The Cat and the King by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online Page B

think it will do any good?”
    â€œI think there’s a chance. Monsieur is very proud of his blood. He can hardly relish seeing his own son wed to a bastard. If Chartres puts up a fight, Monsieur may take his side. And I wonder if the king will really cross his only brother in a matter so dear to him.”
    Conti seemed to weigh all this. “How does the Chevalier stand on this?”
    The Chevalier de Lorraine, sinister character, was the damned soul of Monsieur.
    â€œHe may have promised the king his help in getting Monsieur’s consent in return for supporting the Lorrainers in the alms-bag matter.”
    â€œThen it’ll be a tough one.” Yet Conti looked up at me now with his bright smile. “Why should we fear a tough one? Can it be tougher than Neerwinden? Saint-Simon, I’m your man!”
    It was agreed that we should go into Paris the very next day and see Chartres at the Palais-royal. Conti permitted me to enlist Savonne in our cause. I was much excited, but when I told Gabrielle that night, I was surprised at her silence. I forgot everything, however, when she told me that she was pregnant again.

7
    P HILIPPE DUC DE C HARTRES , only son of Monsieur and only nephew of the king, was just my age, and he and I had known each other since childhood. Chartres had in common with his older cousin Conti a great attraction for women, but it was almost the only quality they shared. He was stocky, muscular, crude and outspoken. He was not handsome, but he had good eyes, which fixed you with a faintly sneering but not altogether unfriendly challenge. “What’s your game?” he seemed to be asking. “What’s there in this for you? Oh, come now, you must have a game. I know I do.” He was afraid of nobody but of his funny little father and of his uncle. He loved to drink and to womanize, and, as he was too independent to make any secret of his disorderly life, he was in constant bad odor at court, which, in turn, reintensified his natural rebelliousness.

    He came to Versailles rarely and passed most of his time in the immense Palais-royal, which Richelieu had built for himself and bequeathed to the crown. This edifice was the scene of widely varying entertainments. Chartres would give dinner parties (I was never invited nor did I wish to be) behind closed doors, where the servants would retire after leaving the meal and the wines, and where every sort of debauch would then take place. Monsieur, on the other hand, an unabashed homosexual (the only one, be it added, whom the king tolerated), and his lifelong crony, the Chevalier de Lorraine, held gatherings in which beautiful young men, not always of proper pedigree, predominated. “Madame,” a big, hefty, plain-spoken German princess, who was as much of a man as her husband was a woman, preferred to spend her time at Versailles. I think she was in love with her royal brother-in-law, but the poor old cow-bull would never have had a chance with him, even in the pre-Maintenon days.
    When Conti, Savonne and I called at the Palais-royal, we were ushered into the great gallery that Richelieu had hung with the portraits of those who, in his opinion, had made France great. I remember it as a somewhat curious selection, ranging from Dunois to Jeanne d’Arc to Louis XI to Bayard, and ending, of course, with Richelieu. We did not at first perceive Chartres, who was sitting at the far end, but as soon as he saw us, he jumped up.
    â€œThey’re going to make me marry her!” he exclaimed. “They’re going to make me marry the bastard!”
    â€œYour father hasn’t consented?” I cried in dismay.
    â€œNo, but he will. The Chevalier will make him. The Chevalier will do anything for money, and Father will do anything for him.”
    â€œThen you must refuse!”
    â€œThat’s all very well for you to say, Saint-Simon. But would you have refused
your
father?”
    â€œIf he’d asked me