The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [90]
“What horror!” cried the queen.
“Then kindly behave more accommodatingly, Madame.”
“This conduct is of an infamous violence, do you know that, Monsieur?”
“The king has ordered it, Madame, if you will excuse me.”
“I will not endure it. No, no, I would rather die!” cried the queen, in whom the imperial blood of Spain and Austria rose up.
The chancelier made a deep bow. Then, with the very evident intention of not yielding an inch in the accomplishment of the commission entrusted to him, and as a hangman’s valet might have done in the torture chamber, he approached Anne d’Autriche, in whose eyes at that same instant tears of rage welled up.
The queen was, as we have said, a woman of great beauty.
The mission could thus have been seen as a delicate one, but the king, by dint of his jealousy of Buckingham, had ceased to be jealous of anyone else.
No doubt Chancelier Séguier was looking around at that moment for the rope of the famous bell; but, not finding it, he resigned himself and reached his hand out towards the place where the queen had admitted the paper was to be found.
Anne d’Autriche took a step back, so pale one would have thought she was about to die; and, supporting herself with her left hand on a table that was behind her, to keep from falling, she drew a paper from her bosom with her right hand and held it out to the keeper of the seals.
“Here, Monsieur, this is that letter,” cried the queen in a broken and shaking voice. “Take it, and rid me of your odious presence.”
The chancelier, who for his part was trembling with an emotion easy to imagine, took the letter, bowed to the ground, and left.
The door had no sooner closed behind him than the queen fell half-fainting into the arms of her women.
The chancelier brought the letter to the king without reading a word of it. The king took it in a trembling hand, looked for the address, which was missing, turned very pale, opened it slowly, then, seeing from the first words that it was addressed to the king of Spain, read it very quickly.
It was a whole plan of attack against the cardinal. The queen called upon her brother and the emperor of Austria, offended as they were by the politics of Richelieu, who was eternally preoccupied with bringing down the house of Austria, to pretend to declare war on France and to impose the cardinal’s dismissal as a condition of peace. But of love there was not a single word in the entire letter.
The king, quite joyful, inquired whether the cardinal was still in the Louvre. He was told that His Eminence was in the office awaiting His Majesty’s orders.
The king went to him at once.
“You know, Duke,” he said to him, “you were right and I was wrong. The whole intrigue is political, and there was never any question of love in that letter, which I have here. On the other hand, there is much question of you.”
The cardinal took the letter and read it with the greatest attention; when he came to the end, he read it a second time.
“Well, Your Majesty,” he said, “you see how far my enemies will go! You are threatened with two wars if you do not dismiss me. In your place, to tell the truth, Sire, I would yield to such strong entreaties, and for my part it would be a real blessing to retire from public affairs.”
“What are you saying, Duke?”
“I am saying, Sire, that these excessive struggles and eternal labors are bad for my health. I am saying that, in all probability, I will be unable to bear the hardships of the siege of La Rochelle, and it would be better if you appointed either M. de Condé or M. de Bassompierre to it, or some other valiant man who is up to conducting a war, and not me, who am a man of the church and am ceaselessly being diverted from my vocation and made to apply myself to things for which I have no aptitude. You will be happier at home, Sire, and I have no doubt that you will be even more so abroad.”
“Monsieur le duc,” said the king, “I understand, rest assured. All those who are named in this letter will be punished