Near the King, yet still at some distance from him, were many members of his family and Court, including the Queen, who sat before a second fire farther down the room in the riding-dress in which she had that day accompanied her husband to a wild stag hunt in the forest. A little distance off, chattering1, laughing--in discreetly2 subdued3 tones--were women who bore, or were yet to bear, names that the world will never forget. One there was, who, although already a recipient4 of the favours of Le Roi Soleil if not as yet of his love, sat plainly dressed and with her eyes demurely5 cast down, near to Madame de Montespan--maitresse en titre--and only raised those eyes at some sallies from the children of the latter who played around her knees. After which she would let them steal swiftly towards the face of the ruler of France's destiny as well as of the destiny of half Europe. Yet, sometimes, too, she would smile softly at some thought not aroused by the children's gambols6, when her lips would part and disclose her teeth which were already giving signs of the decay that, later, was to take entire possession of them. When this occurred, those near her would wonder what the woman who, as Fran?oise d'Aubigne, had been born in a prison, was thinking of. Perhaps, they speculated to themselves, on the jokes and gibes7 of her dead husband, the diseased and crippled poet, romancer and dramatist, Paul Scarron. Or, perhaps, on the lovers she had so often run to meet (when she was supposed to be at mass or confession) in the little, green-hung parloir lent her by Ninon de l'Enclos for her rendezvous8: perhaps of the manner in which, slowly but surely, she was spinning her web around the King and enfolding him in it even as the spider spins its web and enfolds and strangles the fly.
Near her were, however, other women who, had they had their way, would themselves have strangled the life out of this woman, now, by creation and gift of estate and brevet, Madame de Maintenon, as willingly as she was secretly strangling the will and power out of Louis; women whom once the King had loved more fiercely than--though not so subserviently9 as--he was now beginning to love her. Close by la femme funeste was the once lovely Duchesse de Chatillon--now grown fat and troubled with a nervous twitching10 of the face--who had once disputed with Madame de Beauvais, who had never been lovely and who squinted11, the right of having been Louis' first love. Here, too, was the beautiful Mdlle. d'Argenson now married to a husband who was reported to beat her; and many others. While, had the phantoms12 of all those whom the King had adored and then neglected, and then cast off, been able to appear, the room would have been full of sombre shadows.
Before the King there was placed a small table on which, at this moment, was piled up in great disarray13 a vast heap of letters that had that afternoon arrived by special courier, and which he was at this time engaged in reading after his return from the stag hunt. Or rather, he was engaged in reading all those which a courtier who sat next to him in a smaller, less comfortable chair, handed to him after he himself had perused14 them. This courtier was no less a person than the Marquis de Louvois, whose precise position was that of Minister of War but who, during the ascendancy15 that he had for some years been gradually obtaining over the King--in which ascendancy he ran a race of deadly rivalry16 with Madame de Maintenon--had become his right hand.
"Two letters, both of the same import," Louis said now, placing one which he held in his hand face downwards17 on top of another he had previously18 laid on the table; "two letters from two women, and each telling the same story. Letters coming, you observe, from widely different cities. One from London. The other from Geneva. Almost, it seems, there must be some truth in what they tell."
The King might also have added, had he not doubtless entirely19 forgotten the fact, that the two women from whom those letters came had each been strongly affected20 towards him and his interests if they had not, like so many others, allowed themselves to love him.
"Can it be true?" he went on now. "Can it? Yet, it must be, Louise is in a position to know all, everything that transpires21, everything that is known in London: the Duchesse de Castellucchio must know every secret that her admirer possesses."
"If, sire, he is her admirer."
"What else should he be?"
"Prétendu, perhaps, sire. Perhaps soupirant, awaiting events and fortune. Needy22 men have often married rich women, heiresses, women who can set them on their feet again; and they have done so without loving them."
"It is true," the King said, speaking in tones so low that none but his companion could hear him, but still tones clear, keen, incisive23.
Then, lowering his voice as he changed the subject, the King said, "Is he gone?"
"He is, sire, in this room."
"Summon him."
Obedient to this order De Louvois rose from the far from comfortable seat in which he sat, and, proceeding24 down the gallery while smiling with a smile that had little mirth in it and scarcely any cordiality, reached at last a courtier who, clad in a green hunting costume adorned25 with gold lace and having on his shoulder the device in gold of a bugle26 above a sun, was talking to a lady. This courtier was no less a person than De Beaurepaire in his dress of Grand Veneur, while the lady, who possessed27 a simpering weak face that, in her case, was no index to her mind, and whose little curls all over her head gave her an appearance of youth to which she no longer had any claim, was Madame de Sevigne.
"His Majesty28," De Louvois said to the former, after bowing to the latter, "desires to speak with you."
"I am at his service as always," De Beaurepaire replied. "I trust he is satisfied with the day's sport. It was worthy29 of a royal hunt, thirteen stags being killed."
"No doubt, no doubt," De Louvois muttered, as now De Beaurepaire followed him to where the King sat, while he observed as they drew near their master that the two letters were no longer lying on the table as they had originally been placed.
"Ah! Louis!" the King said to his namesake, addressing his old playfellow as he had always done since boyhood, "so you have not yet left for your house at Saint Mandé, where you now keep yourself so much when you are not called forth30 from it by your duties to me. Your duties of huntsman and Colonel of my Guards."
"Not yet, sire. The evening runs on; later I will ask your Majesty to permit me to depart. May I crave31 to know if your Majesty is contented32 with the day's hunt?"
"Beyond doubt. What you do for me, either as purveyor33 of sport or as the chief of my guards," bearing again on the fact of the Prince occupying the latter position, "is always well done."
"And always will be, sire. As it has ever been since, if I may recall the past, it was done when I was permitted to be your Majesty's principal playmate and comrade."
"Yes," the King replied, his bright blue eyes resting softly on the other, "my playmate and comrade. My playmate and comrade," he said again. "They were happy days. Once, Louis, you saved my life from an infuriated stag here in this very Forest of Fontainebleau--you remember?--and once in the Forest of Vincennes from an intending assassin."
"I have not forgotten, sire. If your life is ever in danger again, which heaven forfend, I pray it may be I who shall again save it."
"I hope so," the King said gently, "I hope so. Having saved that life before it should be dear to you now. Now, when I am environed with enemies worse than starving footpads and assassins; when the Dutchman, Orange, would, they say, go down on his knees and thank God for my taking off; when the ministers of my imbecile brother-in-law, Charles of Spain, would have me assassinated34 on my own hearth35 if it could be accomplished36. When," he continued, "there is not a country in all Europe, except that over which Charles Stuart now reigns37, that does not thirst for my life. In truth, I need good friends like you, Louis, and you, Louvois. The one to whom I have confided38 the charge of my own guards, the other the care of my whole army."
"Your Majesty may rely on me and my guards," De Beaurepaire said. "Your Majesty may rely on----"
"I know. I know," Louis said. "Should I have confided that charge to you otherwise?"
"And on me for the whole of your Majesty's army," De Louvois exclaimed.
"That too, I know. Now," the King said, rising from his chair, at which action all the others who were seated in the room rose as one person. "Now, let us prepare for supper. Louis," he said, addressing De Beaurepaire, "I spoke39 of an imbecile but now. There is another in Paris like unto him, who has a reckoning to make with you. The Duc de Castellucchio. What have you done with his wife?"
"She should be in Milan now, sire, and in her sister's arms. I sent her on to Nancy from Paris well escorted. I did my best for her. If the Duc de Castellucchio has aught to say to me he will know where I am to be found."
"He will not endeavour to find you himself. He may, however, persuade my Grande Chambre to do so."
"I do not fear even that august assembly, sire, so long as I have your protection."
"Do you fear aught on earth, Louis?"
"Nothing, sire, except your displeasure," the Prince answered with the courtier's true--yet false--air.
When, however, some hours later, De Beaurepaire had withdrawn40, not only from the Royal Presence but also from all the crowd of courtiers who hovered41 round Le Roi Soleil, and he was seated on the back of a fresh, mettlesome42 horse which was to bear him to Paris as swiftly as might be, he rode as one rides whose mind is ill at ease. For his head was bent43 forward over the animal's mane, his handsome features were clouded and the reins44 in his hand were carelessly held.
"How he harped45 on the word assassin," he mused46, "how oft he repeated it. How, too, he dwelt on my command of his guards. Yet I am no assassin nor would-be assassin. Whatever evil I may meditate47 against him, I have never thought of that. Nor has there been any talk of murder, of assassination48--of him--so far as I have heard. La Truaumont spoke nothing of this after he rode back from Switzerland, but only that I should put myself at the head of the discontented nobility of Normandy who so protest against heavy taxation49 and the ignoring of their rights. Assassination! God! it is an evil word. And--assassination of him, my friend, my early playmate! The King who has showered benefits on me full-handed."
Musing50 still, meditating51 always, he rode on down the great avenue that led towards the little town of Fontainebleau, and, past it, to Paris five-and-thirty miles off; while, as he continued upon his way, he still mused, though now his thoughts took a different turn.
"A pity 'tis," he pondered, "that Humphrey West pryed into their--our--secrets. I would have had him spared, or, at least, slain52 in open honest fight, not done to death by so foul53 a thing as that Boisfleury--as La Truaumont says he was after he confessed that he knew all. Boisfleury! A piece of vermin fit only to crawl in the gutters54 of Paris, to herd55 with the lowest, but not fit to take the life of young, handsome Humphrey West. Humphrey, poor Humphrey! And poor Mademoiselle d'Angelis. She loved him passing well."
He paused ere concluding what he was saying, and, reining56 in his horse, stared fixedly57 into a dense58 copse that bordered the side of the drive. He stared at something he saw moving suspiciously through the undergrowth and as though with the desire of avoiding attention. Recollecting59, however, that, on such a night as this, and after a great hunt in the vast forest which, at that time, covered very nearly a hundred square miles of ground, and where, too, hundreds of villagers, vauriens and ne'er-do-wells generally would be about, he muttered, "Psha! what need to be surprised at the sight of any creeping, crawling vagabond here," and withdrew his hand with almost a feeling of self-contempt from the holster towards which he had thrust it.
As, however, he again set his horse in motion, he saw that which, in all likelihood, had caused the creeping figure to take shelter in the undergrowth, if it was not due to his own appearance. Coming up the long avenue from the direction where, afar off, Paris lay, was one of those vehicles known as a chaise roulante--a small carriage which would hold but one person; a thing not much larger than a sedan-chair, but which was transported on two wheels and had a seat in front for the driver. To-night, since it was entirely dark, a lamp placed by the driver's side was alight and the rays from it were sufficient to illuminate60 the whole of the interior of the small carriage.
Attracted by the appearance of this vehicle, wondering who could be coming in so plain and common a conveyance61 to Fontainebleau at this hour--Fontainebleau, with the King in residence!--De Beaurepaire could not resist the impulse of curiosity which impelled62 him to glance in at the occupant.
Then, suddenly, his hands so tightened63 on the reins they held that his high-mettled horse rose on its hind64 legs and, in its rearing, nearly threw him.
He had tightened the reins thus as he saw a white, death-like looking face gazing out as he glanced in at the window; a face from out of which two hollow eyes stared into the darkness of the night.
"Dieu!" De Beaurepaire whispered, even as he knew, as he divined, that he had himself turned as white as that sepulchral-looking face inside the chaise roulante, and while he felt his whole body suffused65 with the perspiration66 that burst from every pore. "He is alive. And he knows all. To-night the King will know all, too. He must be here to tell him all!"
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1
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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2
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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3
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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4
recipient
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| a.接受的,感受性强的 n.接受者,感受者,容器 | |
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5
demurely
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| adv.装成端庄地，认真地 | |
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6
gambols
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| v.蹦跳，跳跃，嬉戏( gambol的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7
gibes
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| vi.嘲笑，嘲弄（gibe的第三人称单数形式） | |
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8
rendezvous
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| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
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9
subserviently
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twitching
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| n.颤搐 | |
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11
squinted
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| 斜视( squint的过去式和过去分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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12
phantoms
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| n.鬼怪，幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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13
disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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14
perused
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的过去式和过去分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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15
ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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17
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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18
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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19
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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21
transpires
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| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的第三人称单数 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
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22
needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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23
incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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24
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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26
bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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27
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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28
majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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29
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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30
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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31
crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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32
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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33
purveyor
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| n.承办商，伙食承办商 | |
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34
assassinated
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| v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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35
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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36
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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38
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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39
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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40
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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41
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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42
mettlesome
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| adj.（通常指马等）精力充沛的，勇猛的 | |
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43
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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44
reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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45
harped
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| vi.弹竖琴（harp的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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46
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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47
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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48
assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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49
taxation
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| n.征税，税收，税金 | |
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50
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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51
meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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52
slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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53
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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54
gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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55
herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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56
reining
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| 勒缰绳使（马）停步( rein的现在分词 )； 驾驭； 严格控制； 加强管理 | |
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57
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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58
dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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59
recollecting
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| v.记起，想起( recollect的现在分词 ) | |
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60
illuminate
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| vt.照亮，照明；用灯光装饰；说明，阐释 | |
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61
conveyance
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| n.(不动产等的)转让，让与；转让证书；传送；运送；表达；（正）运输工具 | |
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62
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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63
tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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64
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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65
suffused
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| v.（指颜色、水气等）弥漫于，布满( suffuse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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