Bardelys the Magnificent | Page 4

Lucifer - some resemblance to which illustrious personage his
downtrodden retainers were said to detect in the lineaments of his
swarthy face. Environment had added to that store of insolence
wherewith Nature had equipped him, and the King's favour - in which
he was my rival - had gone yet further to mould the peacock attributes
of his vain soul. So that this wondrous humble tone of his gave me
pause; for to me it seemed that not even a courtship gone awry could
account for it in such a man.
"I had not thought to find so many here," said he. And his next words
contained the cause of his dejected air. "The King, Monsieur de
Bardelys, has refused to see me; and when the sun is gone, we lesser
bodies of the courtly firmament must needs turn for light and comfort

to the moon." And he made me a sweeping bow.
"Meaning that I rule the night?" quoth I, and laughed. "The figure is
more playful than exact, for whilst the moon is cold and cheerless, me
you shall find ever warm and cordial. I could have wished, Monsieur de
Chatellerault, that your gracing my board were due to a circumstance
less untoward than His Majesty's displeasure."
"It is not for nothing that they call you the Magnificent," he answered,
with a fresh bow, insensible to the sting in the tail of my honeyed
words.
I laughed, and, setting compliments to rest with that, I led him to the
table.
"Ganymede, a place here for Monsieur le Comte. Gilles, Antoine, see
to Monsieur de Chatellerault. Basile, wine for Monsieur le Comte.
Bestir there!"
In a moment he was become the centre of a very turmoil of attention.
My lacqueys flitted about him buzzing and insistent as bees about a
rose. Would Monsieur taste of this capon a la casserole, or of this
truffled peacock? Would a slice of this juicy ham a l'anglaise tempt
Monsieur le Comte, or would he give himself the pain of trying this
turkey aux olives? Here was a salad whose secret Monsieur le
Marquis's cook had learnt in Italy, and here a vol-au-vent that was
invented by Quelon himself.
Basile urged his wines upon him, accompanied by a page who bore a
silver tray laden with beakers and Wagons. Would Monsieur le Comte
take white Armagnac or red Anjou? This was a Burgundy of which
Monsieur le Marquis thought highly, and this a delicate Lombardy
wine that His Majesty had oft commended. Or perhaps Monsieur de
Chatellerault would prefer to taste the last vintage of Bardelys?
And so they plagued him and bewildered him until his choice was
made; and even then a couple of them held themselves in readiness
behind his chair to forestall his slightest want. Indeed, had he been the

very King himself, no greater honour could we have shown him at the
Hotel de Bardelys.
But the restraint that his coming had brought with it hung still upon the
company, for Chatellerault was little loved, and his presence there was
much as that of the skull at an Egyptian banquet.
For of all these fair-weather friends that sat about my table - amongst
whom there were few that had not felt his power - I feared there might
be scarcely one would have the grace to dissemble his contempt of the
fallen favourite. That he was fallen, as much his words as what already
we had known, had told us.
Yet in my house I would strive that he should have no foretaste of that
coldness that to-morrow all Paris would be showing him, and to this
end I played the host with all the graciousness that role may bear, and
overwhelmed him with my cordiality, whilst to thaw all iciness from
the bearing of my other guests, I set the wines to flow more freely still.
My dignity would permit no less of me, else would it have seemed that
I rejoiced in a rival's downfall and took satisfaction from the
circumstance that his disfavour with the King was like to result in my
own further exaltation.
My efforts were not wasted. Slowly the mellowing influence of the
grape pronounced itself. To this influence I added that of such wit as
Heaven has graced me with, and by a word here and another there I set
myself to lash their mood back into the joviality out of which his
coming had for the moment driven it.
And so, presently, Good-Humour spread her mantle over us anew, and
quip and jest and laughter decked our speech, until the noise of our
merry-making drifting out through the open windows must have been
borne upon the breeze of that August night down the rue
Saint-Dominique, across the rue de l'Enfer, to the very