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

CHAPTER X # IN THE LOUVRE

A gorgeous young man, with beautiful dark blue eyes and a face set in

lines of gloom and discontent, lounged on a sofa piled with white satin

cushions with silver tassels, eating elaborate bonbons out of a gold

dish on a small table beside him. The window near looked on to the river

and Paris; it was a private apartment in the Louvre, extravagantly

furnished.

 

By the window stood M. de Richelieu looking often at the river and

occasionally at his companion.

 

“I ask it as a favour,” he said.

 

The other did not trouble to raise his lids.

 

“Ask M. Amelot,” he replied; “I can do nothing.”

 

“You can advise him—make a suggestion.”

 

“I have no influence with him,” returned the young man with weary

peevishness. “Besides, it is too much trouble.”

 

The sunlight shot a ray between the heavy silk curtains and shone on the

speaker’s handsome face and disarranged dark hair that flowed over his

shoulders .and was only partially powdered.

 

“You know M. Amelot will do nothing to oblige me,” persisted M. de

Richelieu; “he is a tiresome fool at best.”

 

The other half raised himself on the couch and turned his superb eyes on

the Duke.

 

“Maréchal,” he said with an air of authority, “I am tired of the

subject.”

 

“Oh, it is as good a subject as another, sire,” returned M. de Richelieu

good-humouredly, “and I do not often ask your Majesty for favours.”

 

“No,” retorted Louis; “you generally take them.”

 

He yawned, and sighed, and glanced distastefully round the room.

 

“Come, sire,” urged M. de Richelieu, “it is only a few words to M.

Amelot.”

 

“I tell you he never takes my advice,” answered the King; “and I really

know nothing about his business, so I have to be silent when he speaks,

which makes our interviews very dull. Besides, I do not like him, and I

do not wish to see him.”

 

“Write him a note, then,” returned M. de Richelieu, coming from the

window.

 

“Mon Dieu, Maréchal,” said Louis peevishly, “I am not sure that I like

your protégé either.”

 

“You do not know him, sire,” replied the Maréchal, surprised.

 

“Yes, I do. He wandered into my pavilion at Versailles. I think he is a

little insane. Besides,” added His Majesty with some touch of animation,

“he does not believe in God.”

 

“Neither do I,” responded the Duke gaily.

 

“I know, my dear Maréchal, and it lies on my conscience that I give you

my countenance,” said the King with a melancholy sigh. “But I pray for

you,” he added sincerely.

 

“Your Majesty can pray for M. de Vauvenargues,” replied M. de Richelieu.

 

Louis frowned.

 

“Do you think I can put up prayers for every heretic and disbeliever in

the kingdom? As for your Vauvenargues, why are you so eager to oblige

him?”

 

The Maréchal lifted his eyebrows and gave a whimsical little smile.

 

“Because he obliged me once, and I do not wish to be indebted to the

fellow.”

 

“You can give him a post in Languedoc,” said the King obstinately.

 

“He will not take it—he must not know that I am behind this—he thinks

anything from me would be a bribe.”

 

“Oh, he is one of that type, is he?” said Louis, leaning back on his

cushions wearily. “I thought so. Well, I do not like them.” He selected

another bonbon, then threw it down with disgust.

 

“Nevertheless,” persisted M. de Richelieu calmly, “your Majesty is going

to ask M. Amelot to give this young man a post in the next embassy to

Madrid.”

 

Louis was silent a moment; his soft, great eyes had a brooding look.

 

“What does he know about you?” he asked at length with some interest.

 

“Oh, it is not an amusing story,” replied the Maréchal, seating himself

at a little desk that stood in a corner and commencing to write.

 

Louis rose to his full splendid height and crossed to the chimneypiece;

his dark blue satins, embroidered with steel, his paste buttons and

buckles glittered from the head to the foot of his magnificent person.

He yawned, took a spray of jasmine from a black enamel vase, and

fastened it into the rich folds of his cravat.

 

“What are you writing, Maréchal?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.

 

“Your letter to M. Amelot, sire.”

 

“How I dislike people who make me do what I do not want to do,”

complained the King reflectively.

 

M. de Richelieu brought the letter and a quill over to the King.

 

Louis eyed both with distaste.

 

The Maréchal smiled and waited.

 

“If I sign, will you help me with La Chateauroux?” asked Louis at

length.

 

M. de Richelieu lifted his shoulder with an expressive gesture.

 

“What do you want me to do with her?” he demanded, putting letter and

pen on the mantelpiece.

 

“Do with her?” repeated the King impatiently. “Get her into a convent,

send her back to her husband, find her another, banish her to the

country, promise her anything, as long as you get her out of the palace.

The Marquise absolutely refuses to allow her to remain.”

 

“If I make Madame de Chateauroux leave the Louvre peaceably I shall want

more than your Majesty’s signature to that paper,” replied the Maréchal.

 

“You promised yesterday you would see her for me,” protested Louis.

 

“When I was not sober,” said M. de Richelieu; “and afterwards you told

her she should stay.”

 

“Well, I was not sober either,” responded the King sullenly. “Can you

not accuse her of treason and get her into the Bastille? Nothing less

will stop her tongue. Get rid of her so that I never see her again, and

I will make your Vauvenargues anything you wish.”

 

“Mon Dieu,” responded the Maréchal, “your Majesty drives a hard bargain;

if Madame la Duchesse was to hear you she would buy us both a potion

from the old witch in the Rue du Bac.”

 

Louis shivered.

 

“I consulted her yesterday,” he said, lowering his voice; “she was very

vague. I think Madame la Duchesse pays her to deceive me, for she said I

had better beware of the Marquise and the atheist who is her

friend—that is M. de Voltaire.”

 

The Duke took the now dry quill, redipped it in the ink, and presented

it to Louis.

 

“Sign, sire,” he said amiably, “and we will discuss La Chateauroux

afterwards.”

 

With an impatient exclamation the King scrawled his signature to the few

lines of writing in the Maréchal’s beautiful hand.

 

“That appoints M. de Vauvenargues secretary to the next embassy to

Spain,” remarked M. de Richelieu, “and is a clear affront to M. Amelot,

who has his nephew preparing for the post,” he added with malicious

levity as he rang the silver and sardonyx hand-bell on the desk.

 

An usher in white livery instantly appeared. M. de Richelieu gave him

the note, folded carelessly across.

 

“For the Minister of Foreign Affairs,” he said.

 

When they were alone again Louis sighed discontentedly.

 

“I shall be plagued out of my life,” he complained.

 

“No, sire,” replied M. de Richelieu. “I told M. Amelot yesterday to

write to this young man and command him to the Louvre to-day, and that

your Majesty intended giving him a post.”

 

“Impudent!” cried Louis. “You took all this upon yourself? Really,

Maréchal, you might as well be King of France.”

 

“I suppose,” replied the Duke, “I should fill the position as well as

your Majesty.”

 

“I suppose you would,” agreed the King indifferently.

“Meanwhile—suggest something to pass the time.”

 

The Maréchal mentioned several amusements, all of which the King

languidly rejected.

 

“Well, then, some business!” exclaimed M. de Richelieu. He snatched

up a blue portfolio with gold ribbons and opened it, scattering

the papers over the desk. “All these to be read, considered, and

signed—M. de Voltaire’s instructions on his secret embassy to

Berlin—the war—the question about the Chevalier St. George—the

Austrian affair—Canada—Flanders—”

 

“Mon Dieu!” cried Louis impatiently. “How many more?”

 

“A great many, sire.”

 

Louis cursed his Minister wearily, crossed to the desk, took up the pen,

and began signing the documents, one after another, as the Maréchal,

laughing, put them before him.

 

“I would never have employed this Voltaire,” he remarked with an air of

distaste, “but the Marquise says he is a great man.”

 

The volatile Duke was soon weary of handing out the papers; he hurried

them, signed and unsigned, back into the portfolio.

 

“It is time for the audience with the new envoy from Russia,” he said,

glancing at the pale pink marble clock.

 

Louis cast down his pen and moved away towards the window, from which he

could see the dusty gold prospect of Paris, and the tawny glitter of the

river, and the flutter of the trees in the palace garden and along the

quays.

 

“Maréchal,” he said reflectively, “I am much loved in Paris. Yesterday

when I drove out there was the very mob shouting. I think I shall go to

the war again,” he added—“to Flanders.”

 

“To please Paris, sire?” asked the Maréchal, who, now the King’s back

was turned, was skilfully abstracting from the portfolio some of the

papers which happened to be against the interest of certain friends of

his. “Certainly the people like nothing better than a hero.”

 

Louis laughed with a depth of bitterness that was surprisingly in

contrast to the almost stupid apathy of his usual demeanour.

 

“I was well trained to be a hero to please the French,” he said. He

turned and laid his white right hand, still strong for all its idle

slackness, on M. de Richelieu’s shoulder. “Come, Maréchal, let us attend

our audience.”

 

The Duke closed the portfolio with an air of nonchalance and rose; the

King’s hand slipped to his arm and rested there on the Duke’s black

sleeve that was stiff with coloured sequin embroidery.

 

The two—the King still leaning on the Maréchal’s arm left His Majesty’s

private apartments for the long galleries of the Louvre.

 

As M. de Richelieu was lifting the purple curtain from the entrance of

the