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

laurels to Louis, who wore them

gracefully, and pleased France, it seemed. For France endured the

Marquise de Pompadour and certain creatures of hers, such as the

brothers Paris, Devernay, and others who flourished and fattened, and

used the country like a pot of gold, into which they could dip their

fists and enrich themselves, under the cynical approval of the

melancholy King.

 

Luc saw France differently from this poor quarter. Paris had seemed

another city viewed from the Rue du Bac. The war had been different, too,

viewed in the light of the gala lamps of Versailles, or by the camp

fires of Bohemia.

 

There was no glory to gild these humble lives, no hope, no lure to lead

them on. Luc watched, and was troubled. Could France flower from such a

soil? Would the light of the coming age of freedom ever overcome the

dark windings of the religion of Pompadour and peasant, ever dissipate

the errors taught by the ignorant to the ignorant, by dirty priests to

sullen minds?

 

Luc watched the sky at evening. That was as pure, as remote, as golden

above the stale odours of the crooked streets as above the unouched

fields of Provence. And he dared to hope that the golden age was coming.

 

For himself, he did not wince from the ignoble melancholy of his

surroundings. His poverty did not trouble him, nor had he once regretted

the impulse that had driven him from home. He was living on about five

francs a day. His money, that had come from the sale of what was left of

his personal property after the expenses of the war, would, at this

rate, last him three years, and he did not think to live so long.

Indeed, his weakness increased so on him, his attacks of illness were so

frequent and severe, that he often thought it might be weeks only before

the end.

 

Sometimes he would lie all day alone on his poor bed, gazing up at the

strip of sky, unable to move or sleep, smiling at the sunshine which,

towards evening (the hour he loved the most), would dazzle over his bare

boards like the skirts of Glory herself.

 

When his strength was with him, he wrote. Many of his papers were with

his brother Joseph, who had once shown a furtive interest in them. Luc

sent a noble letter asking for them, but received no reply. He smiled,

thinking of the furious Joseph casting the manuscripts into the fire.

 

Such as he had in his own possession, and those his solitary meditations

had produced, he collected, and sent to one of the great booksellers.

 

The work was taken. For the sake of those who had disowned him, Luc made

the last sacrifice, and the modest little volume appeared without any

name on the title-page.

 

It made no success whatever, fell dead from its birth, and was

forgotten. No one made any remark upon it, for no one read it.

 

“They would say I was a complete failure,” smiled Luc.

 

He sent a copy of his book to M. de Voltaire, with some timidity, for

the great man was now historiographer to the Court and deep in politics,

being the acknowledged protégé of the Marquise; and then, with the slow,

painful effort of his infirmities, he commenced to write another. He had

so elevated himself that he was not even disappointed by the failure of

the book that contained the inmost convictions of his soul. He saw now

that glory was not only reached by the road of success.

 

Six months after he had come to Paris, and a few days after he had sent

his book to Voltaire, one fair, clear afternoon in October, he sat at his

window, overlooking Paris. It seemed to him that he overlooked the

future too; that this window of his poor room was the outlook of some

watch-tower, from which he could see the doings of posterity unfold into

the distance.

 

Wars and ministries, kings and soldiers, shrank to the size of

puppet-shows viewed on the fringe of the changing future. Soon,

everything that agitated the world now would be a mere name. Soon

again—not even that—fresh creeds, fresh codes, would replace the old;

and through all the changing dynasties of thought that would reign,

nothing would count but the memory of the few men who had risen above

their age, and handed from one generation to another the pure lamp of

the truth as it had been revealed to them; of virtue, as it had been

permitted to them to practise; of heroism, as they had been able to

accomplish it.

 

It was easier on the battle-field or in the Cabinet, but it was possible

in a garret. It was easier with a body vigorous and healthy; it was

possible with a body broken and dying. It was easier when surrounded by

encouragement, attention, acclaim; but it was possible, alone and

unnoticed, to win a place in that galaxy of glory that lights eternity.

 

Luc had on his window-sill an evergreen plant with gold leaves, straight

and tall in shape, like the silver fir of Bohemia, or the poplars of the

Rue Deauville.

 

He opened the window now, and moved the pot, and admired the glint of

the sun on the glossy leaves. The sight of this little plant, so strong,

so silent, gave him an extraordinary sensation—it was so noble in its

intense life, and yet so helpless. Luc sometimes felt abashed before the

gold foliage rising out of the common pot on the dirty sill.

 

He thought now that the soil felt dry, and turned to get water. In that

moment the door opened and a man stepped into the room.

 

“Who are you, Monsieur?” asked Luc pleasantly. The other swept off his

hat.

 

“Do you not know me, Monsieur le Marquis?”

 

Luc strained his eyes.

 

“Come a little nearer. Ah!”—as the other obeyed—“Monsieur de

Richelieu!”

 

“Yes.”

 

The Duke glanced round the plaster walls, the raftered ceiling, the

shabby furniture. Then his bold dark eyes rested on the meagre figure of

Luc, clothed in garments still too good for his surroundings, and he

flushed, and a shade came over his broad low brow.

 

“Do you live here?” he asked.

 

“Yes, Maréchal.”

 

Luc indicated a chair, and M. de Richelieu seated himself. The splendour

of his velvets, laces, brilliants, and all his extravagant appointments,

looked strange enough in this room. His charming face was red between

the flowing curls, and he gazed at Luc with an expression of amazement.

 

“Yesterday,” he said, “M. de Voltaire brought your book to the Hôtel

d’Antin, and I was reading it last night. Good God—a man of your

quality! I wish you could have accepted the Spanish appointment.”

 

Luc seated himself on the low chair by the hearth, on which a few sticks

were burning.

 

“I wished so also,” he said quietly. “But you see for yourself,

Monseigneur, that my health would not permit.”

 

The Maréchal seemed unable to find words.

 

Luc leant forward and narrowed his weak eyes.

 

“Have you come to offer me patronage, Monsieur?” he asked.

 

The Duke answered with a noble air—

 

“It would not be possible for anyone to offer M. de Vauvenargues

patronage. I heard from M. de Voltaire that you were here, and I came to

be instructed in philosophy.”

 

“A Maréchal de France comes to be instructed in philosophy in a garret!”

smiled Luc; “and from one with whom he discovered long since that he had

nothing in common!”

 

The Duke looked down at his open hand, that he lightly struck with his

gauntlet, which was heavily embroidered with wreaths of roses, of gold

ribbon, and of violets.

 

“We have something in common,” he said—“Madame la Comtesse Koklinska.”

 

Luc rose and leant against the mean mantelshelf.

 

“Yes, we have that memory in common,” he answered calmly.

 

“When did you see her last?” asked the Duke.

 

“She is dead,” said Luc, looking at him.

 

M. de Richelieu glanced up swiftly. There was a curious sense of

stillness in the room. When the Duke spoke, his tone was also low.

 

“When did she die?”

 

“In a convent in Aix—nearly a year ago. So you did not know?”

 

“But I might have guessed that no other reason would have prevented her

from coming back.”

 

“If she had lived, M. de Maréchal, she would never have come back. She

died in the habit of a novice.”

 

“Ah—well, after all, that is what they all do. Did she speak of me?”

 

“She said, Monsieur, you had done—what they all do.”

 

M. de Richelieu laughed softly.

 

“She was a clever woman. I never knew her deceived. She was, in her way,

quite marvellous. But I did not come to speak of her.”

 

“No, Monsieur, but to look on a curiosity, I suppose?”

 

M. de Richelieu rose to his feet with a shimmer of his violet watered

silks, and said a curious thing.

 

“Are you—with the world forgone—happy?” he asked.

 

Luc looked over the housetops at the setting sun that glittered over the

roofs of the Isle of St. Louis.

 

“Yes,” he answered. He coughed, put his hand to the plain linen ruffles

on his bosom, and sat down again in the worn chair.

 

“And yet you have lost everything!” exclaimed the Maréchal.

 

“I keep my soul,” smiled Luc; and his pallid, disfigured face glowed for

a second into its old likeness.

 

“I have my soul,” said the Maréchal, “and all the world besides. What

have you that I have not?”

 

“Nothing, maybe,” replied Luc gravely.

 

“Ah,” insisted the Court favourite, “you have the power to come and

live—like this.” His superb gesture was as if he indicated a kennel.

“You have the power to sacrifice things that must be sweet to you. What

inspires you?”

 

“The love of glory, Monsieur,” smiled Luc. “Call it that. But what is

the use of words? My life marches to a different music from yours.”

 

“Do you despise me?” asked the Maréchal quickly, eagerly.

 

Luc considered a moment before he lifted his head and answered quietly

 

“I think I do.”

 

“So M. de Voltaire says sometimes; but he is not a man of quality. I

thought you despised me when we first met. Why?”

 

“You had such great opportunities,” answered Luc.

 

“I have made great use of them. There is no one more powerful in France,

except La Pompadour.”

 

“That is a proud boast,” said the Marquis. “I recommend it for your

epitaph, Monsieur le Maréchal.”

 

The Duke put his hand swiftly to the gold lace on his bosom.

 

“You hold me in contempt,” he said, with a fine smile, “but I can feel

no scorn for you. How do you do it?”

 

Luc lifted his head.

 

“Are you so discontented with your own life that you must come prying

into mine?” he said evenly. “You have what you wanted. Be satisfied, as I

am.”

 

M. de Richelieu’s face paled with a sudden passion.

 

“There is nothing can satisfy me! I begin to find the world very

stale, so much of it is foolish. But you seem to have found something

new. Tell me, for I no longer see anything gilded in all the world.

There is a tarnish over the gold pieces, and over the women’s hair—and

both were bright enough to me once.”

 

Luc leant forward, and with a bent poker stirred the fire into a sparkle

of embers.

 

“I fear, Monsieur le Maréchal,” he said, “that you