The Eternal Collection

Chapter One 1832

The Duchesse de Savigne lifted up her eyes to her cousin.

His Eminence Cardinal de Rochechant was sitting on the other side of the hearth and he asked in a voice that trembled somewhat,

“What has Aristide been doing now?”

“That is what I came to talk to you about, my dear,” the Cardinal replied.

“I guessed it,” the Duchesse said in a low voice. “I knew that you had not come all this way from Paris just to see me.”

The Cardinal smiled.

“That sounds very ungallant. As you know, Louise, I am always anxious to see you when I can spare the time, but I considered that my visit here today, for a very different reason, was urgent.”

The Duchesse clasped her blue-veined hands and her rings seemed almost too heavy.

“Tell me the truth, Xavier,” she demanded. “In what new scandal is Aristide involved?”

“You really want the truth?” the Cardinal asked.

“I know you intend to reveal it whatever my wishes may be,” the Duchesse said with a flash of humour, “so I would like to hear it all without your pretty phrases and without your trying to spare my feelings.”

The Cardinal hesitated for a moment before he said almost harshly,

“Aristide is defaming the name of Savigne and is making it a byword for every outrage, scandal and vice.”

The Duchesse gave a little gasp, although it was what she had expected to hear and there was a suspicion of tears in her eyes when she said in a low voice that her cousin could hardly hear,

“Tell me – everything.”

She had been a very beautiful woman, but constant illnesses had made her face deeply lined and her skin pale to the point of transparency.

She was so thin that she looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away and in fact the Cardinal had been surprised and shocked by her appearance when he arrived at the Château.

He had considered it his duty to come from Paris for the express purpose of asking for the Duchesse’s help.

No one knew better than he the damage that the aristocrats like the Duc de Savigne were doing to their country at this particular moment in French history, by their wild extravagance and their exotic parties, which caused growing resentment and disapproval.

‘The White Terror’ after the Battle of Waterloo had been so insignificant in comparison with the ‘Red Revolution’ just twenty-three years earlier in 1792. But the rebellion which had taken place only two years ago in 1830 had made the whole country apprehensive.

In protest against the illiberal and reactionary role of King Charles X, rioting had broken out in Paris and the Stock Exchange was set on fire.

The Arsenal and the powder deposit at Salpêtrière fell into insurgent hands. The Louvre and the Tuileries were both taken.

Troops marched into the rebel districts, but they were powerless in narrow streets where the people threw furniture onto their heads.

Six thousand barricades turned most of Paris into an entrenched camp. King Charles X was forced to abdicate and the Duc d’Orléans, Louis-Philippe, a descendant of King Louis XIV was invited to take his place and restore order.

This depended a great deal on regaining the confidence of the people, and the attitude and behaviour of members of the ancien régime like the Duc de Savigne were making it far harder than it would have been otherwise.

ancien régimeThe Duchesse was waiting and after a moment the Cardinal said,

“It is not only the orgies that Aristide gives or takes part in every evening, it is also the mistresses whom he flaunts in the streets of Paris and the stories of the extravagant presents he gives them, which make those who are living near to starvation restless to say the least of it.”

“You are afraid of a recurrence of violence?” the Duchesse asked him quickly.

“There is always the chance it will break out again,” the Cardinal replied, “and I consider that to prevent such an explosion it is so essential that the Nobles who have returned to their Château, their estates and rightful place in Society should set an example to those who have suffered so bitterly in the last sixteen years.”

“You are right, Xavier,” the Duchesse said. “Of course you are right. Have you spoken to Aristide about this?”

The Cardinal gave a little laugh with no humour in it.

“My dear Louise, do you imagine he would listen to me? He has said often enough and publicly, that religion is so out of date. If he has attended Mass in the last ten years I have not heard of it.”

The Duchesse put her hands up to her face and they were trembling.

“How could this have – happened to my son of all – people?” she asked almost beneath her breath.

“I suppose it all stems from that regrettable episode in his life,” the Cardinal suggested.

The Duchesse did not reply. They were thinking of the tragedy that had overshadowed Aristide’s youth and turned him from a charming happy man into a cynic who had gradually become the bitter reactionary that he was now.

“There has been scandal after scandal,” the Cardinal related after a moment. “Two weeks ago a young woman, well known in theatrical circles, although I would hesitate to call her an actress, tried to commit suicide.”

The Duchesse gave an exclamation of horror, but he continued,

“She made a confession that was printed in every newspaper in France alleging that the cause of her unhappiness was Aristide’s callous behaviour towards her.”

“She had been his mistress?” the Duchesse enquired.

“One of a dozen others too,” he replied. “He apparently had dismissed her in a somewhat cruel fashion and she decided, God help her, that life was not worth living without him.”

“Women – always women!” the Duchesse murmured.

The Cardinal was silent for a moment and then he added,

“Aristide is now thirty. It is time he married and produced an heir.”

The Duchesse looked at him in a startled fashion as His Eminence continued,

“You know, as well as I do, Louise, that, if there is no direct heir, the title and the estates will go to that elderly cousin who now lives in Montmartre with the artists and has announced quite openly that he is a Republican and disapproves not only of titles but also of personal possessions.”

The Duchesse gave a little groan and the Cardinal finished,

“Heaven knows what will happen to the estates if he inherits.”

“Does Aristide know this?”

“Of course he knows it,” the Cardinal replied, “but, quite frankly, he does not care.”

His voice sharpened as he went on,

“I don’t think he cares for anything these days not even the women whom he takes up on an impulse and apparently, without any consideration for their feelings, discards them as soon as they bore him.”

The Cardinal’s lips tightened as he finished,

“And Aristide is very quickly bored!”

“How could we – persuade him to be married? And even if he agreed, would it do any – good?”

“I have no idea,” the Cardinal answered. “Frankly I only feel it might be a solution and it might keep him away from Paris. It is all the notoriety that he attracts that is doing so much harm. He is news, Louise, and you know what that means in the ‘gutter press’.”

The Duchesse gave a deep sigh.

“I have prayed that Aristide would marry and give me a grandson,” she said, “or rather many grandchildren. I have always regretted that I was only able to have one child.”

“At least Leon died happy, knowing that he had a son,” the Cardinal said consolingly.

“He would hardly be happy if he could see him now,” the Duchesse replied.

“That is why, Louise, we have to do something.”

“You will speak to him on the subject of marriage?”

The Cardinal shook his head.

“No, Louise, you must do that.”

youHe rose from the high-backed chair to walk across the room towards the window.

As he moved in his red robes over the exquisite Savonnerie carpet, the sunshine coming through the window illuminated the priceless treasures of the Château.

SavonnerieBy some miracle the Château Savigne had been spared much of the devastation of the Terror of 1793.

Unlike other Châteaux in the vicinity it had been spared severe looting and the present Duc’s grandfather had been far-seeing enough to remove most of the priceless treasures that had been handed down by many generations to a safe place where the Revolutionaries never found them.

Now they had been restored and the Château was, the Cardinal thought, one of the finest in the whole of France.

He may have been prejudiced but he loved the Château Savigne having known it since he was a young man when his beautiful cousin, Louise, had married the reigning Duc.

He looked out now on the great Park with the spotted deer roaming beneath the trees and in the far distance he could see the faint silver of the River Loire as it wound its way through the countryside.

There were great Châteaux on both sides of the river and many others nearby.

When, in the fifteenth century, King Charles VII had been expelled by the English from Paris, he spent much of his time in Tours and in the Châteaux of the surrounding district.

His love for the Province of Touraine was shared by his successors on the Throne during the two subsequent centuries.

The frequent presence of the King in the Loire Valley compelled the Noblemen at Court to follow the Royal example.

For this reason an extraordinary number of Châteaux clustered around the banks of the river and its tributaries.

Huge and majestic Châteaux were erected by the competitive desire of each Nobleman to build a larger and more magnificent house than his neighbour.

Many Châteaux had begun their history as Medieval Fortresses, but with the coming of the Renaissance they were developed into masterpieces of contemporary architecture, ornate and beautiful, which made all those who saw them feel amazed at the wonders in that part of France.

The owners who had fled at the time of the Revolution had returned to set their houses in order, many having the task of completely refurnishing huge, empty and looted rooms.

But whatever effort they have to make, the Cardinal thought, it was worth it and, if they could take so much trouble, why could the Duc de Savigne not follow their example?

He realised that the Duchesse was waiting and he walked back from the window to say,

“There is only one person, Louise, who could make Aristide understand what is required of him and that is you. And you know it.”

“But how? Why should he listen to me? He has not done so for many more years than I care to remember.”

“I have a feeling, although I might be wrong,” the Cardinal said slowly, “that he is still fond of you in his own fashion. If he thought that you were dying, Louise, it might bring him to his senses.”

“Dying!” the Duchesse expostulated.

Her eyes met the Cardinal’s and, after a long moment, he drew his chair nearer to her and then sat down.

“Now listen to me, Louise – ” he began again.

*

The party, which had started quite conventionally, was growing very wild.

The superb dinner for over fifty had made the guests extremely gay and noisy with both sexes flushed and excitable.

The ladies had not left the table and now it was obvious that they were becoming more abandoned, their flirtatious attitudes gave way to a voluptuous enticement that their partners apparently found irresistible.

At the head of the table, seated in a high-backed chair carved with his Coat of Arms, the Duc de Savigne leant back watching those he was entertaining with an enigmatic expression on his face that was hard to read.

Those who knew him very well often wondered how he managed, when he was enjoying himself, to appear in some odd way of his own so aloof and uninterested in everything that was proceeding around him.

On each side of him a beautiful woman, both notorious for their charms, whispered in his ear, showing as they did so an inordinate amount of bare bosom.

The laughter was growing louder until it was superseded by music from the Gallery that overhung the far end of the Banqueting Hall.

The Duc’s mansion in Paris was one of the largest and most impressive houses in the Champs-Élysées.

Champs-Élysées.Few people passed it without staring with curiosity at its ornate gold-tipped railings and wondering what was taking place in those vast rooms which were described almost daily by reporters who apparently haunted the house in search of a spicy ‘titbits’ for their newspapers.

Tonight’s party, as some Nobleman present thought uncomfortably, would be described in detail in Le Figaro and Le Temps.

Le FigaroLe Temps.Several of them hoped fervently that their names would not be mentioned, at the same time it was hard to know these days who was in the pay of the Press.

For all they knew, the person who reported this evening’s excesses might be one of their own blood or certainly one of their own kind.

“I have something to tell you, Monsieur le Duc,” the woman on the Duc’s right hand said with pouting lips. “It is wickedly cruel, but it will make you laugh.”

“I am waiting,” the Duc answered languidly.

“Don’t listen to her,” the woman on the other side of him interposed. “What she is going to tell you is something about me and I swear to you that it is not true. Promise you will not believe her.”

“How can I promise if I have not heard what she has to say?” the Duc asked.

“I assure you it is not credible and what Aimie does not know she invents.”

“You must let me be the judge,” the Duc insisted.

“Why not?” Rosette asked. “I trust you to find me innocent.”

She looked at him provocatively as she spoke and the Duc smiled cynically.

“I doubt if anyone could do that. Rosette! Nevertheless I am prepared to learn about this wicked thing you are alleged to have done.”

“I will tell you,” Aimie said with some satisfaction.

She bent forward to whisper in his ear and as she did so the music charmed several of the Duc’s guests into rising from the table to move onto the polished floor at the end of the room.

The dancing, if that was what it was to be called, was outrageous and was more suitable to a disreputable Dance Hall than to this exclusive neighbourhood of the Champs-Élysées.

ChampsÉlyséesExcept for those indulging in such exuberances, the rest of the guests were too concerned with themselves to be interested and now the women’s gowns were slipping from their white shoulders and the men were unbuttoning their waistcoats.

Servants, as if at some previous command, were now busy extinguishing the lights in the chandeliers, leaving only the candles in their sconces and those in the candelabra on the table to light the scene.

It was then that the two women whispering so intimately to the Duc were disturbed by another flamboyant dark-haired beauty who had just electrified Paris by her appearance at the Théâtre des Variétés.

Théâtre des Variétés.She had arrived late at the party after her performance was over and, because dinner had started without her, she had been forced to take a place not at the Duc’s side, as she expected, but further down the table.

Now she came up to him and he knew by the expression in her flashing eyes that she was ready to do battle with any rival for his affections.

“Monsieur!” she cried in the light tone of a cooing dove, but with a strong undercurrent of steel, “you are neglecting me!”

“I could never do that for long, Susanne,” the Duc replied.

“Then turn cette canaille away and give me your attention,” Susanne replied.

cette canailleAimie and Rosette looked at her angrily and she went on,

“Have they anything to offer you, you who would seek perfection and boast that you are a connoisseur?”

connoisseurThe Duc looked amused, but he did not answer.

“If it was a question of the judgement of Paris,” she said, “there would, I know, be no doubt to whom you would award the golden apple.”

“That may be your opinion, Susanne,” Aimie said sharply, “but it is not ours!”

Susanne looked her up and down scornfully.

“You are intruding, Susanne,” Rosette said. “We are entertaining Monsieur and it is not very amusing for him or for us to listen to you crowing about yourself like a c**k on a dung-hill.”

Susanne struck an attitude that was dramatic and at the same time aggressive. She looked at the Duc and the expression in her eyes challenged him.

“It is up to you, monsieur,” she said softly – and there was an invitation even in the movement of her lips.

monsieurBoth Aimie and Rosette looked at him too and now there was no mistaking that all three women were waiting breathlessly for his verdict.

“If my knowledge of mythology is not at fault,” the Duc replied slowly after a moment, “when Paris was asked to judge between the Goddesses they did exhibit all their charms.”

allThere was a moment’s pause and then Susanne with a little laugh slipped her gown from her shoulders and then both Aimie and Rosette followed her example.

The Duc made no movement only after a second or two he asked lazily,

“And the golden apple means?”

“Of course, it is to spend the night with you, monsieur,” Susanne pointed out.

monsieurAgain there was a pause as the Duc looked at the three women standing in front of him, each proudly confident that she would be the winner.

There was little to choose between them, perhaps Susanne’s waist was a little smaller, but her thigh was thicker than Rosette’s. While Aimie’s breasts were fuller.

At last the Duc said, his voice still languid but with a touch of amusement in it,

“The only Diplomatic decision I can make is to divide the prize of myself in equal parts. Fortunately my bed is large enough!”

There was then a shriek of astonishment, but it was very obvious that the ladies accepted the suggestion without reserve.

The Duc glanced at his guests and realised that what the newspapers would undoubtedly declaim as ‘an exotic orgy reminiscent of Roman times’ was now taking place.

Raising her fallen garments and holding them across her breasts, Susanne bent towards him.

“Why are we waiting?” she asked.

The Duc met her glance and replied with a twist of his lips,

“You are impatient, Susanne, but then you have always been the same.”

“I am impatient for you,” she answered. “I am prepared to show these little rats from the sewers that they are both stupid and ignorant in les sciences galantes.”

les sciences galantes.The Duc was about to reply when a powdered footman dressed up in the scarlet and gold Savigne Livery stood at his side.

“This has just arrived by special courier, Monsieur le Duc,” he said and held out a silver salver on which lay a letter.

Monsieur le DucThe Duc looked at it indifferently and then seemed about to wave the man away until the footman added,

“The man came from the Château Savigne, Monsieur le Duc.”

Monsieur leThe Duc sat up in his chair and took the letter from the salver.

He opened it, read what was written and rose to his feet.

Without a word to the three women awaiting his commands and without even looking at them, he turned and walked from the room followed by his servant.

*

His Eminence, Cardinal de Rochechant, as he drove along the rough roads thought as he had thought so often that there was nothing more beautiful than what was then known as

‘The Garden of France’.

It was not only the Châteaux that were so impressive but the Atlantic breezes penetrated as far as Tours, which was about two hundred kilometres from the sea and created conditions of life rarely found so far inland.

Because of the configuration of the valley, so wide and fertile, it had also been called the ‘Smile of France’, the smile reminiscent of that on the face of the Mona Lisa.

This name had reason, since Leonardo da Vinci spent his last two years in the valley of the Loire in a small Château close to Amboise.

Since then more romance had in the course of centuries taken place on the banks of the Loire than on any river in the world.

Soon, the Cardinal reflected, the dry months of the summer would divide the waters into many little streams, which would flow green and pellucid amongst the sandbanks and narrow islands. They would be covered with the tangles of the olive-green willow that always thrived in this watery soil.

The vineyards on the gentle slopes of the valley produced the delectable light wines that the Cardinal found he enjoyed more than any of the full-bodied wines from other districts. But as it happened he was at the moment not concerned with the beauty of the Loire Valley, which always moved him, but with the news that he had received this morning.

It had arrived at the Château de Blois where he was staying, having deliberately delayed his return to Paris until the information he required came from the Duchesse.

Blois had been a Royal residence and the Cardinal was comfortable there, but he found it difficult to think about anything except the drama which he was aware was taking place at Château Savigne.

Almost clairvoyantly he imagined that the Duc on receiving his mother’s letter had set off from Paris with all possible speed to go to her side.

The Duchesse had in fact written exactly the letter that the Cardinal had suggested to her.

“May 12th, 1852. Château Savigne.

May 12th, 1852. Château Savigne.My dearest son,

My dearest son,I am in ill health and I feel I am not long for this world. I beg you to visit me as soon as it is possible, for I could not bear to die without seeing your dear face once again and hearing your voice.

I am in ill health and I feel I am not long for this world. I beg you to visit me as soon as it is possible, for I could not bear to die without seeing your dear face once again and hearing your voice.If it is inconvenient for you to leave Paris at this moment, you must forgive me, but my heart yearns for you and I shall pray that God will let me remain in this world long enough to hold you in my arms before He takes me into His care.

If it is inconvenient for you to leave Paris at this moment, you must forgive me, but my heart yearns for you and I shall pray that God will let me remain in this world long enough to hold you in my arms before He takes me into His care.I remain, my dearest and most beloved Aristide,

I remain, my dearest and most beloved Aristide,Your loving mother,

Your loving mother,Louise de Savigne.”

Louise de SavigneThe Duc did not wait for his carriage or for the innumerable retinues of valets and other servants with whom he always travelled in a state that was almost like a Royal progress.

Instead, accompanied only by his Comptroller and two grooms, he left Paris as dawn was breaking and set off across country towards Tours.

The Duc’s Comptroller was in fact a personal friend, one of the few he admitted to such intimacy.

Pierre de Bethune was the impoverished younger son of a Nobleman who had lost his life and everything he possessed during the Revolution.

The Duc had found Pierre, eking out a precarious existence in the more sordid nightspots of Paris and had offered him a post in his household.

Pierre had rewarded him with a unique devotion which surprised other men of the Duc’s acquaintance and became in fact not only his constant companion but also his confidant.

They rode swiftly and without speaking for some time.

Then Pierre, turning to his employer, said with a smile,

“This sweeps away the cobwebs, does it not, monsieur?”

monsieur“That was just what I was thinking myself,” the Duc replied.

Dawn was rising, turning the countryside to gold and, if the Duc found it different from the usual debris of a dissolute evening or an untidy bedroom strewn with female garments, he did not say so.

His Comptroller thought that some lines of dissipation marked on his Master’s face were lightening. It might have been the effect dawn, but he did not look so bored or so cynical.

“You realise, monsieur,” Pierre de Bethune said, “that this will be the first time I have visited the Château Savigne?”

monsieur“The first time?” the Duc mused. “Well, I will wonder what you will think of it, a great Barrack of a place, although I think it has a certain charm.”

He did not elaborate on what this was and, having ridden hard all day, they then slept the night in an uncomfortable hostel.

After an indifferent dinner, although the wine was good, Pierre de Bethune started to talk of the Château.

“Why do you so seldom go there, monsieur?” he enquired.

“I should have thought it obvious,” the Duc replied uncompromisingly. “It bores me!”

“I am surprised at that,” Pierre said. “You love riding and who can ride in real comfort in Paris? And I feel, although you have never said so, that you are fond of the country.”

“It is dull I tell you,” the Duc said almost sharply. “Deadly dull! And as you well know, Pierre, the one thing I try to avoid is boredom.”

Deadly dull!‘Tell me about your home.”

“What do you want to know?” the Duc enquired. “That it has turrets and towers, that it is in such a sheltered position that palm trees grow in the garden that Louis XVI slept there and his bedroom, which I use, is unchanged?”

“It sounds so fascinating,” Pierre said, “and I suspect, although you will not admit it, that you loved it when you were young.”

For a moment the Duc seemed to be very still and then he said,

“It is so long ago that I have forgotten.”

But Pierre de Bethune knew that he lied.

They arrived at Savigne early in the morning and the Duc had been right, Pierre thought, in describing his house as having towers and turrets.

Never had he seen anything so attractive or so fairytale-like as the great Château with its gardens sloping down to the banks of the river and its roofs and chimneys silhouetted against the blue sky.

The Duc rode up to the front door where the grooms were waiting to take his horse and he walked up the broad steps through a line of bowing servants.

“May I welcome you, Monsieur le Duc?” the Clerk of Chambers asked.

Monsieur le Duc“Take me to Madame la Duchesse,” the Duc replied.

Madame la DuchesseThe Clerk of Chambers went ahead of him up the curving carved staircase and along the broad corridor to the South wing occupied by his mother ever since she had been widowed.

A maid opened the door, dropping a respectful curtsey and the Duc strode in, pulling off his gloves as he did so. The Duchesse was lying in a huge canopied bed.

She looked extremely frail amongst the lace-edged pillows and the ermine cover was no whiter than the pallor of her face.

“My son!”

She held out her hands to him and the Duc took them in both of his, kissing them gently.

Like the Cardinal he was shocked by the difference in her appearance since he had last seen her and she seemed to have become almost disembodied and already part of the spiritual world.

“I came the moment I received your letter, Mama.”

“Thank you – my dearest,” the Duchesse said. “I have been praying that you would be – in time.”

“You have seen the best Doctors? Is there nothing they can do for you?”

“Nothing, my dearest, and please don’t you grieve for me. I shall be with your father as I have longed to be ever since he left me.

The Duc’s fingers tightened on hers.

cThe maid closed the door and they were alone in the room.

“There is one thing I would – ask of you,” the Duchesse said in a low voice, “just one thing – Aristide before I – die.”

“What is it, Mama?”

There was an expression in the Duc’s eyes that told her that he almost anticipated what she had to say.

“I cannot die in – peace unless I know that the – succession is – assured.”

The Duc drew in his breath.

“It is time that you married, my beloved son,” the Duchesse said, “and I want more than I have ever wanted anything in my whole life to hold – your son in my arms.”

“It is impossible, Mama!”

“But why? ” the Duchesse asked.

He did not reply and after a moment she said brokenly,”

Oh, Aristide, you were such a sweet and charming little boy and we loved you so deeply – your father and I.”

Her fingers tightened again on his as she went on,

“When you grew older, we were very proud of you. You had every talent and you were so strong and athletic, which delighted your father.”

The Duc moved a little restlessly.

“Then you have changed. The son who we knew and loved went away from me. I have thanked God many times that your father is not here to see the alteration.”

“There is nothing that can be done about it, my Mama. I am as I am and as far as I am concerned, I am content.”

“Is that really true?” the Duchesse asked anxiously.

She looked as she spoke at the lines on his face, which seemed to be those of discontent already etched from his nose to his mouth and the dark blue shadows of dissipation under his eyes.

Once, the Duchesse often thought despairingly, he had been the best-looking young man anyone could find in the whole length and breadth of France.

Now he appeared older than his years and he looked like a man who had drunk of the very dregs of life and found them sour.

“Please – Aristide,” she urged him almost beneath her breath.

He rose from the side of her bed to walk away across the room.

On the opposite wall were a number of miniatures, all exquisitely painted, of the Ducs de Savigne down the ages.

They were indeed a handsome lot, ending with his father, whose features were very like his own, except that there was a nobility about his expression that was inescapable.

He stood there with his back to the bed and after a moment the Duchesse could no longer look at him.

She knew that she had failed and closed her eyes. The Cardinal had been wrong.

Aristide no longer cared for her. They had not even the natural affection of a mother and a son left between them.

‘I want to die,’ she told herself, ‘and there is no pretence about that. I shall die because I have nothing left to live for.’

She had known all through the pain and discomfort she suffered especially in the winter that the one thing that kept her going was the thought that one day her son would come back to her.

One day he would live here at the Château and the empty corridors would come alive and the great rooms would be filled with the sound of voices and the laughter of children.

But now she knew that it was only a dream, a dream that would never materialise, it was something that she had merely conjured up, the sick fancy of an ill woman.

The Duc had finished his inspection of the family portraits that gleamed against the blue damask walls, their exquisitely jewelled frames glittering in the sunshine.

He walked back towards the bed and stood looking down at his mother.

She did not open her eyes and, because she was so still, he had a sudden fear that she was no longer breathing.

“Mama!”

It was a call, an urgent call, and despondently she opened her eyes.

“I will do as you ask!”

“Aristide. Do you mean – that?”

“If it will make you happy.”

“You know it will make me happier than I can ever tell you.”

“Then it will be worth all the boredom and depression that it will bring me.”

“Thank you, my darling. Now I have something to live for, although I don’t think that I shall linger long.”

“You will have to live,” the Duc said, “because this is your idea and I leave it entirely in your hands.”

The Duchesse looked startled.

“You mean – ?” she began.

“I mean,” the Duc interrupted, “that I will personally take no initiative. Choose my wife yourself. I am sure she will prove very suitable. Arrange the marriage. It will have to be here in our own Chapel so that you can see me suitably shackled in Holy wedlock. You would not be well enough to travel elsewhere.”

“But, Aristide – !”

“Those are my conditions,” the Duc then stipulated. “I do not wish to see the girl or have anything to do with her until she is my wife. Then I will come here from Paris and stay long enough to breed the grandson you so fervently desire.”

“But, dearest – ” the Duchesse said again.

“I don’t intend to argue about it,” the Duc stated. “You have gained your way, Mama, and I have a suspicion that you were quite certain you would do so. Be content!”

The Duchesse put out her hands to touch his.

“I want you to be – happy,” she said in a low voice.

The Duc’s lips twisted.

“Is that why you brought me here?”

“That is what I believe marriage will give you. I was, as you know, very happy with your father and he with me.”

“But I am not my father and never will be,” the Duc said, “and you are very unlikely to find me a wife as charming and as beautiful as you, Mama.”

“I shall try, my dearest, I shall try hard. But it will be a difficult if you will not help me and make yourself pleasant.”

“I daresay that my wife, when I do have one, will not find me unpleasant,” the Duc said mockingly. “There are quite a number of women who appear to enjoy my company.”

“What sort of women?” the Duchesse asked gently.

The Duc raised her hand to his lips.

“We have struck a bargain, Mama, you and I, and I have no wish to discuss it further. Now, if you will forgive me, I wish to bathe and change my clothes.”

“I am deeply grateful for your coming when I wanted you,” the Duchesse smiled.

“I have a feeling, Mama, that you are much stronger than you appear. Your willpower at any rate has not diminished in its strength and determination.”

“I only want your happiness,” she murmured again.

“I wonder what that elusive condition is really like?” the Duc mused. “Somehow I don’t seem to have encountered it for so long that I have forgotten how to recognise it.”

“Oh, Aristide – !”

There was a little throb in the Duchesse’s voice and the Duc said quickly,

“We are becoming absurdly sentimental. Make your plans, Mama, and, as I have already promised, I will acquiesce in them. Don’t let us bore ourselves by discussing them further.”

He rose as he spoke.

For a moment he looked down at her and then bent forward and kissed her on the cheek.

“Keep alive, Mama,” he said quietly. “I have a distinct feeling that Savigne will crumble into ruins without your being here.”

He walked from the room and, having watched him go, the Duchesse lay back against her pillows feeling suddenly exhausted.

The Cardinal had been right, she thought. Aristide did still care for her and, because she had asked it of him, he had agreed to be married.

It was a swifter victory than she hoped for and at the same time she was apprehensive.

What woman would find him a congenial husband in the mood he was in now?

The Duchesse had not missed the underlying bitterness, the irony and the cynicism in his voice when he promised to do what she wished.

Then she told herself that all that really mattered was that there should be an heir.

She faced the fact that Aristide, once the honeymoon, if it could be so called, was over he would doubtless return to the fast life that he enjoyed so much in Paris.

She doubted, however optimistic the Cardinal might be, that a wife, or even a family, would change him back into a respectable landowner directing his country possessions as the King and the new Régime thought so desirable.

Equally the first step had been taken and Aristide had agreed to be married and now the question was to find him a suitable wife.

The Duchesse reached out her hand for the gold bell that stood by her bedside.

Almost immediately the door opened and one of her lady’s maids came into the room.

“Bring my writing paper, inkpot and pen,” the Duchesse commanded. “And tell a groom to be ready to take a message immediately to His Eminence the Cardinal at Blois.”

The maid curtseyed.

“I’ll do that, Madame.”

Madame‘The Cardinal will be delighted,’ the Duchesse thought to herself.

When he had suggested what she should say, she had been almost sure that his optimism was unfounded and that Aristide would not respond.

But in fact he had come to Savigne at a moment’s notice, riding all the way and, because he believed that she might die, he had surrendered his freedom without even a struggle.

‘God help him – God help my son,’ the Duchesse prayed.

God help my sonIt was a prayer that she had repeated and repeated over the years and she had begun to feel that God was not interested in her pleas and had turned away from her.

Now everything had changed and, as the maid returned with her writing materials, she sat up in bed and took the white quill-pen in her hand.

*

In the carriage His Eminence the Cardinal opened the Duchesse’s letter and read it again.

He could hardly believe that Aristide had given his mother such a completely free hand in choosing him a bride and that he would take no personal part in it.

But there it was clearly written in the Duchesse’s elegant handwriting.

Now the Cardinal drew another piece of paper from the pocket of his crimson robes.

On it were jotted down the names that he and the Duchesse had discussed together as being suitable brides for the Duc de Savigne.

While he had been at the Château Blois, the Cardinal had taken the opportunity of very discreetly sounding out his host about the girls whose family names were written on the list.

He had chosen his words with care.

“Do you often see the Duc de Foucauld-Fleury?” he asked.

“He and his family are frequently here,” was the answer.

“Does that mean he has a large family?”

“Yes, indeed, although most of them are married.”

“Of course, I remember. His son made an excellent alliance. I believe I met his wife in Paris.”

“There is only one of the Duc’s seven children who is still unwed.”

“I think I heard somewhere that her name is ‘Isabelle’,” the Cardinal murmured a little vaguely.

“Your Eminence is right. An attractive girl. I am surprised that she has not yet married, but apparently the young gentleman who she was more or less affianced to three years ago was regrettably killed in an accident.”

“That was unfortunate,” the Cardinal replied.

“Very, but I expect the Duc will be finding a husband for her soon.”

The Cardinal changed the subject. He had found out what he wanted to know.

Later on he questioned his host about the Marquis d’Urville and found that his daughter, Henriette, was just eighteen and noted as being a beauty.

There was only one other name on the list, but, as both the Cardinal and the Duchesse were certain that they would have to look no further than the Duc’s Château or the Marquis’s Château to find a suitable bride, he ignored it.

‘Whatever she is like,’ the Cardinal told himself, ‘it is unlikely that the wretched girl will be able to hold the affections of Aristide for long.’

He sighed.

“But at least he could offer her an ancient name written into the history of France, great possessions and a sublime Château without its peer in the district including Chambord and Chenonceaux.”

They were near Chenonceaux at the moment and he leaned out of his carriage to look at the famous building, which had belonged to the most beautiful woman that France had ever known.

Diane de Poitiers had been twenty years older than King Henry II, but he loved her until he died and a contemporary wrote that, when she was nearly sixty-seven, she was as beautiful to look at and as attractive as she had been at thirty.

Of course, the Cardinal now reflected, the Count had implied that Diane used witchcraft to keep her loveliness and it was reported that she took some special sort of broth every day, which rendered her immune from the encroaches of time.

The Cardinal, however, a keen historian and a man of intelligence, had always thought that one of the reasons why Diane de Poitiers kept her looks until she was an old woman was the fact that she always bathed in cold water and never partook of rich food and the profusion of wines that were to be found at the King’s table.

He could see Chenonceaux now clearly and the unusual manner in which it was built on two piers of a former mill resting on the bed of the River Cher.

There was a two-storeyed Gallery on the long bridge over the river and, reflected in the still water, it looked romantic and very beautiful.

‘That,’ the Cardinal said to himself with a sudden unusual twist of imaginative fancy, ‘is how a woman should look, beautiful and at the same time excitingly original with perhaps a touch of mystery and excitement about her so that a man would never be bored.’

The word inevitably brought him back to the Duc.

He had a feeling that the woman who could divert the Duc from the excesses with which he relieved his ennui had not yet been born!

ennui