she is, what she shall be, is because of me. I have drawn and marked her boundaries with my blood. I have welded her flesh to mine. I have given her dead body my soul. I have built her fortresses with my hands. I have blown my breath into her lungs. This corpse that lay rotting in Europe has been made whole, as Lazarus was made whole again. It was my voice that called her out of her sepulchre, and my fingers which unloosed her grave-clothes. It was my sword that drove away the vultures that wished to devour her.
“Now, she is mine. She is no other man’s. Neither king, nor Church, shall claim her. And not even God!”
Père Joseph stared, disbelieving, at these mad words which might have come from the lips of an inflamed and transported Lucifer. He crossed himself. His brown face became faintly blue with horror and affright. He was a strange and terrible man, but he was confronted by a stranger, and more terrible, one. He waited until the Cardinal had finished, until he had gotten back into his bed. And then he spoke, very quietly, but with menacing warning:
“This, then, is what His Holiness told me. But I believed him misinformed. He said that it was not France that your Eminence loved. He said it was not God you served. He said Monseigneur loved, and served, only himself. It was power that your Eminence desired, and power only, as Satan desired it.”
The Cardinal, fallen on his pillows in complete exhaustion, yet smiled darkly, and his inexorable spirit gleamed in his eyes as he gazed at the Capuchin. To no one else in all the world would he have so stripped himself.
“This is my France,” he repeated.
“It is the France of God!” cried the Capuchin.
The Cardinal regarded him derisively in silence.
The Capuchin began to pace the room like a russet bear, distracted, his head bent. His sandalled feet left mud stains upon the delicate carpet. The sunlight alternately bathed him in radiance as he passed before the windows, then allowed him to be plunged into darkness as he passed beyond them.
He began to speak in a quivering voice, as though communing aloud with himself:
“To love one’s land is good, just as it is good to love one’s home and family. Without this love a man is not completely a man, a prideful human being of dignity. To defend his land is good. —But to set about the business of conquest, of making one’s land impregnable to the exclusion of all else, is not to love one’s land, but to hate all other lands built by other men. His Holiness is not unaware of all this.”
The Cardinal lifted his hand, and so profound was the effect of his spiritual power that the Capuchin paused as if stricken into stone, though he had not seen that gesture.
“Let His Holiness remember that he is an Italian, and that I am a Frenchman,” he said, so softly that his voice was hardly more than a whisper.
Père Joseph slowly turned his eyes upon his friend, and he was mute with dread, aghast at this frightful arrogance, this diabolical pride. He could not speak. The pale phantom near the windows, still undiscovered, unobserved, felt that he was in some hellish dream without reality.
Père Joseph did not know that a man cannot approach God save through his own humanity. But he did know that man approached hell through his own pride, his own vanity, his own hunger for power. And it appeared to him, as he gazed steadfastly, and with dread, at the Cardinal, that his friend had taken on the very aspect of Lucifer. He felt an immense sorrow and grief, and an enormous fear. Never had he known such a man, though legend was full of these. More and more appalled, he cried out in himself that he had not heard the words he had heard.
He said: “Your Eminence is, first of all, a servant of the Church.”
Again the Cardinal smiled. The flame receded from his eyes. His panting lessened. The pallor of exhaustion crept into his face again.
“I remember this,” he said, softly.
Père Joseph passed his hands over his face with a gesture as if shutting out some horrific vision. Then, dropping his hands, he revealed a calm and rigid countenance. He approached the Cardinal’s bed, sat down again, resting his hands stiffly on his knees. He sighed.
The Cardinal had for him a truly deep affection, and now he experienced compunction that he could so disturb and agitate and horrify his friend. He reached out and laid his cool and narrow fingers on that rigid hand. He felt its trembling, its coldness and rigor.
“Your sensibilities are too keen, too delicate, too raw,” he said, in a tone of humor. “You attach impossible significance to words. You must forgive me for my extravagance.”
Too willing to believe, Père Joseph smiled dimly.
“Your Eminence is famous for his extravagance,” he said.
It was then that the Cardinal became aware of Louis, and he raised his eyebrows, his expression darkening. He lifted a finger and summoned the young priest to him. Père Joseph watched his approach abstractedly, and without curiosity.
The Cardinal had a fascinating and ingratiating smile. He regarded Louis with humorous affection.
“Père Joseph, this is my secretary, a brother in God. You know his family. His name is Monsieur le Marquis du Vaubon.”
Père Joseph rose heavily, as if prostrated, and the two priests bowed deeply in silence.
“A young gentleman after your own heart, Père Joseph,” said the Cardinal gaily. “His conversation is very edifying.” He paused, and gazed at Louis inscrutably. “I thought I had only one friend I could trust. But in Louis I have discovered another.”
Was there something threatening in the tone of this appalling man? Louis was certain of it. That marble countenance flushed with bitter pride, though he said nothing.
“Like his Holiness, Louis believes I should be rash and plot for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,” said the Cardinal, in his smiling voice.
But Père Joseph became excessively grave. He sat down again and stared at the Cardinal unflinchingly,
“I have not told Monseigneur, but his Holiness demands this revocation,” he said.
The Cardinal shrugged. Behind his slight and fragile lips his teeth clenched together.
Père Joseph continued: “Her Majesty, the Queen of France, gave me an audience before I left for Rome. She urged upon his Holiness to demand the revocation.”
He was taken aback by the sudden and inhuman fury which instantly charged the Cardinal’s eyes with black lightning at the mention of Anne of Austria. The Cardinal’s attenuated features became congested, as though with turgid and thickened blood. He sprang up on his pillows, and between his bearded lips his teeth were a wolf-like flash.
“She dared!” he exclaimed. “That weak and sluttish Spaniard, that whining and petulant trollop! She dared to go over my head, knowing my refusal—”
Père Joseph was hardly less horrified at these words than he had been at the others. A swift vision of the beautiful young queen passed before his eyes, and he felt, for the first time in many years, the anger of an upright man at the besmirching of a woman, who, though weak, was virtuous, gentle and simple, full of piety, and very helpless. He had a loathing and terror of all women, save those encased in the religious habit and immured behind cloistered walls, and those, who like Anne of Austria, were ablaze with the divine luster of kings.