Alexandre Dumas

“ Monsieur de Villenave would grumble to himself; "I never go disturbing people, yet they must always be disturbing me."
Françoise would open the door once more, to admit the visitor.
"Ah, good-day, my dear friend," Monsieur de Villenave would exclaim, "Welcome, welcome, come in. It is ages since I have seen you. Sit down, do."
"What on?" the visitor would ask.
"Why, on whatever you like, egad! . . . on the sofa."
"Willingly, only . . ."
Monsieur de Villenave would glance at the sofa.
"Ah, true, true! it is full up with books," he would say, "Well then, draw up an armchair." ”

“ Some of those present, so remote was this gloom from Monsieur de Chauvelin's habitual bearing, thought the Marquis was but carrying on a jest, and that this gravity was the prelude to a wild burst of uproarious laughter. But the King this morning had no patience for waiting; so he began at once to rally the favourite on his melancholy.
"Why, what the deuce is wrong with you, Chauvelin?" asked the Monarch; "are you by way of continuing my last night's dream? Do you want to have yourself buried too, you of all people?" ”

“ Madame du Barry grew purple with anger, while the King, at a loss what to say, pretended not to see the point.
"Nay, but on the contrary those Cupids are charming," returned Louis XV.; "they hold the crown with an unparalleled grace. Look at their little arms; you would think they were carrying a wreath of flowers."
"That is just what they should carry; Cupids are only good for such work."
"Cupids are good for any task, Monsieur de Chauvelin," said the Countess; " you knew it well enough once, but at your age one forgets these things." ”

“ Lamartinière, I am very, very ill armed."
"Y'ou have, to begin with. Monsieur de Chauvelin, your friend ... a man of wit, . . . a . . ."
"Chauvelin has no wit now, dear sir."
"Since when has that been so?"
"Why, since I have felt this weight of boredom, egad!"
"Pooh!" cried Lamartinière, "'tis as though you were to say Madame du Barry is no longer a fine woman since . . ."
"Since what?" . . . asked the King, reddening somewhat.
"Oh! I am no fool!" retorted the Surgeon roughly.
"So," said the King with a deep sigh, "it is finally decided I am going to be ill." ”

“ Then the Countess, forgetting she was no longer Jeanne Vaubernier and equally heedless of the Marquis's age, sprang singing down the steps of a back staircase leading to a small courtyard in which were situated her stables.
"Look," she asked the Marquis, panting and out of breath, "is it handsome enough for a laundry-maid to ride in,think you?"
The Marquis stood amazed. Nothing at once more splendid and more elegant had ever met his eyes. The four main panels bore the arms of the Du Barrys and their motto, the famous war-cry, Boute en avant. ”

“ If I were talking to a pretty woman, I should say he had the vapours. What he wants is cheerfulness, rest, no worries, no anxieties, a life of perfect ease,—in one word all he enjoys as the friend of the august Sovereign whom he has the honour to serve. I prescribe a continuation of the self-same treatment."
"Verily two very instructive opinions! Monsieur de Chauvelin must needs feel much enlightened! My poor Marquis, if you die, Bordeu is a dishonoured man."
"Not at all. Sire, the vapours prove fatal, when not attended to." ”

“ One cannot do everything at once, my father."
"Oh! Monsieur le Marquis," replied the Monk, with a respectful bow, "it needs but a minute to turn a sinner into a penitent, a lost soul into one of the elect. If only you would ..."
"Well and good, my father, to-morrow. There I hear the dinner bell,"—and he dismissed him with a wave of the hand, and plunged down a side path.
The tutor came up to Père Delar. "What is wrong with the Marquis? He is quite changed; usually so light-hearted, he is grown anxious, gloomy, haggard." ”

“ This is a thing to make the most lighthearted of men dismal, this analysis of joy and grief; analysis is a silence interposed between laughter and weeping. Till then the King had only been bored, now he was a prey to positive melancholy. He had ceased to laugh at Madame du Barry's broad jokes, he could not raise a smile at the Due d'Ayen's wicked stories, he was unmoved at the most friendly advances of Monsieur de Chauvelin, his bosom friend, the fidus Achates of his Royal escapades. ”

“ Monsieur le Marquis, if perhaps my zeal and my devotion to your house carry me too far."
"No, you are right in this too, my father; however, rest assured the will you speak of is drawn up, and only lacks my signature."
"You fear you are going to die, and you are in no state to appear before God."
"May He have mercy upon me; I was born in the Christian faith, and I would fain die a Christian. Come to-morrow, I beg you ; we will resume this discourse of ours, which will give me back my peace of mind."
"To-morrow! why to-morrow? Death does not turn back nor stay his course." ”

“ Meantime the Marquis, arrived in his private room, said feverishly, " Now, my good Bonbonne, now, to work, to work!"—and he shook the papers littering the desk with an eager, trembling hand, as if to classify and master them all on the spot.
"Come, come," interposed the old man; "we are on the right road, so do not let us hurry too fast; ' more haste, less speed,' you know." ”

“ Coming to the door of the study they stopped and listened, their hearts beating wildly with excitement.
"Do you hear?" asked the Intendant.
"Perfectly well," said the Abbé.
"Hear what?" asked the Monk.
"What! you don't hear those groans, more like a man's death-rattle than anything else?"
"Quite true," the Intendant's two companions agreed with one voice.
"You see I was not mistaken?" resumed the latter.
"Give me the key," said Father Delar, making the sign of the cross, " we are men, of honourable and Christian life; we have no right to be afraid; let us go in." ”

“ It was the worst of all his maladies, this fever of life-weariness; acute under Madame de Châteauroux, it had become intermittent under Madame de Pompadour, and chronic under Madame du Barry.
To those who have nothing left to know there sometimes remains something to love; it is a sovereign resource against the disease that had attacked Louis XV. Rendered indifferent towards individual affection by the attention he had inspired in a whole nation and which had been exaggerated to a sort of frenzy, this habit of the heart had seemed to him too commonplace for a King of France to yield to. ”

“ I behaved to Monsieur de Villenave as I do to everybody; only, as he was three parts through with his lecture when we arrived, I began by looking at the man instead of listening to what he was saying.
He was in those days a tall old man of sixty four or sixty five, with fine silvery white hair, a pale complexion and dark flashing eyes. His dress showed that sort of careless carefulness peculiar to busy men who make a regular toilet two or three times in the week at the outside, spending all the rest of their time in dressing-gown and slippers amid the dust of their working-room. ”

“ That's it; you are afraid to interrupt Monsieur le Marquis in his pleasures, to trouble his digestion, to vex his serenity, with that horrid word 'the future,' which always sounds like a death-knell in happy ears. ”

“ Countess; only I warn you, it is heavy. Now shame on you, Chauvelin! you won't unbend, even when you have the Countess to look at, and the Countess's mirror; why, man 'tis a double favour she bestows on you, for you see her twice over."
This graceful compliment from the King was rewarded by a kiss from the fair Countess's lips; but the Marquis made no sign. ”

“ I have said already how good and kind and hospitable the household in the Rue de Vaugirard was to me,—on the part of Madame de Villenave, because she was naturally affectionate, on the part of Madame de Waldor, because a poetess herself, she had a kindly feeling towards poets, on the part of Théodore de Villenave, because we were both of the same age, and an age when there is an instinctive desire to give a share of one's heart in return for a share of someone else's. ”

“ So, when I abandon my memory to fall back on my heart, I find enshrined there, as in a holy tabernacle, all the dear recollections that have disappeared from my life one by one, as water escapes drop by drop from a cracked vase; no twilight is there, growing ever darker and darker, but dawn brightening more and more to the perfect day. Memory merges into darkness and nullity; the heart aspires to the light, to God. ”

“ The Countess also was there in the fullest of full dress, because she knew the Dauphine was to be present. Marquis and Countess met and greeted one another with the utmost amiability.
"Gracious God! Monsieur de Chauvelin," exclaimed the Countess with one of those double-edged smiles courtiers know so well how to assume," how red you are in the face! One might think you were going to have a fit of apoplexy. Marquis, Marquis, consult Bordeu; Bordeu is your only hope." ”

“ Sire."
"However, let us say no more about it. Here you are, that is the main point. Very true the Countess still bears us a grudge; she is angry with you for having said what you did to her, and annoyed with me for having recalled you to Court after insulting her so outrageously. But never heed her ill humour; time will smoothe every difficulty, and the King will give time a helping hand."
"I thank you, Sire." ”

“ So I take my double-barrelled gun instead, and creep up the little staircase that leads from my room to the Marquis's study on tiptoe. The nearer I come to the top of the stairs, the more eagerly do I strain my ears. Not only can I catch the sound of more moving about, but I hear groans and sobs and inarticulate noises that moved me only too profoundly. For I must tell you frankly, the nearer I came, the more convinced was I that it was my master the Marquis I heard."
"Strange! " exclaimed the Abbé.
"Yes, most strange indeed! echoed the Monk.
"Go on, Bonbonne, go on!" ”

“ All day long,—and all day was one agonized confession,—neither the Priest nor his daughters ever left his side. His body was a prey to the most hideous corruption and the living corpse of the doomed King exhaled so fearful a stench that two lackeys fell down stifled, one of whom died.
By the morning of the 10th the bones of the thighs could be seen through the gaping rents in the flesh. Three more lackeys fainted. Terror seized the Palace, and all its inhabitants took to flight, not a living soul was left in the vast pile save the three devoted women and the good Priest. ”

“ Your Majesty has made war, your Majesty has tried patronising learned men and artists, your Majesty has loved women and champagne. Now, when a man has already tasted glory, flattery, love and wine, I protest to your Majesty that I search in vain for a muscle, a tissue, a nervous ganglion displaying the existence of any further aptitude for any fresh distraction."
"Ah! really," cried the King, "you really believe that, Lamartinière?" ”

“ The Marquis de Chauvelin himself, whose keen, mocking face was generally so ready to reflect the King's merry mood, the Marquis, so finished a courtier that he had never been known to lag behind, whatever wish the King expressed, the Marquis for once, instead of fulfilling the King's desire to be amused, remained stern and solemn, utterly absorbed in a fit of inexplicable gravity. ”

“ The talk has been of death; yet no one thinks of it seriously; no one thinks how it comes at its appointed hour, when least expected; how it surprises us in the midst of our pleasures, and mows down small and great alike with its inexorable scythe. No one thinks how there comes an age when repentance and penitence are no less a necessity than a duty, when the fires of concupiscence must burn low before the great thought of salvation. ”

“ Monsieur de Chauvelin bowed and answered, "I will not fail to follow your advice, Madame."
"You will only be doing what a loyal subject should," she returned " "you are bound to be very careful of your health, my dear Marquis, as you are to be only two month's before . . . . "
"I only wish it were the other way and I had to precede you," put in the King; "you would be sure of a hundred years of life then, Chauvelin. Well, I can only repeat the Countess's good counsel,—go to Bordeu, old friend, go to Bordeu." ”

“ I quite understand," the Countess retorted, "I quite understand that Monsieur de Chauvelin enjoys all your favour, and that you cannot do without him. He is so anxious to please you and so respectful to those who love you." ”

“ No, the book found its home in the garret, which was divided into three compartments,—that of the octavos, that of the quartos, that of the folios between the other two.
This was the chaos out of which one day Monsieur de Villenave was to construct a new world,—a new continent like Australia or New Zealand. Meantime there they lay pell-mell, one atop of another, almost indistinguishable in the semi-darkness. This garret was the limbo where were imprisoned the souls God sends neither to heaven nor hell, because He has His designs to work out upon them. ”

“ The Abbé pointed out the picture to the Intendant.
"There lies the cause of your terror," he said, with a sigh of relief.
"Yes, that accounts for the crash," returned the Intendant; "but the groans we heard, did the picture utter them?"
"We certainly did hear groans," the Monk assented.
"Look there, on this table! what do you make of that?" suddenly exclaimed Bonbonne.
"What? what is there on the table?" asked the Abbé.
"Look at that candle only just extinguished," cried Bonbonne; "why, the wick is still smoking; feel the wax, it is still warm."
"It is so indeed! " ”

“ Not I! on the contrary you know I loathe them all, your poets. To gratify Madame de Pompadour, I made that common fellow Voltaire a gentleman; but since the day he dared to speak to me as an equal, calling me Titus or Trajan,—I don't know which it was, I have done with the business. I only mean to say, poetry apart, that I believe my time is come to put on the drag. ”

“ I shall never be in too violent a hurry to part the King from those who love him."
"Thank you, Duke, but it has to be; take the poor Countess and conduct her quietly to your country estate of Rueil. I shall be grateful to Madame d'Aiguillon for any kindness she will be good enough to show her." ”

“ No, Monsieur de Chauvelin had simply left the Marquise to enjoy her pious thoughts in peace.
"I am gaining acres enough of ground in hell," he used to say; " let our good Marquise gain some few inches of blue in the skies."
He never now came to Grosbois except once a year, on St. Andrew's day, when his wife held high holiday. The proceedings were always the same; Monsieur de Chauvelin embraced his children at two, dined in company, got into his coach at six and was back at Versailles in time for the King's "coucher." For four years he had never varied this routine. ”

“ At that moment Madame de Chauvelin rose from her seat.
"My mother is going away into the park," replied the younger lad, following her with his eyes; " so she will never see us. Besides, the Abbé, who is with us, would warn us if it were wrong."
"It is always wrong," said the Tutor, " to grieve one's mother."
"Oh! but my father plays cards at Court," retorted the child with that pitiless logic that like all weak things clings to any and every support. " My father plays, so we can." ”

“ Then the Marquise would smile with angelic patience at all three, promising the Monk that Monsieur de Chauvelin would reform in time, telling the Intendant that the economies effected at Grosbois would relieve the deficit of the budget so severely strained at Paris, assuring the Tutor that the lads were of good blood, and that good blood will out.
And all the while the great secular oaks were growing at Grosbois and the young saplings sprouting, both drawing life and sap from the fecund bosom of God. ”

“ The Marquise only dropped her eyes.
"Come, I am pressed for time," resumed the King; " they wait my coming to mass. Is it really true what you write here? Can the Countess have actually allowed herself to . . . "
"Oh! Sire, my cheeks still burn with shame at the thought. I am here to crave justice of the King. Never was a lady of quality so treated before."
"What! really and truly," asked the Monarch, smiling in spite of himself, "treated like a disobedient little girl, without any mitigation at all?" ”

“ This letter will show you that to the day of her death the sentiments she entertained for you remained unaltered.
"I am, sir, in great sorrow, as you may suppose, always your humble servant,
"Thérèse Miraud."
Monsieur de Villenave had kept his eyes on mine as I read.
"At midnight!" he exclaimed when I had finished; "it was at midnight, look you, that the portrait fell and was broken. Not only does the day tally, but the very minute."
"Yes," I answered, "that is so."
"You believe in the supernatural then?" cried Monsieur de Villenave. ”

“ Society was on the road to the abyss,—no, not to the abyss, to the sewer rather.
Shameful, odious, atrocious these anecdotes one and all; yet they are the only ones to divert the King. Monsieur de Sartines combines them into a daily bulletin,—another ingenious idea of Madame du Barry's,—which his Majesty reads in bed of a morning. It is written and edited in the brothels of Paris, especially in the establishment of the notorious Madame Gourdan. ”

“ Madame du Barry, all powerful as she was, never dreamt of combating his influence; his name, his position, his wit raised him above attack. During mass the King's thoughts often wandered to the tempest this new escapade of Madame du Barry's would raise, if it were to reach the Dauphin's ears. That Prince had indeed only the day before spoken his mind pretty freely to the Countess, who in spite of his wishes had pushed her nephew the Vicomte du Barry into an equerry's post in his household. ”