The Regent's Daughter Part 70

"But their fate is not yet decided, and the sentence of the commission--"

"I know it," said Dubois.

"Is it given, then?"

"No, but I dictated it before they went."

"Do you know that your conduct is odious?"

"Truly, monseigneur, you are insupportable. Manage your family affairs, and leave state affairs to me."

"Family affairs!"

"Ah! as to those, I hope you are satisfied with me, or you would indeed be difficult to please. You recommend to me M. de Chanlay, and on your recommendation I make it a rose-water Bastille to him; sumptuous repasts, a charming governor. I let him pierce holes in your floors, and spoil your walls, all which will cost us a great deal to repair. Since his entrance, it is quite a fete. Dumesnil talks all day through his chimney, Mademoiselle de Launay fishes with a line through her window, Pompadour drinks champagne. There is nothing to be said to all this: these are your family affairs; but in Bretagne you have nothing to see, and I forbid you to look, monseigneur, unless you have a few more unknown daughters there, which is possible."

"Dubois! scoundrel!"

"Ah! you think when you have said 'Dubois,' and added 'scoundrel' to my name, you have done everything. Well, scoundrel as much as you please; meanwhile, but for the scoundrel you would have been a.s.sa.s.sinated."

"Well, what then?"

"What then! Hear the statesman! Well, then, I should be hanged, perhaps, which is a consideration; then Madame de Maintenon would be regent of France! What a joke! What then, indeed! To think that a philosophic prince should utter such navetes! Oh, Marcus Aurelius! was it not he who said, 'Populos esse demum felices si reges philosophi forent, aut philosophi reges?' Here is a sample."

Dubois still wrote on.

"Dubois! you do not know this young man."

"What young man?"

"The chevalier."

"Really! you shall present him to me when he is your son-in-law."

"That will be to-morrow, Dubois."

The abbe looked round in astonishment, and looking at the regent, with his little eyes as wide open as possible--

"Ah, monseigneur, are you mad?" he said.

"No, but he is an honorable man, and you know that they are rare."

"Honorable man! Ah, you have a strange idea of honor."

"Yes; I believe that we differ in our ideas of it."

"What has this honorable man done! Has he poisoned the dagger with which he meant to a.s.sa.s.sinate you? for then he would be more than an honorable man, he would be a saint. We have already St. Jacques Clement, St.

Ravaillac; St. Gaston is wanting in the calendar. Quick, quick, monseigneur! you who will not ask the pope to give a cardinal's hat to your minister, ask him to canonize your a.s.sa.s.sin; and for the first time in your life you would be logical."

"Dubois, I tell you there are few capable of doing what this young man has done."

"Peste! that is lucky; if there were ten in France I should certainly resign."

"I do not speak of what he wished to do, but of what he has done."

"Well, what has he done? I should like to be edified."

"First, he kept his oath to D'Argenson."

"I doubt it not, he is faithful to his word; and but for me would have kept his word also with Pontcalec, Talhouet, etc."

"Yes, but one was more difficult than the other. He had sworn not to mention his sentence to any one, and he did not speak of it to his mistress."

"Nor to you?"

"He spoke of it to me, because I told him that I knew it. He forbade me to ask anything of the regent, desiring, he said, but one favor."

"And that one?"

"To marry Helene, in order to leave her a fortune and a name."

"Good; he wants to leave your daughter a fortune and a name; he is polite, at least."

"Do you forget that this is a secret from him?"

"Who knows?"

"Dubois, I do not know in what your hands were steeped the day you were born, but I know that you sully everything you touch."

"Except conspirators, monseigneur, for it seems to me that there, on the contrary, I purify. Look at those of Cellamare, how all that affair was cleared out; Dubois here, Dubois there, I hope the apothecary has properly purged France from Spain. Well, it shall be the same with Olivares as with Cellamare. There is now only Bretagne congested; a good dose, and all will be right."

"Dubois, you would joke with the Gospel."

"Pardieu! I began by that."

The regent rose.

"Come, monseigneur, I was wrong; I forgot you were fasting; let us hear the end of this story."

"The end is that I promised to ask this favor from the regent, and that the regent will grant it."

"The regent will commit a folly."

"No, he will only repair a fault."

"Ah, now you find you have a reparation to make to M. de Chanlay."

"Not to him, but to his brother."