Memoirs of a Physician (28 page)

” Why not, baron ? On the contrary, she seems to me perfectly suited for the post; she would make a capital femme de chambre.”

* You did not look at her face, then, duke ? “

“III did nothing else.”

” You looked at her and did not remark the strange resemblance ? “

“To whom?”

” To guess. Come hither, Nicole.”

Nicole advanced; like a true waiting-woman, she had been listening at the door. The duke took her by both hands and looked her steadily in the face, but the impertinent gaze of this great lord and debauchee did not alarm or embarrass her for a moment.

” Yes,” said he, ” it is true ; there is a resemblance.”

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” You know to whom, and you see therefore that it is impossible to expose the fortunes of our house to such an awkward trick of fate. Would it be thought agreeable that this little minx of a Nicole should resemble the most illustrious lady in France?”

” Oh, ho ! ” replied Nicole, sharply, and disengaging herself from the marshal’s grasp the better to reply to M. de Taverney, ” is it so certain that this little minx resembles this illustrious lady so exactly ? Has this lady the low shoulder, the quick eye, the round ankle, and the plump arm of the little minx ? “

Nicole was crimson with rage, and therefore ravishingly beautiful.

The duke once more took her pretty hands in his, and with a look full of caresses and promises.

” Baron,” said he, ” Nicole has certainly not her equal at court, at least, in my opinion. As for the illustrious lady to whom she has, I confess, a slight resemblance, we shall know how to spare her self-love. You have fair hair of a lovely shade, Mademoiselle Nicole ; you have eyebrows and a nose of a most imperial form; well, in one quarter of an hour employed before the mirror, these imperfections, since the baron thinks them such, will disappear. Nicole, my child, would you like to be at Trianon ? “

” Oh ! ” said Nicole, and her soul full of longing was expressed in this monosyllable.

” You shall go to Trianon then, my dear, and without prejudicing in any way the fortunes of others. Baron, one word more.”

” Speak, my dear duke.”

” Go, my pretty child,” said Richelieu, ” and leave us alone a moment.”

Nicole retired. The duke approached the baron.

” I press you the more to send your daughter a waiting-maid, because it will please the king. His majesty does not like poverty, and pretty faces do not frighten him. Let me alone, I understand what I am about.”

” Nicole shall go to Trianon, if you think it will please the king,” replied the baron, with a meaning smile.

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” Then, if you will allow me, I will bring her with me, she can take advantage of the carriage.”

” But still, her resemblance to the dauphiness ! We must think of that, duke.”

” I have thought of it. This resemblance will disappear in a quarter of an hour under Rafte’s hands, I will answer for it. Write a note to your daughter to tell her of what importance it is that she should have a femme de chambre, and that this femme de chambre should be Nicole ? “

” You think it important that it should be Nicole ? “

“I do.”

“And that no other than Nicole would do?”

” Upon my honor, I think so.”

” Then I will write immediately.”

And the baron sat down and wrote a letter which he handed to Richelieu.

” And the instructions, duke ? “

” I will give them to Nicole. Is she intelligent ? “

The baron smiled.

” Then you confide her to me, do you not ? ” said Richelieu.

” That is your affair, duke ; you asked me for her, I give her to you ; make of her what you like.”

” Mademoiselle, come with me,” said the duke, rising and calling into the corridor, ” and that quickly.”

Nicole did not wait to be told twice. Without asking the baron for his consent, she made up a packet of clothes in five minutes, and, light as a bird, she flew down-stairs and took her place beside the coachman.

Richelieu took leave of his friend, who repeated his thanks for the service he had rendered Philip. Of Andre not a word was said ; it was necessary to do more than speak of her.

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CHAPTER XXVII.

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 Eichelieu’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 skilful 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 attack 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 ‘

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replied Eafte, 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 acquaintance, 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 misunderstanding, said:

” Sit down in this armchair beside Monsieur Rafte, my dear child. Open your ears wide, and listen to me. Oh ! do not let Monsieur Raf te’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.

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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-maid 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. Andre, already up and dressed, was Yriting 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.

Andre’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, an 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

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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 Andre’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 saloons of Trianon, or those marble halls which her feet trod with a timidity amounting al-most 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 Andre 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.”

Andre 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, transversed 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,

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Andre had her little chamber so 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 chimney-piece, and a square table with brass feet, composed her little world, whose narrow confines bounded all her hopes and limited all her wishes.

Andre 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.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

HOW PLEASURE TO SOME IS DESPAIR TO OTHERS.

” GOOD-DAY, mademoiselle, it is I,” said Nicole, with a joyous courtesy, which, nevertheless, from the young girl’s knowledge of her mistress’s character, was not unmixed with anxiety.

” You ! And how do you happen to be here ? ” replied Andre, putting down her pen, the better to follow the conversation which was thus commenced.

” Mademoiselle had forgotten me, so I came “

” But if I forgot you, mademoiselle, it was because I had my reasons for so doing. Who gave you permission to come ? “

” Monsieur, the baron, of course, mademoiselle,” said Nicole, smoothing the handsome black eyebrows which she owed to the generosity of M. Rafte, with a very dis-satisfied air.

” My father requires your services in Paris, and I do not require you here at all. You may return, child.”

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” Oh, then, mademoiselle does not care I thought mademoiselle had been more pleased with me it is well worth while loving ‘ added Nicole, philosophically, ” to meet with such a return at last.”