“Duke,” she said, “you already know that it was not I who wrote to you.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, I know,” said the duke. “And I know that I’ve been mad to hope that snow could come alive, or marble warm itself. But what of that? When one loves, one easily believes in love. And I can’t consider this journey a loss if, as a result, I see you.”
“Yes,” replied Anne, “but you know why and how you see me, Milord. You see me from pity for yourself. You see me because, insensitive to my troubles, you nonetheless stubbornly remain in a city where, just by being here, you risk your life and I risk my honor. I see you now to tell you that everything separates us: the depths of the sea, the hostility of kingdoms, and the sanctity of vows. It’s a sacrilege to contend against all these things, Milord. I see you, at last, to tell you that we must see each other no more.”
“Speak on, Madame. Speak, O Queen,” said Buckingham. “The sweetness of your voice makes up for the harshness of your words. You talk of sacrilege! The sacrilege is in the separation of two hearts that God has formed for each other.”
“Milord,” said the queen, “you forget that I’ve never told you that I love you.”
“But you’ve never said you don’t love me; and truly, Your Majesty could never say anything so ungrateful. For tell me, where else can you find a love like mine, a love that neither time, nor absence, nor despair can extinguish; a love that’s content with a lost ribbon, a stray glance, a chance word? It’s been three years, Madame, since I first saw you, and for three years I’ve loved you thus.
“Do you want me to tell you how you were dressed the first time I saw you? Do you want me to detail every ornament of your wardrobe? I can see you still: you were seated on cushions, Spanish-style, wearing a dress of green satin embroidered with gold and silver, with hanging sleeves fastened up to display your beautiful arms. You wore diamonds, a petite ruff about your neck, on your head a small bonnet the color of your dress, and on the bonnet a heron’s plume.
“Oh, Queen! I shut my eyes, and I see you as you were then; I reopen them, and I see you as you are now, a hundred times more beautiful still!”
“What folly!” murmured Anne of Austria, who hadn’t the will to think ill of the duke for having retained such a portrait of her in his heart. “What madness to feed a useless passion with such memories!”
“And on what would you have me live, then? I have nothing but these memories. They’re my happiness, my treasure, my hope. Each time I see you is like a new diamond to enclose in the coffer of my heart. This is the fourth gem that you’ve let fall for me to pick up; for in three years, Madame, I’ve seen you only four times: the first I was just speaking of, the second at the hôtel of Madame de Chevreuse, and the third in the garden at Amiens.”
“Duke,” said the queen, blushing, “never speak of that evening.”
“On the contrary, let’s speak of it, Madame, let’s speak of it! It was the happiest, most radiant evening of my life. Do you recall what a beautiful night it was? How the air was soft and perfumed, how the sky was midnight blue and frosted with stars? Ah! Then, Madame, I was able for one instant to be alone with you; then, you were ready to tell me everything—the loneliness of your life, the grief of your heart. You were leaning on my arm, on this very arm. As I leaned toward you, I felt your beautiful hair brush my face, and each time it touched me I shivered from head to foot. Oh, Queen, my Queen! You can’t know the heavenly happiness, the joys of paradise contained in that moment. I would give everything, my worldly goods, my fortune, my power and glory, all the days left me to live, for one more such moment in one more such night! For that night, Madame, that night you loved me—I swear it!”
“Milord, it’s possible that under the influence of that place, the charm of that beautiful evening, the fascination of your regard—in short, that the thousand circumstances that sometimes combine to destroy a woman, came together on that fatal evening. But you saw, Milord, the queen come to the rescue when the woman faltered: at the first word you spoke, at the first touch you dared, I called out.”
“That’s true. And at such a blow, any other love but mine would have given up. But it just made my love all the more ardent, all the more eternal. You thought you’d flee from me by returning to Paris, thinking I wouldn’t dare to leave your sister Henriette, the treasure my master King Charles had charged me to watch. But what importance to me are all the treasures of the world, and all the kings of the earth? Eight days later I returned to you, Madame. That time, you had nothing to say to me. Though I’d risked royal disfavor, even my life, to see you for a second, I didn’t so much as touch your hand. You pardoned me on seeing me so submissive and so repentant.”
“Yes, but though we did nothing, lying tongues have made much of these foolish meetings—as you well know, Milord. The king, goaded by Monsieur le Cardinal, made a terrible uproar. Madame du Vernet was driven away, Putanges was exiled, Madame de Chevreuse fell into disfavor, and when you wanted to return as Ambassador to France, the king himself—remember, Milord!—the king himself opposed it.”
“Yes, and France will pay with a war for her king’s refusal. So, I’m not able to see you, Madame? Very well, then—but every day, you’ll hear of me. What do you think is the goal of my planned invasion of the Isle of Ré and alliance with the Protestants of La Rochelle? Nothing but the pleasure of seeing you!
“I dare not hope to penetrate to Paris, sword in hand—I know that very well. But this war will have to end in a peace, that peace will require a negotiator, and that negotiator will be me. They won’t dare to refuse me then. I’ll come back to Paris, I’ll come back to you, and I will be happy, if just for a moment. True, thousands of men will pay with their lives for my happiness, but what does that matter to me, provided I see you again? Perhaps this is all folly, even insane, but tell me: what woman in the world has a lover more amorous? What queen has a servant more devoted?”
“Milord, Milord, what you say in your defense just condemns you all the more! These so-called proofs of your love verge on being crimes!”
“Because you do not love me, Madame! If you loved me, you wouldn’t see it like that. Oh, but if you loved me—that would be too much happiness, and I would go mad. Madame de Chevreuse was less cruel than you; the Earl of Holland loved her, and she returned his love.”
“Madame de Chevreuse was not a queen,” murmured Anne of Austria, overcome despite herself by the expression of a love so profound.
“You would love me, then, if you were not a queen? Madame, say it—you would love me then? I can believe that it’s only the dignity of your rank that makes you so cruel to me, that if you’d been Madame de Chevreuse, poor Buckingham might have hoped? Thanks for those sweet words, my beautiful Majesty, a hundred times thanks!”
“No, Milord, you’ve misunderstood. I didn’t mean to say . . .”
“Hush! Hush!” said the duke. “If I’m happy in my mistake, please don’t be so cruel as to take it away from me. You said yourself that I’ve been drawn into a snare that might cost me my life, and it may yet do so.” The duke smiled a smile both sad and charming, and said, “For some time I’ve had strange premonitions of my own death.”
“My God!” Anne cried, with a terror that showed she cared much more than she wanted to say.
“I don’t say this to frighten you, Madame. I shouldn’t have mentioned it to you—please believe I’m not preoccupied by such dreams. But what you’ve said to me, the hope you’ve nearly given me, is worth everything, even my life.”
“But, Milord,” said Anne of Austria, “I, too, have had premonitions and dreams. I dreamed I saw you lying, bleeding from a wound.”
“On the left side, wasn’t it, and from a knife?” interrupted Buckingham.
“Yes, Duke, that’s it—on the left side, with a knife! Who could have told you about this dream? I’ve confided it only to God, in my prayers.”
“I want nothing more. You love me, Madame. All is well.”
“I, love y
ou? Me?”
“Yes, you. Would God send us the same dreams if you didn’t love me? Would we have the same premonitions if our lives weren’t joined at the heart? You love me, O Queen! Will you weep for me?”
“Oh! My God! My God!” cried Anne of Austria. “This is more than I can bear. Leave, Duke—in the name of heaven, go! I don’t know if I love you or if I don’t love you; but I do know that I won’t break my word. Have pity on me, and leave. Oh! If you were caught in France, if you died in France, if I thought your love for me was the cause of your death, I’d never recover—I would go mad! Leave, then, leave—I implore you!”
“How beautiful you are this way! How I love you!” said Buckingham.
“Leave! Leave! I beg you. Come back later, if you must: come back as an ambassador, come back as a minister, come back surrounded by guards who will defend you, by servants who will watch over you. Then I shall fear no more for the length of your days, and I’ll be happy to see you.”
“Is . . . is this true what you tell me?”
“Yes . . .”
“Then give me a pledge of your indulgence, something from you that will remind me that I didn’t dream this, something you’ve carried and that I can carry in my turn: a ring, a necklace, a chain.” “And you’ll leave, you’ll really leave, if I give you what you ask?” “Yes.”
“This very instant?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll leave France, you’ll return to England?”
“Yes, I swear to you!”
“Wait, then—wait.”
Anne of Austria reentered her chambers and came out again almost immediately, holding in her hands a small coffer of rosewood, marked with her cipher and chased with gold.
“Here, Milord Duke,” she said. “Guard this in memory of me.”
Buckingham took the coffer and fell a second time to his knees.
“You promised me you would leave,” said the queen.
“And I keep my word. Your hand, your hand, Madame, and I depart.”
Anne of Austria offered Buckingham one hand while closing her eyes and leaning on Estefania with the other, for she felt that her strength was going to fail her.
Buckingham passionately kissed that beautiful hand, then rose. “Within six months,” he said, “if I’m not dead, I will see you again, Madame, if I must set the world at war to do it.” Then, true to his promise, he hastened from the room.
In the corridor he found Madame Bonacieux awaiting him, who, with the same precautions as before, and with the same success, conducted him out of the Louvre.
XIII
Monsieur Bonacieux
It may be remarked that there was one person in this affair who, despite his precarious position, seems to have been all but forgotten: the worthy Monsieur Bonacieux, martyr to the tangled political and amorous intrigues of this gallant epoch of chivalry. Fortunately, as the reader may recall, we promised not to lose sight of him.
The officers who had arrested Bonacieux took him straight to the Bastille. Inside its gates he passed, trembling, before a platoon of soldiers loading their muskets. He was taken down into a semisubterranean gallery, where Bonacieux was subjected to gross insults and some rough handling by his guards. The gendarmes saw that they weren’t dealing with a gentleman and treated him as if he were the lowliest peasant.
After half an hour or so, a magistrate’s clerk arrived and put an end to these torments, but not to Monsieur Bonacieux’s fears, as he ordered him conducted to the Interrogation Chamber. Ordinarily prisoners were interrogated in their own cells, but apparently Bona-cieux didn’t deserve such a dignity. Two gendarmes took possession of the mercer, marched him to a corridor guarded by three sentries, opened a door, and pushed him into a low chamber, the total furnishings of which were a table, a chair, and a commissioner. The commissioner was seated on the chair and busily writing on the table.
The commissioner remained buried in his papers for a few moments, then looked up to see what he had to deal with. He was a repulsive little man, with a pointed nose, jaundiced cheeks stretched taut over sharp cheekbones, tiny, piercing eyes, and an expression suggesting both fox and weasel. His head balanced on the end of a long, mobile neck, issuing from a large, black robe like a turtle’s head protruding from its carapace.
He began by demanding of Bonacieux his family and given names, age, condition, and address. The accused replied that he was called Jacques-Michel Bonacieux, his age was fifty-one, he was a retired mercer, and lived in the Rue des Fossoyeurs.
Instead of asking further questions, the commissioner then launched into a long, rambling lecture about the perils awaiting an obscure bourgeois who dared to interfere in matters of state. He went on to praise the power and policies of His Eminence the Cardinal—that incomparable minister, who had eclipsed all past ministers, and was an example for all ministers to come, a man whose purposes and power none could flout with impunity.
After completing this impressive speech, the commissioner fixed his eye on poor Bonacieux like a hawk surveying a mouse, and urged him to reflect on the gravity of his situation. The mercer had already done so, consigning La Porte to the devil for suggesting that Bonacieux should marry his goddaughter, and that this goddaughter should be received into the queen’s household as linen maid. The fundamental ingredients of Master Bonacieux’s character were a profound selfishness mixed with sordid avarice, the whole seasoned by utter spinelessness. Whatever love his young wife had inspired in him was entirely secondary to these basic elements.
Bonacieux mulled over the commissioner’s speech. “But, Monsieur le Commissaire,” he said timidly, “please believe that I more than anyone recognize and appreciate the merits of the incomparable cardinal by whom we have the honor to be governed.”
“Really?” asked the commissioner, with a doubtful air. “If that’s so, how is it that you’re here in the Bastille?”
“How I came here, or rather why I came here, is impossible for me to say, as I don’t know myself,” replied Bonacieux, “but certainly it’s not for having knowingly disobliged Monsieur le Cardinal.”
“Nevertheless, you must have committed some crime, since here you are, accused of high treason.”
“High treason!” cried Bonacieux, terrified. “High treason! How could a poor mercer who hates the Huguenots and abhors the Spanish be accused of high treason? Monsieur, Monsieur—the thing is materially impossible!”
“Monsieur Bonacieux,” said the commissioner, his gaze boring into the accused as if his tiny eyes could see to the bottom of his heart, “Monsieur Bonacieux . . . you have a wife?”
“Yes, Monsieur,” replied the trembling mercer, certain that now they were approaching the root of his troubles. “That is to say, I had one.”
“What? You had one? What have you done with her, if you no longer have her?”
“She was abducted from me, Monsieur.”
“She was abducted from you?” said the commissioner. “Ah!”
This “Ah!” confused Bonacieux more than ever.
“She was abducted from you!” resumed the commissioner. “And do you know who committed this abduction?”
“I . . . believe I know him.”
“Who is he?”
“Take note that I affirm nothing, Monsieur le Commissaire, I only suspect.”
“Whom do you suspect? Come, answer freely.”
Monsieur Bonacieux was perplexed. Should he deny everything, or tell all? If he denied everything, they would be sure to think he knew more than he was saying. If he told all, it would be proof of his willingness to cooperate. He decided to tell all.
“I suspect,” he said, “a tall, dark man of haughty demeanor, with the air of a Grand. He followed us a number of times, I believe, when I went to the postern of the Louvre to meet my wife and bring her home.”
This reply seemed to make the commissioner nervous. “And his name?” he said.
“Oh! As to his name, I know nothing—but if I ever met him, I’d recognize him inst
antly out of a thousand people, I swear it.”
The commissioner’s face darkened. “You’d know him in a thousand, you say?”
“That is to say,” resumed Bonacieux, who saw he’d taken a wrong turn, “that is to say . . .”
“You have stated positively that you would recognize the man,” said the commissioner ominously. “That will be quite enough for today. Before we proceed further, I must report that you know your wife’s ravisher.”
“But I didn’t say I know him!” cried Bonacieux in despair. “I told you, on the contrary . . .”
“Take the prisoner away,” said the commissioner to the pair of guards.
“And where should we take him?” asked the clerk.
“To a dungeon.”
“Which one?”
“For God’s sake! Whichever one you come to first, so long as it’s dark and deep,” replied the commissioner, with an indifference that horrified poor Bonacieux.
“Alas! Alas!” he said to himself. “I’m doomed. My wife has committed some frightful crime—they think I’m her accomplice, and will punish me as well. She must have talked, she must have confessed and told all. Women are so weak! And now I’m to be thrown into a dungeon, the first we come to. It’s all over! One night is soon past, and then tomorrow, it’s to the wheel, or the gallows! May God have pity on me!”
Without paying any attention to the lamentations of Master Bonacieux, having heard such laments a thousand times, the two guards took the prisoner by the arm and led him away. Meanwhile the commissioner hastily wrote a letter, then consigned it to the clerk.
Once incarcerated in his dungeon, Bonacieux couldn’t even close his eyes—not because his dungeon was too disagreeable, but because his anxieties were too great. He remained all night crouched on his stool, starting at every sound. By the time the first rays of daylight shone into his chamber, even the dawn appeared to him somber and funereal.
Suddenly he heard the bolts being drawn, and leaped up wildly. He thought they were coming to conduct him to the scaffold, so when he saw the commissioner and his clerk in place of the executioner he’d expected, he was ready to embrace them both.