The Historical Nights' Entertainment - Rafael Sabatini (chrysanthemum read aloud TXT) 📗

whom her mother had taught her to regard as a

dangerous, unprincipled man.

 

On his return from Vienna bearing letters from Marie Therese to

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal found himself coldly

received by the dull King, and discouraged from remaining at Court,

whilst the Queen refused to grant him so much as the audience

necessary for the delivery of these letters, desiring him to forward

them instead.

 

The chagrined Cardinal had no illusions. He beheld here the hand

of Marie Therese controlling Marie Antoinette, and, through Marie

Antoinette, the King himself. Worse followed. He who had dreamt

himself another Richelieu could only with difficulty obtain the

promised position of Grand Almoner of France, and this solely as a

result of the powerful and insistent influence exerted by his family.

 

He perceived that if he was to succeed at all he must begin by

softening the rigorous attitude which the Queen maintained towards

him. To that end he addressed himself. But three successive letters

he wrote to the Queen remained unanswered. Through other channels

persistently he begged for an audience that he might come in person

to express his regrets for the offending indiscretion. But the Queen

remained unmoved, ruled ever by the Austrian Empress, who through

her daughter sought to guide the affairs of France.

 

Rohan was reduced to despair, and then in an evil hour his path was

crossed by Jeanne de la Motte de Valois, who enjoyed the reputation

of secretly possessing the friendship of the Queen, exerting a sort

of back-stair influence, and who lived on that reputation.

 

As a drowning man clutches at a straw, so the Cardinal-Prince Louis

de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, Landgrave of Alsace, Commander

of the Order of the Holy Ghost, clutched at this faiseuse d’affaires

to help him in his desperate need.

 

Jeanne de la Motte de Valois - perhaps the most astounding

adventuress that ever lived by her wits and her beauty - had begun

life by begging her bread in the streets. She laid claim to

left-handed descent from the royal line of Valois, and, her claim

supported by the Marchioness Boulainvilliers, who had befriended

her, she had obtained from the Crown a small pension, and had

married the unscrupulous Marc Antoine de la Motte, a young soldier

in the Burgundy regiment of the Gendarmerie.

 

Later, in the autumn of 1786, her protectress presented her to

Cardinal de Rohan. His Eminence, interested in the lady’s

extraordinary history, in her remarkable beauty, vivacity, and wit,

received the De la Mottes at his sumptuous chateau at Saverne, near

Strasbourg, heard her story in greater detail, promised his

protection, and as an earnest of his kindly intentions obtained for

her husband a captain’s commission in the Dragoons.

 

Thereafter you see the De la Mottes in Paris and at Versailles,

hustled from lodging to lodging for failure to pay what they owe;

and finally installed in a house in the Rue Neuve Saint-Gilles.

There they kept a sort of state, spending lavishly, now the money

borrowed from the Cardinal, or upon the Cardinal’s security; now

the proceeds of pawned goods that had been bought on credit, and of

other swindles practised upon those who were impressed by the lady’s

name and lineage and the patronage of the great Cardinal which she

enjoyed.

 

To live on your wits is no easy matter. It demands infinite address,

coolness, daring, and resource qualities which Madame de la Motte

possessed in the highest degree, so that, harassed and pressed by

creditors, she yet contrived to evade their attacks and to present

a calm and, therefore, confidence-inspiring front to the world.

 

The truth of Madame de la Motte de Valois’s reputation for influence

at Court was never doubted. There was nothing in the character of

Marie Antoinette to occasion such doubts. Indiscreet in many things,

Her Majesty was most notoriously so in her attachments, as witness

her intimacy with Madame de Polignac and the Princesse de Lambelle.

And the public voice had magnified - as it will - those indiscretions

until it had torn her character into shreds.

 

The fame of the Countess Jeanne de Valois - as Madame de la Motte

now styled herself - increasing, she was employed as an intermediary

by place-seekers and people with suits to prefer, who gratefully

purchased her promises to interest herself on their behalf at Court.

 

And then into her web of intrigue blundered the Cardinal de Rohan,

who, as he confessed, “was completely blinded by his immense desire

to regain the good graces of the Queen.” She aroused fresh hope in

his despairing heart by protesting that, as some return for all the

favours she had received from him, she would not rest until she had

disposed the Queen more favourably towards him.

 

Later came assurances that the Queen’s hostility was melting under

her persuasions, and at last she announced that she was authorized

by Her Majesty to invite him to submit the justification which so

long and so vainly he had sought permission to present.

 

Rohan, in a vertigo of satisfaction, indited his justification,

forwarded it to the Queen by the hand of the Countess, and some days

later received a note in the Queen’s hand upon blue-edged paper

adorned by the lilies of France.

 

“I rejoice,” wrote Marie Antoinette, “to find at last that you were

not in fault. I cannot yet grant you the audience you desire, but

as soon as the circumstances allow of it I shall let you know. Be

discreet.”

 

Upon the advice of the Countess of Valois, His Eminence sent a reply

expressive of his deep gratitude and joy.

 

Thus began a correspondence between Queen and Cardinal which

continued regularly for a space of three months, growing gradually

more confidential and intimate. As time passed his solicitations

of an audience became more pressing, until at last the Queen wrote

announcing that, actuated by esteem and affection for him who had

so long been kept in banishment, she herself desired the meeting.

But it must be secret. An open audience would still be premature;

he had numerous enemies at Court, who, thus forewarned, might so

exert themselves against him as yet to ruin all.

 

To receive such a letter from a beautiful woman, and that woman a

queen whose glories her inaccessibility had magnified a thousandfold

in his imagination, must have all but turned the Cardinal’s head.

The secrecy of the correspondence, culminating in a clandestine

meeting, seemed to establish between them an intimacy impossible

under other circumstances.

 

Into the warp of his ambition was now woven another, tenderly

romantic, though infinitely respectful, feeling.

 

You realize, I hope, the frame of mind in which the Cardinal-Prince

took his way through that luminous, fragrant summer night towards

the Grove of Venus. He went to lay the cornerstone of the proud

edifice of his ambitions. To him it was a night of nights - a night

of gems, he pronounced it, looking up into the jewelled vault of

heaven. And in that phrase he was singularly prophetic.

 

By an avenue of boxwood and yoke-elm he entered into an open glade,

in the middle of which there was a circle where the intended statue

of Venus was never placed. But if the cold marble effigy of a

goddess were absent, the warm, living figure of a queen stood, all

in shimmering white amid the gloom, awaiting him.

 

Rohan checked a moment, his breath arrested, his pulses quickened.

Then he sped forward, and, flinging off his wide-brimmed hat, he

prostrated himself to kiss the hem of her white cambric gown.

Something - a rose that she let fall - brushed lightly past his

cheek. Reverently he recovered it, accounting it a tangible symbol

of her favour, and he looked up into the proud, lovely face - which,

although but dimly discernible, was yet unmistakable to him

protesting his gratitude and devotion. He perceived that she was

trembling, and caught the quiver in the voice that answered him.

 

“You may hope that the past will be forgiven.”

 

And then, before he could drink more deeply of this cup of delight,

came rapid steps to interrupt them. A slender man, in whom the

Cardinal seemed to recognize the Queen’s valet Desclaux, thrust

through the curtains of foliage into the grove.

 

“Quick, madame!” he exclaimed in agitation. “Madame la Comtesse

and Mademoiselle d’Artois are approaching!”

 

The Queen was whirled away, and the Cardinal discreetly effaced

himself, his happiness tempered by chagrin at the interruption.

 

When, on the morrow, the Countess of Valois brought him a

blue-bordered note with Her Majesty’s wishes that he should patiently

await a propitious season for his public restoration to royal favour,

he resigned himself with the most complete and satisfied submission.

Had he not the memory of her voice and the rose she had given him?

Soon afterwards came a blue-bordered note in which Marie Antoinette

advised him to withdraw to his Bishopric of Strasbourg until she

should judge that the desired season of :his reinstatement had

arrived.

 

Obediently Rohan withdrew.

 

It was in the following December that the Countess of Valois’s good

offices at Court were solicited by a new client, and that she first

beheld the famous diamond necklace.

 

It had been made by the Court jewellers of the Rue Vendome - Bohmer

and Bassenge - and intended for the Countess du Barry. On the

assembling of its component gems Bohmer had laboured for five years

and travelled all over Europe, with the result that he had achieved

not so much a necklace as a blaziing scarf of diamonds of a splendour

outrivalling any jewel that the world had ever seen.

 

Unfortunately, Bohmer was too long over the task. Louis XV died

inopportunely, and the firm found itself with a necklace worth two

million livres on its hands.

 

Hopes were founded upon Marie Antoinette’s reputed extravagance. But

the price appalled her, while Louis XVI met the importunities of the

jeweller with the reply that the country needed a ship of war more

urgently than a necklace.

 

Thereafter Bohmer offered it in various Courts of Europe, but always

without success. Things were becoming awkward. The firm had borrowed

heavily to pay for the stones, and anxiety seems to have driven Bohmer

to the verge of desperation. Again he offered the necklace to the

King, announcing himself ready to make terms, and to accept payment

in instalments; but again it was refused.

 

Bohmer now became that pest to society, the man with a grievance

that he must be venting everywhere. On one occasion he so far

forgot himself as to intrude upon the Queen as she was walking in

the gardens of the Trianon. Flinging himself upon his knees before

her, he protested with sobs that he was in despair, and that unless

she purchased the necklace he would go and drown himself. His tears

left her unmoved to anything but scorn.

 

“Get up, Bohmer!” she bade him. “I don’t like such scenes. I have

refused the necklace, and I don’t want to hear of it again. Instead

of drowning yourself, break it up and sell the diamonds separately.”

 

He did neither one nor the other, but continued to air his grievance;

and among those who heard him was one Laporte, an impecunious visitor

at the house of the Countess of Valois.

 

Bohmer had said that he would pay a thousand louis to any one who

found him a purchaser for the necklace. That was enough to stir the

needy Laporte. He mentioned the matter to the Countess, and enlisted

her interest. Then he told Bohmer of her great influence with the

Queen, and brought the jeweller to visit her with the necklace.

 

Dazzled by the fire of those gems, the Countess nevertheless