And the four friends flew at a gallop along the road to Bethune.
61 THE CARMELITE CONVENT AT BETHUNE
Great criminals bear about them a kind of predestination which makes them surmount all obstacles, which makes them escape all dangers, up to the moment which a wearied Providence has marked as the rock of their impious fortunes.
It was thus with Milady. She escaped the cruisers of both nations, and arrived at Boulogne without accident.
When landing at Portsmouth, Milady was an Englishwoman whom the persecutions of the French drove from La Roch.e.l.le; when landing at Boulogne, after a two days" pa.s.sage, she pa.s.sed for a Frenchwoman whom the English persecuted at Portsmouth out of their hatred for France.
Milady had, likewise, the best of pa.s.sports--her beauty, her n.o.ble appearance, and the liberality with which she distributed her pistoles.
Freed from the usual formalities by the affable smile and gallant manners of an old governor of the port, who kissed her hand, she only remained long enough at Boulogne to put into the post a letter, conceived in the following terms:
"To his Eminence Monseigneur the Cardinal Richelieu, in his camp before La Roch.e.l.le.
"Monseigneur, Let your Eminence be rea.s.sured. His Grace the Duke of Buckingham WILL NOT SET OUT for France.
"MILADY DE ---- "BOULOGNE, evening of the twenty-fifth.
"P.S.--According to the desire of your Eminence, I report to the convent of the Carmelites at Bethune, where I will await your orders."
Accordingly, that same evening Milady commenced her journey. Night overtook her; she stopped, and slept at an inn. At five o"clock the next morning she again proceeded, and in three hours after entered Bethune.
She inquired for the convent of the Carmelites, and went thither immediately.
The superior met her; Milady showed her the cardinal"s order. The abbess a.s.signed her a chamber, and had breakfast served.
All the past was effaced from the eyes of this woman; and her looks, fixed on the future, beheld nothing but the high fortunes reserved for her by the cardinal, whom she had so successfully served without his name being in any way mixed up with the sanguinary affair. The ever-new pa.s.sions which consumed her gave to her life the appearance of those clouds which float in the heavens, reflecting sometimes azure, sometimes fire, sometimes the opaque blackness of the tempest, and which leave no traces upon the earth behind them but devastation and death.
After breakfast, the abbess came to pay her a visit. There is very little amus.e.m.e.nt in the cloister, and the good superior was eager to make the acquaintance of her new boarder.
Milady wished to please the abbess. This was a very easy matter for a woman so really superior as she was. She tried to be agreeable, and she was charming, winning the good superior by her varied conversation and by the graces of her whole personality.
The abbess, who was the daughter of a n.o.ble house, took particular delight in stories of the court, which so seldom travel to the extremities of the kingdom, and which, above all, have so much difficulty in penetrating the walls of convents, at whose threshold the noise of the world dies away.
Milady, on the contrary, was quite conversant with all aristocratic intrigues, amid which she had constantly lived for five or six years.
She made it her business, therefore, to amuse the good abbess with the worldly practices of the court of France, mixed with the eccentric pursuits of the king; she made for her the scandalous chronicle of the lords and ladies of the court, whom the abbess knew perfectly by name, touched lightly on the amours of the queen and the Duke of Buckingham, talking a great deal to induce her auditor to talk a little.
But the abbess contented herself with listening and smiling without replying a word. Milady, however, saw that this sort of narrative amused her very much, and kept at it; only she now let her conversation drift toward the cardinal.
But she was greatly embarra.s.sed. She did not know whether the abbess was a royalist or a cardinalist; she therefore confined herself to a prudent middle course. But the abbess, on her part, maintained a reserve still more prudent, contenting herself with making a profound inclination of the head every time the fair traveler p.r.o.nounced the name of his Eminence.
Milady began to think she should soon grow weary of a convent life; she resolved, then, to risk something in order that she might know how to act afterward. Desirous of seeing how far the discretion of the good abbess would go, she began to tell a story, obscure at first, but very circ.u.mstantial afterward, about the cardinal, relating the amours of the minister with Mme. d"Aiguillon, Marion de Lorme, and several other gay women.
The abbess listened more attentively, grew animated by degrees, and smiled.
"Good," thought Milady; "she takes a pleasure in my conversation. If she is a cardinalist, she has no fanaticism, at least."
She then went on to describe the persecutions exercised by the cardinal upon his enemies. The abbess only crossed herself, without approving or disapproving.
This confirmed Milady in her opinion that the abbess was rather royalist than cardinalist. Milady therefore continued, coloring her narrations more and more.
"I am very ignorant of these matters," said the abbess, at length; "but however distant from the court we may be, however remote from the interests of the world we may be placed, we have very sad examples of what you have related. And one of our boarders has suffered much from the vengeance and persecution of the cardinal!"
"One of your boarders?" said Milady; "oh, my G.o.d! Poor woman! I pity her, then."
"And you have reason, for she is much to be pitied. Imprisonment, menaces, ill treatment-she has suffered everything. But after all,"
resumed the abbess, "Monsieur Cardinal has perhaps plausible motives for acting thus; and though she has the look of an angel, we must not always judge people by the appearance."
"Good!" said Milady to herself; "who knows! I am about, perhaps, to discover something here; I am in the vein."
She tried to give her countenance an appearance of perfect candor.
"Alas," said Milady, "I know it is so. It is said that we must not trust to the face; but in what, then, shall we place confidence, if not in the most beautiful work of the Lord? As for me, I shall be deceived all my life perhaps, but I shall always have faith in a person whose countenance inspires me with sympathy."
"You would, then, be tempted to believe," said the abbess, "that this young person is innocent?"
"The cardinal pursues not only crimes," said she: "there are certain virtues which he pursues more severely than certain offenses."
"Permit me, madame, to express my surprise," said the abbess.
"At what?" said Milady, with the utmost ingenuousness.
"At the language you use."
"What do you find so astonishing in that language?" said Milady, smiling.
"You are the friend of the cardinal, for he sends you hither, and yet--"
"And yet I speak ill of him," replied Milady, finishing the thought of the superior.
"At least you don"t speak well of him."
"That is because I am not his friend," said she, sighing, "but his victim!"
"But this letter in which he recommends you to me?"
"Is an order for me to confine myself to a sort of prison, from which he will release me by one of his satellites."
"But why have you not fled?"
"Whither should I go? Do you believe there is a spot on the earth which the cardinal cannot reach if he takes the trouble to stretch forth his hand? If I were a man, that would barely be possible; but what can a woman do? This young boarder of yours, has she tried to fly?"
"No, that is true; but she--that is another thing; I believe she is detained in France by some love affair."
"Ah," said Milady, with a sigh, "if she loves she is not altogether wretched."