The Vicomte de Bragelonne. Alexandre Dumas
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de la Valliere, it belongs to kings to repair the want of opportunity, and most delightedly do I undertake to repair, in your instance, and with the least possible delay, the wrongs of fortune toward you."
"Nay, sire," cried La Valliere, eagerly; "leave things, I beg, as they now are."
"Is it possible! you refuse what I ought, and what I wish to do for you?"
"All I desired has been granted me, when the honor was conferred upon me of forming one of Madame's household."
"But if you refuse for yourself, at least accept for your family."
"Your generous intention, sire, bewilders and makes me apprehensive, for, in doing for my family what your kindness urges you to do, your majesty will raise up enemies for us, and enemies for yourself too. Leave me in my mediocrity, sire; of all the feelings and sentiments I experience, leave me to enjoy that pleasing delicacy of disinterestedness."
"The sentiments you express," said the king, "are indeed admirable."
"Quite true," murmured Aramis in Fouquet's ear, "and he cannot be accustomed to them."
"But," replied Fouquet, "suppose she were to make a similar reply to my letter."
"True!" said Aramis, "let us not anticipate, but wait the conclusion."
"And then, dear Monsieur d'Herblay," added the surintendant, hardly able to appreciate the sentiments which La Valliere had just expressed, "it is very often a sound calculation to seem disinterested with monarchs."
"Exactly what I was thinking this very minute," said Aramis. "Let us listen."
The king approached nearer to La Valliere, and as the rain dripped more and more through the foliage of the oak, he held his hat over the head of the young girl, who raised her beautiful blue eyes toward the royal hat which sheltered her, and shook her head, sighing deeply as she did so.
"What melancholy thought," said the king, "can possibly reach your heart when I place mine as a rampart before it?"
"I will tell you, sire. I had already once before broached this question, which is so difficult for a young girl of my age to discuss, but your majesty imposed silence on me. Your majesty belongs not to yourself alone, you are married; and every sentiment which would separate your majesty from the queen, in leading your majesty to take notice of me, will be a source of the profoundest sorrow for the queen." The king endeavored to interrupt the young girl, but she continued with a suppliant gesture. "The Queen Maria, with an attachment which can be so well understood, follows with her eyes every step of your majesty which separates you from her. Happy enough in having had her fate united to your own, she weepingly implores Heaven to preserve you to her, and is jealous of the faintest throb of your heart bestowed elsewhere." The king again seemed anxious to speak, but again did La Valliere venture to prevent him.—"Would it not, therefore, be a most blameable action," she continued, "if your majesty, a witness of this anxious and disinterested affection, gave the queen any cause for her jealousy? Forgive me, sire, for the expression I have used. I well know it is impossible, or rather that it would be impossible, that the greatest queen of the whole world could be jealous of a poor girl like myself. But, though a queen, she is still a woman, and her heart, like that of any of her sex, cannot close itself against the suspicions which such as are evilly disposed insinuate. For Heaven's sake, sire, think no more of me, I am unworthy of your regard."
"Do you know that in speaking as you have done you change my esteem for you into admiration?"
"Sire, you assume my words to be contrary to the truth; you suppose me to be better than I really am, and attach a greater merit to me than God ever intended should be the case. Spare me, sire; for, did I not know that your majesty was the most generous man in your kingdom, I should believe you were jesting."
"You do not, I know, fear such a thing; I am quite sure of that," exclaimed Louis.
"I shall be obliged to believe it, if your majesty continues to hold such language toward me."
"I am most unhappy, then," said the king, in a tone of regret which was not assumed: "I am the unhappiest prince in the whole Christian world, since I am powerless to induce belief in my words in one whom I love the best in the wide world, and who almost breaks my heart by refusing to credit my regard for her."
"Oh, sire!" said La Valliere, gently putting the king aside, who had approached nearer to her, "I think the storm has passed away now, and the rain has ceased." At the very moment, however, as the poor girl, fleeing, as it were, from her own heart, which doubtlessly throbbed too much in unison with the king's, uttered these words, the storm undertook to contradict her. A bluish flash of lightning illumined the forest with a wild, weird-like glare, and a peal of thunder, like a discharge of artillery, burst over their very heads, as if the height of the oak which sheltered them had attracted the storm. The young girl could not repress a cry of terror. The king with one hand drew her toward his heart, and stretched the other above her head, as though to shield her from the lightning. A moment's silence ensued, as the group, delightful as everything young and loving is delightful, remained motionless, while Fouquet and Aramis contemplated it in attitudes as motionless as La Valliere and the king. "Oh, sire, sire!" murmured La Valliere, "do you hear?" and her head fell upon his shoulder.
"Yes," said the king. "You see the storm has not passed away."
"It is a warning, sire." The king smiled. "Sire, it is the voice of Heaven in anger."
"Be it so," said the king. "I agree to accept that peal of thunder as a warning, and even as a menace, if, in five minutes from the present moment, it is renewed with equal violence; but if not, permit me to think that the storm is a storm simply, and nothing more." And the king, at the same moment, raised his head, as if to interrogate the heavens. But, as if the remark had been heard and accepted, during the five minutes which elapsed after the burst of thunder which had alarmed them no renewed repeal was heard; and when the thunder was again heard, it was passing away in so audible a manner, as if, during those same five minutes, the storm, put to flight, had traversed the heavens with the speed of the wings of the wind. "Well, Louise," said the king, in a low tone of voice, "will you still threaten me with the anger of Heaven? and, since you wished to regard the storm as a presentiment, will you still believe that presentiment to be one of misfortune?"
The young girl looked up, and saw that while they had been talking the rain had penetrated the foliage above them, and was trickling down the king's face. "Oh, sire, sire!" she exclaimed, in accents of eager apprehension, which greatly agitated the king. "It is for me," she murmured, "that the king remains thus uncovered, and exposed to the rain. What am I, then?"
"You are, you perceive," said the king, "the divinity who dissipates the storm, and brings back fine weather." In fact, a ray of sunlight streamed through the forest, and caused the rain-drops which rested upon the leaves, or fell vertically among the openings in the branches of the trees, to glisten like diamonds.
"Sire," said La Valliere, almost overcome, but making a powerful effort over herself, "think of the anxieties your majesty will have to submit to on my account. At this very moment they are seeking you in every direction. The queen must be full of uneasiness; and Madame—oh, Madame!" the young girl exclaimed, with an expression which almost resembled terror.
This name had a certain effect upon the king. He started, and disengaged himself from La Valliere, whom he had, till that moment, held pressed against his heart. He then advanced toward the path, in order to look round, and returned, somewhat thoughtfully, to La Valliere. "Madame, did you say?" he remarked.
"Yes, Madame; she, too, is jealous," said La Valliere, with a marked tone of voice; and her eyes, so timorous in their expression, and so modestly fugitive in their glance, for a moment ventured to look inquiringly in the king's eyes.
"Still," returned Louis, making an effort over himself, "it seems to me that Madame has no reason, no right to be jealous of me."
"Alas!" murmured La Valliere.
"Are you, too," said the king, almost in a tone of reproach, "are you among those who think the sister has a right to be jealous of the brother?"