第73章

The laughter and applause with which this proposal was received took me by surprise; but later I learned that the two young women were rivals. "Yes, yes," the Queen said. "Go, mademoiselle, and see that she does not keep us waiting."Knowing what I did, I had by this time a fair idea of the discovery which Bassompierre had made; but the mass of courtiers and ladies round me, who had not this advantage, knew not what to expect--nor, especially, what part M. Bassompierre had in the business--but made most diverting suggestions, the majority favouring the opinion that Mademoiselle Paleotti had repulsed him, and that this was his way of avenging himself. A few of the ladies even taxed him with this, and tried, by random reproaches, to put him at least on his defence; but, merrily refusing to be inveigled, he made to all the same answer that when Mademoiselle Paleotti returned they would see. This served only to whet a curiosity already keen, insomuch that the door was watched by as many eyes as if a miracle had been promised; and even MM. Epernon and Vendome, leaving the King's side, pressed into the crowd that they might see the better. I took the opportunity of going to him, and, meeting his eyes as I did so, read in them a look of pain and distress. As I advanced he drew back a pace, and signed to me to stand before him.

I had scarcely done so when the door opened and Mademoiselle Paleotti, pale, and supported on one side by her rival, appeared at it; but so wondrously transformed by a wig, hat, and redingote that I scarcely knew her. At first, as she stood, looking with shamed eyes at the staring crowd, the impression made was simply one of bewilderment, so complete was the disguise. But Bassompierre did not long suffer her to stand so. Advancing to her side, his hat under his arm, he offered his hand.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "will you oblige me by walking as far as the end of the gallery with me?"She complied involuntarily, being almost unable to stand alone.

But the two had not proceeded half-way down the gallery before a low murmur began to be heard, that, growing quickly louder, culminated in an astonished cry of "Madame de Conde! Madame de Conde!"M. Bassompierre dropped her hand with a low bow, and turned to the Queen. "Madame," he said, "this, I find, is the lady whom Isaw on the Terrace when Madame Paleotti was so good as to invite me to walk on the Bois-le-Roi road. For the rest, your Majesty may draw your conclusions."It was easy to see that the Queen had already drawn them; but, for the moment, the unfortunate girl was saved from her wrath.

With a low cry, Mademoiselle Paleotti did that which she would have done a little before, had she been wise, and swooned on the floor.

I turned to look at the King, and found him gone. He had withdrawn unseen in the first confusion of the surprise; nor did I dare at once to interrupt him, or intrude on the strange mixture of regret and relief, wrath and longing, that probably possessed him in the silence of his closet. It was enough for me that the Italians' plot had failed, and that the danger of a rupture between the King and Queen, which these miscreants desired, and I had felt to be so great and imminent, was, for this time, overpast.

The Paleottis were punished, being sent home in disgrace, and a penury, which, doubtless, they felt more keenly. But, alas, the King could not banish with them all who hated him and France; nor could I, with every precaution, and by the unsparing use of all the faculties that, during a score of years, had been at the service of my master, preserve him for his country and the world.

Before two months had run he perished by a mean hand, leaving the world the poorer by the greatest and most illustrious sovereign that ever ruled a nation. And men who loved neither France nor him entered into his labours, whose end also I have seen.