The Queen's Necklace Part 23

"All, madame, depends on what time you returned."

"Oh, you wish to know at what time exactly I returned?"

"Yes."

"It is easy. Madame de Misery----"

The Lady reappeared.

"What time was it when I returned from Paris yesterday?"

"About eight o'clock, your majesty."

"I do not believe it," said the king, "you make a mistake, Madame de Misery."

The lady walked to the door, and called, "Madame Dural!"

"Yes, madame," replied a voice.

"At what time did her majesty return from Paris yesterday?"

"About eight o'clock, madame," replied the other.

"The king thinks we are mistaken."

Madame Dural put her head out of the window, and cried, "Laurent!"

"Who is Laurent?" asked the king.

"The porter at the gate where her majesty entered," said Madame de Misery.

"Laurent," said Madame Dural, "what time was it when her majesty came home last evening?"

"About eight o'clock," answered Laurent.

Madame de Misery then left the room, and the king and queen remained alone.

He felt ashamed of his suspicions.

The queen, however, only said coldly, "Well, sire, is there anything else you wish to know?"

"Oh, nothing!" cried he, taking her hands in his; "forgive me; I do not know what came into my head--my joy is as great as my repentance. You will not be angry, will you? I am in despair at having annoyed you."

The queen withdrew her hand, and said; "Sire, a queen of France must not tell a falsehood."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I did not return at eight o'clock last evening."

The king drew back in surprise.

"I mean," continued the queen in the same cold manner, "that I only returned at six o'clock this morning."

"Madame!"

"And that, but for the kindness of M. le Comte d'Artois, who gave me an asylum, and lodged me out of pity in one of his houses, I should have been left all night at the door of the chateau like a beggar."

"Ah! you had not then returned?" said the king, gloomily; "then I was right."

"Sire, you have not behaved towards me as a gentleman should."

"In what, madame?"

"In this--that if you wish to know whether I return late or early, you have no need to close the gates, with orders not to open them, but simply to come to me and ask, 'Madame, at what time did you return?' You have no more reason to doubt, sire. Your spies have been deceived, your precautions nullified, and your suspicions dissipated. I saw you ashamed of the part you had played, and I might have continued to triumph in my victory, but I think your proceedings shameful for a king, and unworthy of a gentleman; and I would not refuse myself the satisfaction of telling you so.

"It is useless, sire," she continued, seeing the king about to speak; "nothing can excuse your conduct towards me."

"On the contrary, madame," replied he, "nothing is more easy. Not a single person in the chateau suspected that you had not already returned; therefore no one could think that my orders referred to you.

Probably they were attributed to the dissipations of M. le Comte d'Artois--for that I care nothing. Therefore, madame, appearances were saved, as far as you were concerned. I wished simply to give you a secret lesson, from which the amount of irritation you show leads me to hope you will profit. Therefore, I still think I was in the right, and do not repent what I have done."

The queen listened, and seemed to calm herself, by an effort, to prepare for the approaching contest. "Then, sire," she said, "you think you need no excuse for keeping at the door of your castle the daughter of Maria Theresa, your wife, and the mother of your children? No! it is in your eyes a pleasantry worthy of a king, and of which the morality doubles the value. It is nothing to you, to have forced the Queen of France to pa.s.s the night in this 'pet.i.te maison,' where the Comte d'Artois receives the ladies of the Opera and the 'femmes galantes' of your court. Oh no! that is nothing. A philosopher king is above all such considerations. Only, on this occasion, I have reason to thank heaven that my brother-in-law is a dissipated man, as his dissipation has saved me from disgrace, and his vices have sheltered my honor."

The king colored, and moved uneasily on his chair.

"Oh yes!" continued the queen, with a bitter laugh, "I know that you are a moral king, but your morality produces strange effects. You say that no one knew that I was out. Will you tell me that M. de Provence, your instigator, did not know it; or M. le Comte d'Artois--or my women? who, by my orders, told you falsehoods this morning; or Laurent--bought by M.

d'Artois and by me? Let us continue this habit, sire; you, to set spies and Swiss guards; and I, to buy them over and cheat you; and in a month we will calculate together how much the dignity of the throne and our marriage has gained by it."

It was evident that her words had made a great impression on him to whom they were addressed.

"You know," said he, in an altered voice, "that I am always sincere, and willing to acknowledge if I have been wrong. Will you prove to me that you were right to go into Paris in sledges, accompanied by a gay party, which, in the present unhappy state of things, is likely to give offense? Will you prove to me, that you were right to disappear in Paris, like maskers at a ball, and only to reappear scandalously late at night, when every one else was asleep? You have spoken of the dignity of the throne, and of marriage; think you that it befits a queen, a wife, and a mother, to act thus?"

"I will reply in a few words, sire; for it seems to me, that such accusations merit nothing but contempt. I left Versailles in a sledge, because it is the quickest way of getting to Paris at present. I went with Madlle. de Taverney, whose reputation is certainly one of the purest in our court. I went to Paris, I repeat, to verify the fact that the King of France, the great upholder of morality--he who takes care of poor strangers, warms the beggars, and earns the grat.i.tude of the people by his charities, leaves dying of hunger, exposed to every attack of vice and misery, one of his own family--one who is as much as himself a descendant of the kings who have reigned in France."

"What!" cried the king in surprise.

"I mounted," continued the queen, "into a garret, and there saw, without fire, almost without light, and without money, the granddaughter of a great prince, and I gave one hundred louis to this victim of royal forgetfulness and neglect. Then, as I was detained late there, and as the frost was severe, and horses go slowly over ice, particularly hackney-coach horses----"

"Hackney-coach horses!" cried the king. "You returned in a hackney-coach?"

"Yes, sire--No. 107."

"Oh, oh!" said the king, with every sign of vexation.

"Yes, and only too happy to get it," said the queen.

"Madame!" interrupted he, "you are full of n.o.ble feelings; but this impetuous generosity becomes a fault. Remember," continued he, "that I never suspected you of anything that was not perfectly pure and honest: it is only your mode of acting and adventurous spirit that displease me.

You have, as usual, been doing good, but the way you set about it makes it injurious to yourself. This is what I reproach you with. You say that I have faults to repair--that I have failed in my duty to a member of my own family. Tell me who the unfortunate is, and he shall no longer have reason to complain."

"The name of Valois, sire, is sufficiently ill.u.s.trious not to have escaped your memory."