The King's Card-table.
Fouquet was present, as D'Artagnan had said, at the king's card-table.It seemed as if Buckingham's departure had shed a balm on the lacerated hearts of the previous evening.
Monsieur, radiant with delight, made a thousand affectionate signs to his mother.The Count de Guiche could not separate himself from Buckingham and while playing, conversed with him upon the circumstance of his projected voyage.
Buckingham, thoughtful, and kind in his manner, like a man who has adopted a resolution, listened to the count, and from time to time cast a look full of regret and hopeless affection at Madame.The princess, in the midst of her elation of spirits, divided her attention between the king, who was playing with her, Monsieur, who quietly joked her about her enormous winnings, and De Guiche, who exhibited an extravagant delight.Of Buckingham she took but little notice; for her, this fugitive, this exile, was now simply a remembrance, no longer a man.Light hearts are thus constituted; while they themselves continue untouched, they roughly break off with every one who may possibly interfere with their little calculations of selfish comfort.Madame had received Buckingham's smiles and attentions and sighs while he was present; but what was the good of sighing, smiling and kneeling at a distance? Can one tell in what direction the winds in the Channel, which toss mighty vessels to and fro, carry such sighs as these.The duke could not fail to mark this change, and his heart was cruelly hurt.Of a sensitive character, proud and susceptible of deep attachment, he cursed the day on which such a passion had entered his heart.The looks he cast, from time to time at Madame, became colder by degrees at the chilling complexion of his thoughts.He could hardly yet despair, but he was strong enough to impose silence upon the tumultuous outcries of his heart.In exact proportion, however, as Madame suspected this change of feeling, she redoubled her activity to regain the ray of light she was about to lose; her timid and indecisive mind was displayed in brilliant flashes of wit and humor.At any cost she felt that she must be remarked above everything and every one, even above the king himself.And she was so, for the queens, notwithstanding their dignity, and the king, despite the respect which etiquette required, were all eclipsed by her.
The queens, stately and ceremonious, were softened and could not restrain their laughter.Madame Henrietta, the queen-mother, was dazzled by the brilliancy which cast distinction upon her family, thanks to the wit of the grand-daughter of Henry IV.The king, jealous, as a young man and as a monarch, of the superiority of those who surrounded him, could not resist admitting himself vanquished by a petulance so thoroughly French in its nature, whose energy was more than ever increased by English humor.Like a child, he was captivated by her radiant beauty, which her wit made still more dazzling.Madame's eyes flashed like lightning.Wit and humor escaped from her scarlet lips, like persuasion from the lips of Nestor of old.The whole court, subdued by her enchanting grace, noticed for the first time that laughter could be indulged in before the greatest monarch in the world, like people who merited their appellation of the wittiest and most polished people in Europe.
Madame, from that evening, achieved and enjoyed a success capable of bewildering all not born to those altitudes termed thrones; which, in spite of their elevation, are sheltered from such giddiness.From that very moment Louis XIV.acknowledged Madame as a person to be recognized.
Buckingham regarded her as a coquette deserving the cruelest tortures, and De Guiche looked upon her as a divinity; the courtiers as a star whose light might some day become the focus of all favor and power.And yet Louis XIV., a few years previously, had not even condescended to offer his hand to that "ugly girl" for a ballet; and Buckingham had worshipped this coquette "on both knees." De Guiche had once looked upon this divinity as a mere woman; and the courtiers had not dared to extol this star in her upward progress, fearful to disgust the monarch whom such a dull star had formerly displeased.
Let us see what was taking place during this memorable evening at the king's card-table.The young queen, although Spanish by birth, and the niece of Anne of Austria, loved the king, and could not conceal her affection.Anne of Austria, a keen observer, like all women, and imperious, like every queen, was sensible of Madame's power, and acquiesced in it immediately, a circumstance which induced the young queen to raise the siege and retire to her apartments.The king hardly paid any attention to her departure, notwithstanding the pretended symptoms of indisposition by which it was accompanied.Encouraged by the rules of etiquette, which he had begun to introduce at the court as an element of every relation of life, Louis XIV.
did not disturb himself; he offered his hand to Madame without looking at Monsieur his brother, and led the young princess to the door of her apartments.It was remarked that at the threshold of the door, his majesty, freed from every restraint, or not equal to the situation, sighed very deeply.The ladies present -- for nothing escapes a woman's glance -- Mademoiselle Montalais, for instance -- did not fail to say to each other, "the king sighed," and "Madame sighed too." This had been indeed the case.Madame had sighed very noiselessly, but with an accompaniment very far more dangerous for the king's repose.Madame had sighed, first closing her beautiful black eyes, next opening them, and then, laden, as they were, with an indescribable mournfulness of expression, she had raised them towards the king, whose face at that moment visibly heightened in color.