Volume 11 — Volume XI. (continued 5)

Anne followed her enemy so long as she could see him with eyes blazing with wrath; then, with an entire change of expression, her eyes rested sadly and anxiously upon the comely invalid; love took the place of anger, the tigress became a gazelle once more.

"Master André," she said to her physician, who entered hurriedly, "save him; he is wounded and dying."

"It is nothing," said Master André, "a mere passing weakness."

He poured upon Ascanio's lips a few drops of a cordial which he always carried about him.

"He is coming to himself," cried the duchess, "he moved. Now, master, he must be kept quiet, must he not? Take him into yonder room," she said to the valets, "and lay him upon a couch.—But, hark ye," she added, lowering her voice, so that none but they could hear: "if one word escapes you as to what you have seen and heard, your neck shall pay for your tongue. Go."

The trembling lackeys bowed, and, gently lifting Ascanio, bore him away.

Remaining alone with the provost and the Vicomte de Marmagne, prudent and passive spectators of the outrage upon her, Madame d'Etampes eyed them both, especially the latter, with a scornful glance, but she speedily repressed the inclination to express her contempt in words.

"I was saying, viscount," she began in a bitter tone, but calmly, "I was saying that the thing you proposed was very serious; but I did not reflect sufficiently upon it. I have sufficient power, I think, to permit me to strike down a traitor, even as I should have sufficient, if need were, to deal with indiscreet friends. The king would condescend to punish him this time, I trust; but I choose to avenge myself. Punishment would make the insult public; vengeance will bury it. You have been cool and clever enough, messieurs, to postpone my vengeance, in order not to compromise its success, and I congratulate you upon it. Be shrewd enough now, I conjure you, not to let it escape you, and do not compel me to have recourse to others than yourselves. Vicomte de Marmagne, it is necessary to speak plainly to you. I guarantee you equal impunity with the executioner; but if you care for my advice, I advise you and your sbirri to lay aside the sword, and trust to the dagger. Say nothing, but act, and that promptly; that is the most satisfactory response. Adieu, messieurs."

With these words, uttered in a short, abrupt tone, the duchess extended her hand as if to point out the door to the two noblemen. They bowed awkwardly, too confused to find words in which to frame an excuse, and left the room.

"Oh, to think that I am only a woman, and am obliged to resort to such dastards!" exclaimed Anne, looking after them while her lips curled disdainfully. "Oh how I despise them all, royal lover, venal husband, valet in silken doublet, valet in livery,—all save a single one whom in my own despite I admire, and another whom I delight to love!"

She entered the room to which the interesting invalid had been carried. As she approached the couch Ascanio opened his eyes.

"It was nothing," said Master André to the duchess. "The young man has received a wound in the shoulder, and fatigue, some mental shock, or hunger, it may be, caused a momentary faintness, from which he has completely recovered, as you see, by the use of cordials. He is fully restored now, and may safely be taken home in a litter."

"Very good," said the duchess, handing a purse to Master André, who bowed low and went out.

"Where am I?" said Ascanio, seeking to collect his thoughts.

"You are with me, at my home, Ascanio," the duchess replied.

"At your home, madame? Ah! yes, I recognize you; you are Madame d'Etampes, and I remember too—Where is Benvenuto? Where is my master?"

"Do not stir, Ascanio; your master is safe, never fear. He is dining peaceably at home at the present moment."

"But how does it happen that he left me here?"

"You lost consciousness, and he trusted you to my care."

"And you assure me, madame, that he is in no danger; that he went from here unharmed?"

"I tell you again, I promise you, Ascanio, that he has never been less exposed to danger than at this moment. Ungrateful boy, when I, Duchesse d'Etampes, am watching over him and caring for him with the tender solicitude of a sister, to persist in speaking of his master!"

"O madame, I pray you pardon me, and accept my thanks!" said Ascanio.

"Indeed, it's high time!" rejoined the duchess, shaking her pretty head with a sly smile.

Thereupon she began to speak, giving to every word a tender intonation, and to the simplest phrases the subtlest of meanings, asking every question greedily and at the same time with respect, and listening to every reply as if her destiny depended upon it. She was humble, soft and caressing as a cat, quick to grasp every cue, like a consummate actress, leading Ascanio gently back to the subject if he wandered from it, and giving him all the credit for ideas which she evolved and cunningly led up to; seeming to distrust herself, and listening to him as if he were an oracle; exerting to the utmost the cultivated, charming intellect which, as we have said, caused her to be called the loveliest of blue-stockings and the most learned of beauties. In short, this interview became in her hands the most cajoling flattery, and the cleverest of seductions. As the youth for the third or fourth time made ready to take his leave, she said, still detaining him:—

"You speak, Ascanio, with so much eloquence and fire of your goldsmith's art, that it is a perfect revelation to me, and henceforth I shall see the conception of a master where I have hitherto seen only an ornament. In your opinion Benvenuto is the great master of the art?"

"Madame, he has surpassed the divine Michel-Angelo himself."

"I am pleased to hear it. You lessen the ill will I bear him on account of his rude behavior to me.

"Oh! you must not mind his roughness, madame. His brusque manner conceals a most ardent and devoted heart; but Benvenuto is at the same time the most impatient and fiery of men. He thought that you were making him wait in mere sport, and the insult—"

"Say the mischief," rejoined the duchess with the simulated confusion of a spoiled child. "It is the truth that I was not dressed when your master arrived, and I simply prolonged my toilet a little. It was wrong, very wrong. You see that I confess my sins to you freely. I knew not that you were with him," she added eagerly.

"True, madame, but Cellini, who is not very sagacious, I admit, and whose confidence has been sadly abused, deems you to be—I may say it to you who are so gracious and kind—very wicked and very terrible, and he thought that he detected an insult in what was nothing more than child's play."

"Do you think so?" queried the duchess, unable wholly to repress a mocking smile.

"Oh, forgive him, madame! he is noble-hearted and generous, and if he knew you as you are, believe me, he would ask your pardon for his error on his knees."

"Say no more, I pray you! Do you think to make me love him now? I bear him a grudge, I tell you, and, to begin with, I propose to raise up a rival."

"That will be difficult, madame."

"No, Ascanio, for you, his pupil, shall be the rival. Allow me, at least, if I must do homage to this great genius who detests me, to do it indirectly. Say, will you, of whose charming inventive talent Cellini himself boasts, refuse to place your talent at my service? And since you do not share your master's prejudices against my person, will you not prove it to me by consenting to assist in embellishing it?"

"Madame, all that I am and all the power I have is at your service. You are so kind to me, you have inquired with so much interest concerning my past and my hopes for the future, that I am henceforth devoted to you heart and soul."

"Child, I have done nothing yet, and I ask nothing from you at present except a little of your talent. Tell me, have you not seen some jewel of surpassing beauty in your dreams? I have superb pearls; into what marvellous creation would you like to transform them, my pretty wizard? Shall I confide to you an idea of my own? A moment since, as you lay in yonder room with pale cheeks and head thrown back, I fancied that I saw a beautiful lily whose stalk was bending in the wind. Make me a lily of pearls and silver to wear in my corsage," said the enchantress, placing her hand upon her heart.

"Ah! madame, such kindness—"

"Ascanio, do you care to repay my kindness, as you call it? Promise me that you will take me for your confidante, your friend, that you will hide nothing from me of your acts, your plans, your sorrows, for I see that you are unhappy. Promise to come to me when you stand in need of help or counsel."

"Why, madame, you bestow one favor more upon me, rather than ask a proof of my gratitude."

"However that may be, you promise?"

"Alas! I would have given you the promise yesterday, madame; for yesterday I might have thought that I might some day need your help or counsel; but to-day it is in no one's power to help me."

"Who knows?"

"I know, madame."

"Ah me! Ascanio, you are unhappy, you are unhappy, you cannot deceive me."

Ascanio sadly shook his head.

"You are disingenuous with a friend, Ascanio; 't is not well done of you," the duchess continued, taking the young man's hand, and softly pressing it.

"My master must be anxious, madame, and I am afraid that my presence discommodes you. I feel quite well again. Allow me to withdraw."

"How eager you are to leave me! Wait at least until a litter is prepared for you. Do not resist; it is the doctor's order, and my own."

Anne called a servant, and gave him the necessary orders, then bade Isabeau bring her pearls and some of her jewels, which she handed to Ascanio.

"How I restore your freedom," she said; "but when you are fully restored to health, my lily will be the first thing you give your mind to, will it not? Meanwhile, think upon it, I beg you, and as soon as you have finished your design come and show it to me."

"Yes, Madame la Duchesse."

"And do you not wish me to think upon how I can be of service to you, and to do whatever you wish, since you are doing for me what I wish? Come, Ascanio, come, my child, and tell me what you sigh for? For at your age one seeks in vain to still the heating of his heart, turn his eyes away, and close his lips,—one always sighs for something. Do you deem me to be so devoid of power and influence that you disdain to make me your confidante?"

"I know, madame," rejoined Ascanio, "that you enjoy all the power which you deserve. But no human power will avail to help me in my present plight."

"Tell me all the same," said the duchess; "I insist!" Then, with fascinating coquetry, softening her voice and her expression, she added, "I beseech you!"

"Alas! alas! madame," cried Ascanio, as his grief overflowed. "Alas! since you speak so kindly to me, and since my departure will cover my shame and tears, I will do, not as I should have done yesterday, address a prayer to the duchess, but make a confidante of the woman. Yesterday I would have said, 'I love Colombe, and I am happy!' To-day I will say, 'Colombe does not love me, and there is nothing left for me to do but to die!' Adieu, madame, and pity me!"

Ascanio hurriedly kissed Madame d'Etampes's hand, as she stood mute and motionless, and vanished.

"A rival! a rival!" said Anne, as if awaking from a dream; "but she does not love him, and he shall love me, for I will have it so! Oh yes! I swear that he shall love me, and that I will kill Benvenuto!"

XIV WHEREIN IT IS PROVEN THAT SORROW IS THE GROUNDWORK OF THE LIFE OF MAN

We ask pardon for the bitter misanthropy of this title. It is the fact that the present chapter will exhibit scarcely any other coherent principle than sorrow, and therein will resemble life. The reflection is not new, as a celebrated character in comic opera would say, but it is consoling, in that it will perhaps he accepted as an apology by the reader, whom we are about to lead, even as Virgil led Dante, from despair to despair.

No offence is intended either to the reader or to Virgil.

Our friends, in very truth, at the moment at which we have now arrived, mere all, beginning with Benvenuto and ending with Jacques Aubry, plunged in melancholy, and we are about to see them gradually engulfed in the dark rising tide of sorrow.

We left Benvenuto exceedingly anxious concerning Ascanio's condition. On his return to the Grand-Nesle, he thought but little of the wrath of Madame d'Etampes, I promise you. His sole preoccupation was his dear invalid. So it was that his joy knew no hounds when the door opened to give admission to a litter, and Ascanio, leaping lightly to the ground, grasped his hand, and assured him that he was no worse than in the morning. But Benvenuto's brow quickly grew dark at the apprentice's first words, and he listened with an expression of peculiar dissatisfaction while the younger man said:—

"Master, I propose to show you that you have done a wrong for which you must make amends, and I am sure that you will thank me instead of hearing me ill will for it. You are mistaken with relation to Madame d'Etampes; she neither despises nor hates you; on the contrary, she honors and admires you, and you must agree that you were very rude in your treatment of her,—a woman and a duchess. Master, Madame d'Etampes is not only as beautiful as a goddess, she is as kind as an angel, modest and enthusiastic, simple-minded and noble, and at heart her disposition is lovely. What you deemed insulting insolence this morning was nothing more than childish mischief. I implore you, for your own sake—you surely would not be unjust—as well as for mine, whom she made welcome and cared for with such touching kindness, not to persist in your insulting contempt for her. I will answer for it that you will have no difficulty in persuading her—But you do not answer me, dear master. You shake your head. Can it be that I have wounded you?"

"Hark ye, my child," rejoined Benvenuto gravely. "I have often told you that in my view there is but one thing in the world forever beautiful, forever young, forever fruitful, and that is art divine. And yet, I think, I hope, I know, that in certain tender hearts love also counts for much,—a deep and noble sentiment, which may make happy a whole life; but it is very rare. For what is love in most cases? A fancy of a day, a joyous intimacy, in which both parties are deceived, and very often in the best of faith. I make sport of this love, as it is called, Ascanio, with great freedom as you know; I laugh at its high-flown pretensions and its stilted language. I do not slander it. To say truth, it rather pleases me; it has in petto all the joy, all the sweetness, all the jealousy of a serious passion, but its wounds are not mortal. Comedy or tragedy, after a certain time one hardly remembers it save as a sort of theatrical performance. And then, Ascanio, while women are charming creatures, to my mind all save a very few do not deserve and do not understand anything more than this passing fancy. To give them more, one must be a dupe or an imprudent fool. Take Scozzone, for example: if she should enter my heart, she would be terrified at what she saw therein; I leave her at the threshold, and she sings and dances, she is light of heart and happy. Moreover, Ascanio, these ever changing alliances have a less durable basis, which however is all-sufficient for the artist,—the worship of form, and the adoration of pure beauty. That is their serious side, and it is on account of that I say no ill of them, although I laugh at them. But, Ascanio, mark this: there are other passions which do not make me laugh, but make me tremble,—terrible, insensate passions, as impossible as things we see in dreams."

"Mon Dieu!" thought Ascanio, "can he have learned aught of my mad passion for Colombe?"

"They afford neither pleasure nor happiness," continued Cellini, "and yet they take possession of one's whole being; they are vampires which slowly drink your whole existence, which devour your heart little by little; they hold you in a deathly embrace, and you cannot extricate yourself. Ascanio, Ascanio, beware of such a passion. 'T is clear that they are mere chimeras, and that they can in no way profit one, and yet men who know this well plunge into them body and soul, and abandon their lives to them almost with joy."

"He has that in his mind! he knows all!" said Ascanio to himself.

"My dear son," pursued Benvenuto, "if there still is time, break these bonds which would hold you fast forever; you will bear the mark of them, but try at least to save your life."

"Who told you that I love her, in God's name?" demanded the apprentice.

"If you do not love her, God be praised!" exclaimed Benvenuto, thinking that Ascanio denied the impeachment, when he simply asked a question. "Beware at all events, for I saw this morning that she loves you."

"This morning! Of whom are you speaking? What do you mean?"

"Of whom am I speaking? of Madame d'Etampes."

"Madame d'Etampes!" echoed the bewildered apprentice. "Why, master you are wrong, it's not possible. You say that you saw that Madame d'Etampes loves me?"

"Ascanio, I am forty years old; I have lived, and I know whereof I speak. By her manner of looking at you, by the favorable opinion which she has succeeded in leading you to form of her, I would dare swear that she loves you; and from the enthusiasm with which you defended her just now I was much afraid that you had fallen in love with her as well. In that case, dear Ascanio, you would be lost: her love, hot enough to consume your whole being, when it left you, would leave you with no illusion, no faith, no hope, and you would have no other resource but to love others as you had been loved yourself, and to carry to other hearts the havoc that had been wrought in your own."

"Master," said Ascanio, "I do not know whether Ha dame d'Etampes loves me, but I am perfectly sure that I do not love Madame d'Etampes."

Benvenuto was no more than half convinced by Ascanio's apparent sincerity, for he thought that he might be deceived as to his own feelings. He said nothing more on the subject, and in the days which followed often gazed at the apprentice with a sad face.

It should be said, however, that he did not seem to be troubled exclusively on Ascanio's account. He gave every indication of being tormented by some personal distress. He lost his frank, joyous manner, and no longer indulged in his original pranks of former days. He always secluded himself during the forenoon in his room over the foundry, and had given explicit orders that he should not be disturbed there. The rest of the day he worked at the gigantic statue of Mars with his accustomed ardor, but without talking about it with his accustomed effusiveness. Especially in Ascanio's presence did he seem gloomy, embarrassed, and almost shamefaced. He seemed to avoid his dear pupil as if he were his creditor or his judge. In short, it was easy to see that some great sorrow or some great passion had found its way into that manly heart, and was laying it waste.

Ascanio was hardly more happy; he was persuaded, as he had said to Madame d'Etampes, that Colombe did not love him. Comte d'Orbec, whom he knew only by name, was, in his jealous thoughts, a young and attractive nobleman, and Messire d'Estourville's daughter, the happy betrothed of a well favored, nobly born lover, had never for an instant thought of an obscure artist. Even if he had retained the vague and fleeting hope which never deserts a heart overflowing with love, he had himself destroyed his last chance if Madame d'Etampes was really in love with him, by disclosing to her the name of her rival. This proposed marriage, which she might perhaps have prevented, she would now do everything in her power to hasten forward; and poor Colombe would feel the full force of her hatred. Yes, Benvenuto was right; that woman's love was in very truth a terrible and deadly thing; but Colombe's love would surely be the sublime, celestial sentiment of which the master had first spoken, and alas! that immeasurable blessing was destined for another!

Ascanio was in despair; he had believed in Madame d'Etampes's friendship, and now it seemed that this deceitful friendship was a dangerous passion; he had hoped for Colombe's love, and it seemed that her supposititious passion was nothing more than indifferent friendship. He felt that he almost hated both these women, who had so falsified his dreams in that each of them regarded him as he would have liked to be regarded by the other.

Entirely absorbed by a feeling of hopeless discouragement, he did not once think of the lily ordered by Madame d'Etampes, and in his jealous anger he would not repeat his visit to the Petit-Nesle, despite the entreaties and reproaches of Ruperta, whose innumerable questions he left unanswered. Sometimes, however, he repented of the resolution he made on the first day, which was assuredly cruel to none but himself. He longed to see Colombe, to demand an explanation. But of what? Of his own extravagant visions! However, he would see her, he would think in his softer moments; he would confess his love to her as a crime, and she was so tender-hearted that perhaps she would comfort him as if it were, a misfortune. But how explain his absence, how excuse himself in the maiden's eyes?

Ascanio allowed the days to pass in innocent, sorrowful reflections, and did not dare to take any decided step.

Colombe awaited Ascanio's coming with mingled terror and joy on the day following that on which Dame Perrine floored the apprentice with her direful revelation; but in vain did she count the hours and the minutes, in vain did Dame Perrine keep her ears on the alert. Ascanio, who had recovered in good time from his swoon, and might have availed himself of Colombe's gracious permission, did not come, attended by Ruperta, and give the preconcerted signal at the door in the wall of the Petit-Nesle. What did it mean?

It meant that Ascanio was ill, dying perhaps, at all events too ill to come. At least that was what Colombe thought; she passed the whole evening kneeling at her prie-Dieu, weeping and praying, and when she ceased to pray she found that she continued to weep. That discovery terrified her. The anxiety which oppressed her heart was a revelation to her. Indeed, there was sufficient cause for alarm, for in less than a month Ascanio had taken possession of her thoughts to such a degree as to make her forget her God, her father, and her misery.

But there was room in her mind for nothing now but this: Ascanio was suffering within two steps of her; he would die before she could see him. It was no time to reason, but to weep and weep. If he should be saved, she would reflect.

The next day it was still worse. Perrine watched for Ruperta, and as soon as she saw her leave the house rushed out to go to market for news far more than for supplies. Now Ascanio was no longer seriously ill; he had simply refused to go to the Petit-Nesle, without replying to Dame Ruperta's eager questions otherwise than by obstinately keeping silent. The two gossips were reduced to conjectures: such a thing was entirely incomprehensible to them.

Colombe, however, did not seek long for the explanation; she said to herself at once:—

"He knows all: he has learned that in three months I shall be Comte d'Orbec's wife, and he has no wish to see me again."

Her first impulse was to be grateful to her lover for his anger, and to smile. Let him explain this secret joy who can; we are simply the historian. But soon, upon reflection, she took it ill of Ascanio that he was able to believe that she was not in despair at the thought of such a union.

"So he despises me," she said to herself.

All these impulses, indignant or affectionate, were very dangerous: they laid bare the heart which before knew not itself. Colombe said to herself aloud, that she did not desire to see Ascanio; but she whispered, that she awaited his coming to justify herself. She suffered in her timorous conscience; she suffered in her misapprehended love.

It was not the only passion which Ascanio did not understand. There was another more powerful, more impatient to make itself known, and which dreamed darkly of happiness, as hatred dreams of vengeance.

Madame d'Etampes did not believe, did not choose to believe, in Ascanio's profound passion for Colombe.

"A child who has no conception of what he really wants," she said to herself, "who falls in love with the first pretty girl he sees, who has come in collision with the high and mighty airs of an empty-headed little fool, and whose pride takes offence at the least obstacle. Oh! when he realizes what true love is, ardent, clinging love,—when he knows that I, Duchesse d'Etampes, whose caprice rules a kingdom, love him!—Ah! but he must know it!"

The Vicomte de Marmagne and the Provost of Paris suffered in their hatred, as Anne and Colombe suffered in their love. They harbored mortal enmity to Benvenuto,—Marmagne especially. Benvenuto had caused him to be despised and humiliated by a woman; Benvenuto constrained him to be brave, for before the scene at the Hôtel d'Etampes the viscount might have had him poniarded by his people on the street, but now he must needs go and beard him in his own house, and Marmagne shuddered with dismay at the prospect. We do not readily pardon those who force us to realize that we are cowards.

Thus all were suffering, even Scozzone. Scozzone the madcap laughed and sang no more, and her eyes were often red with weeping. Benvenuto did not love her. Benvenuto was always cold, and sometimes spoke sharply to her.

Scozzone had for a long time had a fixed idea, which had become a monomania with her. She was determined to become Benvenuto's wife. When she first went to him, expecting to serve him as a plaything, and he treated her with all the consideration due a wife, and not as a mere light o' love, the poor child was greatly exalted by such unlocked for respect and honor, and at the same time she felt profoundly grateful to her benefactor, and unaffectedly proud to find herself so highly esteemed. Afterward, not at Benvenuto's command, but in response to his entreaty, she gladly consented to serve him as model, and by dint of seeing her own form and features so often reproduced, and so often admired, in bronze, in silver, and in gold, she had simply attributed half of the goldsmith's success to herself; for the lovely outlines, which were so loudly praised, belonged to her much more than to the master. She blushed with pleasure when Benvenuto was complimented upon the purity of the lines of this or that figure; she complacently persuaded herself that she was indispensable to her lover's renown, and had become a part of his glory, even as she had become a part of his heart.

Poor child! she did not dream that she had never been to the artist that secret inspiration, that hidden divinity, which every creator evokes, and which makes him a creator. Because Benvenuto copied her graceful attitudes, she believed in good faith that he owed everything to her, and little by little she took courage to hope that, after raising the courtesan to the rank of mistress, he would raise the mistress to the rank of wife.

As dissimulation was altogether foreign to her character, she had avowed her ambition in very precise terms. Cellini listened to her gravely, and replied,—

"This requires consideration."

The fact was that he would have preferred to return to the Castle of San Angelo at the risk of breaking his leg a second time in making his escape. Not that he despised his dear Scozzone; he loved her dearly, and sometimes a little jealously, as we have seen, but he adored art before everything, and his true and lawful wife was sculpture first of all. Furthermore, when he should be married, would not the husband depress the spirits of the gay Bohemian? Would not the pater-familias interfere with the freedom of the sculptor? And, again, if he must marry all his models, he would commit bigamy a hundred times over.

"When I cease to love Scozzone, and to need her as a model," he said to himself, "I will find some worthy fellow for her, too short-sighted to look back into the past and to divine the future, who will see nothing but a lovely woman and the marriage portion I will give her. Thus I will satisfy her mania for wearing the name of wife, bourgeois fashion." For Benvenuto was convinced that Scozzone's desire was simply to have a husband, and that it mattered little to her who the husband might be.

Meanwhile, he left the ambitious damsel to take what comfort she could in her fancies. But since their installation at the Grand-Nesle, her eyes had been opened, and she realized that she was not so necessary to Cellini's life and work as she thought, for she could no longer with her gayety dispel the cloud of melancholy which overhung his brow, and he had begun to model a Hebe in wax for which she was not asked to pose. At last, the poor child—horribile dictu!—had essayed to play the coquette with Ascanio in Cellini's presence, and there had been not the slightest drawing together of the eyebrows to bear witness to the master's jealous wrath. Must she then bid farewell to all her blissful dreams, and become once more a poor, humiliated creature?

As to Pagolo, if any one cares to sound the depths of his heart, we venture to say that he had never been more gloomy and taciturn than of late.

It may be imagined that the hilarious student, Jacques Aubry, had escaped this contagious depression of spirits. Not at all; he had his own cause for rejoining. Simonne, after waiting a long while for him on the Sunday of the siege of Nesle, returned to the conjugal mansion in a rage, and had since stubbornly refused to meet the impertinent embryo lawyer upon any pretext whatsoever. He, in revenge, had withdrawn his custom from his capricious charmer's husband, but that disgusting tradesman evinced at the news no other sentiment than the keenest satisfaction; for although Jacques Aubry wore out his clothes quickly and recklessly—always excepting the pockets—we must add that his guiding economical maxim was never to pay for them. When Simonne's influence was no longer exerted as a counterpoise to the absence of money, the selfish tailor concluded that the honor of dressing Jacques Aubry did not compensate him for the loss he suffered by dressing him for nothing.

Thus our poor friend found himself at one and the same time bereft of his love and cut short in his supply of clothing. Luckily, as we have seen, he was not the man to wither away in melancholy. He soon fell in with a charming little consolation named Gervaise. But Gervaise was bristling all over with principles of all sorts, which to his mind were most absurd. She eluded him again and again, and he wore his heart out in devising means to bring the flirt to her senses. He almost lost the power to eat and drink, especially as his infamous landlord, who was own cousin to his infamous tailor, refused to give him credit.

Thus all whose names have figured prominently in these pages were sorely ill at ease,—from the king, who was very anxious to know whether Charles V. would or would not conclude to pass through France, to Dame Perrine and Dame Ruperta, who were much put out at their inability to continue their gossip. If our readers, like Jupiter of old, had the wearisome privilege of listening to all the complaints and all the wishes of mankind, they would hear a plaintive chorus something like this:—

Jacques Aubry: "If Gervaise would only cease to laugh in my face!"

Scozzone: "If Benvenuto would only have one pang of jealousy!"

Pagolo: "If Scozzone could only bring herself to detest the master!"

Marmagne: "If I might have the good fortune to surprise Cellini alone!"

Madame d'Etampes: "If Ascanio only knew how I love him!"

Colombe: "If I could see him for one moment,—long enough to justify myself!"

Ascanio: "If she would only explain!"

Benvenuto: "If I dared confess my agony to Ascanio!"

All: "Alas! alas! alas!"

XV WHEREIN IT APPEARS THAT JOY IS NOTHING MORE THAN SORROW IN ANOTHER FORM

All these longings were to be gratified before the end of the week. But their gratification was destined to leave those who had formed them more unhappy and more melancholy than ever. Such is the universal law; every joy contains the germ of sorrow.

In the first place Gervaise ceased to laugh in Jacques Aubry's face; a change most ardently desired by the student, as the reader will remember. Jacques Aubry had discovered the golden fetters which were to bind the damsel to his chariot. They consisted in a lovely ring carved by Benvenuto himself, and representing two clasped hands.

It should be said that, since the day of the siege, Jacques Aubry had conceived a warm friendship for the outspoken and energetic nature of the Florentine artist. He did not interrupt him when he was speaking,—an unheard of thing! He kept his eyes fixed upon him and listened to him with respect, which was more than he had ever consented to do for his professors. He admired his work with an enthusiasm which, if not very enlightened, was at least very warm and sincere. On the other hand, his loyalty, his courage, and his jovial disposition attracted Cellini. He was just strong enough at tennis to make a good fight, but to lose in the end. He was his match at table, within a bottle. In short he and the goldsmith had become the best friends in the world, and Cellini, generous because his wealth was inexhaustible, had one day forced him to accept this little ring, which was carved with such marvellous skill that, in default of the apple, it would have tempted Eve, and sown discord between Peleus and Thetis.

On the morrow of the day when the ring passed from Jacques Aubry's hands to those of Gervaise, Gervaise resumed a serious demeanor, and the student hoped that she was his. Poor fool! on the contrary, he was hers.

Scozzone succeeded, as she desired, in kindling a spark of jealousy in Benvenuto's heart. This is how it came about.

One evening, when her wiles and coquetries had as usual failed to arouse the master from his imperturbable gravity, she assumed a solemn expression herself.

"Benvenuto," said she, "it seems to me, do you know, as if you had forgotten your promise to me."

"What promise is that, my dear child?" rejoined Benvenuto, apparently seeking an explanation of her reproach from the ceiling.

"Haven't you promised a hundred times to marry me?"

"I don't remember it."

"You don't remember it?"

"No; I should say that my only reply was, 'This requires consideration.'"

"Well! have you considered it?"

"Yes."

"With what result?"

"That I am still too young to be anything else than your lover, Scozzone. We will speak of it again later."

"And I am no longer foolish enough, monsieur, to be content with so vague a promise as that, and to wait for you forever."

"Do as you please, little one, and if you are in so great a hurry, go ahead."

"But what prejudice have you against marriage, after all? Why need it make any change in your life? You will have made a poor girl, who loves you, happy, that's all."

"What change will it make in my life, Scozzone?" said Benvenuto gravely. "You see yonder candle, whose pale flame but feebly lights this great room where we are: I place an extinguisher over it, and now it is quite dark. Marriage would do the same to my life. Light the candle again, Scozzone: I detest the darkness."

"I understand," cried Scozzone volubly, bursting into tears, "you bear too illustrious a name to give to a poor girl, a nobody, who has given you her heart and her life, all that she had to give, and is ready to suffer everything for you, who lives only in your life, who loves only you—"

"I know it, Scozzone, and I assure you that I am as grateful as possible."

"Who has gladly done her best to enliven your solitude, who, knowing your jealous disposition, never looks at the cavalcades of handsome archers and sergeants, who has always closed her ears to the soft words which she has not failed to hear, nevertheless, even here."

"Even here?" rejoined Benvenuto.

"Yes, here, even here, do you understand?"

"Scozzone," cried Benvenuto, "it's not one of my comrades, I trust, who has dared so to insult his master!"

"He would marry me if I would let him," continued Scozzone, attributing Cellini's wrath to a rejuvenescence of his love for her.

"Scozzone, tell me the insolent varlet's name. It's not Ascanio, I hope."

"There is a man who has said to me more than a hundred times, 'Catherine, the master abuses you; he will never marry you, sweet and pretty as you are; he is too proud for that. Oh! if he loved you as I love you, or if you would love me as you love him!'"

"Give me his name, the traitor's name!" cried Benvenuto.

"But I simply would not listen to him," continued Scozzone, enchanted at the success of her stratagem; "on the contrary, all his soft words were wasted, and I threatened to tell you all if he kept on. I loved only you. I was blind, and the gallant got nothing by his fine speeches and his languishing looks. Oh, put on your indifferent air, and pretend not to believe me! it is all true, none the less."

"I do not believe you, Scozzone," said Benvenuto, who saw that, if he desired to know his rival's name, he must employ a very different method from any he had hitherto attempted.

"What, you don't believe me?"

"No."

"You think that I am lying?"

"I think that you are mistaken."

"In your opinion, then, it's not possible for any one to love me?"

"I don't say that."

"But you think it?"

Benvenuto smiled, for he saw that he had found a way to make Catherine speak.

"But there is some one who loves me, and that's the truth," continued Scozzone.

Benvenuto made another gesture indicating incredulity.

"He loves me more than you ever loved me, more than you ever will love me, monsieur, do you understand?"

Benvenuto began to laugh heartily.

"I am very curious to know who this gallant Médor is," he said.

"His name is not Médor," retorted Catherine.

"What then,—madis?"

"Nor Amadis. His name is—"

"Galaor?"

"His name is Pagolo, if you must know."

"Aha! so it's Monsieur Pagolo!" muttered Cellini.

"Yes, it's Monsieur Pagolo," rejoined Scozzone, wounded by the contemptuous tone in which Cellini uttered his rival's name,—"a boy of good family, sedate, quiet, devout, and who would make a most excellent husband."

"Is that your opinion, Scozzone?"

"Yes, it is my opinion."

"And yet you have never given him any hope?"

"I have never listened to him. Oh! I was a great fool! But after this—"

"You are right, Scozzone; you should listen to him, and reply to him."

"How so? What's that you say?"

"I bid you listen when he speaks to you of love, and not turn him away. I will attend to the rest."

"But—"

"But, never fear, I have my plan."

"À la bonne heure. But I hope you don't propose to punish him very severely, poor devil; he acts as if he were confessing his sins when he says, 'I love you.' Play him a trick, if you choose, but not with your sword. I ask mercy for him."

"You will be content with my vengeance, Scozzone, for it will turn to your advantage."

"In what way?"

"It will help to gratify one of your fondest desires."

"What do you mean, Benvenuto?"

"That is my secret."

"Oh, if you knew what an absurd figure he cuts when he tries to be tender!" said the volatile creature, incapable of remaining sad five minutes in succession. "And so, naughty man, you are still interested to know whether any one is paying court to your giddy girl? You do still love poor Scozzone a little?"

"Yes. But do not fail to follow the instructions I give you in regard to Pagolo to the letter."

"Oh, don't be afraid! I can play a part as well as another. It won't be long before he will say to me, 'Catherine, are you still cruel?' and I will reply, 'What! again, Monsieur Pagolo?' But in a not very indignant tone, you understand,—encouraging rather. When he sees that I am no longer harsh, he will think he's conquered the world. But what shall you do to him, Benvenuto? When shall you begin to take your revenge upon him? Will it be long drawn out, and very amusing? Shall we laugh?"

"Yes, we shall laugh," Benvenuto replied.

"And you will always love me?"

Benvenuto imprinted an assenting kiss upon her forehead,—the best of all answers, since it answers for everything without answering for anything.

Poor Scozzone did not suspect that Cellini's kiss was the beginning of his vengeance.

The Vicomte de Marmagne's wish that he might find Benvenuto alone was also gratified. This is how it came about.

Spurred on by the provost's anger, goaded by the memory of Madame d'Etampes's disdain, and influenced above all by his inordinate avarice, the viscount, having resolved to attack the lion in his den with the aid of his two sbirri, selected for his enterprise Saint Eloy's day, when the studio was likely to be deserted, as it was a holiday in the goldsmith's guild. He was proceeding along the quay, with his head high, and his heart beating fast, his two bravos walking ten steps behind him.

"Well, well!" said a voice at his side: "here's a fine young gentleman on amorous conquest bent, with his valorous bearing for the lady, and his two sbirri for the husband."

Marmagne turned, thinking that some one of his friends was speaking to him, but he saw only a stranger who was going in the same direction as himself, but whom in his absorption he had failed to observe.

"I'll wager that I have guessed the truth, my fair sir," continued the stranger. "I will bet my purse against yours, without knowing what it contains, that you are out on some such errand. Oh, tell me nothing! it's one's duty to be circumspect in love. My own name is Jacques Aubry; my profession, student; and I am on my way at present to an appointment with my sweetheart, Gervaise Philipot, a pretty girl, but, between ourselves, of appalling virtue, which suffered shipwreck, however, upon a certain ring. To be sure the ring was a jewel, and a jewel of marvellous workmanship, nothing less than one of Benvenuto Cellini's own!"

Until then the Vicomte de Marmagne had hardly listened to the confidences of his loquacious interlocutor, and had been careful not to reply. But his interest was aroused by the name of Benvenuto Cellini.

"One of Benvenuto Cellini's carvings! The devil! That's a royal gift for a student to make!"

"Oh! pray understand, my dear baron—Are you baron, count, or viscount?"

"Viscount," said Marmagne, biting his lips at the impertinent familiarity with which the student assumed to address him, but anxious to find out if he could not procure some valuable information from him.

"Pray understand, my dear viscount, that I did not buy it. No, although I'm an artist in my way, I don't put my money into such trifles. Benvenuto himself gave it to me in acknowledgment of my lending him a hand last Sunday to take the Grand-Nesle from the provost."

"Then you are Cellini's friend?" Marmagne inquired.

"His most intimate friend, viscount, and I glory in it. Between ourselves it's a friendship for life and death. Doubtless you also know him?"

"Yes."

"You are very fortunate. A sublime genius, is he not, my dear fellow? Pardon me: I say, 'my dear fellow,' but it's simply my way of speaking; besides I think that I am nobly born, too,—at least my mother used to tell my father so whenever he beat her. However, I am, as I told you, the admirer, the confidant, the brother of the great Benvenuto Cellini, and consequently a friend to his friends, and a foe to his foes; for my sublime goldsmith doesn't lack foes. In the first place Madame d'Etampes, secondly, the Provost of Paris, the old villain, and thirdly, a certain Vicomte de Marmagne, a great, lanky creature, whom you perhaps know, and who proposes, so they say, to take possession of the Grand-Nesle. Pardieu! he'll have a warm reception!"

"Benvenuto has heard of his claim, has he?" queried Marmagne, beginning to take a very decided interest in the student's conversation.

"He has been warned; but—Hold! I must, not tell you, so that the aforesaid Marmagne may receive the chastisement he deserves."

"From what you say I judge that Benvenuto is on his guard?"

"On his guard? why, Benvenuto is always on his guard. He has come within an ace of being assassinated, I don't know how many times; but, thank God, he has always come safely out of it!"

"What do you mean by on his guard?"

"Oh! I don't mean that he has a garrison, as that old poltroon of a provost had; no, no, quite the contrary. Indeed, he is entirely alone at this moment as all the fellows have gone to Vanvres for a holiday. I was to go myself, and play a game of tennis with him, dear Benvenuto. Unluckily Gervaise's convenience conflicted with the great artist's, and naturally, as you will agree, I gave the preference to Gervaise."

"In that case I will take your place with Benvenuto," said Marmagne.

"Do so; it will be a meritorious action on your part; go, my dear viscount, and say to Benvenuto from me that he will see me this evening. Three knocks, rather loud, is the signal, you know. He adopted that precaution on account of that great oaf of a Marmagne, who is likely, so he imagines, to try to play him some scurvy trick. Do you know this Vicomte de Marmagne?"

"No."

"Ah! so much the worse! You might have described him to me."

"What for?"

"So that I might suggest a little game with clubs to him, if I should fall in with him. I don't know why it is, but although I never saw him, do you know I particularly detest your Marmagne, my dear fellow, and if he ever falls in my way, I propose to pummel him in fine shape. But pardon me: here we are at the Augustins, and I am compelled to leave you. By the way, what is your name, my friend?"

The viscount walked away as if he did not hear the question.

"Aha!" said Jacques Aubry, "it seems that we prefer to remain incog; that's the purest chivalry, or I don't know myself. As you please, my dear viscount, as you please."

And Jacques Aubry thrust his hands in his pockets and strutted down Rue de Battoir, at the end of which Gervaise lived, whistling a student's song.

The Vicomte de Marmagne continued his journey toward the Grand-Nesle.

Benvenuto was in fact alone, as Jacques Aubry had said; Ascanio had wandered away, I know not where, to dream; Catherine had gone with Ruperta to visit one of her friends, and all the workmen and apprentices were holiday making at Vanvres.

The master was in the garden working at the clay model of his gigantic statue of Mars, whose colossal head could see the Louvre over the roof's of the Grand-Nesle, when little Jehan, who was on guard at the door for the day, deceived by Marmagne's manner of knocking, took him for a friend, and admitted him with his two sbirri.

If Benvenuto did not, like Titian, work with his coat of mail upon his back, he did, like Salvator Rosa, work with his sword at his side, and his carbine within reach of his hand. Marmagne therefore quickly discovered that life had gained very little by surprising him; he had simply surprised an armed man.

The viscount did not even try to dissemble his bravado born of poltroonery; and when Cellini, in an imperative tone which called for an immediate reply, demanded why he had come upon his premises,—

"I have no business with you," was his answer; "I am the Vicomte de Marmagne; I am the king's secretary, and here is an order from his Majesty," he added, holding a paper above his head, "which allots a portion of the Grand-Nesle to me; I am here to make provision for arranging to my taste that portion of the hotel which is allotted to me, and which I shall occupy henceforth."

With that, Marmagne, still followed by his two sbirri, stalked toward the door of the château.

Benvenuto seized his carbine, which was, as we have said, within his reach, and with one bound stood in front of the door on the stoop.

"Halt where you are!" he cried in a terrible voice, stretching out his right arm in Marmagne's direction; "one step more, and you're a dead man!"

The viscount at once stopped short, although after these preliminaries we might perhaps have anticipated a desperate conflict.

But there are men to whom is given the power to strike terror to other men's hearts. There is an indescribable something in their look, their gestures, their attitude, as in the look, the gestures, and the attitude of the lion. The air about them is instinct with awe; their power is felt afar off. When they stamp upon the ground, clench their fists, knit their brows, or inflate their nostrils, the boldest hesitate to attack them. A wild beast, whose young are attacked, has but to bristle up and breathe noisily to make the assailant tremble. The men of whom we speak are living dangers. Valiant hearts recognize their like in them, and go straight forward to meet them, despite their secret emotion. But the weak, the timid, the cowardly, recoil at sight of them.

Now Marmagne, as the reader has discovered, was not a valiant heart, and Benvenuto had all the appearance of a living danger.

And so when the viscount heard the redoubtable goldsmith's voice, and observed the imperial gesture of the arm extended toward him, he realized that death for himself and his two sbirri lay dormant in the carbine, the sword, and the dagger with which he was armed.

Furthermore, little Jehan, seeing that his master was threatened, had armed himself with a pike.

Marmagne felt that his game was up, and that he would be only too fortunate if he could extricate himself safe and sound from the wasps' nest he had stumbled upon.

"It's all right! it's all right! Messire Goldsmith," he said. "All that we wanted was to know whether you were or were not disposed to obey his Majesty's orders. You scoff at them, and refuse to abide by them! Very good! We shall apply to some one who will find a way to compel their execution. But do not hope that we shall do ourselves the honor of bargaining with you. Bonsoir!"

"Bonsoir!" said Benvenuto, with his hearty laugh. "Jehan, show these gentlemen out."

The viscount and his two sbirri shamefacedly retreated from the Grand-Nesle, cowed by one man, and shown out by a mere boy.

Such was the lamentable result of the fulfilment of the viscount's wish: "If only I could find Benvenuto alone!"

As he had been even more cruelly treated by fate in the matter of his desires than Jacques Aubry and Scozzone, who did not even yet detect the irony of destiny, our valorous viscount was furious.

"Madame d'Etampes was right," he said to himself, "and I am fain to follow the advice she gave me; I must break my sword and sharpen my dagger. This devil of a man is just what he is said to be, very intolerant, and not at all agreeable. I saw it written plainly enough in his eyes, that if I took another step I was a dead man; but in every lost cause there is a possibility of revenge. Look well to yourself, Master Benvenuto! look well to yourself!"

He proceeded to lay the blame upon his companions, who were tried men, however, and would have asked nothing better than to earn their money honestly, by slaying or being themselves slain: in retiring, they had simply obeyed their master's orders. They promised to give a better account of themselves in an ambuscade; but as Marmagne, to shield his own honor, claimed that the check he had met with was due to them, he informed them that he did not propose to accompany them in their next undertaking, and that they must go through with it alone as best they could. It was the very thing they most desired.

Having enjoined silence upon them concerning their recent experience, he called upon the Provost of Paris, and informed him that he had concluded that the surest way to avoid all suspicion was to postpone Benvenuto's punishment until some day when, as frequently happened, he ventured into a lonely, deserted street with a considerable sum of money, or some valuable piece of his handiwork. Then it would be believed that he had been murdered by robbers.

It now remains for us to see how the wishes of Madame d'Etampes, Ascanio, and Cellini were gratified to their increased sorrow.

XVI A COURT

Meanwhile Ascanio had completed the design for his lily, and, perhaps from mere curiosity, perhaps under the influence of the magnet which attracts the wretched to those who sympathize with them, he at once repaired to the Hôtel d'Etampes. It was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and just at that hour the duchess was sitting upon her throne, surrounded by a veritable court; but similar orders to those which were given at the Louvre relating to Benvenuto, were given at the Hôtel d'Etampes for Ascanio. He was therefore at once escorted to a reception-room, and his arrival was made known to the duchess.

She trembled with joy at the thought that the young man was about to see her in all her splendor, and gave certain orders in a low tone to Isabeau, who had brought her the message, Isabeau returned to Ascanio, took him by the hand without a word, led him into a corridor, raised a heavy curtain, and gently pushed him forward. He found himself in the duchess's salon, immediately behind the arm-chair of the sovereign of the mansion, who guessed his presence more by the thrill which ran through her whole being than by the rustling of the curtain, and gave him her fair hand to kiss over her shoulder, which his lips almost touched in the position in which he stood.

The lovely duchess was, as we have said, surrounded by a veritable court. At her right was seated the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, ambassador of Charles V.; Monsieur de Montbrion, governor of Charles d'Orléans, the king's second son, was at her left; the rest of the company sat in a circle at her feet.

With the leading personages of the kingdom—warriors, statesmen, magistrates, artists,—were assembled the leaders of the Protestant sect, which Madame d'Etampes secretly favored; great nobles all, and much courted, who had constituted themselves courtiers of the favorite. It was a gorgeous throng, and dazzling to the eyes at first sight. The conversation was enlivened with satirical remarks of all sorts concerning Diane de Poitiers, mistress of the Dauphin, and the bitter enemy of Madame d'Etampes. But Anne took no part in this petty warfare of quips and cranks, save by a word or two thrown in at random now and then, as, "Softly, messieurs, softly! no abuse of Madame Diane, or Endymion will be angry!" or, "Poor Madame Diane! she was married the day I was born!"

Except for these sparks with which she lighted up the conversation, Madame d'Etampes hardly spoke to anybody beside her two neighbors. She talked with them in undertones, but with great animation, and not so low that Ascanio, who was humble and abashed among so many great men, could not hear her.

"Yes, Monsieur de Montbrion," said she confidentially to her left hand neighbor, "we must make an admirable prince of your pupil; he is the real king of the future, you know. I am ambitious for the dear child, and I am engaged at this moment in carving out an independent sovereignty for him in case God should take his father from us. Henri II., a poor creature, between ourselves, will be King of France; so be it. Our king will be a French king, and we will leave Madame Diane and Paris to his elder brother. But we will take with us, with our Charles, the heart of Paris. The court will be where I am, Monsieur de Montbrion; I shall displace the sun. We shall have great painters like Primaticcio, charming poets like Clement Marot, who is fidgeting about yonder in his corner without speaking, a sure proof that he would like an opportunity to repeat some verses to us. All these people are at heart more vain than selfish, and more thirsty for glory than for money. Ant he who has the greatest wealth, but he who will flatter them most freely, will have them on his side. And he who has them will be always great, for they will shed lustre upon any place upon which their rays fall. The Dauphin cares for naught but jousting! Oh, well! let him keep the lances and swords, and we will take the pens and the brushes with us. Never fear, Monsieur de Montbrion, I will never allow myself to be put down by Madame Diane, the queen in expectancy. Let her wait patiently till time and chance give her kingdom. I shall have made one for myself twice over meanwhile. What say you to the Duchy of Milan? There you will not be very far from your friends at Geneva; for I know that you are not altogether indifferent to the new doctrine blown over from Germany. Hush! we will speak of this again, and I will tell you things that will surprise you. Why has Madame Diane assumed to set herself up as protectress of the Catholics? She protects, I protest; that's the difference between us."

With an imperative gesture and a meaning glance, Madame d'Etampes brought her confidences upon this subject to a close, leaving the governor of Charles d'Orléans sadly bewildered. He was on the point of replying, nevertheless, but found that the duchess had already turned to the Duke of Medina-Sidonia.

We have said that Ascanio could hear all.

"Well, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur," so Madame d'Etampes began, "does the Emperor finally conclude to pass through France? He can hardly do otherwise, to tell the truth, and a net on land is always preferable to a yawning gulf at sea. His cousin Henry VIII. would have no scruples about kidnapping him, and if he escaped the English he would fall into the hands of the Turk. By land the three Protestant princes would oppose his passage. What can he do? He must either proceed through France, or else—cruel sacrifice!—forego the chastisement of the rebels of Ghent, his dear compatriots. For our great Emperor Charles is a good burgher of Ghent. That is very evident in the slight respect which he has shown on occasion for Royal Majesty. Memories of that sort are what make him so timid and circumspect to-day, Monsieur de Medina. Oh, we understand it all! He fears that the King of France will avenge the prisoner in Spain, and that the prisoner at Paris may pay the balance of the ransom due from the prisoner of the Escurial. O mon Dieu! let his mind be at ease; even if he does not comprehend our chivalrous loyalty, he has heard of it, I trust."

"Most assuredly, Madame la Duchesse," said the ambassador, "we know the loyalty of François I. when left to his own devices, but we fear—"

The duke paused.

"You fear his advisers, do you not?" rejoined the duchess. "Yes, yes! Oh, I know very well that advice from a pretty mouth, advice which should take a clever and satirical form, would never fail of influence upon a king's mind. It is your duty to think of that, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, and take your precautions accordingly. After all, you must have full powers, or, if not full powers, a little paper signed in blank, wherein a good many things can be inserted in a few words. We know how it's done. We have studied diplomacy; indeed, I once asked the king to make me an ambassador, for I believe that I have a decided talent for negotiation. Yes, I am sure that it would be very painful for Charles V. to give up a slice of his empire in order to obtain his release, or to assure his inviolability. On the other hand, Flanders is one of the fairest jewels of his crown; it is the inheritance of his mother, Marie de Bourgogne, and it is hard to renounce the patrimony of one's ancestors with a stroke of the pen, especially when that patrimony is a great duchy, which may well be transformed into a little monarchy. But what am I saying, mon Dieu! I, who have a perfect horror of politics, for it is universally agreed that politics and women do not go well together. To be sure, I let fall a word or two thoughtlessly now and then on affairs of state, but if his Majesty presses me and insists upon my expressing my thoughts more fully, I beg him to spare me such tiresome discussions, and sometimes I run away and leave him alone to dream upon them. You, clever diplomatist that you are, and who know mankind so well, will tell me that these words tossed into the air are just the ones which take root in minds like the king's, and that such words, which are supposed to have been blown away by the wind, almost always have more weight than a long harangue which is not listened to. That may be, Monsieur le Duc de Medina, that may be, but I am only a poor woman, engrossed with ribbons and gewgaws, and you understand all these serious matters a thousand times better than I; but the lion may have need of the ant, the skiff may save the ship. We are here to come to an understanding, Monsieur le Duc, and that's all we have to do."

"If you choose, madame," said the ambassador, "it will be very quickly done."

"Who gives to-day receives to-morrow," continued the duchess, evading a direct reply; "my womanly instinct will always lead me to advise François I. to perform great and generous deeds, but instinct often turns its back on reason. We must also think of our interest, of the interest of France, of course. But I have confidence in you, Monsieur de Medina; I will ask your advice, and upon the whole I think that the Emperor will do well to rely upon the king's word.

"Ah! if you were in our interest, madame, he would not hesitate."

"Master Clement Marot," said the duchess, abruptly breaking off the conversation, as if she had not heard the ambassador's last exclamation; "Master Clement Marot, do you not happen to have some flowing madrigal, or some stately sonnet to repeat to us?"

"Madame," said the poet, "sonnets and madrigals are natural flowers beneath your feet, and grow apace in the sunshine of your lovely eyes: half a score of lines have come to my mind simply from looking into them."

"Indeed, master! Very good! we will listen to them. Ah! Messire le Prévôt, welcome; pray forgive me for not seeing you at once. Have you news of your future son-in-law, our friend Comte d'Orbec?"

"Yes, madame," replied D'Estourville, "he writes that he is to hasten his return, and we shall soon see him, I trust."

A half suppressed sigh made Madame d'Etampes start, but she said, without turning toward its author:—

"He will be welcomed by us all. Well, Vicomte de Marmagne," she continued, "have you found the sheath of your dagger?"

"No, madame; but I am on the trace of it, and I know how and where to find it now."

"Good luck to you then, Monsieur le Vicomte, good luck to you. Are you ready, Master Clement? we are all ears."

"The subject is the duchy of Etampes," said Marot.

A murmur of approval ran through the room, and the poet recited the following lines in an affected voice:—

Madame d'Etampes clapped her hands and smiled, and all the hands and all the lips applauded after her.

"Faith!" said she, "I see that Jupiter transported Pindarus to France when he transported Tempe."

With that the duchess rose, and all the company followed suit. She was fully justified in deeming herself the veritable queen; and it was a true queenly gesture with which she took leave of her guests, and it was as a queen that all sainted her as they withdrew.

"Remain," she said in a low voice to Ascanio.

Ascanio obeyed.

But when all the others had left the room, it was no haughty and disdainful queen, but an humble and passionate woman, who turned and confronted the young artist.

Ascanio, born of humble parents, brought up far from the world, in the almost cloister-like twilight of the studio, and an unaccustomed guest in palaces, whither he had accompanied his master only on rare occasions, was already giddy, confused, dazzled by the light and noise and conversation. His mind was attacked by something very like vertigo when he heard Madame d'Etampes speak in such simple terms, or rather so coquettishly, of such grave subjects, and touch lightly in familiar phrase upon the destinies of kings and the dismemberment of kingdoms. The woman, like a very Providence, had in some sort distributed to each one his portion of joy or sorrow; she had with the same hand rattled fetters and let crowns fall. And lo! this sovereign of the loftiest earthly things, proud as Lucifer with her noble flatterers, turned to him not only with the soft glance of the loving woman, but with the suppliant air of the slave who fears. Ascanio had suddenly become the leading character in the play, instead of a simple spectator.

It should be said that the coquettish duchess had skilfully planned and brought about this effect. Ascanio was conscious of the empire which this woman assumed, despite his efforts to combat it, not over his heart, but over his mind; and like the child that he was, he sought to hide his trouble beneath a cold, stern demeanor. It may perhaps be that he had seen his spotless Colombe pass like a ghost between the duchess and himself,—Colombe with her white robe and her luminous brow.

XVII LOVE AS PASSION

"Madame," said Ascanio, "you requested me to design a lily, do you remember? You ordered me to bring the design to you as soon as it should be completed. I completed it this morning, and I have it here."

"We have time enough, Ascanio," said the duchess, with a smile, and in a siren's voice. "Sit you down, pray. Well, my bonny invalid, what of your wound?"

"I am entirely recovered, madame."

"So far as your shoulder is concerned; but here?" said the duchess, laying her hand upon the young man's heart, with a graceful gesture, and a world of sentiment in her tone.

"I beg you, madame, to forget all that nonsense; I am very angry with myself for having annoyed your ladyship with it."

"O mon Dieu! what means this air of constraint? What means this clouded brow, and this harsh voice? All those men wearied you, did they not, Ascanio?—and as for myself, I hate and abhor them, but I fear them! Oh how I longed to be alone with you! Did you not see how quickly I dismissed them?"

"You are right, madame; I felt sadly out of place in such a distinguished company. I, a poor artist, who am here simply to show you this lily."

"Ah! mon Dieu! in a moment, Ascanio," continued the duchess, slinking her head; "you are very cold, and very sober with a friend. The other day you were so expansive and so delightful! Why this change, Ascanio? Doubtless some speech of your master's, who cannot endure me. How could you listen to him, Ascanio? Come, be frank; you have discussed me with him, have you not? and he told you that it was dangerous to trust me; that the friendly feeling I had manifested for you concealed some snare; he told you, did he not, that I detest you?"

"He told me that you loved me, madame," retorted Ascanio, looking earnestly into her face.

Madame d'Etampes was speechless for a moment, in presence of the thoughts which rushed through her mind. She wished without doubt that Ascanio should know her love, but she would have liked time to prepare him for it, and to extinguish gradually, without seeming interested in so doing, his passion for Colombe. How that the ambuscade she had arranged was discovered, she must fight her battle in the broad daylight, and win the victory openly if at all. She made her decision in a second.

"Well, yes," said she, "I do love you. Is it a crime? Is it a sin even? Can one command one's love or hatred? You should never nave known that I love you. For why tell you, when you love another? But that man revealed the whole truth, he laid bare my heart to you, and he did well, Ascanio. Look upon it, and you will see there adoration so deep that you can but be touched by it. And now, Ascanio, you must love me too, mark that."

Anne d'Etampes, a potent, superior nature, disdainful by instinct and ambitious from weariness of her surroundings had had several lovers hitherto, but not one love. She had fascinated the king, Admiral Brion had taken her by surprise, the Comte de Longueval caught her fancy for the moment, but throughout all these intrigues the head had always taken the place of the heart. At last, one day she found this young, true love, tender and deep, which she had so often summoned without avail, and now another woman disputed its possession with her. Ah! so much the worse for that other woman! She could not know what an irresistible passion she had to contend with. All the determination and all the violent impulses of her heart, she, Anne d'Etampes, would make manifest in her affection. That woman did not yet know what a fatal thing it would be to have the Duchesse d'Etampes for her rival, the Duchesse d'Etampes, who desired to have her Ascanio to herself, and whose power was such that she could, with a look, a word, a gesture, crush whatever might come between him and herself. The die was cast, the ambition and the beauty of the king's mistress were thenceforth to serve no other masters than her love for Ascanio and her jealousy of Colombe.

Poor Colombe, at that moment bending over her embroidery, sitting at her spinning-wheel, or kneeling before her prie-Dieu!

Ascanio, in presence of so outspoken and so redoubtable a passion, felt fascinated, carried away, and dismayed, all at the same moment. Benvenuto had said, and Ascanio now realized, that this was no mere whim; but he was deficient, not in the strength to struggle, but in the experience which would have taught him to feign submission. He was hardly twenty years old, and was too candid to pretend; he fancied, poor child, that the memory of Colombe, the name of the innocent girl uttered by him, would be an offensive and defensive weapon, a sword and a shield, while on the other hand it was sure to drive the shaft still deeper into the heart of Madame d'Etampes, who perhaps would soon have grown weary of a love in which she had no rival and no battle to wage.

"Come, Ascanio," she resumed more calmly, seeing that the young man held his peace, alarmed perhaps by the words she had let fall, "let us for to-day forget my love, which an imprudent word of yours inopportunely awakened. Let us think now of yourself only. Oh! I love you more on your own account than mine, I swear to you. I long to brighten your life as you have brightened mine. You are an orphan, take me for your mother. You heard what I said to Montbrion and Medina, and you may have thought that I am all ambition. 'T is true, I am ambitious, but for you alone. How long is it since I conceived this project of creating an independent duchy in the heart of Italy for a son of France? Only since I have loved you. If I were queen there, who would be the veritable king? You. For you I would cause empire and kingdom to change places! Ah! Ascanio, you do not know me; you do not know what a woman I am. You see that I tell you the whole truth, I unfold my plans to you without reserve. How do you, in your turn, confide in me, Ascanio. What are your wishes, that I may fulfil them! What are your passions, that I may minister to them!"

"Madame, I desire to be as frank and loyal as yourself, and to tell you the truth, as you have told it to me. I ask nothing, I wish nothing, I long for nothing, save Colombe's love."

"But she loves you not; you yourself told me so!"

"I was desperate the other day, true. But to-day who can say?" Ascanio lowered his eyes and his voice: "For you love me!" he added.

The duchess was taken aback by this instance of the instinctive divination of true love. There was a moment of silence, and that moment sufficed for her to collect her thoughts.

"Ascanio, let us not talk to-day of affairs of the heart," she said. "I made that request once before; I make it again. Love isn't the whole of life to you men. For instance, have you never thirsted for wealth, honors, glory?"

"Oh! yes, yes! for a month past I have most ardently longed for them," replied Ascanio, always reverting to the same idea in spite of himself.

Again there was a pause.

"Are you fond of Italy?" Anne resumed with effort.

"Yes, madame," said Ascanio. "There are flowering orange groves there, beneath which it is so pleasant to wander and converse. There the bluest of blue skies surrounds, caresses, and adorns everything that is beautiful."

"Oh, to fly thither with you!—to have you all to myself!—to be all in all to you, as you would be all in all to me! Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!" cried the duchess, likewise yielding to the irresistible force of her love. But she at once recovered herself, fearing to frighten Ascanio again, and continued: "I thought that you loved art before everything."

"Before everything I love—to love!" said Ascanio. "Oh! it is my great master Cellini, not I, who throws his whole being into his work. He is the great, the marvellous, the sublime artist! I am a poor apprentice, nothing more. I came to France with him, not to acquire wealth, nor glory, but because I loved him, that's all, and it was impossible for me to part from him; for at that time he was everything to me. I have no personal will, no strength independent of his strength. I became a goldsmith to gratify him, and because he wished it, as I became a carver because of his enthusiasm for skilful and delicate carving."

"Very well," said the duchess, "now listen: to live in Italy, all-powerful, almost a king; to patronize artists, Cellini at their head; to give him bronze, and silver and gold, to carve and cast and mould; and beyond all that, to love and be loved. Say, Ascanio, is it not a lovely dream?"

"It would be Paradise, madame, if it were Colombe whom I loved and who loved me."

"Still Colombe, always Colombe!" cried the duchess. "So be it; since the subject persistently forces itself into our words and our thoughts; since your Colombe is here with us, constantly before your eyes, and constantly in your heart, let us speak of her and of myself frankly and without hypocrisy: she does not love you, and you know it full well."

"Oh, no! I do not know it now, madame."

"But how can she love you when she is to marry another?" cried the duchess.

"Her father forces her, perhaps."

"Her father forces her! And do you think that if you loved me as you loved her,—do you think that if I were in her place there is in this wide world any force or will or power that could keep us apart? Oh, I would leave everything, I would fly from everything, I would run to your arms, and would give you my love, my honor, and my life to guard! No, no! I say she does not love you. And now would you have me tell you something else? you do not love her!"

"What! I not love Colombe! I think you said that I do not love her, madame?"

"No, you do not love her. You deceive yourself. At your age, one mistakes the need of loving for love. If you had seen me first, you would love me instead of her. Oh, when I think that you might have loved me! But no, no! it is much better that you should choose me in preference to her. I do not know this Colombe; she is lovely and pure, and whatever you choose; but these slips of girls know nothing about loving. Your Colombe would never have told you what I, whom you despise, have just said; she would have too much vanity, too much diffidence, too much shame perhaps. But my love is simple, and expresses itself in simple words. You despise me, you think that I forget my sex, and all because I don't dissemble. Some day, when you know the world better, when you have drunk so deeply of life that you have reached the dregs,—sorrow,—then you will think better of your present injustice, then you will admire me. But I do not choose to be admired, Ascanio, I choose to be loved. I say again, Ascanio, if I loved you less, I might be false, artful, coquettish; but I love you too well to try to fascinate you. I long to receive your heart as a gift, not to steal it. What will be the end of your love for that child? Tell me. You will suffer, my best beloved, and that's all. But I can serve you in many ways. In the first place, I have suffered for two, and perhaps God will permit my surplusage of suffering to be credited to you; and then I lay my wealth, my power, my experience, all at your feet. I will add my life to yours, and will save you from all sorts of missteps and from all forms of corruption. To arrive at fortune, or even to attain glory, an artist must often stoop to base, crawling expedients. You will be beyond all necessity for that with me. I will lift you ever higher and higher; I will be your stepping-stone. With me you will continue to be the proud, the noble, the pure Ascanio."

"But Colombe! Colombe, madame! Is not she too an immaculate pearl?"

"My child, believe what I say," replied the duchess, relapsing from feverish exaltation to melancholy. "Your pure white, innocent Colombe will make your life monotonous and dreary. You are both too divine. God didn't make angels to be joined together, but to make bad people better."

The duchess's manner was so eloquent, and her voice so sincere, that Ascanio was conscious of a thrill of affectionate compassion stealing over him, in spite of himself.

"Alas! madame," he said, "I see that I am indeed honored by your affection, and I am very deeply touched; but it is even better to love!"

"Oh, how true! how true that is! I prefer your disdain to the king's softest words. Ah me! I love for the first time: for the first time, I swear!"

"And the king? pray do you not love him, madame?"

"No, I am his mistress, but he is not my master."

"But he loves you!"

"Mon Dieu!" cried Anne, gazing earnestly into Ascanio's face, and seizing both his hands in hers: "Am I so fortunate that you are jealous? Does the king's love offend you? Listen: hitherto I have been in your eyes the duchess, wealthy, noble, powerful, offering to stir up crowned heads and overturn thrones. Do you prefer the poor, lonely woman, out of the world, with a simple white robe, and a wild flower in her hair? Do you prefer that, Ascanio? Let us leave Paris, the court, the world! Let us take refuge in some far off nook in your sunny Italy, beneath the lofty pines of Rome, or on the shores of your lovely Bay of Naples. Here I am: I am ready. O Ascanio, Ascanio, does it really flatter your pride, that I would sacrifice a crowned lover for your sake?"

"Madame," said Ascanio, whose heart was beginning to melt in the flame of so great a passion, "madame, my heart is too proud and too exacting; you cannot give me the past."

"The past! O you men, you men! always cruel! The past! In God's name ought an unfortunate woman to be compelled to answer for her past, when it has almost always been made what it was by events and circumstances stronger than herself? Suppose that a storm should arise and a whirlwind carry you off to Italy; when you return, one year, two years, three years hence, should you take it ill of your Colombe, whom you love so dearly to-day, because she had obeyed her parents and married Comte d'Orbec? Would you make her virtue a subject of reproach? would you punish her for obeying one of God's commandments? And if she had not your memory to feed upon, if she had never known you,—if, in her deathly ennui, crushed with grief, forgotten for a moment by God, she had sought to gain some knowledge of that paradise called love, the door of which was closed to her,—if she had loved another than her husband, whom she could not love,—if in a moment of delirium she had given her heart in exchange for another,—she would then be ruined in your eyes, dishonored in your heart. She could no longer hope to be blessed by your love, because she had not an unsullied past to give in exchange for your heart. Oh! I repeat, it is unjust, it is cruel!"

"Madame—"

"Who told you that is not my story? Listen to what I say, and believe what I declare to be the truth. I say again that I have suffered for both; and this poor woman, whom God forgives, you refuse to forgive. You do not understand how much greater and nobler it is to raise one's self from the abyss after falling into it, than to pass close by without seeing it, having the bandage of happiness over your eyes. O Ascanio, Ascanio! I deemed you better than the others, because you were younger, and fairer to look upon—"

"O madame!"

"Reach me your hand, Ascanio, and at one bound I will spring from the bottom of the abyss to your heart. Will you? To-morrow I will have broken with the king, the court, the world. Oh, I am valiant in love! But I do not wish to make myself any greater than I am. It would be but a trifling sacrifice for me, believe me. All these men are not worth one glance from you. But, if you would trust to me, dear child, you would let me retain my authority, and continue my plans for you. I would make you great, and you men can do without love if you attain glory: you are ambitious,—you may not know it yet, but you are. As for the king's love, don't be alarmed about that: I will turn it aside upon some other to whom he will give his heart while I retain his mind. Choose, Ascanio. Powerful through my means and with me, or I humble through your means and with you. Look you: a short time since, as you know, I was in this chair, and the most powerful courtiers were at my feet. Sit you in my place: sit you there, and behold me at your feet. Oh, how I love to be here, Ascanio! oh what bliss to see you and look into your eyes! You turn pale, Ascanio! Oh, if you would but tell me that you would love me some day, though not for a long, a very long while!"

"Madame! madame!" cried Ascanio, hiding his face in his hands, and covering eyes and ears, so conscious was he of the potent fascination of the aspect and the accent of the siren.

"Do not call me madame, do not call me Anne," said the duchess, putting aside his hands: "call me Louise. It is also my name, but a name by which no one has ever called me, and it shall be yours. Louise! Louise!—Do you not think it a sweet name, Ascanio?"

"I know one sweeter still," replied Ascanio.

"Beware, Ascanio!" cried the wounded lioness: "if you make me suffer too keenly, I may perhaps come to hate you as much as I love you."

"Mon Dieu!" replied the young man, shaking his head, as if to avert the spell: "Mon Dieu! you confuse my thoughts, and overwhelm my heart! Am I delirious? Have I a fever? Am I dreaming? If I say harsh things to you, forgive me, for I do it to awaken myself. I see you, lovely, adored, a queen, here at my feet. It cannot be that such temptations exist except to lead souls to perdition. Ah! you are, as you say, in an abyss; but instead of rising out of it yourself, you would draw me in. Oh, do not expose my weakness to such a trial!"

"There is neither temptation, nor trial, nor dream; there is a resplendent reality for us both: I love you, Ascanio, I love you!"

"You love me, but you will repent of your love hereafter and will reproach me some day for what you have brought into my life, or what I have taken away from yours."

"Ah! you do not know me," cried the duchess, "if you think me weak enough to repent. Stay: will you have a pledge?"

Anne hastily seated herself at a table upon which were writing materials, and, seizing a pen, dashed off a few words.

"Take this," she said, "and doubt me again, if you dare!"

Ascanio took the paper and read:—

"Ascanio, I love you: go with me where I go, or let me go with you where you go.

"ANNE D'HEILLY."

"Oh, that cannot be, madame! It seems to me that my love would be a cause of shame to you."

"Shame!" cried the duchess: "do I know shame? I am too proud for that. My pride is my virtue!"

"Ah! I know a lovelier and more saintly virtue than that," said Ascanio, clinging to the thought of Colombe with a desperate effort.

The blow struck home. The duchess rose, trembling with indignation.

"You are an obstinate, hard-hearted child, Ascanio," she said in a broken voice: "I would fain have spared you much suffering, but I see that sorrow alone can teach you what life is. You will come back to me, Ascanio; you will return wounded, bleeding, heartbroken, and you will know then the worth of your Colombe and of myself. I will forgive you then, because I love you; but ere that time comes terrible things will happen. Au revoir."

And Madame d'Etampes, wild with love and hatred, left the room, forgetting that the two lines she had written in a moment of exaltation remained in Ascanio's hands.

XVIII LOVE AS A DREAM

As soon as Ascanio was out of Madame d'Etampes's presence, the fascinating influence which emanated from her disappeared, and he could once more see clearly the condition of his own heart, as well as what was going on about him. How, he recalled two things he had said. Colombe might love him, since the Duchesse d'Etampes loved him. Thenceforth his life did not belong to him: his instinct had served him well in suggesting these two thoughts to him, but it had led him astray when it inspired him to give utterance to them. If the honest, upright soul of the young man had been capable of descending to dissimulation, all would have been well, but he had simply put the wounded and much to be dreaded duchess on her guard. The struggle henceforth was to be the more terrible, in that Colombe only was threatened.

However, this passionate and perilous scene with the duchess was of service to Ascanio in one respect. He carried away from it a new-born feeling of exaltation and confidence. His mind, excited by the spectacle it had witnessed as well as by its own efforts, was more active than ever, and more inclined to audacious deeds; so that he gallantly determined to find out what basis there might be for his hopes, and to sound the depths of Colombe's heart, though he were to find nothing more than indifference there. If Colombe really loved Comte d'Orbec, why contend longer against Madame d'Etampes? She might do what she would with a rebellious, despised, desolate, despairing existence. He would be ambitious, he would become gloomy and evil-minded; what matter if he did? But first of all he must put an end to his doubts, and go with a determined step to meet his fate. If worse came to worst, Madame d'Etampes's promise would take care of the future.

Ascanio arrived at this decision as he returned along the quay, watching the sun sink in a sea of flame behind the black, frowning Tour de Nesle. When he reached the hôtel, without delay or hesitation, he went first to put together a few jewels, then resolutely knocked four times at the door leading to the Petit-Nesle.

Dame Perrine chanced to be in the neighborhood. With astonishment, mingled with curiosity, she made haste to open the gate. But when she saw the apprentice, she felt called upon to assume a very frigid demeanor.

"Ah! is it you, Monsieur Ascanio? What do you wish?"

"I wish to show these jewels to Mademoiselle Colombe immediately, good Dame Perrine. Is she in the garden?"

"Yes, in her path. But wait, young man, wait for me!"

Ascanio, who had not forgotten the road, walked swiftly away without giving another thought to the governess.

"Let us see," said she, stopping to reflect. "I think my best course is not to join them, but to leave Colombe free to select her purchases and her gifts. It would not be becoming for me to be there, if, as is probable, she puts something aside for me. I will arrive when she has completed her purchases, and then I should certainly be very ungrateful to refuse. That's what I'll do, stay here and not embarrass the dear, kind-hearted child."

It will be seen that the good woman was not deficient in delicacy.

For ten days past Colombe had not found it necessary to ask herself if Ascanio had become her dearest thought. The pure-souled, unsophisticated child did not know what love was, but her heart was overflowing with love. She told herself that she did wrong to indulge in such dreams, but she excused herself on the ground that she certainly should never see Ascanio again, and that she should not have the consolation of justifying herself in his eyes.

Upon this pretext she passed all her evenings upon the bench where he had sat beside her, and there she would talk to him, listen to him, and concentrate her whole soul upon the memory. And when the darkness came on, and Dame Perrine bade her retire, the lovely dreamer would return to the house with reluctant steps, and not until she was recalled to herself would she remember her father's commands, Comte d'Orbec, and the rapid flight of time. Her sleepless nights were hard to bear, but not sufficiently so to efface the charm of her visions of the evening.