Calvert of Strathore Part 8

His stoical indifference and unvarying courtesy to the fair s.e.x are genuine and sublime and pique the women incredibly. Indeed, 'tis almost more than I can stand without laughing," went on Mr. Morris, "to see the manly forbearance with which he treats the advances of some of these grandes dames, who think nothing of taking the initiative in a love-affair. Tis as rare as it is admirable here in Paris! Upon my word I thought he would have taken to his heels yesterday when we called on Madame de Flahaut, who, being at her toilet, invited us to her dressing-room! He left me to stump upstairs alone and receive a good rating from the Countess for not having kept him. He makes me feel very old and sinful," went on Mr. Morris, after a pause, and smiling ruefully at Mr. Jefferson on the other side of the table, "and I ought to dislike the boy heartily for it. But, in faith, I can't, and am beginning to be as fond of him as you yourself are."

"And, after all, he ought not to make us feel old," rejoined Mr.

Jefferson, smiling, too. "For in spite of his youth there is nothing of immaturity in his character. 'Tis as firm and well-rounded as though he were fifty."

"I think he calls for a toast," says Mr. Morris, laughing, and filling up the gla.s.ses: "To an Old Head on Young Shoulders!"

In the early part of March, Mr. Short being still on his travels, and vexatious questions having arisen in connection with the Dutch loans, Mr. Jefferson determined to intrust their settlement to Calvert, and, accordingly, the young man set out for Amsterdam with scarce a day's notice of his journey. His emba.s.sy concerned the refusal of our bankers in Amsterdam (into whose hands Congress had placed all monies) to pay bills for the redemption of our captives, and the medals which Mr.

Jefferson had contracted should be struck off for the foreign officers who had engaged in the revolution. This refusal placed the American Minister in a most embarra.s.sing position. To his demands the Holland bankers replied that Congress had appropriated the money in their charge solely to the payment of the interest on the Dutch loan through the year 1790. As a failure to pay the interest on the loan would have been fatal to the credit and standing of the infant republic in the eyes of Europe, it was evident to Mr. Jefferson that a new loan would have to be set going to defray the new debts. This delicate and difficult project (for our credit was none of the best and the old loan had not all been taken up) he intrusted to Calvert, and so quickly and satisfactorily did the young man execute his commission that he was back again in Paris by the end of the month with reports highly gratifying to the American Minister.

"You have a better head for finances than even Mr. Hamilton, whose opinions are so much quoted in Congress," says Mr. Jefferson, with a smile. "I think no one could have conducted these affairs to a better issue. It has always been my opinion that your peculiar talents lay in the direction of finances, and now I am persuaded of it."

So delighted was Mr. Jefferson with Calvert's performance that he recounted the successful emba.s.sy to Mr. Morris, whose good opinion of Calvert was greatly increased, and, having always had a liking for the young man, he took occasion to see more than ever of him. He insisted on Calvert's accompanying him frequently into the great world of Paris where he himself was so welcome, and where, indeed, the young man's presence was also demanded on all sides--even by royalty itself in the person of Madame la d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, whose acquaintance Mr. Morris had made in the apartments of Madame de Chastellux in the Palais Royal.

Although accustomed to the company of the highest n.o.bility, Mr. Morris was somewhat uncertain whether he would get along well with royalty, and would not have pursued the acquaintance begun by chance in Madame de Chastellux's salon had not the d.u.c.h.ess expressed her pleasure in his society in most unequivocal terms. Satiated with flattery, bored by the narrow circle in which she was forced to move, profoundly humiliated by the neglect and viciousness of her husband, she was charmed by the wit, independence, and true courtesy of the brilliant American. A daughter of the old Duc de Penthievre, the embodiment of everything good in the ancien regime, the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans was, herself, a woman of rare good sense, beauty, and tact, all of which appealed strongly to Mr. Morris, so that the acquaintance begun so graciously on her part and so dubiously on his, soon ripened into real friends.h.i.+p.

"I never see her but I feel a throb of pity for her," declared Mr.

Morris to Calvert. "'Twas a malignant fate that made her the wife of so dissolute a prince. She is very handsome--handsome enough to punish the duke for his irregularities, and she has, I think, the most beautiful arm in all Europe--of which she is properly vain! But what is a little vanity among so many virtues?--for she is eminently virtuous, though not averse, I think, to seeking some consolation for her profound melancholy, for--as she has confided to me--she feels 'le besoin d'etre aime,'" and he smiled a little cynically, as men of the world are wont to smile at the confession of feminine weaknesses. As for Mr. Calvert, that confession brought no smile to his lips, and, though he said nothing, he felt a sudden rush of pity for the unhappy lady, neglected and unloved despite her great position. After all, d.u.c.h.esses are but women and must love and suffer and be content or miserable like common mortals, and men should be the last to blame them for that divine necessity of their beings--that of loving and being loved.

"She has heard much of you, Ned," went on Mr. Morris, "from Madame de Chastellux, from Lafayette, and lately from myself, and has expressed her desire to see you. I need not tell you that such a wish is a command and so you must even go and pay your respects to royalty, my boy," and he laughed as he clapped the young man on the shoulder.

That very evening Mr. Morris carried him off to the Palais Royal to the apartments of Madame de Chastellux, where he despatched a message to the d.u.c.h.ess to the effect that "Monsieur Morris, accompagne par Monsieur Calvert, visitent Madame la d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans chez Madame de Chastellux." After a few moments of waiting one of the d.u.c.h.ess's men came with the request that Madame de Chastellux should bring the two gentlemen to her apartments.

They found Her Royal Highness there surrounded by a small company. At her side was the Vicomte de Segur, who was essaying by the witty sallies and delightful drolleries for which he was so famous to bring a smile to her lips; but, although the rest of the company was convulsed by his brilliant nonsense, the d.u.c.h.ess's pale face did not lose its serious expression until Mr. Morris, followed by Calvert, entered the room.

Then, indeed, a smile of pleasure lighted up her countenance, and it was with a most gracious cordiality that she welcomed both gentlemen.

"So this is your young compatriote, Monsieur, who vanquished Monsieur de St. Aulaire on the ice!" she said, looking at Mr. Morris and laughing with a certain malicious satisfaction. She extended to Calvert the famously beautiful hand and arm, from which the soft, black lace fell away, revealing its exquisite roundness and whiteness and over which Mr.

Morris bent low in salutation. "We have heard of your prowess au patinage, Monsieur," she continued, glancing at Calvert, and then, without waiting for a reply, much to the young man's relief, who was somewhat embarra.s.sed by so direct a compliment and, in truth, utterly weary of the whole subject, of which he heard continually, she turned and spoke to two young gentlemen half-concealed in the deep embrasure of a window. At her call they both came forward, the eldest, the Duc de Chartres, who might have been sixteen years of age, laying down a violin on which he had been playing softly, and the younger, Monsieur de Beaujolais, who could not have been over thirteen, closing the book he had been reading.

"Mes fils," says the d.u.c.h.ess, softly, and smiling at Mr. Morris and Calvert with a sort of melancholy pride s.h.i.+ning in her dark eyes. In truth, the young princes were good to look at, especially the little Monsieur de Beaujolais, who had a most animated and pleasing countenance. As they stood one on each side of their mother they made a pretty group. Perhaps 'twas the remembrance of that picture in after years which warmed Mr. Morris's heart to the exile in distress over the seas and made him a generous friend despite the royal ingrat.i.tude.

"So she has saved something out of the wreck of her life," thought Mr.

Calvert, pityingly, looking at the two youths. "'Tis doubly fortunate that they in nowise resemble their ign.o.ble father," and he thought with disgust of that dissolute n.o.bleman of whom he had heard so much. While these thoughts were pa.s.sing through his mind the d.u.c.h.ess was speaking earnestly, to Mr. Morris.

"I ask your advice, Monsieur," she said, dismissing with a smile the two young gentlemen, who retired once more to their place at the window.

"You, who seem to know so well how to breed heroes in your own country, can surely tell me how to bring up my sons to be an honor to their race!"

"Your Highness," returned Mr. Morris, after an instant's hesitation, and deeply moved at such a mark of esteem, "for Monsieur le Duc de Chartres, who, in the inscrutable workings of Providence, may one day be king"--the d.u.c.h.ess started and turned pale--"there is but one course to follow, one education open. But for Monsieur de Beaujolais, why should he not lend his talents to business enterprises, to great commercial undertakings which make for the prosperity and stability of a country as surely as even its army or navy? Thus also will he create happiness for himself, because, if idle, at five and twenty, having enjoyed all that rank and fortune can give him, he will be unhappy from not knowing what to do with himself."

In spite of the democratic simplicity of the idea, the d.u.c.h.ess seemed impressed and listened attentively to Mr. Morris, who was about to explain more at length the advantages of such a career for the young prince, when the conversation was interrupted by the lackey at the door announcing the arrival of Madame la Comtesse de Flahaut.

At the name the d.u.c.h.ess threw a meaning look at Mr. Morris.

"Enfin! J'ai fait venir Madame de Flahaut ce soir. N'est ce pas que je suis aimable?" she said, laughing, and speaking rapidly.

Mr. Morris bowed low before Madame la d.u.c.h.esse, succeeding perfectly in conveying by a look his appreciation without committing himself to anything more serious.

"And did Your Royal Highness also send for a subst.i.tute in case I prove wearying to Madame la Comtesse?" he asked, smiling, as he caught sight of a gentleman who had followed Madame de Flahaut into the room and who wore the ecclesiastical dress of a bishop. Perhaps what most attracted Mr. Morris's notice was that he seemed a man of about his own age and, like himself, lame. "Who is it?" he asked, in a low voice, as the two approached.

"Monsieur de Talleyrand-Perigord, Bishop of Autun, who, I understand, is in danger of losing his place in the affections of Madame on account of Monsieur Morris," returned the d.u.c.h.ess, hurriedly, and glancing mischievously, though keenly, at Mr. Morris's face, which, however, preserved its expression of impa.s.sivity.

"Ah! place aux eveques!" murmured Mr. Morris, quietly.

Salutations and the presentation of Mr. Morris and Mr. Calvert having been made, the Bishop of Autun turned to the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Your Highness," he said, "I have come to beg a dinner."

"And we have brought our bread with us, that we may be sure of our welcome!" cried out Madame de Flahaut, with a little laugh. And indeed they had, for wheat was so scarce in Paris that it was the fas.h.i.+on for ladies and gentlemen to send their servants with bread when dining out.

"Monsieur l'eveque knows he is always welcome," said the d.u.c.h.ess, gently, and smiling at Madame de Flahaut. "Once our guest, always our guest."

In a little while the tutor of the young princes came in and took away his charges, and the company sat down to supper. It was one of Her Highness's little soupers intimes, which she gave each Thursday, and upon which Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans and his wild companions never intruded. Though the company was small it was very gay, and it would have been hard to say who contributed most to the wit and sparkle of the talk which went on ceaselessly--Mr. Morris, Monsieur le Vicomte de Segur, or Monsieur de Boufflers, who, as usual, was present in the train of the beautiful Madame de Sabran. As for Mr. Morris, he was in the highest spirits and devoted himself with gallant courtesy to Madame la d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, on whose left he sat, much to the evident pique of Madame de Flahaut. With that wonderful adaptability which made him at ease in any society in which he found himself, he adjusted himself to the company of the evening, and, being perfectly master of the French language, could not only understand the light talk and persiflage, but even led in the conversation.

As for Mr. Calvert, having none of that adaptability possessed in so large a share by Mr. Morris, he felt himself out of his element, uninterested and therefore uninteresting, and he listened with inward irritation to the loose anecdotes, the piquant allusions, the coa.r.s.e gossip, so freely bandied about. It was with something akin to a feeling of relief that he heard his name spoken and turned to find the keen, restless eyes of Monsieur de Talleyrand, beside whom he was seated, fixed upon him.

"Monsieur is not interested in the conversation?" he asked, and, though there was a mocking smile on the thin lips, there was also a kindly look in the brilliant eyes.

Calvert blushed hotly at being so easily found out by this worldly looking prelate. Monsieur de Talleyrand shrugged his shoulders. "'Tis a good sign, I think," and he looked still more kindly at Calvert. "You have been brought up amid simpler, purer surroundings, Mr. Calvert," he said, suddenly leaning over toward the young man and speaking in tones so low as to be drowned in the noisy conversation. "I envy you your good fortune," he went on. "I envy you your inability to fit yourself into any niche, to adjust yourself to any surroundings, as your friend Monsieur Morris, for example, seems to have the faculty of doing. See, he is even making verses to Madame la d.u.c.h.esse!"

Calvert looked over at Mr. Morris and saw him tear from his table-book a leaf upon which he had been writing and, with a bow, offer it to the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Are we not to hear Monsieur's verses?" demands Monsieur de Talleyrand, languidly, after a moment's silence, during which Her Highness had regarded the lines with a puzzled air, and smiling faintly.

"These are in English--I shall have to get Madame de Chastellux to translate them for me some day," and she folded the paper as if to put it away, but there arose such exclamations of disappointment, such gentle entreaties not to be denied the pleasure of hearing the verses, that she yielded to the clamor and signalled Madame de Chastellux her permission to have them read aloud. Amid a discreet silence, broken only by little murmurs of appreciation and perfumed applause, the lady of honor read the lines, translating them as she read:

"If Beauty so sweet in all gentleness drest, In loveliness, virtue arrayed; By the graces adorned, by the muses carest, By lofty ambition obeyed;

Ah! who shall escape from the gold-painted dart, When Orleans touches the bow?

Who the softness resist of that sensible heart Where love and benevolence glow?

Thus we dream of the G.o.ds who with bounty supreme Our humble pet.i.tions accord, Our love they excite, and command our esteem Tho' only at distance adored."

There was a ripple of applause, somewhat languid and perfunctory on the part of the gentlemen, vivacious and prolonged on the part of the ladies, as Madame de Chastellux finished. To Mr. Calvert the scene was a little ridiculous, the interest of the company, like the sentiment of the verses, somewhat artificial, and Mr. Morris's role of versifier to Madame la d.u.c.h.esse decidedly beneath that gentleman's talents.

Monsieur de Talleyrand laughed softly. "'Other places--other customs,'"

he said, and again reading Calvert's thoughts so accurately that that young gentleman scarce knew whether to be most astonished or indignant.

It would most likely have been the latter had not a certain friendliness in the Bishop's glance disarmed his anger. "Mr. Morris is fortunate," he went on, quietly. "See--he has pleased everyone except Madame de Flahaut."

'Twas indeed as he had said, and, amid the applause and compliments, only Madame de Flahaut sat silent and evidently piqued, her pretty face wearing an expression of bored indifference. But even while Monsieur de Talleyrand spoke, Mr. Morris, bending toward her, addressed some remark to her and in an instant she was all animation and charm, exerting for his benefit every fascination of which she was mistress, and showing him by glance and voice how greatly she prized his attentions. For a moment Mr. Calvert sat silent, contemplating the little play going on before his eyes, when, suddenly remembering the words of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, he turned and looked at Monsieur de Talleyrand. Such a softening change had come over the cynical, impa.s.sive countenance, so wistful a look into the keen, dark eyes bent upon Madame de Flahaut, as caused a feeling of pity in the young man's heart for this brilliant, unhappy, unrighteous servant of the Church.

"So Mr. Calvert has read my secret, as I read his," said Monsieur de Talleyrand, slowly, and returning the gaze which Calvert had absently fastened upon him while revolving these thoughts. Suddenly he began speaking rapidly, as if impelled thereto by some inward force, and, in a low but pa.s.sionately intense voice, heard only by Mr. Calvert:

"We are the sport of fate in this country more than in any other, I think," he said. "I might have been a young man like yourself, as n.o.ble, good, and true as yourself--oh, do not look astonished! 'Tis one of my acknowledged talents--the reading of character--I, like yourself, might have fought and loved with honor but that I am lame, and why was I lame?" he went on, bitterly. "Because I never knew a mother's love or care, because, when a baby, being sent from my home--and under that roof I have never spent a night since--I fell and injured my foot, and the woman in whose charge I had been put, being afraid to tell my parents of my mishap, the hurt was allowed to go uncorrected until 'twas too late.

And so, being lame and unfit for a soldier's career, I was thrust into the Church, _nolens volens_. Monsieur Calvert," he said, smiling seriously, "when you hear Mr. Jefferson criticising the Bishop of Autun--for I know he thinks but slightingly of the ecclesiastic--recollect that 'twas the disappointed ambition and the unrelenting commands of Charles Maurice Talleyrand's parents which made him what he is! We are all like that," he went on, moodily. "Look at de Ligne--he was married by his father at twenty to a young girl whom he had never seen until a week before the wedding. And Madame de Flahaut--at fifteen she was sacrificed to a man of fifty-five, who scarcely notices her existence!" He glanced across the table and again the power of love touched and softened his face for an instant. He rose--for the supper was finished and the company beginning to move--and laid his hand for an instant on Calvert's broad young shoulder. "Mr.

Calvert," he said, half-mockingly, half-seriously, "do not be too hard upon us! There are some excuses to be made. In your country all things are new--your laws, your habits, your civilization are yet plastic. See that you mould them well! 'Tis too late here--we are as the generations have made us. 'Other places--other customs!'" and he went off limping.

To his dying day Mr. Calvert never forgot the fascination, the open frankness of Monsieur de Talleyrand's manner on that occasion, nor the look of sadness and suffering in his eyes. When he heard him in after years accused of shameless veniality, of trickery, lying, duplicity, even murder, he always remembered that impulsive revelation--never repeated--of a warped, unhappy childhood, of a perverted destiny.

Mr. Morris came to him later as he stood leaning against the wall behind the chair of Madame de Chastellux.

"How goes it, Ned?" he asked, half-laughing and stifling a yawn. "As for myself, I am getting confoundedly bored. I can't think of any more verses, so the ladies find me insipid, and they are beginning to talk politics, of which they know nothing, so I find them ridiculous. They are already deep in the discussion of the Abbe Sieyes's brochure, 'Qu'est-ce que le Tiers etat,' and Madame de Flahaut declares that his writings and opinions will form a new epoch in politics as those of Newton in physics! Can fatuity go farther? And yet she is the cleverest woman I have met in France. The men are as ignorant as the women, except that scoundrel of a bishop, who, like myself, is bored by the incessant talk of politics and has just a.s.sured me that no one has an idea of the charm of life who has not lived before this year of 1789. I can easily believe it. But perhaps he told you the same thing--I saw you two talking together at supper."