A few days after the dinner at Madame Pilou’s Madeleine was dancing Mænad-like up and down her little room. Then with eyes full of a wild triumph she flung herself on her bed.
Beside her on the table lay the sixth volume of Le Grand Cyrus, which she had taken to using as a kind of Sortes Virgilianæ. She picked it up and opened it. Her eyes fell on the following words:—
‘For with regard to these ladies, who take pleasure in being loved without loving; the only satisfaction which lies in store for them, is that which vanity can give them.’
She shut it impatiently and opened it again. This time, it was these words that stood out:—
‘Indeed,’ added she, ‘I remember that my dislike came near to hatred for a passably pleasant gentlewoman——’
Madeleine crossed herself nervously, got down from her bed, and took several paces up and down the room, and then opened the book again.
‘Each moment his jealousy and perturbation waxed stronger.’
Three attempts, and not one word of good omen. She had the sense of running round and round in an endless circle between the four walls of a tiny, dark cell. Through the bars she could see one or two stars, and knew that out there lay the wide, cool, wind-blown world of causality, governed by eternal laws that nothing could alter. But knowing this did not liberate her from her cell, round which she continued her aimless running till the process made her feel sick and dizzy.
She opened the book again. This time her eyes fell on words that, in relation to her case, had no sense. She looked restlessly round the room for some other means of divination. The first thing she noticed was her comb. She seized it and began counting the teeth, repeating:—
‘Elle m’aime un peu, beaucoup, passionément, pas de tout.’ ‘Passionément’ came on the last tooth. She gave a great sigh of relief; it was as if something relaxed within her.
Then the door opened, and Berthe padded in, smiling mysteriously.
‘A lackey has brought Mademoiselle this letter.’ Madeleine seized it. It had not been put in an envelope, but just folded and sealed. It was addressed in a very strange hand, large and illegible, to:—
Mademoiselle Troqueville,
Petite Rue du Paon,
Above the baker Paul,
At the Sign of the Cock,
Near the Collège de Bourgogne.
‘He wore a brave livery,’ Berthe went on, ‘the cloth must have cost several écus the yard, and good strong shoes, but no pattens. I wouldn’t let him in to stink the house, I told him——’
‘Would you oblige me by leaving me alone, Berthe?’ said Madeleine. Berthe chuckled and withdrew.
A letter brought to her by a lackey, and in a strange writing! Her heart stood still. It must either be from Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame de Rambouillet, it did not much matter which. She felt deadly sick. Everything danced before her. She longed to get into the air and run for miles—away from everything. She rushed back into her room, and locked the door. She still was unable to open the letter. Then she pulled herself together and broke the seal. Convinced that it was from Mademoiselle de Scudéry, she threw it down without reading it, and, giggling sheepishly, gave several leaps up and down the room. Then she clenched her hands, drew a deep breath, picked it up and opened it again. Though the lines danced before her like the reflection of leaves in a stream, she was able to decipher the signature. It was: ‘Votre obéissante à vous faire service, M. Cornuel.’ Strange to say, it was with a feeling of relief that Madeleine realised that it was not from Mademoiselle de Scudéry. She then read the letter through.
‘MADEMOISELLE,—My worthy friend, Madame Pilou, has made mention of you to me. Mademoiselle de Scudéry and I intend to wait on Madame de Rambouillet at two o’clock, Thursday of next week. An you would call at a quarter to two at my Hôtel, the Marais, rue St-Antoine, three doors off from the big butcher’s, opposite Les Filles d’Elizabeth, I shall be glad to drive you to the Hôtel de Rambouillet and present you to the Marquise.’
The Lord was indeed on her side! So easily had He brushed aside the hundreds of chances that would have prevented her first meeting Mademoiselle de Scudéry at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, on which, as we have seen, she had set her heart.
In a flash God became once more glorious and moral—a Being that cares for the work of His hands, a maker and keeper of inscrutable but entirely beneficent laws, not merely a Daimon of superstitious worship. Then she looked at her letter again. So Madame Cornuel had not bothered to tie it round with a silk ribbon and put it in an envelope! She was seized by a helpless paroxysm of rage.
‘In my answer I’ll call her Dame Cornuel,’ she muttered furiously. Then she caught sight of the Crucifix above her bed, and she was suddenly filled with terror. Was this the way to receive the great kindness of Christ in having got her the invitation? Really, it was enough to make Him spoil the whole thing in disgust. She crossed herself nervously and threw herself on her knees. At first there welled up from her heart a voiceless song of praise and love ... but this was only for a moment, then her soul dropped from its heights into the following Litany:—
‘Blessed Virgin, Mother of Our Lord, make me shine on Thursday.
Guardian Angel, that watchest over me, make me shine on Thursday.
Blessed Saint Magdalene, make me shine on Thursday.
Blessed Virgin, Mother of Our Lord, give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.
Guardian Angel, that watchest over me, give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.
Blessed Saint Magdalene, give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.’
She gabbled this over about twenty times. Then she started a wild dance of triumphant anticipation. It was without plot, as in the old days; just a wallowing in an indefinitely glorious future. She was interrupted by her mother’s voice calling her. Feeling guilty and conciliatory, as she always did when arrested in her revels, she called back:—
‘I am coming, Mother,’ and went into the parlour. Madame Troqueville was mending a jabot of Madeleine’s. Monsieur Troqueville was sitting up primly on a chair, and Jacques was sprawling over a chest.
‘My love, Berthe said a lackey brought a letter for you. We have been impatient to learn whom it was from.’
‘It was from Madame Cornuel, asking me to go with her on Thursday to the Hôtel de Rambouillet.... Mademoiselle de Scudéry is to be there too.’
(Madeleine would much rather have not mentioned Mademoiselle de Scudéry at all, but she felt somehow or other that it would be ‘bearing testimony’ and that she must.)
Madame Troqueville went pink with pleasure, and Jacques’s eyes shone.
‘Madame de Rambouillet! The sister of Tallemant des Réaux, I suppose. Her husband makes a lot of cuckolds. Madame Cornuel, did you say? If she’s going to meet young Rambouillet, it will be her husband that will have the cornes! hein, Jacques? hein? It will be he that has the cornes, won’t it?’ exclaimed Monsieur Troqueville, who was peculiarly impervious to emotional atmosphere, chuckling delightedly, and winking at Jacques, his primness having suddenly fallen from him. Madeleine gave a little shrug and turned to the door, but Madame Troqueville, turning to her husband, said icily:—
‘’Twas of the Marquise de Rambouillet that Madeleine spoke, no kin whatever of the family you mention. Pray, my love, tell us all about it. Which Madame Cornuel is it?’
Monsieur Troqueville went on giggling to himself, absolutely intoxicated by his own joke, and Madeleine began eagerly:—
‘Oh! the famous one ... “Zénocrite” in the Grand Cyrus. She’s an exceeding rich widow and a good friend of Mademoiselle de Scudéry. She is famed in the Court and in the Town, for her quaint and pungent wit. ’Twas she who stuck on the malcontents the name of “les Importants,” you know, she——’
‘I had some degree of intimacy with her in the past,’ said Madame Troqueville, then in a would-be careless voice, ‘I wonder if she has any sons!’ Madeleine shut her eyes and groaned, and Jacques with his eyes dancing dragged up Monsieur Troqueville, and they left the house.
So her mother had known Madame Cornuel once; Madeleine looked round the little room. There was a large almanac, adorned, as was the custom, with a woodcut representing the most important event in the previous year. This one was of Mazarin as a Roman General with Condé and Retz as barbarian prisoners tied to his chariot; her mother had bound its edges with saffron ribbon. The chairs had been covered by her with bits of silk and brocade from the chest in which every woman of her day cherished her sacred hoard. On the walls were samplers worked by her when she had been a girl.
What was her life but a pitiful attempt to make the best of things? And Madeleine had been planning to leave her behind in this pathetically thin existence, while she herself was translated to unutterable glory. It suddenly struck her that her amour-propre had sinned more against her mother than any one else. She threw her arms round her neck and hugged her convulsively, then ran back to her own room, her eyes full of tears. She flung herself on her knees.
‘Blessed Virgin, help me to show that I am sensible to your great care over me by being more loving and dutiful to my mother, and giving her greater assistance in the work of the house. Oh, and please let pleasant things be in store for her also. And oh! Blessed Lady, let me cut an exceeding brave figure on Thursday. Give me occasions for airing all the conceits I prepare beforehand. Make me look furiously beautiful and noble, and let them all think me dans le dernier galant, but mostly her. Give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.’ She had not meant to add this long petition about herself, but the temptation had been too great.
And now to business. She must ensure success by being diligent in her dancing, thus helping God to get her her heart’s desire.
Semi-Pelagianism does not demand the blind faith of the Jansenists. Also, it implicitly robs the Almighty of omnipotence. Thus was Madeleine a true Semi-Pelagian in endeavouring to assist God to effect her Salvation (we know she considered her Salvation inextricably bound up with the attainment of the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry), for:—
‘The differentia of semi-Pelagianism is the tenet that in regeneration, and all that results from it, the divine and the human will are co-operating, co-efficient (synergistic) factors.’
In the train of the shadowy figure of Madame Cornuel, Madeleine mounts the great stairs of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. The door is flung open; they enter the famous Salle Bleue. Lying on a couch is an elderly lady with other ladies sitting round her, at whose feet sit gallants on their outspread cloaks.
‘Ah! dear Zénocrite, here you come leading our new bergère,’ cries the lady on the couch. ‘Welcome, Mademoiselle, I have been waiting with impatience to make your acquaintance.’
Madeleine curtseys and says with an indescribable mixture of modesty and pride:—
‘Surely the world-famed amiability of Madame is, if I may use the expression, at war with her judgment, or rather, for two such qualities of the last excellence must ever be as united as Orestes and Pylades, some falsely flattering rumour has preceded me to the shell of Madame’s ear.’
‘Say rather some Zephyr, for such always precede Flora,’ one of the gallants says in a low voice to another.
‘But no one, I think,’ continues Madeleine, ‘will accuse me of flattery when I say that the dream of one day joining the pilgrims to the shrine of Madame was the fairest one ever sent me from the gates of horn.’
‘Sappho, our bergère has evidently been initiated into other mysteries than those of the rustic Pan,’ says Arthénice, smiling to Mademoiselle de Scudéry, whom Madeleine hardly dares to visualise, but feels near, a filmy figure in scanty, classic attire.
Madeleine turns to Sappho with a look at once respectful and gallant, and smiling, says:—
‘That, Madame, is because being deeply read in the Sibylline Books—which is the name I have ventured to bestow on your delicious romances—I need no other initiation to les rites galants.’
‘I fear, Mademoiselle, that if the Roman Republic had possessed only the Books that you call Sibylline, it would have been burned to the ground by the great Hannibal,’ says Sappho with a smile.
‘Madame, it would have been of no consequence, for the Sibyl herself would have taken captive the conqueror,’ answers Madeleine gallantly.
‘Ah, Sappho!’ cries the Princess Julie, ‘I perceive that we Nymphs are being beaten by the Shepherdess in the battle of flowers.’
‘Ah, no, Madame!’ Madeleine answers quickly. ‘Say rather that the Shepherdess knows valleys where grow wild flowers that are not found in urban gardens, and these she ventures to twine into garlands to lay humbly at the feet of the Nymphs.’ She pauses. Sappho, by half a flicker of an eyelid, shows her that she knows the garlands are all meant for her.
‘But, Mademoiselle, if you will pardon my curiosity, what induced you to leave your agreeable prairies?’ asks Mégabate.
‘Monsieur,’ answers Madeleine, smiling, ‘had you asked Aristæus why he left the deserts of Libya, his answer would have been the same as mine: “There is a Greece.”’
‘Was not Aristæus reared by the Seasons themselves and fed upon nectar and ambrosia?’ asks Sappho demurely.
‘To be reared by the Seasons! What a ravishing fate!’ cries one of the gallants. ‘It is they alone who can give the real roses and lilies, which blossom so sweetly on the cheeks of Mademoiselle.’
‘Monsieur, one of the Seasons themselves brings the refutation of your words. For Lady Winter brings ... la glace,’ says Madeleine, with a look of delicious raillery.
‘But, indeed,’ she continues, ‘I must frankly admit that my distaste for Bœotia (for that is what I call the Provinces!) is as great as that felt for pastoral life by Alcippe and Amaryllis in the Astrée. There is liberty in the prairies, you may say, but any one who has read of the magic palaces of Armide or Alcine in Amadis de Gaule, would, rather than enjoy all the liberty of all the sons of Boreas, be one of the blondines imprisoned in the palace of the present day Armide,’ and she bows to Arthénice.
‘I do not care for Amadis de Gaule,’ says Sappho a little haughtily. Madeleine thrills with indescribable triumph. Can it be possible that Sappho is jealous of the compliment paid to Arthénice?