บทที่ บทที่ 18 · 第1章

THE SECRET

De Thou had reached home with his friend; his doors were carefully shut,

and orders given to admit no one, and to excuse him to the refugees for

allowing them to depart without seeing them again; and as yet the two

friends had not spoken to each other.

The counsellor had thrown himself into his armchair in deep meditation.

Cinq-Mars, leaning against the lofty chimneypiece, awaited with a serious

and sorrowful air the termination of this silence. At length De Thou,

looking fixedly at him and crossing his arms, said in a hollow and

melancholy voice:

"This, then, is the goal you have reached! These, the consequences of

your ambition! You are are about to banish, perhaps slay, a man, and to

bring then, a foreign army into France; I am, then, to see you an

assassin and a traitor to your country! By what tortuous paths have you

arrived thus far? By what stages have you descended so low?"

"Any other than yourself would not speak thus to me twice," said Cinq-

Mars, coldly; "but I know you, and I like this explanation. I desired

it, and sought it. You shall see my entire soul. I had at first another

thought, a better one perhaps, more worthy of our friendship, more worthy

of friendship--friendship, the second thing upon earth."

He raised his eyes to heaven as he spoke, as if he there sought the

divinity.

"Yes, it would have been better. I intended to have said nothing to you

on the subject. It was a painful task to keep silence; but hitherto I

have succeeded. I wished to have conducted the whole enterprise without

you; to show you only the finished work. I wished to keep you beyond the

circle of my danger; but shall I confess my weakness? I feared to die,

if I have to die, misjudged by you. I can well sustain the idea of the

world's malediction, but not of yours; but this has decided me upon

avowing all to you."

"What! and but for this thought, you would have had the courage to

conceal yourself forever from me? Ah, dear Henri, what have I done that

you should take this care of my life? By what fault have I deserved to

survive you, if you die? You have had the strength of mind to hoodwink

me for two whole years; you have never shown me aught of your life but

its flowers; you have never entered my solitude but with a joyous

countenance, and each time with a fresh favor. Ah, you must be very

guilty or very virtuous!"

"Do not seek in my soul more than therein lies. Yes, I have deceived

you; and that fact was the only peace and joy I had in the world.

Forgive me for having stolen these moments from my destiny, so brilliant,

alas! I was happy in the happiness you supposed me to enjoy; I made you

happy in that dream, and I am only guilty in that I am now about to

destroy it, and to show myself as I was and am. Listen: I shall not

detain you long; the story of an impassioned heart is ever simple. Once

before, I remember, in my tent when I was wounded, my secret nearly

escaped me; it would have been happy, perhaps, had it done so. Yet what

would counsel have availed me? I should not have followed it. In a

word, 'tis Marie de Mantua whom I love."

"How! she who is to be Queen of Poland?"

"If she is ever queen, it can only be after my death. But listen: for

her I became a courtier; for her I have almost reigned in France; for her

I am about to fall--perhaps to die."

"Die! fall! when I have been reproaching your triumph! when I have

wept over the sadness of your victory!"

"Ah! you know me but ill, if you suppose that I shall be the dupe of

Fortune, when she smiles upon me; if you suppose that I have not pierced

to the bottom of my destiny! I struggle against it, but 'tis the

stronger I feel it. I have undertaken a task beyond human power; and I

shall fail in it."

"Why, then, not stop? What is the use of intellect in the business of

the world?"

"None; unless, indeed, it be to tell us the cause of our fall, and to

enable us to foresee the day on which we shall fall. I can not now

recede. When a man is confronted with such an enemy as Richelieu, he

must overcome him or be crushed by him. Tomorrow I shall strike the last

blow; did I not just now, in your presence, engage to do so?"

"And it is that very engagement that I would oppose. What confidence

have you in those to whom you thus abandon your life? Have you not read

their secret thoughts?"

"I know them all; I have read their hopes through their feigned rage;

I know that they tremble while they threaten. I know that even now they

are ready to make their peace by giving me up; but it is my part to

sustain them and to decide the King. I must do it, for Marie is my

betrothed, and my death is written at Narbonne. It is voluntarily, it is

with full knowledge of my fate, that I have thus placed myself between

the block and supreme happiness. That happiness I must tear from the

hands of Fortune, or die on that scaffold. At this instant I experience

the joy of having broken down all doubt. What! blush you not at having

thought me ambitious from a base egoism, like this Cardinal--ambitious

from a puerile desire for a power which is never satisfied? I am

ambitious, but it is because I love. Yes, I love; in that word all is

comprised. But I accuse you unjustly. You have embellished my secret

intentions; you have imparted to me noble designs (I remember them), high

political conceptions. They are brilliant, they are grand, doubtless;

but--shall I say it to you?--such vague projects for the perfecting of

corrupt societies seem to me to crawl far below the devotion of love.

When the whole soul vibrates with that one thought, it has no room for

the nice calculation of general interests; the topmost heights of earth

are far beneath heaven."

De Thou shook his head.

"What can I answer?" he said. "I do not understand you; your reasoning

unreasons you. You hunt a shadow."

"Nay," continued Cinq-Mars; "far from destroying my strength, this inward

fire has developed it. I have calculated everything. Slow steps have

led me to the end which I am about to attain. Marie drew me by the hand;

could I retreat? I would not have done it though a world faced me.

Hitherto, all has gone well; but an invisible barrier arrests me. This

barrier must be broken; it is Richelieu. But now in your presence I

undertook to do this; but perhaps I was too hasty. I now think I was so.

Let him rejoice; he expected me. Doubtless he foresaw that it would be

the youngest whose patience would first fail. If he played on this

calculation, he played well. Yet but for the love that has urged me on,

I should have been stronger than he, and by just means."

Then a sudden change came over the face of Cinq-Mars. He turned pale and

red twice; and the veins of his forehead rose like blue lines drawn by an

invisible hand.

"Yes," he added, rising, and clasping together his hands with a force

which indicated the violent despair concentred in his heart, "all the

torments with which love can tear its victims I have felt in my breast.

This timid girl, for whom I would shake empires, for whom I have suffered

all, even the favor of a prince, who perhaps has not felt all I have done

for her, can not yet be mine. She is mine before God, yet I am estranged

from her; nay, I must hear daily discussed before me which of the thrones

of Europe will best suit her, in conversations wherein I may not even

raise my voice to give an opinion, and in which they scorn as mate for

her princes of the blood royal, who yet have precedence far before me.

I must conceal myself like a culprit to hear through a grating the voice

of her who is my wife; in public I must bow before her--her husband,

yet her servant! 'Tis too much; I can not live thus. I must take the

last step, whether it elevate me or hurl me down."

"And for your personal happiness you would overthrow a State?"

"The happiness of the State is one with mine. I secure that undoubtedly

in destroying the tyrant of the King. The horror with which this man

inspires me has passed into my very blood. When I was first on my way to

him, I encountered in my journey his greatest crime. He is the genius of

evil for the unhappy King! I will exorcise him. I might have become the

genius of good for Louis XIII. It was one of the thoughts of Marie, her

most cherished thought. But I do not think I shall triumph in the uneasy

soul of the Prince."

"Upon what do you rely, then?" said De Thou.

"Upon the cast of a die. If his will can but once last for a few hours,

I have gained. 'Tis a last calculation on which my destiny hangs."

"And that of your Marie!"

"Could you suppose it?" said Cinq-Mars, impetuously. "No, no! If he

abandons me, I sign the treaty with Spain, and then-war!"

"Ah, horror!" exclaimed the counsellor. "What, a war! a civil war, and

a foreign alliance!"

"Ay, 'tis a crime," said Cinq-Mars, coldly; "but have I asked you to

participate in it?"

"Cruel, ungrateful man!" replied his friend; "can you speak to me thus?

Know you not, have I not proved to you, that friendship holds the place

of every passion in my heart? Can I survive the least of your

misfortunes, far less your death. Still, let me influence you not to

strike France. Oh, my friend! my only friend! I implore you on my

knees, let us not thus be parricides; let us not assassinate our country!

I say us, because I will never separate myself from your actions.

Preserve to me my self-esteem, for which I have labored so long; sully

not my life and my death, which are both yours."

De Thou had fallen at the feet of his friend, who, unable to preserve his

affected coldness, threw himself into his arms, as he raised him, and,

pressing him to his heart, said in a stifled voice:

"Why love me thus? What have you done, friend? Why love me? You who

are wise, pure, and virtuous; you who are not led away by an insensate

passion and the desire for vengeance; you whose soul is nourished only by

religion and science--why love me? What has my friendship given you but

anxiety and pain? Must it now heap dangers on you? Separate yourself

from me; we are no longer of the same nature. You see courts have

corrupted me. I have no longer openness, no longer goodness. I meditate

the ruin of a man; I can deceive a friend. Forget me, scorn me. I am

not worthy of one of your thoughts; how should I be worthy of your

perils?"

"By swearing to me not to betray the King and France," answered De Thou.

"Know you that the preservation of your country is at stake; that if you

yield to Spain our fortifications, she will never return them to us; that

your name will be a byword with posterity; that French mothers will curse

it when they shall be forced to teach their children a foreign language--

know you all this? Come."

And he drew him toward the bust of Louis XIII.

"Swear before him (he is your friend also), swear never to sign this

infamous treaty."

Cinq-Mars lowered his eyes, but with dogged tenacity answered, although

blushing as he did so:

"I have said it; if they force me to it, I will sign."

De Thou turned pale, and let fall his hand. He took two turns in his

room, his arms crossed, in inexpressible anguish. At last he advanced

solemnly toward the bust of his father, and opened a large book standing

at its foot; he turned to a page already marked, and read aloud:

"I think, therefore, that M. de Ligneboeuf was justly condemned to death

by the Parliament of Rouen, for not having revealed the conspiracy of

Catteville against the State."

Then keeping the book respectfully opened in his hand, and contemplating

the image of the President de Thou, whose Memoirs he held, he continued:

"Yes, my father, you thought well.... I shall be a criminal, I shall

merit death; but can I do otherwise? I will not denounce this traitor,

because that also would be treason; and he is my friend, and he is

unhappy."

Then, advancing toward Cinq-Mars, and again taking his hand, he said:

"I do much for you in acting thus; but expect nothing further from me,

Monsieur, if you sign this treaty."

Cinq-Mars was moved to the heart's core by this scene, for he felt all

that his friend must suffer in casting him off. Checking, however, the

tears which were rising to his smarting lids, and embracing De Thou

tenderly, he exclaimed:

"Ah, De Thou, I find you still perfect. Yes, you do me a service in

alienating yourself from me, for if your lot had been linked to mine,

I should not have dared to dispose of my life. I should have hesitated

to sacrifice it in case of need; but now I shall assuredly do so. And I

repeat to you, if they force me, I shall sign the treaty with Spain."