From the Memoirs of a Minister of France
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Stanley Weyman >> From the Memoirs of a Minister of France
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The young man proved to be her brother, whom she commended to my
good offices, the impoverishment of the family being so great
that she could compass no more regular method of introducing him
to the world, though the house of St. Mesmin is truly respectable
and, like my own, allied to several of the first consequence.
Madame de Bray recalled our old TENDRESSE to my mind, and
conjured me so movingly by it--and by the regard which her family
had always entertained for me--that I could not dismiss the
application with the hundred others of like tenor that at that
time came to me with each year. That I might do nothing in the
dark, however, I invited the young fellow to walk with me in the
garden, and divined, even before he spoke, from the absence of
timidity in his manner, that he was something out of the common.
"So you have come to Paris to make your fortune?" I said.
"Yes, sir," he answered.
"And what are the tools with which you propose to do it?" I
continued, between jest and earnest.
"That letter, sir," he answered simply; "and, failing that, two
horses, two suits of clothes, and two hundred crowns."
"You think that those will suffice?" I said, laughing.
"With this, sir," he answered, touching his sword; "and a good
courage."
I could not but stand amazed at his coolness; for he spoke to me
as simply as to a brother, and looked about him with as much or
as little curiosity as Guise or Montpensier. It was evident that
he thought a St. Mesmin equal to any man under the King; and that
of all the St. Mesmins he did not value himself least.
"Well," I said, after considering him, "I do not think that I can
help you much immediately. I should be glad to know, however,
what plans you have formed for yourself."
"Frankly, sir," he said, "I thought of this as I travelled; and I
decided that fortune can be won by three things--by gold, by
steel, and by love. The first I have not, and for the last I
have a better use. Only the second is left. I shall be
Crillon."
I looked at him in astonishment; for the assurance of his manner
exceeded that of his words. But I did not betray the feeling.
"Crillon was one in a million," I said drily.
"So am I," he answered.
I confess that the audacity of this reply silenced me. I
reflected that the young man who--brought up in the depths of the
country, and without experience, training or fashion--could so
speak in the face of Paris was so far out of the common that I
hesitated to dash his hopes in the contemptuous way which seemed
most natural. I was content to remind him that Crillon had lived
in times of continual war, whereas now we were at peace; and,
bidding him come to me in a week, I hinted that in Paris his
crowns would find more frequent opportunities of leaving his
pockets than his sword its sheath.
He parted from me with this, seeming perfectly satisfied with his
reception; and marched away with the port of a man who expected
adventures at every corner, and was prepared to make the most of
them. Apparently he did not take my hint greatly to heart,
however; for when I next met him, within the week, he was
fashionably dressed, his hair in the mode, and his company as
noble as himself. I made him a sign to stop, and he came to
speak to me.
"How many crowns are ]eft?" I said jocularly.
"Fifty," he answered, with perfect readiness.
"What!" I said, pointing to his equipment with something of the
indignation I felt, "has this cost the balance?
"No," he answered. "On the contrary, I have paid three months'
rent in advance and a month's board at Zaton's; I have added two
suits to my wardrobe, and I have lost fifty crowns on the dice."
"You promise well!" I said.
He shrugged his shoulders quite in the fashionable manner.
"Always courage!" he said; and he went on, smiling.
I was walking at the time with M. de Saintonge, and be muttered,
with a sneer, that it was not difficult to see the end, or that
within the year the young braggart would sink to be a gaming-
house bully. I said nothing, but I confess that I thought
otherwise; the lad's disposition of his money and his provision
for the future seeming to me so remarkable as to set him above
ordinary rules.
From this time I began to watch his career with interest, and I
was not surprised when, in less than a month, something fell out
that led the whole court to regard him with a mixture of
amusement and expectancy.
One evening, after leaving the King's closet, I happened to pass
through the east gallery at the Louvre, which served at that time
as the outer antechamber, and was the common resort as well of
all those idlers who, with some pretensions to fashion, lacked
the ENTREE, as of many who with greater claims preferred to be at
their ease. My passage for a moment stilled the babel which
prevailed. But I had no sooner reached the farther door than the
noise broke out again; and this with so sudden a fury, the tumult
being augmented by the crashing fall of a table, as caused me at
the last moment to stand and turn. A dozen voices crying
simultaneously, "Have a care!" and "Not here! not here!" and
all looking the same way, I was able to detect the three
principals in the FRACAS. They were no other than M. de St.
Mesmin, Barradas--a low fellow, still remembered, who was already
what Saintonge had prophesied that the former would become--and
young St. Germain, the eldest son of M. de Clan.
I rather guessed than heard the cause of the quarrel, and that
St. Mesmin, putting into words what many had known for years and
some made their advantage of, had accused Barradas of cheating.
The latter's fury was, of course, proportioned to his guilt; an
instant challenge while I looked was his natural answer. This,
as he was a consummate swordsman, and had long earned his living
as much by fear as by fraud, should have been enough to stay the
greediest stomach; but St. Mesmin was not content. Treating the
knave, the word once passed, as so much dirt, he transferred his
attack to St. Germain, and called on him to return the money he
had won by betting on Barradas.
St. Germain, a young spark as proud and headstrong as St. Mesmin
himself, and possessed of friends equal to his expectations,
flung back a haughty refusal. He had the advantage in station
and popularity; and by far the larger number of those present
sided with him. I lingered a moment in curiosity, looking to see
the accuser with all his boldness give way before the almost
unanimous expression of disapproval. But my former judgment of
him had been correctly formed; so far from being browbeaten or
depressed by his position, he repeated the demand with a stubborn
persistence that marvellously reminded me of Crillon; and
continued to reiterate it until all, except St. Germain himself,
were silent. "You must return my money!" he kept on saying
monotonously. "You must return my money. This man cheated, and
you won my money. You must pay or fight."
"With a dead man?" St. Germain replied, gibing at him.
"No, with me."
"Barradas will spit you!" The other scoffed. "Go and order your
coffin, and do not trouble me."
"I shall trouble you. If you did not know that he cheated, pay;
and if you did know, fight."
"I know?" St. Germain retorted fiercely. "You madman! Do you
mean to say that I knew that he cheated?"
"I mean what I say!" St. Mesmin returned stolidly. "You have
won my money. You must return it. If you will not return it,
you must fight."
I should have heard more, but at that moment the main door
opened, and two or three gentlemen who had been with the King
came out. Not wishing to be seen watching the brawl, I moved
away and descended the stairs; and Varenne overtaking me a moment
later, and entering on the Biron affair--of which I had just been
discussing the latest developments with the King--I forgot St.
Mesmin for the time, and only recalled him next morning when
Saintonge, being announced, came into my room in a state of great
excitement, and almost with his first sentence brought out his
name.
"Barradas has not killed him then?" I said, reproaching myself
in a degree for my forgetfulness.
"No! He, Barradas!" Saintonge answered.
"No?" I exclaimed.
"Yes!" he said. "I tell you, M. le Marquis, he is a devil of a
fellow--a devil of a fellow! He fought, I am told, just like
Crillon; rushed in on that rascal and fairly beat down his guard,
and had him pinned to the ground before he knew that they had
crossed swords!"
"Well," I said, "there is one scoundrel the less. That is all."
"Ah, but that is not all!" my visitor replied more seriously.
"It should be, but it is not; and it is for that reason I am come
to you. You know St. Germain?"
"I know that his father and you are--well, that you take opposite
sides," I said smiling.
"That is pretty well known," he answered coldly. "Anyway, this
lad is to fight St. Germain to-morrow; and now I hear that M. de
Clan, St. Germain's father, is for shutting him up. Getting a
LETTRE DE CACHET or anything else you please, and away with him."
"What! St. Germain?" I said.
"No!" M. de Saintonge answered, prolonging the sound to the
utmost. "St. Mesmin!"
"Oh," I said, "I see."
"Yes," the Marquis retorted pettishly, "but I don't. I don't
see. And I beg to remind you, M. de Rosny, that this lad is my
wife's second cousin through her step-father, and that I shall
resent any interference with him. I have spent enough and done
enough in the King's service to have my wishes respected in a
small matter such as this; and I shall regard any severity
exercised towards my kinsman as a direct offence to myself.
Whereas M. de Clan, who will doubtless be here in a few minutes,
is--"
"But stop," I said, interrupting him, "I heard you speaking of
this young fellow the other day. You did not tell me then that
he was your kinsman."
"Nevertheless he is; my wife's second cousin," he answered with
heat.
"And you wish him to--"
"Be let alone!" he replied interrupting me in his turn more
harshly than I approved. "I wish him to be let alone. If he
will fight St. Germain, and kill or be killed, is that the King's
affair that he need interfere? I ask for no interference," M. de
Saintonge continued bitterly, "only for fair play and no favour.
And for M. de Clan who is a Republican at heart, and a Bironist,
and has never done anything but thwart the King, for him to come
now, and--faugh! it makes me sick."
"Yes," I said drily; "I see."
"You understand me?"
"Yes," I said, "I think so."
"Very well," he replied haughtily--he had gradually wrought
himself into a passion; "be good enough to bear my request in
mind then; and my services also. I ask no more, M. de Rosny,
than is due to me and to the King's honour."
And with that, and scarcely an expression of civility, he left
me. Some may wonder, I know, that, having in the Edict of Blois,
which forbade duelling and made it a capital offence, an answer
to convince even his arrogance, I did not use this weapon; but,
as a fact, the edict was not published until the following June,
when, partly in consequence of this affair and at my instance,
the King put it forth.
Saintonge could scarcely have cleared the gates before his
prediction was fulfilled. His enemy arrived hot foot, and
entered to me with a mien so much lowered by anxiety and trouble
that I hardly knew him for the man who had a hundred times
rebuffed me, and whom the King's offers had found consistently
obdurate. All I had ever known of M. de Clan heightened his
present humility and strengthened his appeal; so that I felt pity
for him proportioned not only to his age and necessity, but to
the depth of his fall. Saintonge had rightly anticipated his
request; the first, he said, with a trace of his old pride, that
he had made to the King in eleven years: his son, his only son
and only child--the single heir of his name! He stopped there
and looked at me; his eyes bright, his lips trembling and moving
without sound, his hands fumbling on his knees.
"But," I said, "your son wishes to fight, M. de Clan?"
He nodded.
"And you cannot hinder him?"
He shrugged his shoulders grimly. "No," he said; "he is a St.
Germain."
"Well, that is just my case," I answered. "You see this young
fellow St. Mesmin was commended to me, and is, in a manner, of my
household; and that is a fatal objection. I cannot possibly act
against him in the manner you propose. You must see that; and
for my wishes, he respects them less than your son regards
yours."
M. de Clan rose, trembling a little on his legs, and glaring at
me out of his fierce old eyes. "Very well," he said, "it is as
much as I expected. Times are changed--and faiths--since the
King of Navarre slept under the same bush with Antoine St.
Germain on the night before Cahors! I wish you good-day, M. le
Marquis."
I need not say that my sympathies were with him, and that I would
have helped him if I could; but in accordance with the maxim
which I have elsewhere explained, that he who places any
consideration before the King's service is not fit to conduct it,
I did not see my way to thwart M. de Saintonge in a matter so
small. And the end justified my inaction; for the duel, taking
place that evening, resulted in nothing worse than a serious, but
not dangerous, wound which St. Mesmin, fighting with the same
fury as in the morning, contrived to inflict on his opponent.
For some weeks after this I saw little of the young firebrand,
though from time to time he attended my receptions and invariably
behaved to me with a modesty which proved that he placed some
bounds to his presumption. I heard, moreover, that M. de
Saintonge, in acknowledgment of the triumph over the St. Germains
which he had afforded him, had taken him up; and that the
connection between the families being publicly avowed, the two
were much together.
Judge of my surprise, therefore, when one day a little before
Christmas, M. de Saintonge sought me at the Arsenal during the
preparation of the plays and interludes--which were held there
that year--and, drawing me aside into the garden, broke into a
furious tirade against the young fellow.
"But," I said, in immense astonishment, "what is this? I thought
that he was a young man quite to your mind; and--"
"He is mad!" he answered.
"Mad?" I said.
"Yes, mad!" he repeated, striking the ground violently with his
cane. "Stark mad, M. de Rosny. He does not know himself! What
do you think--but it is inconceivable. He proposes to marry my
daughter! This penniless adventurer honours Mademoiselle de
Saintonge by proposing for her!"
"Pheugh!" I said. "That is serious."
"He--he! I don't think I shall ever get over it!" he answered.
"He has, of course, seen Mademoiselle?"
M. de Saintonge nodded.
"At your house, doubtless?"
"Of course!" he replied, with a snap of rage.
"Then I am afraid it is serious," I said.
He stared at me, and for an instant I thought that he was going
to quarrel with me. Then he asked me why.
I was not sorry to have this opportunity of at once increasing
his uneasiness, and requiting his arrogance. "Because," I said,
"this young man appears to me to be very much out of the common.
Hitherto, whatever he has said he would do, he has done. You
remember Crillon? Well, I trace a likeness. St. Mesmin has much
of his headlong temper and savage determination. If you will
take my advice, you will proceed with caution."
M. de Saintonge, receiving an answer so little to his mind, was
almost bursting with rage. "Proceed with caution!" he cried.
"You talk as if the thing could be entertained, or as if I had
cause to fear the coxcomb! On the contrary, I intend to teach
him a lesson a little confinement will cool his temper. You
must give me a letter, my friend, and we will clap him in the
Bastille for a month or two."
"Impossible," I said firmly. "Quite impossible, M. le Marquis."
M. de Saintonge looked at me, frowning. "How?" he said
arrogantly. "Have my services earned no better answer than
that?"
"You forget," I replied. "Let me remind you that less than a
month ago you asked me not to interfere with St. Mesmin; and at
your instance I refused to accede to M. de Clan's request that I
would confine him. You were then all for non-interference, M. de
Saintonge, and I cannot blow hot and cold. Besides, to be plain
with you," I continued, "even if that were not the case, this
young fellow is in a manner under my protection; which renders it
impossible for me to move against him. If you like, however, I
will speak to him."
"Speak to him!" M. de Saintonge cried. He was breathless with
rage. He could say no more. It may be imagined how unpalatable
my answer was to him.
But I was not disposed to endure his presumption and ill-temper
beyond a certain point; and feeling no sympathy with him in a
difficulty which he had brought upon himself by his spitefulness,
I answered him roundly. "Yes," I said," I will speak to him, if
you please. But not otherwise. I can assure you, I should not
do it for everyone."
But M. de Saintonge's chagrin and rage at finding himself thus
rebuffed, in a quarter where his haughty temper had led him to
expect an easy compliance, would not allow him to stoop to my
offer. He flung away with expressions of the utmost resentment,
and even in the hearing of my servants uttered so many foolish
and violent things against me, that had my discretion been no
greater than his I must have taken notice of them. As, however,
I had other and more important affairs upon my hands, and it has
never been my practice to humour such hot-heads by placing myself
on a level with them, I was content to leave his punishment to
St. Mesmin; assured that in him M. Saintonge would find an
opponent more courageous and not less stubborn than himself.
The event bore me out, for within a week M. de St. Mesmin's
pretensions to the hand of Mademoiselle de Saintonge shared with
the Biron affair the attention of all Paris. The young lady,
whose reputation and the care which had been spent on her
breeding, no less than her gifts of person and character,
deserved a better fate, attained in a moment a notoriety far from
enviable; rumour's hundred tongues alleging, and probably with
truth--for what father can vie with a gallant in a maiden's
eyes?--that her inclinations were all on the side of the
pretender. At any rate, St. Mesmin had credit for them; there
was talk of stolen meetings and a bribed waiting-woman; and
though such tales were probably as false as those who gave them
currency were fair, they obtained credence with the thoughtless,
and being repeated from one to another, in time reached her
father's ears, and contributed with St. Mesmin's persecution to
render him almost beside himself.
Doubtless with a man of less dogged character, or one more
amenable to reason, the Marquis would have known how to deal; but
the success which had hitherto rewarded St. Mesmin's course of
action had confirmed the young man in his belief that everything
was to be won by courage; so that the more the Marquis blustered
and threatened the more persistent the suitor showed himself.
Wherever Mademoiselle's presence was to be expected, St. Mesmin
appeared, dressed in the extreme of the fashion and wearing
either a favour made of her colours or a glove which he asserted
that she had given him. Throwing himself in her road on every
occasion, he expressed his passion by the most extravagant looks
and gestures; and protected from the shafts of ridicule alike by
his self-esteem and his prowess, did a hundred things that
rendered her conspicuous and must have covered another than
himself with inextinguishable laughter.
In these circumstances M. de Saintonge began to find that the
darts which glanced off his opponent's armour were making him
their butt; and that he, who had valued himself all his life on a
stately dignity and a pride: almost Spanish, was rapidly
becoming the laughing-stock of the Court. His rage may be better
imagined than described, and doubtless his daughter did not go
unscathed. But the ordinary contemptuous refusal which would have
sent another suitor about his business was of no avail here; he
had no son, while St. Mesmin's recklessness rendered the boldest
unwilling to engage him. Saintonge found himself therefore at
his wits' end, and in this emergency bethought him again of a
LETTRE DE CACHET. But the King proved as obdurate as his
minister; partly in accordance with a promise he had made me
about a year before that he would not commonly grant what I had
denied, and partly because Biron's affair had now reached a stage
in which Saintonge's aid was no longer of importance.
Thus repulsed, the Marquis made up his mind to carry his daughter
into the country; but St. Mesmin meeting this with the confident
assertion that he would abduct her within a week, wherever she
was confined, Saintonge, desperate as a baited bull, and
trembling with rage--for the threat was uttered at Zamet's and
was repeated everywhere--avowed equally publicly that since the
King would give him no satisfaction he would take the law into
his own hands, and serve this impudent braggart as Guise served
St. Megrin. As M. le Marquis maintained a considerable
household, including some who would not stick at a trifle, it was
thought likely enough that he would carry out his threat;
especially as the provocation seemed to many to justify it. St.
Mesmin was warned, therefore; but his reckless character was so
well known that odds were freely given that he would be caught
tripping some night--and for the last time.
At this juncture, however, an unexpected ally, and one whose
appearance increased Saintonge's rage to an intolerable extent,
took up St. Mesmin's quarrel. This was young St. Germain, who,
quitting his chamber, was to be seen everywhere on his
antagonist's arm. The old feud between the Saint Germains and
Saintonges aggravated the new; and more than one brawl took place
in the streets between the two parties. St. Germain never moved
without four armed servants; he placed others at his friend's
disposal; and wherever he went he loudly proclaimed what he would
do if a hair of St. Mesmin's head were injured.
This seemed to place an effectual check on M. de Saintonge's
purpose; and my surprise was great when, about a week later, the
younger St. Germain burst in upon me one morning, with his face
inflamed with anger and his dress in disorder; and proclaimed,
before I could rise or speak, that St. Mesmin had been murdered.
"How?" I said, somewhat startled. "And when?"
"By M. de Saintonge! Last night!" he answered furiously. "But
I will have justice; I will have justice, M. de Rosny, or the
King--"
I checked him as sternly as my surprise would let me; and when I
had a little abashed him--which was not easy, for his temper vied
in stubbornness with St. Mesmin's--I learned the particulars.
About ten o'clock on the previous night St. Mesmin had received a
note, and, in spite of the remonstrances of his servants, had
gone out alone. He had not returned nor been seen since, and his
friends feared the worst.
"But on what grounds?" I said, astonished to find that that was
all.
"What!" St. Germain cried, flaring up again. "Do you ask on
what grounds? When M. de Saintonge has told a hundred what he
would do to him! What he would do--do, I say? What he has
done!"
"Pooh!" I said. "It is some assignation, and the rogue is late
in returning."
"An assignation, yes," St. Germain retorted; "but one from which
he will not return."
"Well, if he does not, go to the Chevalier du Guet," I answered,
waving him off. "Go! do you hear? I am busy," I continued.
"Do you think that I am keeper of all the young sparks that bay
the moon under the citizens' windows? Be off, sir!"
He went reluctantly, muttering vengeance; and I, after rating
Maignan soundly for admitting him, returned to my work, supposing
that before night I should hear of St. Mesmin's safety. But the
matter took another turn, for while I was at dinner the Captain
of the Watch came to speak to me. St. Mesmin's cap had been
found in a bye-street near the river, in a place where there were
marks of a struggle; and his friends were furious. High words
had already passed between the two factions, St. Germain openly
accusing Saintonge of the murder; plainly, unless something were
done at once, a bloody fray was imminent.
"What do you think yourself, M. le Marchand?" I said, when I had
heard him out.
He shrugged his shoulders. "What can I think, your Excellency?"
he said. "What else was to be expected?"
"You take it for granted that M. de Saintonge is guilty?"
"The young man is gone," he answered pithily.
In spite of this, I thought the conclusion hasty, and contented
myself with bidding him see St. Germain and charge him to be
quiet; promising that, if necessary, the matter should be
investigated and justice done. I still had good hopes that St.
Mesmin's return would clear up the affair, and the whole turn out
to be a freak on his part; but within a few hours tidings that
Saintonge had taken steps to strengthen his house and was lying
at home, refusing to show himself, placed a different and more
serious aspect on the mystery. Before noon next day M. de Clan,
whose interference surprised me not a little, was with me to
support his son's petition; and at the King's LEVEE next day St.
Germain accused his enemy to the King's face, and caused an angry
and indecent scene in the chamber.
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