The Refugees | Page 8

of his rival Colbert, discussing a
question of military organisation with two officers, the one a tall and
stately soldier, the other a strange little figure, undersized and
misshapen, but bearing the insignia of a marshal of France, and owning
a name which was of evil omen over the Dutch frontier, for
Luxembourg was looked upon already as the successor of Conde, even
as his companion Vauban was of Turenne. Beside them, a small
white-haired clerical with a kindly face, Pere la Chaise, confessor to the
king, was whispering his views upon Jansenism to the portly Bossuet,
the eloquent Bishop of Meaux, and to the tall thin young Abbe de
Fenelon, who listened with a clouded brow, for it was suspected that
his own opinions were tainted with the heresy in question. There, too,
was Le Brun, the painter, discussing art in a small circle which
contained his fellow-workers Verrio and Laguerre, the architects
Blondel and Le Notre, and sculptors Girardon, Puget, Desjardins, and
Coysevox, whose works had done so much to beautify the new palace
of the king. Close to the door, Racine, with his handsome face
wreathed in smiles, was chatting with the poet Boileau and the architect
Mansard, the three laughing and jesting with the freedom which was
natural to the favourite servants of the king, the only subjects who
might walk unannounced and without ceremony into and out of his
chamber.
"What is amiss with him this morning?" asked Boileau in a whisper,
nodding his head in the direction of the royal group. "I fear that his
sleep has not improved his temper."
"He becomes harder and harder to amuse," said Racine, shaking his
head. "I am to be at Madame De Maintenon's room at three to see
whether a page or two of the Phedre may not work a change."
"My friend," said the architect, "do you not think that madame herself
might be a better consoler than your _Phedre_?"

"Madame is a wonderful woman. She has brains, she has heart, she has
tact--she is admirable."
"And yet she has one gift too many."
"And that is?"
"Age."
"Pooh! What matter her years when she can carry them like thirty?
What an eye! What an arm! And besides, my friends, he is not himself
a boy any longer."
"Ah, but that is another thing."
"A man's age is an incident, a woman's a calamity."
"Very true. But a young man consults his eye, and an older man his ear.
Over forty, it is the clever tongue which wins; under it, the pretty face."
"Ah, you rascal! Then you have made up your mind that five-and-forty
years with tact will hold the field against nine-and-thirty with beauty.
Well, when your lady has won, she will doubtless remember who were
the first to pay court to her."
"But I think that you are wrong, Racine."
"Well, we shall see."
"And if you are wrong--"
"Well, what then?"
"Then it may be a little serious for you."
"And why?"
"The Marquise de Montespan has a memory."

"Her influence may soon be nothing more."
"Do not rely too much upon it, my friend. When the Fontanges came up
from Provence, with her blue eyes and her copper hair, it was in every
man's mouth that Montespan had had her day. Yet Fontanges is six feet
under a church crypt, and the marquise spent two hours with the king
last week. She has won once, and may again."
"Ah, but this is a very different rival. This is no slip of a country girl,
but the cleverest woman in France."
"Pshaw, Racine, you know our good master well, or you should, for
you seem to have been at his elbow since the days of the Fronde. Is he a
man, think you, to be amused forever by sermons, or to spend his days
at the feet of a lady of that age, watching her at her tapestry-work, and
fondling her poodle, when all the fairest faces and brightest eyes of
France are as thick in his salons as the tulips in a Dutch flower-bed? No,
no, it will be the Montespan, or if not she, some younger beauty."
"My dear Boileau, I say again that her sun is setting. Have you not
heard the news?"
"Not a word."
"Her brother, Monsieur de Vivonne, has been refused the entre."
"Impossible!"
"But it is a fact."
"And when?"
"This very morning."
"From whom had you it?"
"From De Catinat, the captain of the guard. He had his orders to bar the
way to him."

"Ha! then the king does indeed mean mischief. That is why his brow is
so cloudy this morning, then. By my faith, if the marquise has the spirit
with which folk credit her, he may find that it was easier to