Francezka Part 31

"But, sir," said Lisa, still calmly, "I was not miserable then. I was the happiest of G.o.d's creatures."

"Impossible!" cried the bishop, starting from his chair, as he had done the day before, in the interview with that other obstinate woman, Francezka Cheverny.

Lisa did not contradict the bishop, but the bishop saw that his denial of the fact had not really affected that fact.

"Do you mean to tell me," thundered the bishop, "that you were happy in the society of your partner in guilt?"

"Yes, sir."

The bishop dropped back in his chair. What problems were these parish affairs anyway! Here was a girl, persisting in saying she had been happy in guilt, when the bishop knew--or thought he knew--that all sinners were miserable!

"But at least you are not happy now?"

"No, sir."

"And why?"

"Because," replied poor Lisa, with the utmost simplicity, "I can never see Monsieur Jacques Haret again."

"You may go."

Lisa turned and walked rapidly away.

Soon after that I pa.s.sed through the village, and noticed the bishop's coach in front of the priest's modest house. The two brothers were coming out of the door. Father Benart was saying:

"There are many inexplicable things in a country parish, my brother.

It is not in my power to make Lisa Embden, or any other creature, feel happiness in the pursuit of good. If I can keep them a little out of the path of evil, it is all I can hope for."

"I am of the belief," cried the bishop, "that one self-willed and unruly woman like Peggy Kirkpatrick can put insubordination into the head of a young woman, like Francezka Cheverny--Francezka, in her turn, can implant it in her dependents. There seems to be a general lack of discipline among the women in your parish, brother."

"True," replied Father Benart, "and I take it that Madame Riano is to blame for Lisa Embden's lapse from virtue."

The bishop glared at his brother--Father Benart standing, smiling and blinking in the sun. The bishop then noticed me, but I was no restraint upon him, for he plunged into a long and severe discourse upon the evils Father Benart was bringing upon his parish by allowing the women in it to do pretty much as they pleased. Father Benart meekly excused himself by saying that he could not help it. The bishop, however, showed that he had not a bad heart, by leaving a dozen gold louis, which he directed should be spent on the poor of the parish--at the same time sternly commanding that not one penny should be spent on the chief of sinners, Lisa Embden. Father Benart accepted this dole with a twinkle in his eye and solemnly promised that Lisa should not have a penny of it.

But a few days more remained of our stay. It pa.s.sed quietly, in sweet and gentle converse, and with books and music. The change continued in Francezka after the bishop's visit. He was a man of little weight, and she had frankly treated him as such, but his belief that Gaston Cheverny was no more, which she had treated with scorn, had yet left its impress on her; perhaps because people of more sense than the bishop had been more guarded and tender with her. But when we bade her good by, she said to us:

"Remember, Count Saxe and Babache, if you are my friends, you will never forget to make inquiry of each and every person you meet, from whom it would be possible to hear of my husband. For myself, once, every day, shall I go to the spot in the Italian garden which overlooks the highroad, to watch for my heart's desire--and if he never returns--"

She paused and her eyes filled, and she quoted from some book she had lately been reading:

"Man is based on hope; he has, properly, no other possession but hope; this habitation of his is named the place of hope."

Her eyes, as she said this, grew dark with melancholy, but there was still an undying courage shining in them. Poor, poor Francezka!

CHAPTER XXVI

COME AND REJOICE

We went on to Brussels; but though my body was in Brussels, my soul was still at the chateau of Capello. I had not the slightest doubt in my own mind that Gaston Cheverny was dead, and the spectacle of this poor Francezka, with her pa.s.sionate faithfulness, unable to part with that lingering ghost of hope, was enough to touch any heart. It deeply touched Count Saxe's. He was the last man on earth to forget that through devotion to him Gaston Cheverny had been lost, and I believe he would have given his right arm could Gaston Cheverny have been found.

By the time we got to Brussels, the women in Paris had found out where Count Saxe was, and a bushel of love letters awaited him--which spoiled that place for us. We went as far as Dresden, and going to Strasburg, returned to Paris by that road, without pa.s.sing near Brabant. In fact, two whole years pa.s.sed without my seeing Francezka; and when I saw her--but no more--

Many things happened to Count Saxe in those years, the most important being the gift of the Castle of Chambord with an income to support it, and the promise of being made Marshal of France if he were successful in the war which was bound to break out soon, and actually did break out in 1741. This gift of Chambord was made in January of 1740. The king always had a fear that he might lose Count Saxe's services, for the Courland business haunted my master--that dream of a throne and a crown never quite left him. For that reason Louis XV determined to attach Count Saxe permanently to France; and this royal gift of Chambord, with its vast estates, its forests, fields and parks, made Count Saxe at once the ruler of a princ.i.p.ality.

There had been some hints of this, and Count Saxe had told me privately that he would not accept any gift from the king, unless coupled with the promise of the marshalship in the event of a successful campaign. I can say of my own knowledge that Count Saxe would rather be Marshal of France than to own Chambord, with Versailles and the Louvre thrown in as makeweights.

On that January day, when Count Saxe was sent for to Fontainebleau to receive this kingly present, I was with him. He was summoned to the king's closet by Marshal, the Duc de Noailles--the one who always called my master "My Saxe." As soon as Count Saxe disappeared, I was left in the anteroom with the mob of ladies and gentlemen; they flocked about me. They knew that a great honor for Count Saxe was impending, and by some strange logic, they persuaded themselves that they were ent.i.tled to share in it, and they looked upon me as a shoeing horn. I was "good Babache" to people I had never seen before.

My health, all at once, seemed to become of consequence to everybody at Fontainebleau; and the proverb that a beggar, on falling into a fortune, has neither relations nor friends, was speedily disproved. I found I had hosts of friends, and no doubt could have found some relations if I had tried. Courtiers are very childlike creatures after all. The continual frank pursuit of their own interests brings them back to the starting point of a savage, who does not see or know anything beyond to-day and its wants.

Among the waiting crowd was Monsieur Voltaire. I had seen him several times in the preceding two years. He always greeted me civilly--a tribute I think to the poor lost Adrienne, whom none who knew her could forget. On this day, however, Voltaire eyed me somewhat superciliously, and I protest I relished it by contrast with the smirks and bows and smiles and honeyed words lavished upon me by others in hopes of an invitation to Chambord.

My master remained with the king a full half hour. When he came out, he was accompanied, as when he went in, by the old marshal, Duc de Noailles. As soon as I saw Count Saxe's face, I knew that something more and better had befallen him than a life interest in a great estate. His eyes, the brightest and clearest in the world, sought me out, and by a look, he brought me to his side, the people making way readily enough--real princes cheerfully taking the wall for this Tatar prince born in the Marais! When I got quite close to my master, he whispered in my ear:

"Marshal of France, if successful!"

I felt myself grow hot with joy. Marshal of France! How much greater was that than a huge pile of stone like Chambord!

The Duc de Noailles was then giving out the news, and, turning to my master, the white-haired marshal embraced him as a brother in arms.

But I had been the first one told by my master.

The ladies and gentlemen all showed great joy and complaisance. They knew that Count Saxe was not the man to do things by halves, and that at Chambord the gay days of Francis the First and the _escadrons volants_ would be gloriously renewed. I watched Monsieur Voltaire, as with his wonderful and unforgettable eyes he gazed upon Count Saxe and probably reflected on the difference of the reward given a successful general and a great wit--for I am not denying that Monsieur Voltaire possessed a very considerable share of wit. He was among the last to congratulate my master, but he did it finally, winding up a fine compliment with this:

"And now, Monsieur, I presume you will be elected to the seat in the Academy. You shall have my vote. You can always spell victory--and what matters the rest?"

This was the meanest allusion possible to my master's never having time or inclination to devote to such common things as spelling. But Count Saxe came back at him thus:

"Oh, no, Monsieur Voltaire. I am not a candidate for a seat in the Academy. I am pledged to support a friend of mine for the vacancy."

All the people p.r.i.c.ked up their ears and Monsieur Voltaire was the most eager of them all.

"My candidate," said Count Saxe very impressively, "is Captain Babache"--here he whacked me on the shoulder--"a prince of the royal blood of Tatary, who can spell like any clerk, and write a better hand than any academician, living or dead, ever did."

Monsieur Voltaire was a picture. The people present shouted with laughter--Monsieur Voltaire never was very popular at court--and my master grinned, and I felt myself grow weak in the knees with all those laughing eyes fixed on me. It was said afterward, that some of the Academicians were sore over this joke of Count Saxe's. I had my turn at Monsieur Voltaire shortly after, for having occasion to write him a note in my master's name, I directed it in full to "Monsieur Francois Marie Voltaire, Member of the French Academy"--which he was not until some time afterward--"at the house of Madame du Chatelet, on the Isle of St. Louis, Paris." "Voltaire, Paris," would have taken any letter straight to him, but I chose to a.s.sume that very explicit directions were necessary to reach him, as if he were quite unknown, and difficult to find. It made him very angry, so I heard, and that was what I meant it for.

The whole of that winter and spring, I spent running to and fro between Paris and Chambord, for it is no easy thing to get in order such an establishment as Count Saxe set up, in that vast palace. There were four hundred rooms, and thirteen grand staircases, to say nothing of the smaller ones, and there was stabling for twelve hundred horses.

The king had given Count Saxe permission to increase his body-guard of Uhlans, in view of the war known to be coming, and all these men and horses had to be a.s.signed to their proper quarters, and provided for otherwise. The hunting establishment alone required the services of more than a hundred men; for there were wolves and wild boars to be hunted besides smaller game, in the forests of Chambord, and the plains of Salon. It is in this region that Thibaut of Champagne, so the peasants believe, follows his ghostly hunt. Often, at midnight, the winding of his horn echoes through the darkness of the forest, and the cry of his dogs from the nether world rings to the night sky--so say the peasants. I never saw or heard this supernatural hunt.

With the internal management of the castle I had nothing to do.

Beauvais was promoted to be _maitre d'hotel_, and a hard enough time he had, losing, in one year, a very good head of hair over it. The only authority I was made to a.s.sume was over the pages of honor. There were ten of these brats, all dressed in yellow silk breeches and waistcoats, and black velvet coats, and they gave me more trouble, grief and perplexity than my whole battalion of Uhlans. Will it be believed that these little rascals in yellow silk, of whom the eldest was barely fourteen, kept me perpetually in anxiety about fighting duels among themselves?

They would beg, borrow or steal rapiers, and sneaking away by night or in the early morning, would fight on the edge of the moat on a little embankment, from which they were extremely likely to tumble into the water, if they missed each other's swordpoints. I could not cure them of it, but whenever I caught them I cuffed them soundly. They made great outcry over this, being of the best blood of France. But when they ran with their tales to my master--particularly one little Boufflers, who was about to run me through--my master always told them that I was of the royal blood of Tatary; so it was rather an honor, than a disgrace, for me to lay hands on them.

Let it not be supposed that all these labors and perplexities put Francezka out of my mind for one hour. Nor had Count Saxe forgotten her. He caused me to write to her more than once, and delicately intimated a desire that she would honor Chambord at some time with her presence. I little thought when I wrote that letter that Francezka would be likely to see Chambord. But events were moving silently but swiftly, and when I least expected it--when Francezka's sad fate seemed fixed; when her life had apparently adjusted itself finally, a great, a stupendous change was at hand. It came suddenly but quietly, and the news of it met us at the last place and from the last person one might possibly expect. It was May, when being overtaken by sunset on the way to Paris, and the horses being tired, Count Saxe and myself stopped at a little roadside inn, just one stage from Paris. Count Saxe had not even a servant with him, thinking to spend only a few hours in Paris and then to return at once to Chambord.