“Tell Godard to go on horseback, and carry this note to the Chancellor’s office. — There is no reply,” said she to the maid.
The woman went out of the room quickly, but, in spite of the order, remained at the door for some minutes.
“There are great mysteries going forward then?” asked Madame d’Espard. “Tell me all about it, dear child.
Has Clotilde de Grandlieu put a finger in the pie?”
“You will know everything from the Lord Keeper, for my husband has told me nothing. He only told me he was in danger.
It would be better for us that Madame de Serizy should die than that she should remain mad.”
“Poor woman!” said the Marquise. “But was she not mad already?”
Women of the world, by a hundred ways of pronouncing the same phrase, illustrate to attentive hearers the infinite variety of musical modes.
The soul goes out into the voice as it does into the eyes; it vibrates in light and in air — the elements acted on by the eyes and the voice.
By the tone she gave to the two words,
“Poor woman!” the Marquise betrayed the joy of satisfied hatred, the pleasure of triumph.
Oh! what woes did she not wish to befall Lucien’s protectress.
Revenge, which nothing can assuage, which can survive the person hated, fills us with dark terrors. And Madame Camusot, though harsh herself, vindictive, and quarrelsome, was overwhelmed.
She could find nothing to say, and was silent.
“Diane told me that Leontine went to the prison,” Madame d’Espard went on. “The dear Duchess is in despair at such a scandal, for she is so foolish as to be very fond of Madame de Serizy; however, it is comprehensible: they both adored that little fool Lucien at about the same time, and nothing so effectually binds or severs two women as worshiping at the same altar.
And our dear friend spent two hours yesterday in Leontine’s room.
The poor Countess, it seems, says dreadful things!
I heard that it was disgusting!
A woman of rank ought not to give way to such attacks.
— Bah!
A purely physical passion.
— The Duchess came to see me as pale as death; she really was very brave.
There are monstrous things connected with this business.”
“My husband will tell the Keeper of the Seals all he knows for his own justification, for they wanted to save Lucien, and he, Madame la Marquise, did his duty.
An examining judge always has to question people in private at the time fixed by law!
He had to ask the poor little wretch something, if only for form’s sake, and the young fellow did not understand, and confessed things ——”
“He was an impertinent fool!” said Madame d’Espard in a hard tone.
The judge’s wife kept silence on hearing this sentence.
“Though we failed in the matter of the Commission in Lunacy, it was not Camusot’s fault, I shall never forget that,” said the Marquise after a pause. “It was Lucien, Monsieur de Serizy, Monsieur de Bauvan, and Monsieur de Granville who overthrew us.
With time God will be on my side; all those people will come to grief.
— Be quite easy, I will send the Chevalier d’Espard to the Keeper of the Seals that he may desire your husbands’s presence immediately, if that is of any use.”
“Oh! madame ——”
“Listen,” said the Marquise. “I promise you the ribbon of the Legion of Honor at once — to-morrow.
It will be a conspicuous testimonial of satisfaction with your conduct in this affair.
Yes, it implies further blame on Lucien; it will prove him guilty.
Men do not commonly hang themselves for the pleasure of it. — Now, good-bye, my pretty dear ——”
Ten minutes later Madame Camusot was in the bedroom of the beautiful Diane de Maufrigneuse, who had not gone to bed till one, and at nine o’clock had not yet slept.
However insensible duchesses may be, even these women, whose hearts are of stone, cannot see a friend a victim to madness without being painfully impressed by it.
And besides, the connection between Diane and Lucien, though at an end now eighteen months since, had left such memories with the Duchess that the poor boy’s disastrous end had been to her also a fearful blow.
All night Diane had seen visions of the beautiful youth, so charming, so poetical, who had been so delightful a lover — painted as Leontine depicted him, with the vividness of wild delirium.
She had letters from Lucien that she had kept, intoxicating letters worthy to compare with Mirabeau’s to Sophie, but more literary, more elaborate, for Lucien’s letters had been dictated by the most powerful of passions — Vanity.
Having the most bewitching of duchesses for his mistress, and seeing her commit any folly for him — secret follies, of course — had turned Lucien’s head with happiness.
The lover’s pride had inspired the poet.
And the Duchess had treasured these touching letters, as some old men keep indecent prints, for the sake of their extravagant praise of all that was least duchess-like in her nature.
“And he died in a squalid prison!” cried she to herself, putting the letters away in a panic when she heard her maid knocking gently at her door.
“Madame Camusot,” said the woman, “on business of the greatest importance to you, Madame la Duchesse.”
Diane sprang to her feet in terror.
“Oh!” cried she, looking at Amelie, who had assumed a duly condoling air, “I guess it all — my letters!
It is about my letters. Oh, my letters, my letters!” She sank on to a couch.
She remembered now how, in the extravagance of her passion, she had answered Lucien in the same vein, had lauded the man’s poetry as he has sung the charms of the woman, and in what a strain!