The Quest of Glory - Marjorie Bowen (most interesting books to read txt) 📗

be possible for a

noble with talents and energy to obtain, without bribery or intrigue,

some honest post in politics. If, however, it was not so, then Luc meant

to violently alter his life, to in some way strike directly for what his

soul wanted, what it must have.

 

On the day following the pitiful little adventure with the Countess

Koklinska he again saw the graceful cavalier enter the house opposite.

 

This time a cloak and a low-pulled hat masked the features, but Luc was

sure of the remarkably fine and well-set figure; the stranger was, too,

just sufficiently above the ordinary stature to be conspicuous anywhere,

in any dress.

 

The man who waited on the chambers happened to be in the room, and Luc

remarked to him on the mysterious character of the house opposite.

 

He was answered that the place was commonly believed to be the residence

of one of the fortune-tellers with which Paris swarmed; one of the

houses where attempts were made to raise the Devil, to pry into the

future; where potions, charms, and maybe poisons were sold; a place of

rendezvous also for intrigues that had some reason for concealment, or,

in themselves, lacked the element of that mystery that alone made them

alluring.

 

Many great people, even the greatest, the man averred, would go to these

places, and take the utmost pains with their disguises—which, however,

very seldom deceived anyone, as all the world knew that all the world

went. But the mystery was the great charm, and many adventures appeared

palatable when undertaken in a cloak and mask that would have seemed

stale enough enacted in broad daylight.

 

“Of course,” finished the fellow, “since La Voisine was burnt in the

Place de la Grêve, they have been more careful, these people; but

nevertheless, Monseigneur, they become very bold, for they say the King

himself visits them often enough, and that everybody knows it; and His

Highness the Regent encouraged them to a great extent, though they say

he never raised the Devil.”

 

Luc smiled; he thought of M. de Richelieu. He wondered if such men had

not raised the Devil, in very tangible form indeed, and set him up as

master over France.

 

So it was said that the King spent his leisure with these tawdry

prophetesses and cheap tricksters! Since he came to Paris Luc had heard

several ends of gossip about the King that, true or not, served to a

little blur his vivid picture of the young Louis he was so ardent to

serve, whom he had served for ten strenuous years without recognition

or reward.

 

It was a frivolous age, a restless age, an age of change, of great

possibilities. France was brilliant yet corrupt, energetic yet slothful.

Paris did not dazzle so much to Luc’s near sight as it had done to his

distant gaze. Carola Koklinska became to him as a symbol of the city—so

calm, lofty, high, and bright from a distance, so mean, dishonoured,

falsely glittering near, yet with an immortal heart concealed somewhere

behind the gaudy shams.

 

Paris was great, was eternal, held the seed of all future thought, was

the theatre of all present action; yet her streets were thronged by the

foppish, the foolish, the ignorant, and the starving. Her government was

in the hands of men like M. de Richelieu, who in their turn were

influenced by women like Carola—greedy soldiers of fortune who kept the

point of view of the gutter from whence they came.

 

Luc’s heart swelled to a sense of agony—the agony of powerlessness. All

the pageant that passed by him he knew only by glimpses; he was outside,

he could do nothing—nay, worse than that, he was even being swept along

with the others, no better than they, a mere inarticulate creature

played upon by the devices of those he met. Even M. de Richelieu, in his

opulent consciencelessness, was expressing, fulfilling himself, turning

circumstances into what he wished them to be, making his life what he

wanted it; even Carola had forced the hand of Fate to satisfy her sordid

ambition; while he was baffled, thwarted, like a thing chained.

 

He thought of the young man whom he had met in the pavilion at

Versailles, and whom he had just seen enter the house opposite. He

lulled his slothful soul by juggling with the poor lures of charlatans.

He could actually drive his lagging, empty days faster by such spurs as

these!

 

Luc had not yet conceived the task, the responsibility the goal that

would satisfy the hunger of his soul.

 

Ill-health, moderate means, an obscure position in the great

world—these were his disadvantages. And was it possible that the fire

of his desires could not surmount these paltry things?

 

Where was the secret by which men, poorer, meaner, more hampered than

he, had forced glory out of their lives, had wrung greatness out of

their own souls? He sat with his elbows on the elegant ormolu desk and

his face hidden in his hands, shuddering, for his body bent and shivered

with the power of the passions that drove through it. The damp broke out

on his forehead, his heart struggled in his side, his hands and feet

were cold, his mouth dry, his closed eyes hot in their sockets. He

clenched his hands under his face till he felt the bones of the palms

with his finger-tips. Reality swung into a dazzling darkness that pulsed

before him, out of which he could force nothing tangible but an enigma

with the face of Carola. He raised his head at last and sat back in his

chair. At these moments his bodily weakness asserted itself, and when he

most wished to get beyond and above the flesh he was reminded of it by a

cold weight in all his limbs and the heat of the blood in his temples.

 

He gave a little sigh, then quickly turned his head, seized with an

uncontrollable conviction that he was not alone. Yet it was with a

considerable start that he saw a slight, strange gentleman standing

inside the door keenly observing him.

 

Luc stared without rising; his visionary mood had scarcely cleared. He

gazed eagerly at his visitor in silence. He saw a man no longer young,

yet impossible to associate with any idea of age, dressed richly and

fashionably in brown velvet that glittered with gold braid, erect,

graceful, and of an extraordinary appearance of animation and energy;

his face, framed in a grey peruke, was so pale as to be livid; the

features were delicate, strongly cut, remarkable; there was an upward

slant to eyebrows and nostrils, and the mouth was wide, thin, and

smiling, while his brown eyes held a world of passion, power, and force

in their glance which was at once challenging, mocking, and

good-humoured.

 

He held an agate-handled cane and his hat under his arm. All the

appointments of his person were costly and modish; he wore patches,

jewellery, and fine ruffles.

 

“I have surprised you, M. le Marquis,” he observed, with a deepening of

his smile and in a voice changeful and melodious.

 

Luc sprang to his feet; he knew face and figure from a dozen prints,

from a hundred descriptions.

 

“Voltaire!” he cried.

 

The stranger bowed.

 

“I am welcome?” he asked.

 

“I am honoured beyond expression,” stammered Luc, with simple and

genuine self-abasement.

 

M. de Voltaire looked sharply at the man who had sent him such

remarkable letters, and of whom he had had such a remarkable account

from M. de Richelieu.

 

He was surprised to see one so young, so delicately beautiful, so timid

in manner, for Luc stood blushing like a child, and his sensitive

features expressed vast confusion. The great man seated himself and

threw back his head.

 

“M. de Richelieu gave me your address,” he remarked; “but I did not wait

for his company to make the acquaintance of one of whom I have formed

such a high opinion.”

 

“Monsieur,” answered Luc earnestly, “I fear I have been presumptuous in

forcing myself on your notice; but for the interest you have taken in me

I am passionately grateful.”

 

M. de Voltaire was secretly, immensely gratified. He had not climbed

from an attorney’s clerk to be a friend of kings without meeting very

severe rebuffs on the way. Even now, courted as he was, the nobles he

consorted with reminded him often enough, in covert ways, that he was

not ‘born.’ But here was a Marquis, a soldier, who sincerely bowed down

to him. He had been greatly flattered when he received Luc’s first

letter; now his vast vanity, quick to take offence, quick to respond to

admiration, was even more flattered by the young noble’s ardent homage.

 

And a finer feeling than vanity moved M. de Voltaire’s great generous

heart; he thought that he saw in this frail, boyish-looking, blushing,

slightly awkward soldier a kindred soul.

 

On his part Luc was struggling with an overwhelming sense of humility in

being thus suddenly sought out by the man whom, of all others, he most

admired and respected.

 

“Oh, Monsieur!” he exclaimed, “you cannot guess how much I have hoped to

one day meet you.”

 

“A soldier,” smiled M. de Voltaire, “and yet you found time for

philosophy and the arts!”

 

Luc, who was standing like a scholar before his master, answered in

nervous haste—

 

“I know nothing about either, Monsieur, nothing—”

 

The great man interrupted.

 

“I gather from your letters that you are in quest of glory—therefore

you know a great deal about both. If you have the penetration to see, M.

le Marquis, that there is nothing in the world like even the dim sparkle

of glory—I, at least, can teach you nothing.”

 

As he spoke his eyes flashed as if a positive red fire sparkled from

them; so strong was the effect of his presence that Luc felt as if he

were being physically touched and held.

 

M. de Voltaire rose. He had the grand manner consciously—not

unconsciously like M. de Richelieu—yet defined from the theatrical by

his passionate genius that gave his very flourishes an air of

conviction. He stepped up to the Marquis and held out his hand.

 

“Monseigneur,” he said, with a large air of grandeur, “I should like to

be your friend.”

 

Luc clasped the thin right hand that had been so active and powerful in

the cause of truth and freedom, and tears lent a lustre to his eyes.

 

“Monsieur,” he answered, “I have nothing to offer one like you but my

devotion—I have had very few friends—but if you will be troubled with

me I will pledge my service to you—always.”

 

M. de Voltaire looked at him thoughtfully.

 

“You have the spirit,” he said—“yes, you have the spirit that is to

waken France and re-create her. Do you not feel it, see it

everywhere—the dawn of something better than we have ever known?”

 

He began walking up and down the room, as if his restless heart could

not brook his body to stand still.

 

“What are you going to do with your life?” he asked abruptly.

 

It was Carola’s demand, as Luc instantly remembered with a sense of

pain.

 

“I wish to fulfil myself,” he answered. “I can do that by serving

France. I am in Paris now, waiting my chance.”

 

M. de Voltaire paused before the high white marble chimney piece.

 

“In what way are you hoping to serve France?” he asked sharply.

 

Luc answered with a grave enthusiasm—

 

“I served in the army ten years, Monsieur, and unfortunately lost my

health during the retreat from Prague. It is now my ambition