We remained the rest of the month at the château, being minded to depart the first week in December. The time passed as before with satisfaction to all. Gaston Cheverny was to remain in Brabant until the new year, when he was to join us in Paris. We knew not what Regnard’s plans were; if he knew them he kept them to himself. I had rather expected Regnard Cheverny to travel with us, and made sure that Jacques Haret would never lose the chance of getting to Paris free of charge, as he might have done with us, for Count Saxe traveled splendidly, with led horses, and one more person would make but little difference. But to my amazement he made no proposition to go with us. There might be good reasons for Regnard Cheverny’s determination to stay where he was. He, with his two servants and five horses, was quartered at Gaston’s house; and very pleasant quarters they were, for Regnard had every privilege of the master of the house and no responsibilities whatever. His furnishing of Castle Haret was an excellent excuse to keep him near Mademoiselle Capello. He asked Count Saxe to apply for additional leave for him, which was easy enough to get; but a young officer who wished promotion as 174 much as Regnard Cheverny did, and no more aspiring man ever lived, was likely to be forgotten if he remained away from Paris too long. So, I took it, he had a strong motive for staying in Brabant.
I often wondered what Jacques Haret’s feelings must be, when Regnard, as he often did, talked openly about the new plans for Castle Haret. But Jacques showed his usual cool and unruffled front. It is astonishing how many good and even great qualities a man may possess and still be a scoundrel of the first water. Jacques would sometimes take a laughing but advisatory tone with Regnard.
“Do not, my dear fellow,” he would say, “be eaten up with ambition to shine before kings. I remember once, in my childhood, the Duc d’Orleans, the king’s brother, came to Brabant, and was to dine at Castle Haret. All sorts of things were to be done. In the lake there was to be an island, from which concealed music played. But this island, mind you, was to move about. It was a thing of poles and beams extending from a boat, with twelve stout rowers, who were hidden by plants and vines. Old Peter here, then a young man, contrived it, and my father expected to receive a court appointment for that island. Well, the duke came, was entertained at dinner, ate the wing of a chicken, was taken to the lake and did not notice the island moved until my father in an agony called his attention to it. Then the duke went back, slept until supper time, looked for about ten minutes at some fireworks that my father had ordered all the way from Paris and had near ruined himself by—and left the next morning, with an influenza, which his Highness 175 swore he had got at Castle Haret. My father got nothing except the influenza, for all his money and pains. So do not you, my young friend, try your luck with princes.”
Regnard did not like this speech, and replied tartly that the Chevernys had generally succeeded where the Harets had failed; which was true enough.
I continued to be puzzled to know why Jacques Haret should remain. Gentlemen of his kidney need a great town to operate in, not a far-off province. And what would he live on? For Gaston Cheverny, however hospitable he might he, would not allow Jacques Haret a permanent footing at the Manoir Cheverny; and besides, Gaston would shortly follow us to Paris—and he was not a rich enough man to pay for Jacques Haret’s company on the way. There was little question about Jacques Haret’s means of livelihood for the present, for we knew well enough that the excellent wages paid old Peter found their way into Jacques Haret’s pocket. And not only that, but one day, going to Peter’s cottage, to make some inquiry about our horses, I noted Lisa, the dove-eyed girl, at work upon a fine cambric shirt—finer than any I, Babache, ever wore, or expect to wear. It was not for old Peter certainly; and if not for him, it must be for Jacques Haret—and my surmise turned out to be true.
At last the time came for us to say goodbye to the château of Capello, and to start for Paris, that town of many devils, some of them women.
On the evening before our departure, all of us who had left Königsberg together, and Jacques Haret, assembled at the château. Count Saxe and I were to 176 take the road for Paris at daylight. All expressed regret at our separation; we had been associated closely for three months, in battle, in siege, in flight, and in sweet repose; and we parted with those feelings of regard that our mutual vicissitudes would naturally inspire. We had an evening of pleasant converse; Gaston Cheverny sang for us, not forgetting the song that he and Francezka loved so much—O Richard, O mon roi—and Francezka accompanied Gaston on the harpsichord. Jacques Haret was, as usual, the life of the company, and Regnard Cheverny was not eclipsed by any one present.
Our last farewells took place in the red saloon. Madame Riano paid us the handsomest compliments possible, and expressed the hope, or rather the conviction, that she would have the pleasure some day of entertaining us at her ancestral seat in Scotland, under the rule of Scotland’s lawful king—for so she called Prince Charles Edward Stuart. She represented that this ancestral seat, somewhere in the wilds of Scotland, was a far more magnificent place than the château of Capello, or the Hôtel Kirkpatrick. Madame Riano always pictured Scotland to us as a land flowing with milk and honey, of unparalleled richness and splendor, of stupendous wealth lavishly expended. I have sometimes been told the contrary of this. Our healths were drunk, to which Count Saxe responded as only he could respond. We toasted the ladies, drank to our reunion, and when the clocks were striking twelve, we said adieu.
I can never forget Mademoiselle Capello on that night: her beauty, in which archness and pensiveness 177 alternated, her cheerful hope of meeting, together with her sincere regret at parting, the shining of her dark eyes, the rope of pearls round her milk-white throat, the shimmer of her yellow satin gown—all—all were in my mind waking and sleeping, for long afterwards. She gave me her hand to kiss in farewell, and then, holding my rough palm in her two velvety ones, she said to Count Saxe:
“Will you promise me, Count Saxe, if ever I need Babache, you will let me have him?”
“I promise you, Mademoiselle,” gallantly replied Count Saxe. “I could not refuse you even the most valuable thing I have; and if that day comes, I only ask that Babache may serve you as faithfully as he has served me.”
All of which was sweet music to my ears.
At daylight next morning we were in the saddle. As we rode out of the courtyard in the pale December dawn I saw a light in Francezka’s chamber.
We took the familiar road past the Italian garden, the statues showing ghostlike in the cold gray light, the lake a sheet of ice. Soon the château of Capello was behind us. The two Chevernys joined us a mile from the château and rode with us a stage. Count Saxe was cheerful, as always, and spoke with enthusiasm of again seeing Mademoiselle Adrienne Lecouvreur. She was one whose money a man might lose, and if honorably lost, might safely face. Is not that high praise?
At the end of the first stage the Chevernys bade us adieu. It was but for a brief time with Gaston, for however he might cherish a lady in his heart, his duty as a man came first; and with a small estate, it behooved 178 him to be very active in his profession of arms, that he might not be known as a laggard and sluggard. Count Saxe contemplated the buying of a regiment as soon as a fit opportunity came—he shortly after bought the regiment of Spar—and Gaston Cheverny must needs be on the spot, if he wished, as he needed, promotion. Regnard’s ampler fortune made him freer than Gaston, but he was not a man likely to forget his own advancement. We saw them depart with regret, and then increased our own pace. We traveled rapidly, and on the third evening after leaving the château of Capello, our horses’ hoofs clattered against the stones of Paris. Oh, that fateful town! I have always had a fear of it—a dread of its fierce people, women as well as men; and though I was born there, I think I never spent a comfortable day there after I cut my milk-teeth.
Instead of going to the Luxembourg, where it was understood quarters were reserved for Count Saxe, he went to a small inn and preserved his incognito for the present. As soon as we had supped, Count Saxe sent me to see Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, to ask for an interview. I went to the Théâtre Français, and being recognized—for it is not easy to forget so ugly a man as I am—I was permitted behind the scenes.
The play was that very Herod and Mariamne of Monsieur Voltaire’s that Mademoiselle Lecouvreur had played two years before, which Jacques Haret had so cleverly burlesqued, and in which Mademoiselle Capello had been so rashly brilliant. From the wings I watched the house—well lighted, for the king’s Majesty was there, looking frightfully bored in the royal box—and a mob of fine people. I presumed, from seeing 179 Voltaire’s piece played, that he was at last home from England, and sure enough, there he was, sitting in a box. He had but lately arrived, as I afterward learned. He looked well dressed, well fed and very impudent. The people seemed to relish his presence, for after the second act there were cries for him, to which he responded. He was sitting with some ladies of rank—catch that notary’s son appearing in public except with the great! But I admit he wrote some good things.
I was distressed to see the changes that two years had made in Mademoiselle Lecouvreur. She was paler and slighter than ever, and although she acted her part with sublime fire and energy, it was plain that the soul within her was driving her frail body as the spur drives a tired horse.
At the end of the second act, after the people had shouted themselves hoarse with delight, I asked to be shown to Madame Lecouvreur’s dressing room—for she was no longer able to go to the foyer during the interval between the acts, so a snuffy old box keeper told me. I knocked at her door and she bade me enter.
She lay on a couch, and was panting with fatigue. The paint on her face made her look ghastly at close range. By her sat Monsieur Voltaire; and I will say that I felt a softening of the heart toward him at that moment which I had never known before. Those fiery eyes of his were full of tenderness and soft pity; he had left his fine friends for Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, and sat by her, fanning her. And when he spoke to her his voice had more of the human in it than one could have thought.
“Come, come, Mademoiselle,” he was saying, “you 180 must not imagine yourself ill. If you do, what will become of me? Who will make the world believe I can write plays, if Adrienne can no longer act them?”
A mournful little smile came upon Mademoiselle Lecouvreur’s reddened lips, and she answered:
“You do not need me, Monsieur, to prove that you can write comedies or tragedies or anything else. All the muses adopted you at your birth, and if ever Adrienne Lecouvreur is remembered it will be because she was chosen by you sometimes to play the immortal parts you created.”
There was not one word of flattery in this, I knew; each uttered the eternal verities.
Then I appeared.
When Mademoiselle Lecouvreur saw me she sprang up with a miraculous strength—she knew that I was the avant-courier of Maurice of Saxe. I had no mind to deliver my master’s message in Monsieur Voltaire’s ears, but he knew what my coming meant, and scowled at me. He was furiously jealous of my master with Mademoiselle Lecouvreur.
I thanked Mademoiselle Lecouvreur for her kind greeting; her poor hands trembled so when she took the note my master had sent that she dropped it. Monsieur Voltaire handed it to her, and saw plainly the awkward writing in it—for I make no pretense that Count Saxe could have earned his living as a writing master. But although Voltaire must have guessed it all, he forbore to gibe at the letter. Love and pity had made him almost human.
There was, however, no room for him or me either in the room then. Mademoiselle Lecouvreur longed 181 to be alone with her treasure of a few scrawled lines, and both of us went out. The door passed, we were in the foyer. That door shut out our truce, and Monsieur Voltaire, in the presence of a number of persons, undertook to make me his butt on Count Saxe’s account.
“So, Captain Babache,” he said, “we hear that Count Saxe is on his way from Courland, and he is probably in Paris now.”
This put me in a cruel predicament, for Count Saxe did not wish his arrival known until he had seen the king; but Monsieur Voltaire was the man for putting people in cruel predicaments.
I mumbled something and looked about me for an avenue of escape. I never was ashamed to run away from an enemy too strong for me. But Voltaire blocked the way for me, his eyes blazing with merriment—those eyes that burned a hole in one—and a number of persons collected about us. The foyer was crowded, and wherever Monsieur Voltaire was he became a beacon light; no one could help watching him or listening to him, unless, of course, Count Saxe was present.
“I am considering,” said Monsieur Voltaire, with a wicked grin, “of making a new comedy—something on the order of a roaring farce. Count Saxe’s expedition to Courland will make excellent material. First act: Count Saxe going forth with Captain Babache and three hundred Uhlans, to conquer the universe. Second act: Count Saxe conquering the universe and getting clapped into a closet in the Grand Duchess Anna Iwanowna’s palace at Mitau, where, I hear, she and her waiting maids and a little dog kept him prisoner 182 for a month, from whence Peggy Kirkpatrick at last released him. Third act: Count Saxe arrives in Paris. Is sent for to relate his adventures to his Majesty. Majesty weeps—that is to say, laughs until he cries. Count Saxe begs to be sent to the Bastille until the town is done laughing at him. Majesty cruelly refuses. Count Saxe threatens to kill himself, and goes and eats a couple of cold fowls. Epilogue: spoken by Babache in the character of Bombastes Furioso. Messieurs, you will see that I am a prophet.”
“Monsieur, if you are a prophet,” I replied, near choking with chagrin, “you may recall your own definition of a prophet. When the first knave met the first fool, then there was the first prophet!”
There was laughter at that, but greater laughter still when Monsieur Voltaire proceeded to inform the crowd that Mademoiselle Lecouvreur had taught Count Saxe all he knew, except war, of which no one could teach him anything, and spelling, which he never could learn. He also chose to quote my master as saying that in his youth he was exactly like the devil, as he always learned what he was not told to learn; and the people present continued to laugh uproariously. They were of that class of persons who would have laughed just as readily at Monsieur Voltaire had my master been there to hang the notary’s son on the peg where he belonged.
In the midst of it the door to Mademoiselle Lecouvreur’s room opened, and she herself softly called me to her. I went, still smarting at the laughter and the heartless banter of those Paris people who thought it fine to laugh at Monsieur Voltaire’s gibes at Count Saxe. Oh, what I have not suffered for my master 183 through that upstart son of a notary! And yet, I can not deny that the fellow had great parts and shining wit!
Mademoiselle Lecouvreur bade me to tell Count Saxe to come to her house after the theater. With her usual goodness she asked concerning my health and welfare. No gentler, kinder heart ever beat than Mademoiselle Lecouvreur’s.
I slipped back to the inn and gave Count Saxe the message sent him by Mademoiselle Lecouvreur. He had an interview with her that night at her house. When he returned he looked more serious than he had done at the prospect of losing Courland, for he saw that the world would soon have to part with that true heart and noble artist, Adrienne Lecouvreur. He said only a few words about her, but they came from his heart of hearts. I am aware that some people say he had no heart, but I, Babache, know better; else would I have died like a felon the day I first spoke with him face to face.
Presently, as we sat together in his dingy room at the inn, after the midnight bells had spoken, he said:
“Babache, I have found out enough since I have been in Paris to show me that I must see the king before twenty-four hours are over. The court goes to Versailles early to-morrow morning. Arrange that we go there to-morrow afternoon in good state.”
With that he tumbled into bed. I was up at daylight, preparing for the journey. I wished for Gaston Cheverny then—he would have been of infinite service to me. My master had a magnificent gilt coach stored in Paris, and also twenty liveries of green and gold. I 184 had to get these things out, have them dusted and overhauled, find six horses for the coach, and others for the outriders—in short, do the work of a week in a day. But it was done nevertheless; and at two o’clock on the next day Count Saxe set forth with an equipage and retinue worthy of him. I rode in the coach with him, and we reached Versailles before sunset.
It was a cold, bright, December afternoon, the sun near sinking—we were determined to arrive before sunset, lest our enemies should say we had sneaked in by night to avoid being seen. But we rolled up to the foot of the grand staircase, with a rattle and a roar, and a color and a shining which showed that Maurice of Saxe was not avoiding any man’s eyes—or woman’s, either.
Now, my master had what is called the grand entrée; that is to say, he could go to the king whenever he wished. So, without saying “by your leave” to anybody, he stepped out of his coach and began ascending the grand staircase. There were numbers of people about, and all of them stared at him, and many spoke, Count Saxe returning their salutations cordially. We mounted leisurely. Midway the stairs we met Cardinal Fleury, with his private chaplain, descending. The cardinal was a mild-mannered old man, and seeing Count Saxe, he stopped and spoke to him.
“You are back from Courland, then, Monsieur,” said the cardinal, politely. “No doubt you are pleased to be once more among polite persons. I hear the Courlanders are very wild and wicked people, with no fear of God.”
“Your Eminence, we are all of us great sinners, as 185 well as the Courlanders, that is the truth,” answered Count Saxe, “and I will leave your Eminence to meditate upon that grand truth. Good evening.” And with that he went clamping up the staircase. I saw, out of the tail of my eye, the cardinal stop and laugh to himself. The story flew all about Versailles, and people were chary after that in offering real or pretended condolences to Count Saxe.
We reached the king’s anteroom, where the usual crowd of do-nothings and good-for-nothings was assembled. The women at Versailles always reminded me of butterflies and humming-birds. They crowded about Count Saxe like bees about a honeysuckle, but he artfully excused himself, and made for the king’s door with such an air of command that the lackeys thought he was sent for by the king. Of course he was instantly admitted, and he directed that I follow him, which I did.
The king was waiting for the queen to go to supper, and looked bored and impatient. He was a handsome, stolid, laisser-faire man, who, by not doing anything, contrived to get as much evil done as the worst king that ever lived; but he was rather a respectable sort of man at that time. Several gentlemen were in the room when he entered, and none of them dared open his mouth for fear of adding to the king’s irritation. The instant, however, my master appeared, the king’s countenance cleared. He greeted Count Saxe in the warmest manner, and asked that he would come to the royal closet as soon as supper was over that he might hear of all that had happened in Courland. My master thanked him in suitable terms. Then the queen entered, and her 186 greeting was as cordial as the king’s. If the queen, poor soul, hated anybody, it was the Russians, whom she reckoned the despoiler of her father, the King of Poland. So there was much of painful interest to her in what Count Saxe had to tell.
It was then time to go to supper. Imagine the feelings of those people who wished to see Count Saxe humiliated, when they beheld him walking along the grand gallery, the king talking to him with the greatest animation! The queen claimed him of the king at supper, and he was treated more like an Alexander returning victorious than as a drenched hen as the old Scotchwoman had predicted.
My master told me that the king, in the private interview, asked concerning Madame Riano and Mademoiselle Capello, and was mightily diverted with the story of Madame Riano and the bishop. His Majesty was not well pleased that so great an heiress as Mademoiselle Capello should remain away from his court.
We stayed the night at Versailles, and next morning when we returned to Paris, it was to take up our old quarters at the Luxembourg. It was not exactly a pleasant home coming. Count Saxe had looked for another sort. But he was the last man in the world to repine at fate.
On the first of January, 1728, my master again took up his abode in his old quarters at the palace of the Luxembourg.
And how did he employ himself? Chiefly with amusettes, as far as I know. This answer I have made many thousands of times. I always have to explain what amusettes are. They are not young ladies of the ballet, or anything of the sort, but very complete military toys, with which many scientific experiments may be made. Count Saxe was the first man to do this, and he had whole cabinets full of small brass cannon, and toy arms of every description, with which he made useful and serious improvements. And these toys were his amusettes. But was that all he did? For I have been asked that also many times. Well, he studied much—more out of books than was commonly thought; and he went often to the theater, and only occasionally to court, albeit the king doted on him so far as Louis XV could dote on any man. Philippe de Comines has said that there is but one thing more severe on a man than the favor of kings, and that is their enmity. This is a great truth, and my master acknowledged 188 it when I read it out of the book of Philippe de Comines.
The king would not let Count Saxe out of France except with extreme reluctance, and for short periods; but kept him, for five mortal years, standing, as Count Saxe said, like an equestrian statue, with one foot always uplifted to march, but never marching. Now, if any one wishes to know what else Count Saxe was doing during those five long years, let him ask some one who knew him better and was more in his company than Babache, his captain of the body-guard of Uhlans. I swear I knew nothing on earth of anything concerning Count Saxe, except what is put down in this book. I know that the women ran after him enough to drive him to drink, had he been so inclined. How much attention Count Saxe paid them in return I have not the slightest notion, and I never was the man to pretend to know what I did not know.
In January of 1728 Gaston Cheverny joined us. We had scarcely established ourselves in our old quarters at the Luxembourg, when one evening, while the snow lay deep on the streets of Paris, the door to my room, next Count Saxe’s, burst open, and Gaston Cheverny, gay and bold, dashed in.
I was rejoiced to see him again, and only grumbled that he had not arrived before to aid me in many troublesome matters, like that of providing an equipage for Count Saxe at a night’s notice; but he took my rating with laughter. The evening was cold, and a fire blazed upon the hearth, before which Gaston stretched his legs and pulled off his boots, replacing them with fine shoes of Spanish leather. We had only been separated 189 four weeks, but we had many questions to ask of each other. Gaston, as a soldier, was eager to know of Count Saxe’s plans. I told him of the project to buy the regiment of Spar, which was shortly after carried through, and of the king’s evident determination to keep Count Saxe in his service.
“Good!” cried Gaston; “I knew I made no mistake when I cast my fortunes with Count Saxe. Let but the drum beat on the Rhine, in the Pyrenees, or in Savoy, and we shall be on the march within twenty-four hours.”
Such is the way ardent young men talk.
Then I asked what had been burning on my tongue ever since he entered the room. What of the ladies at the château of Capello—meaning Francezka, but naming Madame Riano first.
“Madame Riano is the same Peggy Kirkpatrick. The warfare between her and the Bishop of Louvain is grown more bloody and desperate than ever. Quarter is neither asked nor given. Madame Riano has told the story of the bishop being near frightened out of his wits by the burning out of a chimney, and declares he was so panic-stricken he had to take to his bed that minute. The bishop preaches openly at Madame Riano, doing everything but calling her by name from the pulpit.”
And then I spoke the word both of us had longed to hear.
“And Mademoiselle Capello?”
It was as if the sun had blazed out of twilight, Gaston Cheverny’s face glowed so.
“She is in great beauty, perfect health and happiness. 190 She desired me to ask of you not to forget her; that she remembered you daily.”
So did I remember her daily.
“And you have gone away and left the field to your brother and rival?” I said.
“Babache,” replied Gaston, coming and sitting on the arm of my chair, his arm about my neck, “the afternoon before I left I sat with Francezka—I call her that to you, but to no other man—I sat with Francezka in the Italian garden at the foot of Petrarch’s statue. I had a volume of Petrarch, and read to her that sonnet from the poet’s heart beginning:
|
Sweet bird, that singest on thy airy way. |
“I had often read it to her in that spot—and I reminded her that it was the last, last time for long—perhaps forever—that we should sit in that place and read that book of enchantment together, when—Babache, will you promise me on your sword never to breathe what I tell you?”
I promised; lovers can not keep their own secrets, but expect others to do it.
“When I had finished reading the sonnet, Francezka remained silent. I looked at her, and the big, beautiful tears were dropping upon her cheeks. Babache, can you imagine the exquisite rapturous pain of seeing the woman you love weeping at the thought of parting from you?”
He got up and walked about the room, and sat down, this time opposite me.
“You understand, Babache, she is not yet quite seventeen. 191 In another year she will be her own mistress; but I think she regards as sacred her father’s injunction not to marry for two years after her majority. Nay, I believe she wants those two years of freedom. All this does not frighten me—but—her fortune will be very great, and that frightens me. Mine is but small. Had we but succeeded in Courland! If I could but give her glory in exchange for wealth. And—Babache—the kindness of her eyes—those tears were for me—” he got up again and walked about frantically, like your young lover. I saw he was not really very miserable, but had persuaded himself that he was.
“You will not find many men balking at her fortune,” said I. “And remember: Mademoiselle Capello is in danger of sharing the usual wretched fate of heiresses, to be sold like a slave in the market. You, at least, love her.”
“Love her—” he pranced about wildly, protesting his love. He was but two and twenty, after all; but under this effervescence, I saw a deep and true passion that possessed him body and soul.
Presently he calmed himself and talked seriously of Francezka. I had no doubt, although he preserved a manly modesty about it, that Francezka, impetuous like himself, wilful, proud, but loving, had given him much greater encouragement than a tear or two at his reading a sonnet of Petrarch’s to her. But with that strain of sober sense, and that mastery of the will which I had so often noticed in Francezka’s wildest dreams, and which I always attributed to her Scotch blood, she meant not to throw away her liberty rashly. She might lap her soul in Elysium, and dream dreams, and entertain love 192 with magnificence, but she always knew where her footing was, and what she actually did would not be waited on by repentance.
Then I made inquiry about Regnard Cheverny.
“My brother, I think, has made up his mind to take service with the Austrians under Prince Eugene, and I believe he will in time become an Austrian. He is still at Castle Haret, and Jacques Haret—ah, the scoundrel! I can scarcely tell you without swearing of his latest villainy. Lisa—poor old Peter’s niece—”
“Has he carried off the old man’s one ewe lamb?” I cried.
“Yes—that poor, submissive girl.”
Of all the villainies I had ever known up to that time, this of Jacques Haret seemed to me the worst. I had seen the seamy side of human nature often—too often. I had seen the rapine of camps, the iniquities of a great city; but this action of Jacques Haret’s shone hideous alongside all I had ever known.
Gaston Cheverny continued, his wrath and disgust speaking in his face and voice.
“I wondered why Jacques Haret should remain in Brabant. I allowed him to stay at my house—may God forgive me! I thought he could not find much evil to his hand; but it seems, like Satan’s darling, as he is, he made evil. For the girl was perfectly correct until he met her, and there was not the slightest suspicion of any wrong-doing until, one morning, less than a fortnight ago, when old Peter arose, he found she had gone. He ran at once to my house, having had, I fancy, some latent fear of Jacques Haret. I was wakened from sleep in the wintry dawn by the sound 193 of the old man’s crying and moaning at my door. He had gone to Jacques Haret’s room and found he had decamped.
“I opened the door, and there stood the old man—he would have fallen but that I held him up. He could utter but one name, the tears meanwhile drenching his poor, wrinkled face:
“‘Lisa! Lisa! My little Lisa!’
“Some intuition came to me. I said:
“‘And Jacques Haret?’
“The old man nodded, and then fell against the doorpost. I asked if anything could be done. I would myself with pistols pursue Jacques Haret if required. I was likewise enraged on my own account that so vile a use should have been made of my hospitality.
“‘Nothing can be done,’ replied the old man, in a terrible voice—terrible because of its echo of despair. ‘It is I—I who am to blame. All said that my other two nieces were bad—that they, and not I, were to blame—but now it is proved that it is I who should be judged. I made Monsieur Jacques welcome in my poor house. I made Lisa tend him. Now who, knowing his power over a poor and ignorant girl like my Lisa, can fail to see that it is I—I—who am the great sinner. I made the temptation for them—if Lisa’s soul is lost, it is I who should be everlastingly punished.’
“What could one say to that, from a broken-hearted poor old creature? However, I promised him and myself, too, that if ever I met Jacques Haret, if it were at the gates of hell, or if it were in the presence of St. Peter, I would have one good blow at him. Then the old man’s grief took on the aspect of strong despair. 194 I walked with him through the fields to the château of Capello, for he was not really able to go alone. When we reached the terrace, there was Mademoiselle Capello. She was ever an early riser. She ran toward us, and Peter uttered but two words, ‘Jacques Haret—my Lisa,’ and all was known. Mademoiselle Capello put her arm about the old man’s neck—yes, the faithful old serving-man was embraced by that tender, loving heart.
“‘Dear Peter,’ she said, ‘Lisa will come back—she will repent—doubt not that—and she shall be welcomed as the lost sheep who was found by the Good Shepherd, and restored to the sheepfold. But, for Jacques Haret, there shall be no mercy. Peter, I declare to you, I feel strong enough at this moment to fly at Jacques Haret’s throat and strangle him—and do God service thereby.’
“‘Mademoiselle,’ said I, ‘command me. This old man is not the only person Jacques Haret has injured. I, too, have a mortal injury to avenge—for he was my guest.’
“‘Avenge it, then,’ she said, her eyes sparkling—‘vengeance is mine, saith the Lord—but I take it, God selects His instruments from among men. And I shall also ask that Captain Babache keep an eye open for that wicked man—’”
“I will,” I interrupted.
“‘And it shall go hard if he be not punished,’ she said.
“When Madame Riano heard of it she was for mounting a-horseback and going in search of Jacques Haret. One thing, however, we may reasonably count on—that Jacques Haret shall one day pay for this.”
“Undoubtedly,” I replied.
We spoke more on this melancholy business, and talked on other things, and then Gaston Cheverny went to pay his respects to Count Saxe in his room; but Count Saxe was out—gone in pursuit of knowledge and virtue, I fancy.
In that month of January began a life of tedium for us which had few mitigations. A young man, like Gaston Cheverny, full of spirit but with little money, was under many disabilities at Paris. His wit and fine person made him to be sought after by those who knew him already, but he was not by nature a carpet knight. No soldier of Hannibal enjoyed Mantua more than Gaston Cheverny would have enjoyed Paris in winter after a summer’s campaigning; but to sit, kicking his heels day after day, was irksome to him. Being a proud man, it did not please him to expose the smallness of his fortune when it could be helped, so he, with me, lived a life which we often compared to that of the monks of La Trappe. We read much—Gaston, in especial I believe, mastered by heart every poem on love printed in the French language and many in the Italian, Spanish and English languages. He likewise achieved a great number of songs, and actually composed some himself; but of these last, I have heard better, I must acknowledge.
The Hôtel Kirkpatrick was unoccupied and closed, the entrances and windows boarded up. There was no talk during all that year of Madame Riano and Mademoiselle Capello returning to Paris. I heard often of them through persons passing from Brussels to Paris. Mademoiselle Capello, out of her abundant kindness, 196 often sent me messages of good-will—nay, even a pair of gloves wrought with her own hand—a favor I never heard of her doing to any gentleman; for she was chary of her favors to the great. She told me, years afterward, that standing so much alone in the world as she was, and the hunted of fortune seekers, from the first she ever relied upon me as one of her truest friends. And she was justified.
Gaston Cheverny kept up a constant correspondence with his brother, for never at any time did their rivalry for Francezka seem to interrupt the brotherly intercourse between the two Chevernys. They were very far from being Mademoiselle Capello’s only suitors, that I knew. Gentlemen went in search of her and her fortune, from Paris, from Brussels, even from London and Vienna; but all came back chopfallen.
So crept away the winter, the spring, the summer, the autumn. And so went another year, and 1730 dawned, a year memorable for the loss of Mademoiselle Lecouvreur. She, too, showed me a condescension beautiful and worthy of her. She did not lack for friends among the greatest during her fading away. Besides my master and Monsieur Voltaire, was my Lord Peterborough, a great, tall devil of an Englishman, with a head on his shoulders and a heart in his bosom, who made some fine campaigns in Spain. Count Saxe and Monsieur Voltaire had a tacit agreement to visit Mademoiselle Lecouvreur on different days, although I believe the sense that she would soon be lost to both of them softened their feelings one to the other. All this time Mademoiselle Lecouvreur could still act, three times a week; but when she was 197 not at the theater she was usually in her bed—and always patient, gentle and smiling. She had not always been so patient. I have been told that, her sister once impudently demanding money of her, Mademoiselle Lecouvreur threw both shoes at her. But as some one has said, “Death lights up a terrible flambeau in which the aspect of all things is changed.”
Great crowds attended all of Mademoiselle Lecouvreur’s performances at the Théâtre Français; and in spite of her weakness, the fire of genius carried her through her parts with a supernatural strength. When it was over, though, she was no more the great artist, but poor, ailing, dying Adrienne Lecouvreur. On the days when she lay on her couch in her chamber, she was sometimes kind enough to ask for me. When I would go in I would be asked to take a chair within the ruelle and she would talk to me with her old kindness. Often her mind went back to her childhood days; for this woman was far above the paltriness of being ashamed of her origin, as Monsieur Voltaire was. She once said to me, Count Saxe sitting by:
“Babache, how merry we were as children—though we were often ragged, and I, for one, had not always as much as I would have liked to eat. But we were not troubled with governesses or masters, were we, Babache?” She laughed as she said this, her beautiful tired eyes lighting up.
“Indeed we were not, Mademoiselle, and I believe the children of the poor are, in general, happier than the children of the rich,” I answered.
Count Saxe, a king’s son, who had been brought up at court, listened to the recitals of us, the children of 198 the poor, and I believe, learned some things he had not known before.
Not even Mademoiselle Lecouvreur’s sad situation could disarm the jealousy of the women who envied her Count Saxe’s devotion. There was one of them, the Duchesse de Bouillon, who, like Jacques Haret, was one of the devil’s darlings, and kept shop for him. Every night that Mademoiselle Lecouvreur acted, during that last winter, Madame de Bouillon was present blazing with jewels, and with the air of gloating over the great artist who was already serenely looking into the quiet land. This duchess was a handsome creature, and a Circe; she turned men into beasts.
Whenever Mademoiselle Lecouvreur played, there was always a great attendance of her friends—although for that matter, all Paris was her friend. It was amazing how this woman’s spirit mastered her body. When she would be carried to and from her coach, tottering as she stepped upon the stage, the very first sight of the sea of sympathizing faces, the roar of many approving voices, seemed to pour life into her veins. She would become erect and smiling—at once Art and Genius appeared like sustaining angels to her—and she would resume her power as a queen assumes her scepter.
Toward the end of February it was plain she was going fast. Monsieur Voltaire and Count Saxe were with her every day, now only choosing separate hours for their visits. One mild March evening, at the door of her house in the Marais, I met Count Saxe coming out. He had a strange look on his face. I asked if Mademoiselle Lecouvreur would be able to act that night.
“No,” he said. “She will act no more.”