The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [92]
“She will come, she says, four or five days after she receives the money. It will take four or five days for the money to get there, four or five days for her to come back, which makes ten days. Now let us add something for contrary winds, bad luck, and feminine weaknesses, and say twelve days.”
“Well, Monsieur le duc, have you made your calculation?”
“Yes, Sire. Today is the twentieth of September. The city aldermen are giving a fête on the third of October. That will work out perfectly, for it will not look as though you are making a step towards the queen.”
Then the cardinal added: “By the way, Sire, don’t forget to tell Her Majesty, on the eve of this fête, that you wish to see how her diamond pendants become her.”
XVII
THE BONACIEUX HOUSEHOLD
This was the second time that the cardinal had returned to this point about the diamond pendants with the king. Louis XIII was struck by such insistence, and thought that this urging must conceal some mystery.
The king had been humiliated more than once by the cardinal, whose police, though they had not yet attained the perfection of modern police, were better informed than he himself about what was going on in his own household. So he hoped that he might draw some light from a conversation with Anne d’Autriche and then go back to His Eminence with some secret that the cardinal did or did not know, but which in either case would raise him infinitely in his minister’s eyes.
So he went to find the queen, and, as was his habit, accosted her with new threats against those who surrounded her. Anne d’Autriche lowered her head and let the torrent flow without responding, hoping that it would finally come to a stop. But that was not what Louis XIII wanted; Louis XIII wanted a discussion that would yield some sort of light, convinced as he was that the cardinal had some ulterior motive and was contriving some terrible surprise for him, as His Eminence knew how to do. He reached that goal by his persistent accusations.
“Ah,” cried Anne d’Autriche, “leave off these vague attacks, Sire. You are not telling me all that’s in your heart. What have I done? Come, what crime have I committed? It is impossible that Your Majesty should make all this noise about a letter written to my brother.”
The king, attacked in his turn with such directness, did not know how to respond. He thought it was the right moment to deliver the instructions he was supposed to give only on the eve of the fête.
“Madame,” he said majestically, “there will soon be a ball at the Hôtel de Ville. To honor our worthy aldermen, I intend to have you appear in ceremonial dress, and above all adorned with the diamond pendants I gave you for your birthday. That is my reply.”
The reply was terrible. Anne d’Autriche thought that Louis XIII knew everything, and that the cardinal had obtained from him this long dissimulation of seven or eight days, which moreover was in his character. She turned excessively pale, leaned on a console with her admirably beautiful hand, which then seemed made of wax, and, gazing at the king with terrified eyes, made not one syllable of reply.
“Do you hear, Madame,” said the king, who enjoyed the full extent of this perplexity, but without suspecting its cause, “do you hear?”
“Yes, Sire, I hear,” stammered the queen.
“You will appear at the ball?”
“Yes.”
“With the pendants?”
“Yes.”
The queen’s pallor increased still more, if that was possible. The king noticed it and enjoyed it, with that cold cruelty which was one of the bad sides of his character.
“It’s agreed, then,” said the king, “and that is all I had to say to you.”
“But what day will the ball take place?” asked Anne d’Autriche.
Louis XIII felt instinctively that he ought not to answer this question, the queen having asked it almost in a whisper.
“Why, very soon, Madame,” he said, “but I can’t remember the exact day. I’ll ask the cardinal.”
“So it was the cardinal who announced this fête to you?” cried the queen.
“Yes, Madame,” replied the astonished king, “but why do