The Transformation.
NICOLE WAS overjoyed. To leave Taverney for Paris was not half so great a triumph as to leave Paris for Trianon. She was so gracious with M. de Richelieu’s coachman, that the next morning the reputation of the new femme-de-chambre was established throughout all the coach-houses and antechambers, in any degree aristocratic, of Paris and Versailles.
When they arrived at the Hotel de Hanover, M. de Richelieu took the little waiting-maid by the hand and led her to the first story, where M. Rafte was waiting his arrival, and writing a multitude of letters, all on his master’s account.
Amid the various acquirements of the marshal, war occupied the foremost rank, and Rafte had become, at least in theory such a skillful man of war, that Polybius and the Chevalier de Fobard, if they had lived at that period, would have esteemed themselves fortunate could they have perused the pamphlets on fortifications and maneuvering, of which Rafte wrote one every week. M. Rafte was busy revising the plan of a war against the English in the Mediterranean when the marshal entered, and said:
“Rafte, look at this child, will you?”
Rafte looked.
“Very pretty,” said he, with a most significant movement of the lips.
“Yes, but the likeness, Rafte? It is of the likeness I speak.”
“Oh! true. What the deuce!”
“You see it, do you not?”
“It is extraordinary; it will either make or mar her fortune.”
“It will ruin her in the first place; but we shall arrange all that. You observe she has fair hair, Rafte; but that will not signify much, will it?”
“It will only be necessary to make it black, my lord,” replied Rafte, who had acquired the habit of completing his master’s thoughts, and sometimes even of thinking entirely for him.
“Come to my dressing table, child,” said the marshal, “this gentleman, who is a very clever man, will make you the handsomest and the least easily recognized waiting-maid in France.”
In fact, ten minutes afterward, with the assistance of a composition which the marshal used every week to dye the white hairs beneath his wig black, a piece of coquetry which he often affected to confess by the bedside of some of his acquaintances, Rafte had dyed the beautiful auburn hair of Nicole a splendid jet black.
Then he passed the end of a pin, blackened in the flame of a candle, over her thick fair eyebrows, and by this means gave such a fantastic look to her joyous countenance, such an ardent and even somber fire to her bright clear eyes, that one would have said she was some fairy bursting by the power of an incantation from the magic prison in which her enchanter had held her confined.
“Now, my sweet child,” said Richelieu, after having handed a mirror to the astonished Nicole, “look how charming you are, and how little like the Nicole you were just now. You have no longer a queen to fear, but a fortune to make.”
“Oh, my lord!” exclaimed the young girl.
“Yes, and for that purpose it is only necessary that we understand each other.”
Nicole blushed and looked down; the cunning one expected, no doubt, some of those flattering words which Richelieu knew so well how to say.
The duke perceived this, and, to cut short all misunderstandings, said:
“Sit down in this armchair beside M. Rafte, my clear child. Open your ears wide, and listen to me. Oh! do not let M. Rafte’s presence embarrass you; do not be afraid; he will, on the contrary, give us his advice. You are listening, are you not?”
“Yes, my lord,” stammered Nicole, ashamed at having thus been led away by her vanity.
The conversation between M. de Richelieu, M. Rafte, and Nicole lasted more than an hour, after which the marshal sent the little femme-de-chambre to sleep with the other waiting-women in the hotel.
Rafte returned to his military pamphlet, and Richelieu retired to bed, after having looked over the different letters which conveyed to him intelligence of all the acts of the provincial parliaments against M. d’Aiguillon and the Dubarry clique.
Early the next day, one of his carriages without his coat of arms conducted Nicole to Trianon, set her down at the gate with her little packet, and immediately disappeared. Nicole, with head erect, mind at ease, and hope dancing in her eyes, after having made the necessary inquiries, knocked at the door of the offices.
It was ten o’clock in the morning. Andree, already up and dressed, was writing to her father to inform him of the happy event of the preceding day, of which M. de Richelieu, as we have already seen, had made himself the messenger. Our readers will not have forgotten that a flight of stone steps led from the garden to the little chapel of Trianon; that on the landing-place of this chapel a staircase branched off toward the right to the first story, which contained the apartments of the ladies-in-waiting, which apartments opened off a long corridor, like an alley, looking upon the garden.
Andree’s apartment was the first upon the left hand in this corridor. It was tolerably large, well-lighted by windows looking upon the stable court, and preceded by a little bedroom with a closet on either side. This apartment, however insufficient, if one considers the ordinary household of the officers of a brilliant court, was yet a charming retreat, very habitable, and very cheerful as an asylum from the noise and bustle of the palace. There an ambitious soul could fly to devour the affronts or the mistakes of the day, and there, too, a humble and melancholy spirit could repose in silence and in solitude, apart from the grandeur of the gay world around.
In fact, the stone steps once ascended and the chapel passed, there no longer existed either superiority, duty, or display. There reigned the calm of a convent, and the personal liberty of prison life. The slave of the palace was a monarch when she had crossed the threshold of her modest dwelling. A gentle yet lofty soul such as Andree’s found consolation in this reflection; not that she flew here to repose after the fatigues of a disappointed ambition, or of unsatisfied longings; but she felt that she could think more at her ease in the narrow bounds of her chamber than in the rich salons of Trianon, or those marble halls which her feet trod with a timidity amounting almost to terror.
From this sequestered nook, where the young girl felt herself so well and so appropriately placed, she could look without emotion on all the splendor which, during the day, had met her dazzled eye. Surrounded by her flowers, her harpsichord, and her German books — such sweet companions to those who read with the heart — Andree defied fate to inflict on her a single grief, or to deprive her of a single joy.
“Here,” said she, when in the evening, after her duties were over, she returned to throw around her shoulders her dressing-gown with its wide folds, and to breathe with all her soul, as with all her lungs; “here I possess nearly everything I can hope to possess till my death. I may one day perhaps be richer, but I can never be poorer than I now am. There will always be flowers, music, and a consoling page to cheer the poor recluse.”
Andree had obtained permission to breakfast in her own apartment when she felt inclined. This was a precious boon to her, for she could thus remain in her own domicile until twelve o’clock, unless the dauphiness should command her attendance for some morning reading or some early walk. Thus free, in fine weather she set out every morning with a book in her hand, and traversed alone the extensive woods which lie between Versailles and Trianon; then, after a walk of two hours, during which she gave full play to meditation and reverie, she returned to breakfast, often without having seen either nobleman or servant, man or livery.
When the heat began to pierce through the thick foliage, Andree had her little chamber fresh and cool with the double current of air from the door and the window. A small sofa covered, with Indian silk, four chairs to match, a simple yet elegant bed with a circular top, from which the curtains of the same material as the covering of the furniture fell in deep folds, two china vases placed upon the chimneypiece, and a square table with brass feet, composed her little world, whose narrow confines bounded all her hopes and limited all her wishes.
Andree was seated in her apartment, therefore, as we have said, and busily engaged in writing to her father, when a little modest knock at the door of the corridor attracted her attention.
She raised her head on seeing the door open, and uttered a slight cry of astonishment when the radiant face of Nicole appeared, entering from the little antechamber.