The Queen's Necklace Part 122

"How, sir?"

"Pray, madame, have the goodness to retrace my letters in your memory."

"Your letters!--you have written to me?"

"Too seldom, madame, to express all that was in my heart."

The queen rose.

"Terminate this jesting, sir. What do you mean by letters? How can you dare to say such things?"

"Ah! madame, perhaps I have allowed myself to speak too freely the secret of my soul."

"What secret? Are you in your senses, monsieur?"

"Madame!"

"Oh! speak out. You speak now like a man who wishes to embarra.s.s one before witnesses."

"Madame, is there really any one listening to us?"

"No, monsieur. Explain yourself, and prove to me, if you can, that you are in your right senses."

"Oh! why is not Madame de la Motte here? she could aid me to reawaken, if not your majesty's attachment, at least your memory."

"My attachment! my memory!"

"Ah, madame," cried he, growing excited, "spare me, I beg. It is free to you to love no longer, but do not insult me."

"Ah, mon Dieu!" cried the queen, turning pale: "hear what this man says."

"Well, madame," said he, getting still more excited, "I think I have been sufficiently discreet and reserved not to be ill-treated. But I should have known that when a queen says, 'I will not any longer,' it is as imperious as when a woman says, 'I will.'"

"But, sir, to whom, or when, have I said either the one or the other?"

"Both, to me."

"To you! You are a liar, M. de Rohan. A coward, for you calumniate a woman; and a traitor, for you insult the queen."

"And you are a heartless woman and a faithless queen. You led me to feel for you the most ardent love. You let me drink my fill of hopes----"

"Of hopes! My G.o.d! am I mad, or what is he?"

"Should I have dared to ask you for the midnight interviews which you granted me?"

The queen uttered a cry of rage, as she fancied she heard a sigh from the boudoir.

"Should I," continued M. de Rohan, "have dared to come into the park if you had not sent Madame de la Motte for me?"

"Mon Dieu!"

"Should I have dared to steal the key? Should I have ventured to ask for this rose, which since then I have worn here on my heart, and burned up with my kisses? Should I have dared to kiss your hands? And, above all, should I have dared even to dream of sweet but perfidious love."

"Monsieur!" cried she, "you blaspheme."

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the cardinal, "heaven knows that to be loved by this deceitful woman I would have given my all, my liberty, my life."

"M. de Rohan, if you wish to preserve either, you will confess immediately that you invented all these horrors; that you did not come to the park at night."

"I did come," he replied.

"You are a dead man if you maintain this."

"A Rohan cannot lie, madame; I did come."

"M. de Rohan, in heaven's name say that you did not see me there."

"I will die if you wish it, and as you threaten me; but I did come to the park at Versailles, where Madame de la Motte brought me."

"Once more, confess it is a horrible plot against me."

"No."

"Then believe that you were mistaken--deceived--that it was all a fancy."

"No."

"Then we will have recourse," said she, solemnly, "to the justice of the king."

The cardinal bowed.

The queen rang violently. "Tell his majesty that I desire his presence."

The cardinal remained firm. Marie Antoinette went ten times to the door of the boudoir, and each time returned without going in.

At last the king appeared.

CHAPTER LXXVII.

THE ARREST.

"Sire," cried the queen, "here is M. de Rohan, who says incredible things, which I wish him to repeat to you."

At these unexpected words the cardinal turned pale. Indeed, it was a strange position to hear himself called upon to repeat to the king and the husband all the claims which he believed he had over the queen and the wife.