The Historical Nights' Entertainment - Rafael Sabatini (chrysanthemum read aloud TXT) 📗
- Author: Rafael Sabatini
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the contrary - that she had no power to influence Her Majesty. Yet
yielding with apparent reluctance to his importunities, she,
nevertheless, ended by promising to see what could be done.
On January 3d the Cardinal came back from Strasbourg. Correspondence
with the Queen, through Madame de Valois, had continued during his
absence, and now, within a few days of his return, an opportunity
was to be afforded him of proving his readiness to serve Her Majesty,
and of placing her under a profound obligation to him.
The Countess brought him a letter from Marie Antoinette, in which
the Queen expressed her desire to acquire the necklace, but added
that, being without the requisite funds at the moment, it would be
necessary to settle the terms and arrange the instalments, which
should be paid at intervals of three months. For this she required
an intermediary who in himself would be a sufficient guarantee to
the Bohmers, and she ended by inviting His Eminence to act on her
behalf.
That invitation the Cardinal, who had been waiting ever since the
meeting in the Grove of Venus for an opportunity of proving himself,
accepted with alacrity.
And so, on January 24th, the Countess drives up to the Grand Balcon,
the jewellers’ shop in the Rue Vendome. Her dark eyes sparkle, the
lovely, piquant face is wreathed in smiles.
“Messieurs,” she greets the anxious partners, “I think I can promise
you that the necklace will very shortly be sold.”
The jewellers gasp in the immensity of the hope her words arouse.
“The purchase,” she goes on to inform them, “will be effected by a
very great nobleman.”
Bassenge bursts into voluble gratitude. She cuts it short.
“That nobleman is the Cardinal-Prince Louis de Rohan. It is with
him that you will arrange the affair, and I advise you,” she adds
in a confidential tone, “to take every precaution, especially in
the matter of the terms of payment that may be proposed to you.
That is all, I think, messieurs. You will, of course, bear in mind
that it is no concern of mine, and that I do not so much as want my
name mentioned in connection with it.”
“Perfectly, madame,” splutters Bohmer, who is perspiring, although
the air is cold - “perfectly! We understand, and we are profoundly
grateful. If - ” His hands fumble nervously at a case. “If you
would deign, madame, to accept this trifle as an earnest of our
indebtedness, we - “
There is a tinge of haughtiness in her manner as she interrupts him.
“You do not appear to understand, Bohmer, that the matter does not
at all concern me. I have done nothing,” she insists; then, melting
into smiles, “My only desire,” she adds, “was to be of service to
you.”
And upon that she departs, leaving them profoundly impressed by her
graciousness and still more by her refusal to accept a valuable jewel.
On the morrow the great nobleman she had heralded, the Cardinal
himself, alighted at the Grand Balcon, coming, on the Queen’s behalf,
to see the necklace and settle the terms. By the end of the week
the bargain was concluded. The price was fixed at 1,600,000 livres,
which the Queen was to pay in four instalments extending over two
years, the first falling due on the following August 1st.
These terms the Cardinal embodied in a note which he forwarded to
Madame de la Motte, that they might be ratified by the Queen.
The Countess returned the note to him next day.
“Her Majesty is pleased and grateful,” she announced, “and she
approves of all that you have done. But she does not wish to sign
anything.”
On that point, however, the Cardinal was insistent. The magnitude
of the transaction demanded it, and he positively refused to move
further without Her Majesty’s signature.
The Countess departed to return again on the last day of the month
with the document completed as the Cardinal required, bearing now
the signature “Marie Antoinette de France,” and the terms marked
“approved” in the Queen’s hand.
“The Queen,” Madame de la Motte informed him, “is making this
purchase secretly, without the King’s knowledge, and she particularly
begs that this note shall not leave Your Eminence’s hands. Do not,
therefore, allow any one to see it.”
Rohan gave the required promise, but, not conceiving that the
Bohmers were included in it, he showed them the note and the Queen’s
signature when they came to wait upon him with the necklace on the
morrow.
In the dusk of evening a closed carriage drew up at the door of
Madame de la Motte Valois’s lodging on the Place Dauphine at
Versailles. Rohan alighted, and went upstairs with a casket under
his arm.
Madame awaited him in a white-panelled, indifferently lighted room,
to which there was an alcove with glass doors.
“You have brought the necklace?”
“It is here,” he replied, tapping the box with his gloved hand.
“Her Majesty is expecting it tonight. Her messenger should arrive
at any moment. She will be pleased with Your Eminence.”
“That is all that I can desire,” he answered gravely; and sat down
in answer to her invitation, the precious casket on his knees.
Waiting thus, they talked desultorily for some moments. At last
came steps upon the stairs.
“Quick! The alcove!” she exclaimed. “You must not be seen by Her
Majesty’s messenger.”
Rohan, with ready understanding, a miracle of discretion, effaced
himself into the alcove, through the glass doors of which he could
see what passed.
The door was opened by madame’s maid with the announcement:
“From the Queen.”
A tall, slender young man in black, the Queen’s attendant of that
other night of gems - the night of the Grove of Venus - stepped
quickly into the room, bowed like a courtier to Madame de la Motte,
and presented a note.
Madame broke the seal, then begged the messenger to withdraw for a
moment. When he had gone, she turned to the Cardinal, who stood
in the doorway of the alcove.
“That is Desclaux, Her Majesty’s valet,” she said; and held out to
him the note, which requested the delivery of the necklace to the
bearer.
A moment later the messenger was reintroduced to receive the casket
from the hands of Madame de la Motte. Within five minutes the
Cardinal was in his carriage again, driving happily back to Paris
with his dreams of a queen’s gratitude and confidence.
Two days later, meeting Bohmer at Versailles, the Cardinal suggested
to him that he should offer his thanks to the Queen for having
purchased the necklace.
Bohmer sought an opportunity for this in vain. None offered. It
was also in vain that he waited to hear that the Queen had worn
the necklace. But he does not appear to have been anxious on that
score. Moreover, the Queen’s abstention was credibly explained by
Madame de la Motte to Laporte with the statement that Her Majesty
did not wish to wear the necklace until it was paid for.
With the same explanation she answered the Cardinal’s inquiries in
the following July, when he returned from a three months’ sojourn
in Strasbourg.
And she took the opportunity to represent to him that one of the
reasons why the Queen could not yet consider the necklace quite
her own was that she found the price too high.
“Indeed, she may be constrained to return it, after all, unless
the Bohmers are prepared to be reasonable.”
If His Eminence was a little dismayed by this, at least any nascent
uneasiness was quieted. He consented to see the jewellers in the
matter, and on July 10th - three weeks before the first instalment
was due - he presented himself at the Grand Balcon to convey the
Queen’s wishes to the Bohmers.
Bohmer scarcely troubled to prevent disgust from showing on his
keen, swarthy countenance. Had not his client been a queen and
her intermediary a cardinal, he would, no doubt, have afforded it
full expression.
“The price agreed upon was already greatly below the value of the
necklace,” he grumbled. “I should never have accepted it but for
the difficulties under which we have been placed by the purchase
of the stones - the money we owe and the interest we are forced to
pay. A further reduction is impossible.”
The handsome Cardinal was suave, courtly, regretful, but firm. Since
that was the case, there would be no alternative but to return the
necklace.
Bohmer took fright. The annulment of the sale would bring him face
to face with ruin. Reluctantly, feeling that he was being imposed
upon, he reduced the price by two hundred thousand livres, and even
consented to write the Queen the following letter, whose epistolary
grace suggests the Cardinal’s dictation:
MADAME, - We are happy to hazard the thought that our submission
with zeal and respect to the last arrangement proposed constitutes
a proof of our devotion and obedience to the orders of Your Majesty.
And we have genuine satisfaction in thinking that the most
beautiful set of diamonds in existence will serve to adorn the
greatest and best of queens.
Now it happened that Bohmer was about to deliver personally to the
Queen some jewels with which the King was presenting her on the
occasion of the baptism of his nephew. He availed himself of that
opportunity, two days later, personally to hand his letter to Her
Majesty. But chance brought the Comptroller-General into the room
before she had opened it, and as a result the jeweller departed
while the letter was, still unread.
Afterwards, in the presence of Madame de Campan, who relates the
matter in her memoirs, the Queen opened the note, pored over it a
while, and then, perhaps with vivid memories of Bohmer’s threat of
suicide:
“Listen to what that madman Bohmer writes to me,” she said, and
read the lines aloud. “You guessed the riddles in the ‘Mercure’
this morning. I wonder could you guess me this one.”
And, with a half-contemptuous shrug, she held the sheet in the flame
of one of the tapers that stood alight on the table for the purpose
of sealing letters.
“That man exists for my torment,” she continued. “He has always
some mad notion in his head, and must always be visiting it upon me.
When next you see him, pray convince him how little I care for
diamonds.”
And there the matter was dismissed.
Days passed, and then a week before the instalment of 350,000 livres
was due, the Cardinal received a visit from Madame de la Motte on
the Queen’s behalf.
“Her Majesty,” madame announced, “seems embarrassed about the
instalment. She does not wish to trouble you by writing about it.
But I have thought of a way by which you could render yourself
agreeable to her and, at the same time, set her mind at rest. Could
you not raise a loan for the amount?”
Had not the Cardinal himself dictated to Bohmer a letter which
Bohmer himself had delivered to the Queen, he must inevitably have
suspected by now that all was not as it should be. But, satisfied
as he was by that circumstance, he addressed himself to the matter
which Madame de la Motte proposed. But, although Rohan was
extraordinarily wealthy, he had ever been correspondingly lavish.
Moreover, to complicate matters, there had been the bankruptcy of
his nephew, the Prince de Guimenee, whose debts had amounted to
some three million livres. Characteristically, and for the sake
of the family honour, Rohan had taken
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