by a first refusal, Madame de Verneuil was by no means inclined to follow his example. Baffled but not beaten, she resolved upon returning to the charge; and accordingly she drove to the residence of the minister, and met him at the door of his closet as he was about to proceed to the Louvre, in order to have an interview with the King.
There was an expression of haughty defiance in the eye of the favourite, and a heightened colour upon her cheek, which at once betrayed to Sully the purpose of her visit; while he on his side received her with a calm courtesy which was ill-calculated to inspire her with any hope of success; and she had scarcely seated herself before he gave her reason to perceive that he was as little inclined to temporize as herself. When they met he held in his hand a roll of paper, which, even after she had entered the apartment, he still continued to grasp with a pertinacity that did not fail to attract her attention.
"And what may be the precious document, Monsieur le Ministre," she demanded flippantly, "of which you find it so impossible to relax your hold?"
"A precious document indeed, Madame," was the abrupt reply, "and one in which you figure among many others." So saying, he unrolled the scroll, and read aloud a list of edicts, solicited or granted, similar to that of the Comte de Soissons, one of which bore her own name.
"And what are you about to do with it?" she asked.
"To make it the subject of a remonstrance to his Majesty."
"Truly," exclaimed the Marquise, no longer able to control her rage, "the King will be well-advised should he listen to your caprices, and by so doing affront twenty individuals of the highest quality. Upon whom should he confer such favours as these, if not upon the Princes of the Blood, his cousins, his relatives, and his mistresses?"
"That might be very well," replied the minister, totally unmoved by her insolence, "if the King could pay these sums out of his own privy purse; but that they should be levied upon the merchant, the artizan, and the labourer, is entirely out of the question. It is they who feed both him and us; and one master is enough, without their being compelled to support so many cousins, relatives, and mistresses." [220]
Madame de Verneuil could bear no more; but rising passionately from her chair, she left the room without even a parting salutation to the plain-spoken minister, who saw her depart with as much composure as he had seen her enter; and quietly rolling up the obnoxious document which had formed the subject of discussion between them, he in his turn got into his carriage, and proceeded to the Louvre.
Furious alike at her want of success and at the affront which had been put upon her, the Marquise drove from the Arsenal to the hotel of M. de Soissons; where, still smarting under the rebuff of the uncompromising Duke, she did not scruple sufficiently to garble his words to give them all the appearance of a premeditated and wilful insult to the Prince personally. She assured him that in reply to her remark that the relatives of the monarch possessed the greatest claim upon his liberality, M. de Sully had retorted by the observation that the King had too many kinsmen, and that it would be well for the nation could it be delivered from some of them.
This report so exasperated M. de Soissons, that on the following morning he demanded an audience of the sovereign, during which he bitterly inveighed against the arrogance and presumption of the minister, and claimed instant redress for this affront to his honour and his dignity as a Prince of the Blood; haughtily declaring that should the King refuse to do him justice, he would find means to avenge himself.
The unseemly violence of the Count, by offending the self-respect of the monarch, could not have failed, under any circumstances, to defeat its own object; but aware as he was that Sully had sought only the preservation of his master's interests, Henry was even less inclined than he might otherwise have been to yield to a dictation of this imperious nature. The very excess of his indignation consequently rendered him calm and self-possessed, and thus at once gave him a decided advantage over his excited interlocutor. Instead of retorting angrily, and involving himself in an undignified dispute, he replied to the intemperate language of the Count by calmly inquiring if he were to understand that M. de Sully had addressed the obnoxious remark which was the subject of complaint to the Prince himself, or if it had merely been reported to him by a third person. To this question M. de Soissons impatiently replied that the insult had not indeed been uttered to himself personally, but that the individual by whom it was communicated to him was above all suspicion; while he moreover considered that his assurance of its truth ought to suffice, as he was incapable of falsehood.
"Were it so, cousin," said Henry coldly, "you would differ greatly from the other members of your family, especially your elder brother; but since you appear to place so perfect a reliance on the veracity of your informant, you have only to name him to me, and to explain precisely what he alleges to have passed, and I shall then understand what is necessary to be done, and will endeavour to satisfy you as far as I can reasonably do so."
M. de Soissons was not, however, prepared to involve Madame de Verneuil in a quarrel which threatened the most serious results; and he consequently declared that he had plighted his word not to divulge the identity of his informant; a promise which he, moreover, considered to be utterly unnecessary, as he was ready to pledge himself to the entire truth of what he had advanced.
"So, cousin," said the King with an ambiguous smile, "you screen yourself under the shadow of an oath from revealing to me what I desire to know; then I, in my turn, swear not to believe one syllable of your complaint beyond what M. de Sully may himself report to me; for I hold his veracity in as great estimation as you do that of the nameless partisan to whom you are indebted for the fine story you have inflicted upon me."
It was in somewhat the same frame of mind in which the Marquise had quitted the finance minister that M. de Soissons, as the King rose and thus indicated the termination of the interview, passed from the royal closet; nor did he retire until he had indulged in such unrestrained threats of vengeance that Henry considered it expedient to despatch Zamet without delay to the Arsenal to warn Sully to be upon his guard against the impetuous Prince, and not to venture abroad without a sufficient suite; while at the same time the messenger was instructed to inquire if the obnoxious expression had indeed been used, and to whom.
On being apprised of the visit which had been paid by Madame de Verneuil to the Duke, the King instantly comprehended the whole intrigue, and at once declared that it was useless to search further; as he well knew that she possessed both malice and invention enough to distort the words of the minister to her own purposes; an admission which indicated for the moment a considerable decrease of infatuation on the part of her royal lover.[221]
That this had, however, already become evident, was exemplified by the fact that upon some rumour of the kind being addressed to the Duchesse de Rohan, coupled with an inference that the infidelity of Madame de Verneuil had become known to the King, the young Duchess had gaily replied: "What could he anticipate? How was it possible for love to nestle between a mouth and chin which are always interfering with each other?" [222]
It is scarcely doubtful that the present incautious proceeding of the Marquise tended to shake the confidence which Henry had hitherto felt in an affection so admirably simulated that it might have inspired trust in an individual of far inferior rank. He could not overlook the fact that Madame de Verneuil had presumed to declare herself hostile to his favourite minister, and had even made a tool of one of the Princes of the Blood; an affront to himself which he resented after his accustomed fashion, by withdrawing himself from her society, and assiduously appearing in the private circle of the Queen.
On this occasion, however, week succeeded week, and the monarch still continued to avoid the enraged favourite; and even occasionally alluded to her with a contempt which stung her haughty and presumptuous spirit beyond endurance. She saw her little Court melting away, her flatterers dispersing, and her friends becoming estranged; nor could she conceal from herself that if she failed shortly to discover some method of estranging Henry from the Queen, and once more asserting her own influence, all her greatness would be scattered to the winds. Her vanity was also as deeply involved as her ambition, for she had hitherto believed her power over the affections of the King to be so entire that he could not liberate himself from her thrall; yet now, in the zenith of her beauty, in the pride