The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane - Alain René le Sage (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

class="calibre1">What the devil is the meaning of all this? said I within myself.

What construction ought I to put upon all these honours? Is there

not some humorous prank at the bottom of it? and must it not be

more in the way of diversion than anything else, that the

minister is flattering me up with so imposing an establishment!

While I was ruminating in this uncertainty, fluctuating betweea

hope and fear, a page came to let me know that the count was

asking for me. I waited instantly on his lordship, who was quite

alone in his closet. Well! Santillane, said he, are you satisfied

with your rooms, and with my orders to Don Raymond? Your

excellency’s liberality, answered I, seems out of all proportion

with its object; so that I receive it with fear and trembling.

Why so? replied he. Can I be too lavish of distinction to a man

whom the king has committed to my care, and for whose interests

he especially commanded me to provide? No, that is impossible;

and I do no more than my duty in placing you on a footing of

respectability and consequence. No longer, therefore, let what I

do for you he a subject of surprise; but rely on it that

splendour in the eye of the world, and the solid advantages of

accumulating wealth, are equally with in your grasp, if you do

but attach yourself as faithfully to me as you did to the Duke of

Lerma.

 

But now that we are on the subject of that nobleman, continued

he, it is said that you lived on terms of personal intimacy with

him. I have a strong curiosity to lean the circumstances which

led to your first acquaintance, as well as in what department you

acted under him. Do not disguise or gloss over the slightest

particular, for I shall not be satisfied without a full, true,

and circumstantial recital. Then it was that I recollected in

what an embarrassing predicament I stood with the Duke of Lerma

on a similar occasion, and by what line of conduct I extricated

myself; that same course I adopted once again with the happiest

success; whereby the reader is to understand that throughout my

narrative I softened down the passages likely to give umbrage to

my patron, and glanced with a superficial delicacy over

transactions which would have reflected but little lustre on my

own character. I likewise manifested a considerate tenderness for

the Duke of Lerma; though by giving that fallen favourite no

quarter, I should better have consulted the taste of him whom I

wished to please. As for Don Rodrigo de Calderona, there I laid

about me with the religious fury of a bishop in a battle. I

brought together, and displayed in the most glaring colours, all

the anecdotes I had been able to pick up respecting his corrupt

practices and underhand dealing in the sale of promotions,

military, ecclesiastical, and civil.

 

What you have told me about Calderona, cried the minister with

eagerness, exactly squares with certain memorials which have been

presented to me, containing the heads of charges still more

seriously affecting his character. He will very soon be put upon

his trial, and if you have any wish to glut your revenge by his

ruin, I am of opinion that the object of your desire is near at

hand. I am far from thirsting after his blood, said I, though had

it depended on him, mine might have been shed in the tower of

Segovia, where he was the occasion of my taking lodgings for a

pretty long term. What! inquired his excellency, was it Don

Rodrigo who procured you that sudden journey? this a part of the

story of which I was not aware before. Don Balthasar, to whom

Navarro gave a summary of your adventures, told me indeed that

the late king gave orders for your commitment, as a mark of his

indignation against you for having led the Prince of Spain

astray, and taken him to a house of suspicious character in the

night: but that is all I know of the matter, and cannot for the

life of me conjecture what part Calderona could possibly have had

to play in that tragicomedy. A principal part, whether on the

stage or in real life, answered I that of a jealous lover, taking

vengeance for an injury, sustained in the tenderest point. At the

same time I related minutely all the facts with which the reader

is already acquainted, and touched his risible propensities,

difficult as they were of access, so exactly in the right place,

that he could not help wagging his under-hung jaw in a paroxysm

of humour-stricken ecstasy, and laughing till he cried again.

Catalina’s double cast in the drama delighted him exceedingly;

her sometimes playing the niece and sometimes personating the

grand-daughter seemed to tickle his fancy more than anything; nor

was he altogether inattentive to the appearance which the Duke of

Lerma made in this undignified farce of state. When I had

finished my story, the count gave me leave to depart, with an

assurance that on the next day he would not fail to make trial of

my talents for business. I ran immediately to the family hotel of

Zuniga, to thank Don Balthazar for his good offices, and to

acquaint my friend Joseph with the favourable dispositions of the

prime minister, and my brilliant prospects in con sequence.

 

CH. V. — The private conversation of Gil Blas with Navarro,

and his first employment in the service of the Count d’Olivarez.

 

As soon as I got to the ear of Joseph, I told him with much

trepidation of spirits what a world of topics I had to deposit in

his private ear, He took me where we might be alone, when I asked

him, after having communicated a key to the whole transaction up

to the present time, what he thought of the business as it stood.

I think, answered he, that you are in a fair way to make an

enormous fortune. Everything turns out according to your wishes:

you have made yourself acceptable to the prime minister; and what

must be taken for some thing in the account, I can render you the

same service as my uncle Melchior de la Ronda, when you attached

yourself to the archiepiscopal establishment of Grenada. He

spared you the trouble of finding out the weak side of that

prelate and his principal officers, by discovering their

different characters to you; and it is my purpose, after his

example, to bring you perfectly acquainted with the count, his

lady countess, and their only daughter, Donna Maria de Guzman.

 

The minister’s parts are quick, his judgment penetrating, and his

talents altogether calculated for the formation of extensive

projects. He affects the credit of universal genius, on the

strength of a showy smattering in general science; so that there

is no subject, in his own opinion, too difficult to be decided on

his mere authority. He sets himself up for a practical lawyer, a

complete general, and a politician of thorough-paced sagacity.

Add to all this, that he is so obstinately wedded to his own

opinions, as unchangeably to persevere in the path of his own

chalking out, to the absolute contempt of better advice, for fear

of seeming to be influenced by any good sense or intelligence,

but what he would be thought to engross in the resources of his

own mind. Between ourselves, this blot in his character may

produce strange consequences, which it may be well for the

monarchy should indulgent heaven for the defect of human means

avert! As for his talents in council, he shines in debate by the

force of natural eloquence; and would write as well as he speaks,

if he did not injudiciously affect a certain dignity of style,

which degenerates into affectation, quaintness, and obscurity.

His modes of thinking are peculiar to himself; he is capricious

in conduct, and visionary in design. Here you have the picture of

his mind, the light and shade of his intellectual merits: the

qualities of his heart and disposition remain to be delineated.

He is generous and warm in his friendships. It is said that he is

revengeful; but would he be a Spaniard if he were otherwise? In

addition to this, he has been accused of ingratitude, for having

driven the Duke of Uzeda and Friar Lewis Aliaga into banishment,

though he owed them, according to common report, obligations of

the most binding nature; and yet even this must not be looked

into so narrowly under his circumstances: there are few breasts

capacious enough to afford house-room for two such opposite

inmates as political ambition and gratitude.

 

Donna Agnes de Zuniga � Velasco, Countess of Olivarez, continued

Joseph, is a lady to whom it is impossible to impute more than

one fault, but that is a huge one; for it consists in making a

market, and a market the most exorbitant in its terms, of her

natural influence over the mind of her husband. As for Donna

Maria de Guzman, who beyond all dispute is at this moment the

very first match in Spain, she is a lady of first-rate

accomplishments, and absolutely idolized by her father. Regulate

your conduct upon these hints: make your court with art and

plausibility to these two ladies, and let it appear as if you

were more devoted to the Count of Olivarez than ever you were to

the Duke of Lerma before your forced excursion to Segovia; you

will become a leading and powerful member of the administration.

 

I should advise you, moreover, added he, to see my master, Don

Balthasar, from time to time; for though you have no longer any

occasion for his interest to push you forward, it will not be

amiss to waste a little incense upon him. You stand very high in

his good opinion; preserve your footing there, and cultivate his

friendship; it may stand you in some stead on any emergency. I

could not help observing, that as the uncle and nephew were in a

certain sort partners in the government of the state, there might

possibly be some little symptom of jealousy between brothers near

the throne. On the contrary, answered he, they are united by the

most confidential ties. Had it not been for Don Balthasar, the

Count of Olivarez might probably never have been prime minister;

for you are to know, that after Philip the Third had paid the

debt of nature, all the adherents and partisans belonging to the

house of Sandoval made a great stir, some in favour of the

cardinal, and others on his son’s behalf; but my master, a

greater adept in court intrigue than any of them, and the count,

who is nearly as great an adept as himself disconcerted all their

measures, and took their own so judiciously for the purpose of

stepping into the vacant place, that their rivals had no chance

against them. The Count of Olivarez, being appointed prime

minister, divided the duties with his uncle, Don Balthasar;

leaving foreign affairs to him, and taking the home department to

himself; the consequence is, that the bonds of family friendship

are drawn closer between these two noblemen, than if political

influence had no share in their mutual interests: they are

perfectly independent in their respective lines of business, and

live together on terms of good understanding which no intrigue

can possibly affect or alter.

 

Such was the substance of my conversation with Joseph, and the

advantage to be derived from it was my own to make the most of:

at all events, it was my duty to thank Signor de Zuniga for all

the influence he had the goodness to exert in my favour. He

assured me with infinite good-breeding that he should avail

himself of every opportunity as it arose