The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [69]
“Ah, Madame, I have but to close my eyes in order to see you just as you were then, and to open them again in order to find you as you are now, one hundred times more beautiful.”
“Foolish man!” the Queen murmured, too weak to find fault with a lover who had cherished her image so faithfully in his heart. “Do not feed the flame of a vain passion with such memories.”
“By what else shall I live, Madame? What else have I but memories, which are my happiness, my treasure and my hope. Each time I have beheld Your Majesty, it was as a new diamond which I enclosed in the casket of my heart. Here is the fourth jewel Your Majesty has let fall from the heights where you dwell and how avidly I gather it! Only four times, Madame: the first which I have described . . . the second at the Hôtel de Chevreuse . . . the third in the gardens at Amiens—”
“I beg you, My Lord Duke, never to speak of that evening,” said the Queen, blushing.
“No, Madame, on the contrary, let us speak of it always, for it was the most fortunate and radiant evening of my life. How soft the night, Madame, do you remember? How mild, how balmy the air and how blue the sky, studded with silver stars! That night, Madame, I contrived to be alone with you for one instant . . . that night you were ready to tell me all the loneliness of your life and the sorrows of your heart . . . you leaned upon my arm, Madame, ay, upon this very arm . . . as I bowed my head I could feel your hair grazing my cheek, and each time it touched me, I trembled like a coward . . . You were a queen, my queen, ah! you cannot know what divine felicity and what paradisical joy fill one such moment! Take my riches, my fortune, take my glory, take all the days I have yet to live, I would gladly exchange them for a moment like that moment, a night like that night. That night, Madame, I dare swear it! that night Your Majesty loved me!”
“My Lord, the beauty of the gardens . . . the spell of the evening . . . the fascination of your glance—oh! the thousand and one circumstances that sometimes unite to destroy a woman!—all these were heavy upon me that fatal evening. . . . But you saw it, My Lord: the Queen come to the aid of the faltering woman. At the first word you dared speak, with the first word I mustered to answer your temerity, I called for help.”
“True, Madame, and any love but mine would have perished at this ordeal, but mine emerged more ardent, more eternal! You thought to escape me by returning to Paris; you believed I would not dare quit the treasure over which my master had appointed me to watch. But what did all the treasures of the world mean to me, and all the kings of the universe? A week later I was back again, Madame. That time you had nothing to say to me; I had risked my favor and my life to see you for a fleeting second. I did not even touch your hand, and you forgave me, seeing me so submissive and repentant.”
“Yes, but as you well know, My Lord, calumny pounced upon all these follies in which I took no part. The King, excited by the Cardinal, made a terrible scene; Madame de Vernet was dismissed, Putange was exiled and Madame de Chevreuse fell into disgrace. And remember, My Lord, when you sought to return as Ambassador to France, His Majesty himself opposed it.”
“That is why France is now about to pay for her King’s refusal with a war. Now that I may no longer see you, Madame, I can at least arrange to have news of me reach you day by day. What do you suppose lies behind my plans for the occupation of the Isle of Ré and for our league with the Protestants of La Rochelle? This, no more and no less: the pleasure of my seeing you.
“I cannot hope to fight my way to Paris, sword in hand; I know this all too well. But a war, Madame, ends in a peace, a peace requires a negotiator, that negotiator might well be myself, Madame. No one would then dare to refuse me. So I shall return to Paris, I shall see you again, I shall savor a moment of ecstasy! Thousands of men, it is true, will lose their lives for my joy, but what matter so but I see Your Majesty again? Is