Man in the Iron Mask by Dumas, Alexandre part two

Philippe opened his folding-doors, and several persons entered silently. Philippe did not stir while his valets de chambre dressed him. He had watched, the evening before, all the habits of his brother, and played the King in such a manner as to awaken no suspicion. He was then completely dressed in his hunting costume when he received his visitors. His own memory and the notes of Aramis announced everybody to him, first of all Anne of Austria, to whom Monsieur gave his hand, and then Madame with M. de Saint-Aignan. He smiled at seeing these countenances, but trembled on recognizing his mother. That figure so noble, so imposing, ravaged by pain, pleaded in his heart the cause of that famous Queen who had immolated a child to reasons of state. He found his mother still handsome. He knew that Louis XIV loved her; and he promised himself to love her likewise, and not to prove a cruel chastisement for her old age. He contemplated his brother with a tenderness easily to be understood. The latter had usurped nothing over him, had cast no shade over his life; a separate branch, he allowed the stem to rise without heeding its elevation or the majesty of its life. Philippe promised himself to be a kind brother to this Prince, who required nothing but gold to minister to his pleasures. He bowed with a friendly air to De Saint-Aignan, who was all reverences and smiles, and tremblingly held out his hand to Henrietta, his sister-in-law, whose beauty struck him; but he saw in her eyes an expression of coldness which would facilitate, as he thought, their future relations.

“How much more easy,” thought he, “it will be to be the brother of that woman than her gallant, if she evinces towards me a coldness that my brother could not have for her, and which is imposed upon me as a duty.” The only visit he dreaded at this moment was that of the Queen; his heart, his mind, had just been shaken by so violent a trial that in spite of their firm temperament they would not, perhaps, support another shock. Happily the Queen did not come.

Then began, on the part of Anne of Austria, a political dissertation upon the welcome M. Fouquet had given to the house of France. She mixed up hostilities with compliments addressed to the King, and questions as to his health with little maternal flatteries and diplomatic artifices. “Well, my son,” said she, “are you convinced with regard to M. Fouquet?”

“Saint-Aignan,” said Philippe, “have the goodness to go and inquire after the Queen.”

At these words, the first which Philippe had pronounced aloud, the slight difference that there was between his voice and that of the King was sensible to maternal ears, and Anne of Austria looked earnestly at her son. De Saint-Aignan left the room, and Philippe continued, “Madame, I do not like to hear M. Fouquet ill-spoken of,- you know I do not; and you have even spoken well of him yourself.”

“That is true; therefore I only question you on the state of your sentiments with respect to him.”

“Sire,” said Henrietta, “I, on my part, have always liked M. Fouquet. He is a man of good taste; he is a superior man.”

“A superintendent who is never sordid or niggardly,” added Monsieur, “and who pays in gold all the orders I have on him.”

“Every one in this thinks too much of himself, and nobody for the State,” said the old Queen. “M. Fouquet- it is a fact- M. Fouquet is ruining the State.”

“Well, Mother,” replied Philippe, in rather a lower key, “do you likewise constitute yourself the buckler of M. Colbert?”

“How is that?” replied the old Queen, rather surprised.

“Why, in truth,” replied Philippe, “you speak that just as your old friend Madame de Chevreuse would speak.”

At that name Anne of Austria turned pale and bit her lips. Philippe had irritated the lioness. “Why do you mention Madame de Chevreuse to me?” said she; “and what sort of humor are you in to-day towards me?”

Philippe continued: “Is not Madame de Chevreuse always in league against somebody? Has not Madame de Chevreuse been to pay you a visit, Mother?”

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