The Casket.
M. DE TAVERNEY had not to wait long. Richelieu, having asked the king’s valet for something his majesty had left upon his dressing-table, soon returned, carrying something the nature of winch the baron could not distinguish, on account of the covering of silk which enveloped it.
But the marshal soon relieved his friend from all anxiety. Drawing him into a corner of the gallery;
“Baron,” said he, as soon as he saw that they were alone, “you have at times seemed to doubt my friendship for you?”
“Never since our reconciliation,” replied Taverney.
“At least, you doubted your own good fortune and that of your children?”
“Oh! as for that — yes.”
“Well, you were wrong! Your children’s fortune and your own is made with a rapidity which might make you giddy.”
“Bah!” said Taverney, who suspected part of the truth, but who, as he was not quite certain, took care to guard against mistakes, “what do you mean?”
“M. Philip is already a captain, with a company paid for by the king.”
“It is true — I owe that to you.”
“By no means. Then we shall have Mademoiselle de Taverney a marchioness, perhaps!”
“Come, come!” exclaimed Taverney; “how! — my daughter!”
“Listen, Taverney! the king has great taste; and beauty, grace, and virtue, when accompanied by talent, delight his majesty. Now Mademoiselle de Taverney unites all these qualities in a very high degree. The king is therefore delighted with Mademoiselle de Taverney.”
“Duke,” replied Taverney, assuming an air of dignity at which the marshal could scarcely repress a smile; “duke, what do you mean by ‘delighted’?”
Richelieu did not like airs, and replied dryly:
“Baron, I am not a great linguist. I am not even well versed in orthography. I have always thought that ‘delighted’ signified ‘content beyond measure.’ If you are grieved beyond measure to see the king pleased with the beauty, the talent, the merit of your children, you have only to say so. I am about to return to his majesty.”
And Richelieu turned on his heel;ind made a pirouette with truly juvenile grace.
“You misunderstand me, duke.” exclaimed the baron, stopping him. “Ventre bleu! how hasty you are!”
“Why did you say that you were not satisfied?”
“I did not say so.”
“You asked for explanations of the king’s pleasure — plague take the fool!”
“But, duke, I did not breathe a syllable of that. I am most certainly content.”
“Ah! you — well, who will be displeased? Your daughter?”
“Oh! oh!”
“My dear friend, you have brought up your daughter like a savage, as you are.”
“My dear friend, the young lady educated herself; you may easily imagine that I could not possibly trouble myself with any such matter. I had enough to do to support life in your den at Taverney. Virtue in her has sprung up spontaneously.”
“And yet people say that country folks know how to pull up weeds! — In short, your daughter is a prude.”
“You mistake; she is a dove.”
Richelieu made a grimace. “Well,” said he, “the poor child must only look out for a good husband, for opportunities of making a fortune happen rarely with this defect.”
Taverney looked uneasily at the duke.
“Fortunately for her,” continued he, “the king is so desperately in love with the Dubarry that he will never think seriously of another.”
Taverney’s alarm was changed to anguish.
“Therefore,” continued Richelieu, “you and your daughter may make your minds easy. I will state the necessary objections to his majesty, and the king will never bestow another thought on the matter.”
“But objections to what? — good heavens!” exclaimed Taverney, turning pale, and holding his friend’s arm.
“To his making a little present to Mademoiselle Andree, my dear baron.”
“A little present! — What is it?” asked the baron, brimful of hope and avarice.
“Oh! a mere trifle,” said Richelieu, carelessly, and he took a casket from its silken covering. — —”A casket!”
“A mere trifle — a necklace worth a few millions of livres, which his majesty, flattered at hearing her sing his favorite air, wished to present to the fair singer. It is the usual custom. But if your daughter is proud, we will say no more about it.”
“Duke, you must not think of it — that would be to offend the king!”
“Of course it would; but is it not the attribute of virtue always to offend some person, or some thing?”
“But, duke, consider — the child is not so unreasonable.”
“That is to say it is you, and not your child, who speaks?”
“Oh! I know so well what she will do and say.”
“The Chinese are a very fortunate nation,” said Richelieu.
“Why?” asked Taverney, astonished.
“Because they have so many rivers and canals in the county.”
“Duke, you turn the conversation — do not drive me to despair; speak to me.”
“I am speaking to you, baron, and am not changing the conversation at all.”
“Then why do you speak of China? — what have its rivers to do with my daughter?”
“A great deal. The Chinese, I repeat, have the happiness of being able to drown their daughters when they are too virtuous, and no one can forbid it.”
“Come, duke, you must be just. Suppose you had a daughter yourself.”
“Pardieu! I have one; and if anyone were to tell me that she is too virtuous, it would be very ill-natured of him — that’s all.”
“In short, you would like her better otherwise, would you not?”
“Oh! for my part, I don’t meddle with my children after they are eight years old.”
“Listen to me, at least. If the king were to commission me to offer a necklace to your daughter, and if j-our daughter were to complain to you?”
“Oh, my dear sir, there is no comparison. I have always lived at court, you have lived like a North American Indian; there is no similarity. What you call virtue, I think folly. Remember, for the future, that nothing is more ill-bred than to say to people—’What would you do in this or that case?’ And besides, your comparisons are erroneous, my friend. It is not true that I am about to present a necklace to your daughter.”
“You said so.”
“I said nothing of the sort. I said that the king had directed me to bring him a casket for Mademoiselle de Taverney, whose voice had pleased him; but I did not say that his majesty had charged me to give it to her.”
“Then, in truth,” said the baron, in despair, “I know not what to think. I do not understand a single word — you speak in enigmas. Why give this necklace, if it is not to be given? Why do you take charge of it, if not to deliver it?”
Richelieu uttered an exclamation as if he had seen a spider.
“Ah!” said he; “pouah! — pouah! the Huron — the ugly animal.’”
“Who?”
“You, my good friend — you, my trusty comrade — you seem as if you had fallen from the clouds, baron!”
“I am at my wits’ end.”
“No, you never had any. When a king makes a lady a present, and when he charges M. de Richelieu with the commission, the present is noble and the commission well executed — remember that. I do not deliver caskets, my dear sir — that was M. Lebel’s office. Did you know M. Lebel?”
“What is your office, then?”
“My friend,” said Richelieu, tapping Taverney on the shoulder, and accompanying this amicable gesture by a sardonic smile, “when I have to do with such paragons of virtue as Mademoiselle Andree, I am the most moral man in the world. When I approach a dove, as you call your daughter, I do not display the talons of the hawk. When I am deputed to wait on a young lady, I speak to her father. I speak to you, therefore, Taverney, and give you the casket to present to your daughter. Well! are you willing?” — And he offered the casket. “Or do you decline?” — And he drew it back.
“Oh! say at once,” exclaimed the baron, “say at once that I am commissioned by his majesty to deliver the present! If so, it assumes quite a correct and paternal character — it is, so to speak, purified from —
“Purified! Why, you must have suspected his majesty of evil intentions!” said Richelieu, seriously. “Now, you cannot have dared to do that?”
“Heaven forbid! But the world — that is to say, my daughter—”
Richelieu shrugged his shoulders.
“Will you take it? — yes, or no?” asked he.
Taverney rapidly held out his hand.
“You are certain it is moral?” said he to the duke, with a smile, the counterpart of that which the duke had just addressed to him.
“Do you not think it pure morality, baron,” said the marshal, “to make the father, who, as you have just said, purifies everything, an intermediate party between the king’s delight and your daughter’s charms? Let M. Rousseau, of Geneva, who was hovering about here just now, be the judge; he would say that Cato of happy memory was impure compared to me.”
Richelieu pronounced these few words with a calmness — an abrupt haughtiness — a precision — which silenced Taverney’s objections, and assisted to make him believe that he ought to be convinced. He seized his illustrious friend’s hand, therefore, and pressing it:
“Thanks to your delicacy,” said he, “my daughter can accept this present.”
“The source and origin of the good fortune to which I alluded at the commencement of our tiresome discussion on virtue.”
“Thanks, dear duke; most hearty thanks!”
“One word more. Conceal this favor carefully from the Dubarrys. It might make Madame Dubarry leave the king and take flight.”
“And the king would be displeased?”
“I don’t know, but the countess would not thank us. As for me, I should be lost! Be discreet, therefore—”
“Do not fear. But at least present my most humble thanks to the king.”
“And your daughter’s — I shall not fail. But you have not yet reached the limits of the favors bestowed upon you. It is you who are to thank the king, my dear sir; his majesty invites you to sup with him this evening.”
“Me?”
“You, Taverney. We shall be a select party. His majesty, you, and myself. We will talk of your daughter’s virtue. Adieu, Taverney, I see Dubarry with Monsieur d’Aiguillon. We must not be perceived together.”
And, agile as a page, he disappeared at the further end of the gallery, leaving Taverney gazing at his casket, like a Saxon child who awakens and finds the Christmas gifts which have been placed in his hands while he slept.