CHAPTER V

THE CAVALIER

One day, the Marquis was sauntering by the banks of the grand canal, at Versailles, in melancholy meditation, and thinking, sadly, that he had been abandoned by his mysterious protectress. He had come from the riding-school, and his riding costume set off wonderfully the elegance of his figure. It consisted of a green coat trimmed with rich gold lace, scarlet breeches, a vest of the same color, and high boots of shining black morocco, the tops of which hung loosely upon knee-pieces of fine cambric. At a little distance from him, Létorière saw a middle-aged horseman, who was vainly striving to make his beast pass a marble pedestal.

Two persons witnessed this contest; one, a man of fifty to sixty years, dressed in a coat of pearl-gray taffeta and silk small-clothes of the same color, had a countenance at once handsome, noble, and benevolent. He leaned on the arm of an older man, quite small, slightly stooping, superbly dressed in the old fashion of the Regency, and whose pale face was furrowed with deep wrinkles.

The more simply dressed of the two said to the other, pointing to Létorière:

"What a charming face! what a pretty figure! I never saw anything more enchanting. . . . Did you, marshal?"

"Hum . . . hum . . ." said the latter, with a dry cough; "that litt' gent'l'm'n? he's well 'nough . . . but he's as awkward as a sprinkler of holy water,"--answered the Duke de Richelieu, who had preserved the old vulgar manner of clipping his words, so much in vogue among the _roués_ of the Regency. . .

"He? with his pretty face? he would make a nice sprinkler of holy water to saints of your stamp!" said the other, smiling maliciously.

The horse was still obstinate; the rider, weary of gentle measures, used in turn the whip and spur, but with no results save kicks and fearful plunges.

Gradually, M. de Richelieu and his companion approached the Marquis. Seeing two gentlemen of venerable appearance coming towards him, Létorière respectfully saluted them.

"Well! young man . . . which has the right in this discussion, the man or the horse?" said the friend of M. de Richelieu.

"Faith! I hardly know, sir! the rider reasons with blows of his whip, and the beast replies by kicks. Such a conversation can be carried on for some time."

This answer, spoken without too much assurance, but with all the confident gayety of youth, made the questioner smile.

"You speak of it very nonchalantly, my young master . . . I should like very well to see you in the place of that horseman . . . you probably do not know that this is a mare of Ukraine. She came from Germany, and is a veritable demon . . . one that La Guérinière himself has not been able to master."

"If I were in that horseman's place, sir, I might perhaps be not more able, but more lucky," resolutely replied the Marquis.

"Truly! Well, will you try? Will you mount Barbara?"

"The mare is so beautiful . . . so proud . . . notwithstanding her viciousness . . . that I accept with all my heart, sir; and besides, the grass is so green that one need not desire a better carpet to fall upon," answered Létorière joyously.

"I have a horrible fear that he will break his neck," said the companion of M. de Richelieu in a whisper.

"With such a pretty face, so frolicsome and so captivating, one need fear neither horses, nor men, nor women, and if he should fall . . . one never falls alone . . . I have faith in him . . . he has a very enticing air." . . .

"Hullo! St. Clair," said the other, addressing the groom, "don't stubbornly persevere any longer; get down from the horse. . . . This young gentleman desires a lesson, and you can give it to him," he added, laughing.

St. Clair obeyed the order, and got off the horse.

Létorière, a little displeased at the last words of the unknown, replied to him with respectful firmness:

"I will always receive with pleasure or with resignation any lesson which I ask for, or which I deserve, sir; but here I do not find myself in either one of these cases."

The unknown and M. de Richelieu looked at each other, suppressing a great desire to laugh.

"You must take care," said the Marshal softly, "he looks like a famous fighter!"

"You'll see that he will challenge me--and before you, the senior of the Marshals of France, the President of the tribunal of honor"--said the other;--and he added, regarding the Marquis with a very serious air:

"You take it with a high hand, my young master!"

"God bless me! I take it as I must, sir," cried Létorière, resolutely setting his hand on his hip.

At this bravado, M. de Richelieu and the unknown burst out laughing, and the Marquis began to feel very much irritated, when St. Clair, who had not dismounted from the horse without difficulty, approached, hat in hand, and said to the gentleman clothed in gray:

"Sire, nothing can be done with that mare."

"The King!" cried the Marquis in confusion, and he knelt and bowed his head with a repentant air.

"By St. Louis, my young friend," said Louis XV., smiling, "I have seen the time when you would remind us that all gentlemen are our peers, and that in the old times a chevalier could cross lances with a king."

"Ah, Sire! pardon . . . pardon." . . .

"Come! rise, rise, my gentle knight," . . . and by a movement full of that majestic grace that this most amiable and most graceful of kings exhibited, in even the most trifling acts, he touched slightly, with the tip of his finger, Létorière's cheek, who, still on his knee, kissed this beautiful royal hand with profound veneration.

Létorière arose, his forehead suffused with a charming blush, his beautiful black eyes moist with tears, so profoundly was he touched with the ineffable kindness of his sovereign.

This emotion, so pure, so youthful and so naïve, struck Louis XV. delightfully. The most adroit flattery could not have effected this favorable impression.

"What is your name, my child?" he asked, regarding the Marquis with interest.

"Charles-Louis de Vighan, Marquis of Létorière, Sire."

"You are from Xaintonge," said the king, who knew wonderfully well the genealogy of his nobility.

"But you have deposited your titles," added he. "You ought to be presented to me. Why have you not been?"

"Sire, I await the return of M. the Count of Appreville, my relative, to have that honor." . . .

"Marshal Richelieu, will you act as sponsor?" said the king, addressing the duke, who replied by a respectful gesture.

"That's right!" said the king. . . . "I do not forget, my child, that you have almost censured St. Clair . . . you must make him some amends. . . . Are you bold enough to encounter Barbara?" And the king pointed to the mare, who, held by the bridle, still kicked and pranced, notwithstanding the threats and caresses of the groom. "Are you not afraid of this fiery beast?"

"I fear but one thing, Sire: it is to show myself unworthy of the eminent grace with which the king deigns to honor me in ordering me to mount a horse in his presence."

"Is he not charming? He answers with such perfect grace . . . with such exquisite tact," . . . said the king to M. de Richelieu, while Létorière, his heart palpitating with emotion, approached the redoubtable Barbara.

"The king has told me sometimes that I'm a connoisseur of faces. Yes, yes, I can predict to the king that before six months this young falcon will have taken flight,--and then, beware of him;--there'll be a great flutter among the doves, I'll answer for it."

"Your example will have been of great service to him," said the king, smiling; then suddenly crying out with fright: "Ah, the unhappy child! he will kill himself. . . . St. Clair has given up the reins, and the cursed mare will not let him approach her. . . . What kicks . . . what plunges. . . . She is a devil to mount . . . St. Clair, why did you not hold her while he mounted?"

"Sire," said the old groom in a peevish tone, "the gentleman told me that he would manage the affair himself . . ."

"And by Heaven, he does manage it" . . . said the king with astonishment;--"see there, marshal! on my word . . . he has bewitched her! . . . See how he approaches her, and she does not budge. . . . He caresses her, and the beast does not answer him with a bite, or a kick. . . . What do you say to that, St. Clair?"

"Sire, I say . . . I say . . . I say that I don't understand it at all. . . . Ordinarily she can only be mounted by the aid of the nose-twister, she is so skittish and wild." . . .

"Now see him in the saddle . . . faith! . . . he is wonderful . . . full of grace and agility. . . . What do you say to it Richelieu? What do you say, St. Clair?" said the king, whose whole face was radiant with pleasure at seeing the prowess of his young _protégé._

"Faith! I should say to the king that the boy, young as he is, is an accomplished horseman,--but he must possess some charm to have quieted the villainous kicker," . . . replied the marshal.

"One cannot say, Sire, that the posture of the gentleman is absolutely bad," said old St. Clair. "He sits firm; his body and limbs are well poised, and he seems to have a hand at once light and steady". . .

"And what the devil do you want more?" said the king; "but let us see . . . will she pass before the marble statue which so frightened her before? . . . No . . . no . . . she refuses--what bounds! Ah! poor boy!" . . .

"He seems screwed to her back. She'll have to give in," cried the marshal; "and with his little figure. He must be strong as Hercules."

"Monseigneur well knows that there is no great skill in keeping one's seat while a horse rears . . . the science is in foreseeing and preventing the rearing," rejoined St. Clair.

"Even in that case you ought to be satisfied. Look! look, see how she passes the statue . . . as easy, as comfortably as an old hack. Well done! is he a sorcerer?" cried Louis XV., looking with astonishment at the marshal and St. Clair, not less surprised than himself.

Létorière, having made the mare pass and repass several times before, the statue which had at first so much frightened her, approached the king: the Marquis held his hat in his right hand, and with the left he patted Barbara, who tossed her head and champed her bit with a most coquettish air; one would have said she was proud of the light weight she carried. The face of the young gentleman, still animated by the exercise, and the proud joy of having succeeded so well in presence of the king, was resplendent with brightness and beauty.

Seeing his _protégé_ so handsome, so radiant and so young, Louis XV. regarded him with the tender and melancholy interest which men advanced in age, or satiated with pleasure, often feel in contemplating the confident joy, the simple ardor of youth.

This excellent prince felt himself happy in the power, by a generous caprice, open to this youth a future as brilliant as a fairy tale. "It is sometimes good to be a king," said he to M. de Richelieu, with involuntary emotion.

The old marshal, before answering, appeared to interrogate the expression of the prince, in order to penetrate the sense of this exclamation, which he did not comprehend. All was dead in this heart worn out by a narrow but unbridled ambition, and hardened by a cruel egotism. Incapable of seizing the meaning of the king, the marshal replied by a courtly insipidity:

"If it is sometimes good to be a king, Sire, it is always good to be the subject of your majesty."

Louis XV. smiled with a polite, frigid air, and replied: "It is pleasant to find one's self so well understood." Then addressing Létorière, who awaited his orders: "Well, my child, tell me, how have you conquered so quickly and easily this unconquerable creature?"

"Your majesty told me that this animal came from Germany; knowing that the Germans talk much to their horses, and that they drive them almost as much by the voice as by the hand or the spur, I spoke German to her. Recognizing, undoubtedly, a language to which she was accustomed, she almost immediately became calm."

"He is right. Nothing is more simple . . . don't you see, St. Clair?" . . . said the king.

"Yes, Sire," timidly replied Létorière, throwing a glance on the old St. Clair, who appeared profoundly humiliated; "yes, Sire, nothing is more simple when one speaks German" . . .

This almost bold answer was dictated by a sentiment so delicate and generous, that Louis XV., greatly moved, cried: "Well, very well, my child . . . you are right . . . if my old St. Clair had known how to speak German, he would have done as you did; . . . but as he is too old to learn that now, and as Barbara does not appear to have any taste for the French language, keep this mare . . . Marquis of Létorière, the King gives her to you."

The Marquis bowed respectfully . . .

"Richelieu, you will present him to me to-morrow, at my first reception, without ceremony," said the king to the marshal. Then making an affectionate gesture to Létorière, Louis XV. entered the palace.

The next day Létorière was officially presented; a few days after, Louis XV. appointed him master of the horse, and later, he gave him a cornetcy in the Mousquetaires.

From this moment the fortunes of Létorière did nothing but grow, for the king's affection for him increased every day.

It would take too long to tell how the favorite became the most conspicuous man at court: but this progress was simple and natural. To all his rare advantages of mind, of person, of birth, and of heart, there was soon added an exquisite taste in everything. His horses, his furniture, and his dress became the type of elegance and good taste. In short, at the end of four years the poor scholar of Plessis College had become one of the most brilliant courtiers, and inspired at once admiration, envy, hatred, adoration, as do all people endowed with superior parts.

This narrative will not allow the recital of many brilliant exploits of which the Marquis was the hero, or of which he was supposed to be the hero, for his discretion was rare.

But it was well known that he could never be reproached with baseness or perfidy in love. In two duels he showed himself brave and generous: the only fault with which he could be charged, was great extravagance; but this he could well afford, owing to the gaining of his lawsuit against the Intendancy of Poitou, and also to the munificence and bounties of the king, who successively appointed him Commendatory Abbé of the Trinité de Vendôme, commander of the united orders of St. Lazare and Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel, a colonel of cavalry, counsellor of State, of the sword, and grand seneschal of Aunis.

Such was the prodigious prosperity which Létorière reached during the four years after his fortunate encounter with the king.

Amid all his successes, Létorière had never forgotten the great blue eyes of the Opera Ball, and almost every day he contemplated his ring with sadness.

Notwithstanding this device, _it follows you everywhere_, written under an eye of such a charming blue, which appeared to regard him with a tenderness full of confidence and serenity, the Marquis feared that he had been completely forgotten by his mysterious protectress. In four years he had received no news from her. Sometimes he trembled lest his reputation as a man of gallantry, by awaking in the breast of the unknown a just jealousy, might forever alienate her from him; sometimes he feared that absence, or sickness, or death even, might have deprived him of this strange friendship.

Moved by a singular and inexplicable sentiment, Létorière had always, in his gallantries, carefully shunned the seductions of blue eyes, however cruel this self-denial had often appeared to him. He had dreaded to profane, perhaps unwittingly, a love which he thought was so little like other loves. The more he prospered in a life which destiny had made so beautiful, and perhaps too easily happy for him, the more idolatrously did he dwell, almost with regret, on that season of calmness and tranquil happiness, when the only emotion of his life was excited by one of the letters in which his unknown had given him counsel so full of wisdom.

He noted, almost with affright, the approach of the fatal limit that had been assigned to him, when he was to receive a last letter which would decide his destiny. This letter he received that very day, four years after the meeting at the Opera Ball. It was as follows:

"For five years I have loved you . . . for five years I have followed you through all the phases of your life, obscure or brilliant, poor or fortunate. You are worthy of the heart which I offer you with confidence. I am an orphan, my hand is free. I offer it to you. . . . No human power can change my resolution to be yours. If you refuse to realize my most cherished projects, withdrawn into a cloister, each day I shall pray Heaven to grant you that happiness I would so willingly have made for you.

"JULIE DE SOISSONS,

"_Princess of S . . . C . . ._"