From the Memoirs of a Minister of France | Page 7

all I could do to maintain my
SANGFROID, and, dismissing Maignan with a look, be content to
punish M. de Perrot with a sneer. "I did not know that your son was a
tradesman," I said. He wrung his hands. "He has low tastes," he cried.
"He always had. He has amused himself that way, And now by this
time he is with Madame de Beaufort and we are undone!"
"Not we," I answered curtly; "speak for yourself, M. de Perrot."
But though, having no mind to appear in his eyes dependent on
Madame's favour or caprice, I thus checked his familiarity, I am free to
confess that my calmness was partly assumed; and that, though I knew
my position to be unassailable--based as it was on solid services
rendered to the King, my master, and on the familiar affection with
which he honoured me through so many years--I could not view the
prospect of a fresh collision with Madame without some misgiving.
Having gained the mastery in the two quarrels we had had, I was the
less inclined to excite her to fresh intrigues; and as unwilling to give
the King reason to think that we could not live at peace. Accordingly,
after a moment's consideration, I told Perrot that, rather than he should
suffer, I would go to Madame de Beaufort myself, and give such
explanations as would place another complexion on the matter.
He overwhelmed me with thanks, and, besides, to show his
gratitude--for he was still on thorns, picturing her wrath and resentment
he insisted on accompanying me to the Cloitre de St. Germain, where
Madame had her apartment. By the way, he asked me what I should say
to her.
"Whatever will get you out of the scrape," I answered curtly.
"Then anything!" he cried with fervour. "Anything, my dear friend. Oh,

that unnatural boy!"
"I suppose that the girl is as big a fool?" I said.
"Bigger! bigger!" he answered. "I don't know where she learned such
things!"
"She prated of love, too, then?"
"To be sure," he groaned, "and without a sou of DOT!"
"Well, well," I said, "here we are. I will do what I can."
Fortunately the King was not there, and Madame would receive me. I
thought, indeed, that her doors flew open with suspicious speed, and
that way was made for me more easily than usual; and I soon found that
I was not wrong in the inference I drew from these facts. For when I
entered her chamber that remarkable woman, who, whatever her
enemies may say, combined with her beauty a very uncommon degree
of sense and discretion, met me with a low courtesy and a smile of
derision. "So," she said, "M. de Rosny, not satisfied with furnishing me
with evidence, gives me proof."
"How, Madame?" I said; though I well understood.
"By his presence here," she answered. "An hour ago," she continued,
"the King was with me. I had not then the slightest ground to expect
this honour, or I am sure that his Majesty would have stayed to share it.
But I have since seen reason to expect it, and you observe that I am not
unprepared."
She spoke with a sparkling eye, and an expression of the most lively
resentment; so that, had M. de Perrot been in my place I think that he
would have shed more tears. I was myself somewhat dashed, though I
knew the prudence that governed her in her most impetuous sallies; still,
to avoid the risk of hearing things which we might both afterwards
wish unsaid, I came to the point. "I fear that I have timed my visit ill,
Madame," I said. "You have some complaint against me."

"Only that you are like the others," she answered with a fine contempt.
"You profess one thing and do another."
"As for example?"
"For example!" she replied, with a scornful laugh. "How many times
have you told me that you left women, and intrigues in which women
had part, on one side?"
I bowed.
"And now I find you--you and that Perrot, that creature!-- intriguing
against me; intriguing with some country chit to--"
"Madame!" I said, cutting her short with a show of temper, "where did
you get this?"
"Do you deny it?" she cried, looking so beautiful in her anger that I
thought I had never seen her to such advantage. "Do you deny that you
took the King there?"
"No. Certainly I took the King there."
"To Perrot's? You admit it?"
"Certainly," I said, "for a purpose."
"A purpose!" she cried with withering scorn. "Was it not that the King
might see that girl?"
"Yes," I replied patiently, "it was."
She stared at me. "And you can tell me that to my face!" she said.
"I see no