“What are they?” said Anne of Austria, bitterly. “How can you use the word ‘pleasure,’ Duchess,- you who just now admitted that my body and my mind both are in need of remedies?
Madame de Chevreuse collected herself for a moment, and then murmured, “How far removed Kings are from other people!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that they are so far removed from the vulgar herd that they forget that others ever stand in need of the bare necessaries of life. They are like the inhabitant of the African mountain who gazing from the verdant table-land, refreshed by the rills of melted snow, cannot comprehend that the dwellers in the plains below him are perishing from hunger and thirst in the midst of their lands burned up by the heat of the sun.”
The Queen slightly colored, for she now began to perceive the drift of her friend’s remark. “It was very wrong,” she said, “to have neglected you.”
“Oh, Madame, the King has inherited, it is said, the hatred his father bore me. The King would dismiss me if he knew I were in the Palais-Royal.”
“I cannot say that the King is very well disposed towards you, Duchess,” replied the Queen; “but I could- secretly, you know-” The duchess’s disdainful smile produced a feeling of uneasiness in the Queen’s mind. “Duchess,” she hastened to add, “you did perfectly right to come here.”
“Thanks, Madame.”
“Even were it only to give us the happiness of contradicting the report of your death.”
“Has it been said, then, that I was dead?”
“Everywhere.”
“And yet my children did not go into mourning.”
“Ah! you know, Duchess, the court is very frequently moving about from place to place; we see the gentlemen of Albert de Luynes but seldom, and many things escape our minds in the midst of the preoccupations which constantly engage us.”
“Your Majesty ought not to have believed the report of my death.”
“Why not? Alas! we are all mortal; and you may perceive how rapidly I- your younger sister, as we used formerly to say- am approaching the tomb.”
“If your Majesty had believed me dead, you ought to have been astonished not to have received any communication from me.”
“Death not unfrequently takes us by surprise, Duchess.”
“Oh, your Majesty, those who are burdened with secrets such as we have just now discussed have always an urgent desire to divulge them, which they must gratify before they die. Among the preparations for eternity is the task of putting one’s papers in order.” The Queen started. “Your Majesty will be sure to learn in a particular manner the day of my death.”
“Why so?”
“Because your Majesty will receive the next day, under several coverings, everything connected with our mysterious correspondence of former times.”
“Did you not burn it?” cried Anne, in alarm.
“Traitors only,” replied the duchess, “destroy a royal correspondence.”
“Traitors, do you say?”
“Yes, certainly; or rather they pretend to destroy, and keep or sell it. The faithful, on the contrary, most carefully secrete such treasures; for it may happen that some day or other they will wish to seek out their Queen in order to say to her: ‘Madame, I am getting old; my health is fast failing me. For me there is danger of death; for your Majesty, the danger that this secret may be revealed. Take, therefore, this dangerous paper, and burn it yourself.'”
“A dangerous paper? What one?”
“So far as I am concerned, I have but one, it is true; but that is indeed most dangerous in its nature.”
“Oh, Duchess, tell me, tell me!”
“A letter dated Tuesday, the 2d of August, 1644, in which you beg me to go to Noisy-le-Sec to see that unhappy child. In your own handwriting, Madame, there are those words, ‘that unhappy child!'”
A profound silence ensued. The Queen’s mind was wandering in the past; Madame de Chevreuse was watching the progress of her scheme. “Yes unhappy, most unhappy!” murmured Anne of Austria; “how sad the existence he led, poor child, to finish it in so cruel a manner!”
“Is he dead?” cried the duchess, suddenly, with a curiosity whose sincere accents the Queen instinctively detected.