The Queens Necklace | Page 2

and it does not suit me, when I wish to dine at four, to be obliged to wait till five."
"Your grace," replied the ma?tre-d'h?tel, gravely, "I have served as butler to his highness the Prince de Soubise, and as steward to his eminence the Cardinal de Rohan. With the first, his majesty, the late King of France, dined once a year; with the second, the Emperor of Austria dined once a month. I know, therefore, how a sovereign should be treated. When he visited the Prince de Soubise, Louis XV. called himself in vain the Baron de Gonesse; at the house of M. de Rohan, the Emperor Joseph was announced as the Count de Packenstein; but he was none the less emperor. To-day, your grace also receives a guest, who vainly calls himself Count Haga--Count Haga is still King of Sweden. I shall leave your service this evening, but Count Haga will have been treated like a king."
"But that," said the marshal, "is the very thing that I am tiring myself to death in forbidding; Count Haga wishes to preserve his incognito as strictly as possible. Well do I see through your absurd vanity; it is not the crown that you honor, but yourself that you wish to glorify; I repeat again, that I do not wish it imagined that I have a king here."
"What, then, does your grace take me for? It is not that I wish it known that there is a king here."
"Then in heaven's name do not be obstinate, but let us have dinner at four."
"But at four o'clock, your grace, what I am expecting will not have arrived."
"What are you expecting? a fish, like M. Vatel?"
"Does your grace wish that I should tell you?"
"On my faith, I am curious."
"Then, your grace, I wait for a bottle of wine."
"A bottle of wine! Explain yourself, sir, the thing begins to interest me."
"Listen then, your grace; his majesty the King of Sweden--I beg pardon, the Count Haga I should have said--drinks nothing but tokay."
"Well, am I so poor as to have no tokay in my cellar? If so, I must dismiss my butler."
"Not so, your grace; on the contrary, you have about sixty bottles."
"Well, do you think Count Haga will drink sixty bottles with his dinner?"
"No, your grace; but when Count Haga first visited France, when he was only prince royal, he dined with the late king, who had received twelve bottles of tokay from the Emperor of Austria. You are aware that the tokay of the finest vintages is reserved exclusively for the cellar of the emperor, and that kings themselves can only drink it when he pleases to send it to them."
"I know it."
"Then, your grace, of these twelve bottles of which the prince royal drank, only two remain. One is in the cellar of his majesty Louis XVI.----"
"And the other?"
"Ah, your grace!" said the ma?tre-d'h?tel, with a triumphant smile, for he felt that, after the long battle he had been fighting, the moment of victory was at hand, "the other one was stolen."
"By whom, then?"
"By one of my friends, the late king's butler, who was under great obligations to me."
"Oh! and so he gave it to you."
"Certainly, your grace," said the ma?tre-d'h?tel with pride.
"And what did you do with it?"
"I placed it carefully in my master's cellar."
"Your master! And who was your master at that time?"
"His eminence the Cardinal de Rohan."
"Ah, mon Dieu! at Strasbourg?"
"At Saverne."
"And you have sent to seek this bottle for me!" cried the old marshal.
"For you, your grace," replied the ma?tre-d'h?tel, in a tone which plainly said, "ungrateful as you are."
The Duke de Richelieu seized the hand of the old servant and cried, "I beg pardon; you are the king of ma?tres d'h?tel."
"And you would have dismissed me," he replied, with an indescribable shrug of his shoulders.
"Oh, I will pay you one hundred pistoles for this bottle of wine."
"And the expenses of its coming here will be another hundred; but you will grant that it is worth it."
"I will grant anything you please, and, to begin, from to-day I double your salary."
"I seek no reward, your grace; I have but done my duty."
"And when will your courier arrive?"
"Your grace may judge if I have lost time: on what day did I have my orders for the dinner?"
"Why, three days ago, I believe."
"It takes a courier, at his utmost speed, twenty-four hours to go, and the same to return."
"There still remain twenty-four hours," said the marshal; "how have they been employed?"
"Alas, your grace, they were lost. The idea only came to me the day after I received the list of your guests. Now calculate the time necessary for the negotiation, and you will perceive that in asking you to wait till five I am only doing what I am absolutely obliged to