CHAPTER VIII. The Two Fixed-Ideas will unite. "Countess de Lamotte, then, had penetrated into the confidence of the Queen? Those gilt-paper Autographs were actually written by the Queen?" Reader, forget not to repress that too insatiable scientific curiosity of thine! What I know is, that a certain Villette-de-Rétaux, with military whiskers, denizen of Rascaldom, comrade there of Monsieur le Comte, is skilful in imitating hands. Certain it is also, that Madame la Comtesse has penetrated to the Trianon - Doorkeeper's. Nay, as Campan herself must admit, she has met, at a Man-midwife's in Versailles,' with worthy Queen'svalet Lesclaux, - or Desclos, for there is no uniformity in it. With these, or the like of these, she in the back-parlour of the Palace itself (if late enough), may pick a merrythought, sip the foam from a glass of Champagne. No farther seek her honours to disclose, for the present; or anatomically dissect, as we said, those extraordinary chickenbowels, from which she, and she alone, can read Decrees of Fate, and also realise them. Sceptic, seest thou his Eminence waiting there, in the moonlight; hovering to and fro on the back terrace, till she come out from the ineffable Interview? 1 He is close muffled; walks restlessly observant; shy also, and courting the shade. She comes up closer with thy capote, O Eminence, down with thy broadbrim; for she has an escort! 'Tis but the good Monsieur Queen's-valet Lesclaux: and now he is sent back again, as no longer needful. Mark him, Monseigneur, nevertheless; thou wilt see him yet another time. Monseigneur marks little his heart is in the ineffable Interview, in the gilt-paper Autograph alone. - Queen'svalet Lesclaux? Methinks, he has much the stature of Villette, denizen of Rascaldom! Impossible! 1 See Georgel. How our Countess managed with Cagliostro? Cagliostro. gone from Strasburg, is as yet far distant, winging his way through dim Space; will not be here for months: only his 'predictions in cipher' are here. Here or there, however, Cagliostro, to our Countess, can be useful. At a glance, the eye of genius has descried him to be a bottomless slough of falsity, vanity, gulosity and thick-eyed stupidity: of foulest material, but of fattest ;- fit compost for the Plant she is rearing. Him who has deceived all Europe she can undertake to deceive. His Columbs, demonic Masonries, Egyptian Elixirs, what is all this to the light-giggling exclusively practical Lamotte? It runs off from her, as all speculation, good, bad and indifferent, has always done, 'like water from one in wax-cloth dress.' With the lips meanwhile she can honour it; Oil of Flattery, the best patent antifriction known, subdues all irregularities whatsoever. On Cagliostro, again, on his side, a certain uneasy feeling might, for moments, intrude itself; the raven loves not ravens. But what can he do? Nay, she is partly playing his game: can he not spill her full cup yet, at the right season, and pack her out of doors? Oftenest, in their joyous orgies, this light fascinating Countess, who perhaps has a design on his heart, seems to him but one other of those light Papiliones, who have fluttered round him in all climates; whom with grim muzzle he has snapt by the thousand. Thus, what with light fascinating Countess, what with Quack of Quacks, poor Eminence de Rohan lies safe; his mud-volcano placidly simmering in thick Egyptian haze: withdrawn from all the world. Moving figures, as of men, he sees; takes not the trouble to look at. Court-cousins rally him; are answered in silence; or, if it go too far, in mud-explosions terrifico-absurd. Court-cousins and all mankind are unreal shadows merely; Queen's favour the only substance. Nevertheless, the World, on its side too, has an existence; lies not idle in these days. It has got its Versailles Treaty signed, long months ago; and the plenipotentiaries all home again, for votes of thanks. Paris, London and other great Cities and small, are working, intriguing; dying, being born. There, in the Rue Taranne, for instance, the once noisy Denis Diderot has fallen silent enough. Here also, in Bolt Court, old Samuel Johnson, like an over-wearied Giant, must lie down, and slumber without dream; - the rattling of carriages and wains, and all the world's din and business rolling by, as ever, from of old. Sieur Boehmer, however, has not yet drowned himself in the Seine; only walks haggard, wasted, purposing to do it. News (by the merest accident in the world) reach Sieur Boehmer, of Madame's new favour with her Majesty! Men will do much before they drown. Sieur Boehmer's Necklace is on Madame's table, his guttural-nasal rhetoric in her ear: he will abate many a pound and penny of the first just price; he will give cheerfully a Thousand Louis-d'or, as cadeau, to the generous Scion-of-Royalty that shall persuade her Majesty. The man's importunities grow quite annoying to our Countess; who, in her glib way, satirically prattles how she has been bored, - to Monseigneur, among others. Dozing on down cushions, far inwards, with soft ministering Hebes, and luxurious appliances; with ranked Heyducs, and a Valetaille innumerable, that shut out the prose-world and its discord: thus lies Monseigneur, in enchanted dream. Can he, even in sleep, forget his tutelary Countess, and her service? By the delicatest presents he alleviates her distresses, most undeserved. Nay, once or twice, gilt Autographs, from a Queen, with whom he is evidently rising to unknown heights in favour, have done Monseigneur the honour to make him her Majesty's Grand Almoner, when the case was pressing. Monseigneur, we say, has had the honour to disburse charitable cash, on her Majesty's behalf, to this or the other distressed deserving object: say only to the - length of a few thousand pounds, advanced from his own funds; - her Majesty being at the moment so poor, and charity a thing that will not wait. Always Madame, good, foolish, gadding creature, takes charge of delivering the money.. Madame can descend from her attics, in the Belle Image; and feel the smiles of Nature and Fortune, a little ; so bounteous has the Queen's Majesty been.1 To Monseigneur the power of money over highest female hearts had never been incredible. Presents have, many times, worked wonders. But then, O Heavens, what present? Scarcely were the Cloud-Compeller himself, all coined into new Louis-d'or, worthy to alight in such a lap. Loans, charitable disbursements, however, as we see, are permissible; these, by defect of payment, may become presents. In the vortex of his Eminence's day-dreams, lumbering multiform slowly round, this of importunate Boehmer and his Necklace, from time to time, turns up. Is the Queen's Majesty at heart desirous of it; but again, at the moment, too poor? Our tutelary Countess answers vaguely, mysteriously ; - confesses, at last, under oath of secrecy, her own private suspicion that the Queen wants this same Necklace, of all things; but dare not, for a stingy husband, buy it. She, the Countess de Lamotte, will look farther into the matter; and, if aught serviceable to his Eminence can be suggested, in a good way suggest it, in the proper quarter. Walk warily, Countess de Lamotte; for now, with thickening breath, thou approachest the moment of moments! Principalities and Powers, Parlement, Grand Chambre and Tournelle, with all their whips and gibbet-wheels ; the very Crack of Doom hangs over thee, if thou trip. Forward, with nerve of iron, on shoes of felt; like a Treasure-digger, in silence, looking neither to the right nor left, where yawn abysses deep as the Pool, and all Pandemonium hovers, eager to rend thee into rags! 1 Georgel. Rohan's four Mémoires pour; Lamotte's four. VOL. IV. CHAPTER IX. Park of Versailles. Or will the reader incline rather, taking the other and sunny side of the matter, to enter that Lamottic Circean theatrical establishment of Monseigneur de Rohan; and sce there how, under the best of Dramaturgists, Melodrama with sweeping pall flits past him; while the enchanted Diamond fruit is gradually ripening, to fall by a shake? The 28th of July, of this same momentous 1784, has come; and with it the most rapturous tumult into the heart of Monseigneur. Ineffable expectancy stirs-up his whole soul, with the much that lies therein, from its lowest foundations: borne on wild seas to Armida Islands, yet as is fit, through Horror dim-hovering round, he tumultuously rocks. To the Château, to the Park! This night the Queen will meet thee, the Queen herself: so far has our tutelary Countess brought it. What can ministerial impediments, Polignac intrigues, avail against the favour, nay — Heaven and Earth! — perhaps the tenderness of a Queen? She vanishes from amid their meshwork of Etiquette and Cabal; descends from her celestial Zodiac, to thee a shepherd of Latmos. Alas, a whitebearded pursy shepherd, fat and scant of breath! Who can account for the taste of females? But thou, burnish-up thy whole faculties of gallantry, thy fifty-years experience of the sex; this night, or never! - In such unutterable meditations does Monseigneur restlessly spend the day; and long for darkness, yet dread it. Darkness has at length come. The perpendicular rows of Heydues, in that Palais or Hôtel de Strasbourg, are all cast prostrate in sleep; the very Concierge resupine, with open mouth, audibly drinks-in nepenthe; when Monseigneur, in blue great-coat, with slouched hat,' issues softly, with his henchman Planta of the Grisons, to the Park of Versailles. Planta must loiter invisible in the distance; Slouched hat |