University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.

Macbeth.

The superb staircases of the Palais Royal were
thronged with guards and pensioners, pages and
gentlemen in waiting, all in their gala-dresses; in
the open space on the first landing was stationed
the noble instrumental band of the royal household,
making the long corridors and vaulted roofs
to ring alternately with sweet or martial symphonies.
The youthful monarch—or, to speak more
properly, the queen-regent, and her powerful minister,
triumphant in his brief success—was holding
his first court since their return from St. Germains.
It was accordingly a day of universal mirth and
gayety. All parties were received with equal affability;

and the dukes of Elbœuf and Beaufort,
and the prime mover of the Fronde himself, the
factious coadjutor, might be seen conversing amicably,
and exchanging jeux des mots, with Grammont
and De Meilleraye, or making their appropriate
homage to the king, not against, but for
whom they had so lately drawn the sword, to put
down, in the parlance of the day, his ill-advisers.

Many a kind look was cast towards me, many a
friendly pressure interchanged, as I threaded the
galleries, rich with their antique sculptures and
priceless works of art: but my brain reeled, a mist
seemed to have curtained my eyes, I saw things as
in a dream, darkly—the features of the men who
spoke to me, familiar as they were, appeared to flit
to and fro, and to run together like the phantasms
of some horrid vision—nay, my own words sounded
strange and meaningless; though I was afterward
informed that the confusion existed in my own ideas,
rather than in the language to which they gave
birth.

My noble conductor was, however, more quick-sighted
than the rest; for, as we paused upon the
threshold of the audience-chamber, to exchange
salutations with my tried friend De Charmi—who,
splendidly appointed, and in command of a choice
detachment, occupied that important post as guard

of honour—he shook me by the shoulder, and whispered
gayly,—

“Awake yourself, mon cher! awake yourself, or
they will deem that I have brought with me a night-owl
from the terrible Bastile, rather than that brave
falcon which soared so high a flight to stoop upon
the vulture of Lorraine! Awake yourself, for the
love of God!—here will you see some well-known
faces, whether of friend or foe! But never heed;
they are, I wot, too closely packed to stay long
unfermented! Tête Dieu! but we shall have a
brighter blaze ere long—ay, and a more destructive
—than this game of war, at which our worthy citizens
have played so long, only to weary of it in the
end! Answer not now! but rouse thyself—we
are in the presence!”

As he uttered the last words we entered the audience
chamber. Nobly it was fitted, doubtless, and
becomingly of the brave and great whom it contained;
but my thoughts were too much occupied
with the living inmates to descend to details how
magnificent soever. On an elevated dais, beneath a
royal canopy, stood the boy-king, attired as a monarch
should be seen; and already skilled to assume
the high and proud, yet at the same time courteous,
bearing that best beseemed his rank. On his right-hand
stood Anne of Austria—fair and majestic, a fit

mother for a king; and on his left the supple and
accommodating, yet politic and wily, Mazarin, now
at the very summit of his glory.

It were long to enumerate the mighty men and
lovely women who thronged, in stately yet animated
groups, those wide apartments. Maréchals
of France, with scarf and bâton of command—
priests in cowl and scapulary—officers blazing
in embroidery and gold—and ladies with flashing
gems, and trains of a thousand dies; which,
gorgeous as they were, no human eye could e'er
have paused to note, while fascinated by the forms,
the features, and the grace of those bright wearers,
who will be the boast of centuries, for all that is
most lovely, most intellectual, most witty, and
most wicked of their sex.

Grammont was there, and Longueville the talented,
and Montbazon, the belle des belles! Coligni,
worthy descendant of the murdered admiral, and
the wild, accomplished Count de Grammont; Meilleraye,
who won his staff so gloriously upon the
breaches of Hedin, and who deserved to lose it for
his mad impetuosity in the civil tumults of the
Fronde. Mingled with these were men founding
their claims more justly on their benefits conferred
upon mankind, than on the slaughters of their
sword—Balzac, who was the first to lend the polish

and the roundness of the Italian period to the
rougher and more epigrammatic tongue of France.
The wise young Bossuet was there—a miracle
already for the talents which will assuredly gain
him a name in later ages; when the most boasted
of us, peers of the sword, shall be forgotten—engaged
in a warm and close flirtation with the beautiful
Mademoiselle Desvieux, who, in after-days,
nobly sacrificed her own happiness, freeing her
lover from the claims she held on him, lest a wife
should be a clog upon his soaring yet pure ambition.
Calprenede and Corneille too were there, although
the latter had not then attained to that admiration
of men which he has reached in my latter
days; while the former, with many others, who are
already almost numbered with the forgotten, were
in the very high-day of their glory. Others were
there, in numbers that would wellnigh have baffled
the eye of the enumerator—valiant, and beautiful,
and wise—but, as Condé hurried me forward, I
scarcely marked the features even of those whom I
knew, and whom I now have barely mentioned.
One face, however, I did behold—one form! It was
that of Charles the Second!—Charles, the fugitive
of England!—clad in the deepest sables for his
murdered sire, who, scarce two months before, had
expiated on the block his follies rather than his
faults—yet, with difficulty composing his dark and
saturnine visage to the gravity of decorum, or his
conduct to the due restraint of a court which never
at least violated the laws of decency, however it
might in private scoff at strict morality. When
first he caught my eye, he was lolling negligently
over the back of a crimson sofa in the antechamber,
with his arm in remarkable proximity to
the waist of a very beautiful girl—no other than
Louise de Querouaille—better known afterward,
when his acknowledged mistress, by her English
title, as Duchess of Portsmouth. Not far from
these young lovers stood Wilmot Earl of Rochester;
his light hair and blooming complexion
strangely contrasting with the dark elf-locks and
swarthy skin of his comrade, rather than his king.
As I gazed on them a sigh rose to my lips; for I
thought of red Marston, and of the deluges of English
gore already poured forth like water on the
desolated valleys of my native land—desolated that
such a thing as this should be their ruler.

Even in the instant during which I paused, another
figure glided by—well known in happier days,
and in more familiar, if not brighter, courts; it was
the widow of THE KING—the still fair and ever-virtuous
Henrietta! Called forth from the seclusion
of her sorrows—to pay the necessary homage

to her sister queen, and sole protectress—she
looked as one travelling to that portal through
which there is no returning, rather than as a sharer
in the gay festivity of kings. Yet were her weeds
less deep, her mourning robes less ostentatious in
their sadness, than the garb of her profligate and
heartless child; for her sadness was that deep, incessant
burning of the soul which finds no vent
even in tears or groans, much less in the vain
usage of sable trains, or veils of widow-lawn.
As she glided onward, followed by a single lady,
her eye just glanced on the group I have described,
and fell mournfully to the ground; it rose again,
flashing, as it were, with glorious indignation. She
raised her hand aloft, and paused while I might have
reckoned ten—her lips moved, and though no sound
came from them that could have been heard three
paces distant, I caught the words, “Peace, peace!
where art thou?—where but in the grave?” She
collected herself, as if conscious that by noticing
she should only render more public the scandal, and
moved onward; but ere she had crossed the
threshold, I heard the light laugh of the abandoned
girl, and the yet more shameless satellite.

“Odds-fish!” cried Charles; “does our lady
mother think that men must weep for ever?—'Fore
God, Wilmot, we will strike the Roundhead dogs

the keener, that we can laugh betimes! What say
you, Beautiful?—a thousand tears would be bought
cheaply by a single smile of yours! A man should
never sorrow while he may drink and love! But
come, this etiquette wears tediously—let us away.
Where tarries Fitzharding, and where Astley?
We'll to my lodging in the fauxbourg; and so, hey
for lansquenet or ombre, and a glass of old auxerre!”
and, with another burst of laughter, that
must have pierced like daggers to the heart of the
retreating mother, the exile, with his minion and
his paramour, swept onward, amid the ill-disguised
contempt, and bitter, if secret, sneers of the French
noblesse; with whom, if virtue herself were dead,
so much at least of honour was paid to her ashes
that they preserved her semblance in their own
demeanour, and bowed to her reality in others.

“Bad enough, in good truth,” whispered Condé;
“yet wear not thou, for other men's failings, such a
guise of virtuous indignation! I laugh at such
things, while I loathe them—”

“But you,” I interrupted him—“you never bled
for them! You never lost broad lands, or name,
or country! You never saw your father slain on
his own hearth-stone—your mother wasting away
piecemeal, and dying of a broken heart!—This

have you never done for them—or you, like me,
would CURSE—”

“Not I, by all that's beautiful!” he interrupted
me in turn; “not, at least, with a queen waiting to
beg my acceptance of my own spear-won bride,
as old Homer would have worded it! Come, man,
you must amend your manners, or we will have
you back to the Bastile!”

The prince's words did at length arouse me; for,
strange as it may seem, in the whirl of my singularly
mixed sensations, I had forgotten time, place,
every thing! My feelings had been so long
dammed up and frozen, as it were, and so suddenly
let loose, that they discharged themselves by the
first channel; reckless as the waters of some over-charged
and bursting lake—reckless whether they
rolled down their natural channel, or rushed with
devastation and dismay over the cultivated champaign.
The scales now fell at once from the eyes
of my spirit: I did, indeed, behold my own Isabel,
smiling as when first I saw, to love her; smiling
like an April morning, as then, through tears—
but, not as then, through tears of joy! Natural,
however, as it would have been to rush to her side,
neglectful of all else, I knew too well that such a
proceeding would undo all that, with so much of

toil, of bloodshed, and of sorrow, had been at
length accomplished.

“I bring to your highness's footstool,” said Condé,
as I dropped on my knee before the majestic Anne—
“I bring to your highness's footstool a truant soldier,
who hath succeeded in delivering his body, but
hath forgotten to deliver his wits, from the iron
cage of old Balue, in your most loyal fortress the
Bastile!”

“Of Monsieur Mornington's sufferings,” she answered,
a brilliant smile of condescension lighting
up her fair, but usually inanimate, features, as she
spoke, “no less than of his exploits, in our own
behalf, we are aware. We have regretted, and
would have interposed to prevent them, had even-handed
justice permitted us to do so, or could the
honour of our officer have been appeased, under
such shameful charges, save by an open examination,
and as open an acquittal. This, Louis,” she
continued, turning to the princely boy—“this is a
servant who hath approved himself brave, faithful,
honourable, and heart-upright, under circumstances
such as try the heart. Cherish him, boy, cherish
him! for, served by men like this, you shall be
served indeed!”

“It needs not your introduction, lady mother
mine,” replied the youth, with no inapt assumption

of dignity, “to make a king, young though he be
as I, acquainted with an officer so faithful and distinguished
as the saviour of our army at Cambrai,
and the conqueror of our foes at Valenciennes.
We trust, ere long, to be of age ourself to hear
the whistle of a bullet, and we trust that then we
shall find Monsieur de Mornington near to our
person, as he now is near to our judgment. Our
excellent cardinal here will speak with you further.
Till then, sir, accept a youthful monarch's
thanks.”

“Having heard the high and, I will add, not unmerited
praises,” continued Mazarin, after a brief
pause, “which it has pleased their majesties to
shower on you, it would befit me ill were I, their
humble minister, now to gainsay them. Nor do I,
in truth, feel so inclined. Well you have done in
some respects—excellent well! But ask your
heart, sir, ask your own heart, if you have well
done in all! On your first mission, secrecy were
your orders, and despatch. I will not say that you
did violate them; but, if you fell not, you tottered
on the verge! We rejoice that you have escaped;
we rejoice that it is our province to reward, and
not to PUNISH!” and he spoke with a snarling
energy, that showed how fierce would be the enmity
of that mild-seeming easy man, if once it

should be fairly roused. “I say not this, sir, to
wound your feelings, much less to do you aught of
disgrace—far from it; but that hereafter you may
remember this:—That if to postpone a monarch's
business to your own be treason, merely to mingle
them is felony! But on this will we dwell no further.
It is her highness's bidding, and my own
great pleasure, that I extend this bâton—conditionally
promised to the Comte D'Harcourt—to a
better soldier, and a more worthy man, in Major-general
Mornington; and with it the rank of maréchal
of France!”

“With thanks,” I answered—“with thanks, the
more profound that I confess the honour most unmerited,
I submit myself wholly to your and to
her highness's pleasure. Would I could here close
my speech; but, praying you to pardon my seeming
boldness and discourtesy, I am compelled to
add, that the promise I made to Monsieur D'Harcourt,
on your Eminence's bidding, was conditional
—but the condition has been fulfilled. The army
of Turenne is yours. Further, unworthy as I
am, and humble, I am yet too proud to rise upon
a brave man's ruin—even though he be my enemy
—or to rob a soldier of a soldier's meed!”

“Do you cast back our bounty?” cried the cardinal,

his pale cheek flushing, as it seemed, with
anger; “but this, methinks, is—”

“Most like the man who spoke it!” interrupted
Anne, before he could commit himself against me,
“and most worthy of the noblest! From me,
sir,” she continued, receiving from the hand of
Mazarin the truncheon of command, who, by yielding
at once what he felt to be a trifle, secured the
greater power for a greater crisis—“from me, sir,
receive the honour, of which none can be more
deserving; and rest, in your nobleness of soul, assured,
D'Harcourt shall be no loser. Further than
this, that you may not lack the means to support
your standing, it has pleased his majesty to grant
you letters-patent, securing to you the lands, the appanages,
and the title made vacant by the death of
the late, and the forfeiture of the present, Duke de
Penthiêvre; who, in mitigation of the penalties of
his treason, will sail right shortly for our colonies
of Acadie. And now, maréchal, I remember me,
when last we spoke together, I bade you hold right
onward in the narrow path; so should you be one
whom men would delight to honour, kings to hold
near them, as the brightest decoration of their
thrones, and—last not least—women to LOVE! I
deemed not then, indeed, that my prophecy would
be so soon fulfilled; but here is one who, even

HERE, will not, methinks, be backward to confess
its truth. All else that I have given to you is
nothing—is the dust beneath your feet—compared
with this inestimable prize—the whole and holy
love of a pure and virtuous woman!”

She concluded her address; which, had it been
fraught with all the eloquence of a greater than Demosthenes,
could not so have thrilled to my heart
as now—for, as she concluded, she placed in mine
the hand of Isabel.

“She is your own,” cried the noble Condé;
“and I will only add, that if she be but served as
devotedly as she hath been won gallantly, she well
may look for happiness!”

I gazed into her eyes—dovelike and radiant
through their tears—I saw the flush of warm carnation
that overspread brow, neck, and bosom—I
felt the agitation that shook her slight and lovely
frame; I felt it in the tremour of her small white
hand—and I forbore, by word or look, to add one
throb to her confusion. But, as I held that hand
aloft—“If giving happiness,” I cried, my heart
filled almost to suffocation, and my eyes suffused—
“if giving happiness to man be a deed acceptable
in the sight of God, then shall your majesty's declining
years be as serene and peaceful as their
noontide has been bright and glorious! And for

this youthful king—to whom my life, and more than
life, are mortgaged, to be held or lavished at his
bidding—for this youthful king—brilliant as is the
morning of his promise—even I can wish no greater
bliss than he has now bestowed on me: for if re-nown,
acquired in arms; power, granted by the
best and purest; true faith in friendship; success
and constancy in love—if these be not the happiness
of heaven, they come at least so near to it
that earth has naught which may compare with
them!”