“On that day Louis XIII would have given his crown away to the veriest beggar for a ‘God bless you.’ Animated, light-hearted, and full of gayety, the King rose from the table, and said to those around him, in a tone that Henry IV might have used, ‘Gentlemen, I am going to see my wife.’ He came to your bedside, Madame, at the very moment when Dame Peronne presented to him a second Prince, as beautiful and healthy as the former, and said, ‘Sire, Heaven will not allow the kingdom of France to fall into the female line.’ The King, yielding to a first impulse, clasped the child in his arms, and cried, ‘Oh, Heaven, I thank thee!'”
At this part of her recital the Beguine paused, observing how intensely the Queen was suffering. She had thrown herself back in her chair, and with her head bent forward and her eyes fixed, listened without seeming to hear, and her lips moved convulsively, breathing either a prayer to Heaven or imprecations against the woman before her.
“Ah! do not believe that if there has been but one Dauphin in France,” exclaimed the Beguine, “if the Queen allowed the second child to vegetate far from the throne,- do not believe that she was an unfeeling mother. Oh, no, no! There are those who know the floods of bitter tears she shed; there are those who have known and witnessed the passionate kisses she imprinted on that innocent creature in exchange for the life of misery and gloom to which State policy condemned the twin brother of Louis XIV.”
“Oh, Heaven!” murmured the Queen, feebly.
“It is known,” continued the Beguine, quickly, “that when the King perceived the effect which would result from the existence of two sons, both equal in age and pretensions, he trembled for the welfare of France, for the tranquillity of the State. It is known that the Cardinal de Richelieu, by the direction of Louis XIII, thought over the subject with deep attention, and after an hour’s meditation in his Majesty’s cabinet pronounced the following sentence: ‘A King is born, to succeed his Majesty. God has sent another, to succeed the first; but at present we need only the first-born. Let us conceal the second from France, as God has concealed him from his parents themselves. One Prince is peace and safety for the State; two competitors are civil war and anarchy.'”
The Queen rose suddenly from her seat, pale as death, her hands clinched together. “You know too much,” she said in a hoarse, thick voice, “since you refer to secrets of State. As for the friends from whom you have acquired this secret, they are false and treacherous. You are their accomplice in the crime which is now committed. Now, throw aside your mask, or I will have you arrested by my captain of the Guards. Do not think that this secret terrifies me! You have obtained it; you shall restore it to me. It will freeze in your bosom; neither your secret nor your life belongs to you from this moment.”
Anne of Austria, joining gesture to the threat, advanced two steps towards the Beguine. “Learn,” said the latter, “to know and value the fidelity, the honor, and the secrecy of the friends you have abandoned.” She then suddenly threw aside her mask.
“Madame de Chevreuse!” exclaimed the Queen.
“With your Majesty, the sole living confidante of the secret.”
“Ah,” murmured Anne of Austria, “come and embrace me, Duchess! Alas! you kill your friend in thus trifling with her terrible distress.”
The Queen, leaning her head upon the shoulder of the old duchess, burst into a flood of bitter tears. “How young you are still!” said the latter, in a hollow voice; “you can weep!”
Chapter V: Two Friends
THE Queen looked steadily at Madame de Chevreuse, and said: “I believe you just now made use of the word ‘happy’ in speaking of me. Hitherto, Duchess, I had thought it impossible that a human creature could anywhere be found less happy than the Queen of France.”
“Your afflictions, Madame, have indeed been terrible enough; but by the side of those illustrious misfortunes to which we, two old friends separated by men’s malice, were just now alluding, you possess sources of pleasure, slight enough in themselves it may be, but which are greatly envied by the world.”