From the Memoirs of a Minister of France | Page 8

reason why I should not, Madame," I replied easily--"I cannot
conceive why you should object to the union--and many why you
should desire to see two people happy. Otherwise, if I had had any idea,
even the slightest, that the matter was obnoxious to you, I would not
have engaged in it."

"But--what was your purpose then?" she muttered, in a different tone.
"To obtain the King's good word with M. de Perrot to permit the
marriage of his son with his niece; who is, unfortunately, without a
portion."
Madame uttered a low exclamation, and her eyes wandering from me,
she took up--as if her thoughts strayed also--a small ornament; from the
table beside her. "Ah!" she said, looking at it closely. "But Perrot's son
did he know of this?"
"No," I answered, smiling. "But I have heard that women can love as
well as men, Madame. And sometimes ingenuously."
I heard her draw a sigh of relief, and I knew that if I had not persuaded
her I had accomplished much. I was not surprised when, laying down
the ornament with which she had been toying, she turned on me one of
those rare smiles to which the King could refuse nothing; and wherein
wit, tenderness, and gaiety were so happily blended that no conceivable
beauty of feature, uninspired by sensibility, could vie with them. "Good
friend, I have sinned," she said. "But I am a woman, and I love. Pardon
me. As for your PROTEGEE, from this moment she is mine also. I will
speak to the King this evening; and if he does not at once," Madame
continued, with a gleam of archness that showed me that she was not
yet free from suspicion, "issue his commands to M. de Perrot, I shall
know what to think; and his Majesty will suffer!"
I thanked her profusely, and in fitting terms. Then, after a word or two
about some assignments for the expenses of her household, in settling
which there had been delay--a matter wherein, also, I contrived to do
her pleasure and the King's service no wrong--I very willingly took my
leave, and, calling my people, started homewards on foot. I had not
gone twenty paces, however, before M. de Perrot, whose impatience
had chained him to the spot, crossed the street and joined himself to me.
"My dear friend," he cried, embracing me fervently, "is all well?"
"Yes," I said.

"She is appeased?"
"Absolutely."
He heaved a deep sigh of relief, and, almost crying in his joy, began to
thank me, with all the extravagance of phrase and gesture to which men
of his mean spirit are prone. Through all I heard him silently, and with
secret amusement, knowing that the end was not yet. At length he
asked me what explanation I had given.
"The only explanation possible," I answered bluntly. "I had to combat
Madame's jealousy. I did it in the only way in which it could be done:
by stating that your niece loved your son, and by imploring her good
word on their behalf."
He sprang a pace from me with a cry of rage and astonishment. "You
did that?" he screamed.
"Softly, softly, M. de Perrot," I said, in a voice which brought him
somewhat to his senses. "Certainly I did. You bade me say whatever
was necessary, and I did so. No more. If you wish, however," I added
grimly, "to explain to Madame that--"
But with a wail of lamentation he rushed from me, and in a moment
was lost in the darkness; leaving me to smile at this odd termination of
an intrigue that, but for a lad's adroitness, might have altered the
fortunes not of M. de Perrot only but of the King my master and of
France.

II. THE TENNIS BALLS.
A few weeks before the death of the Duchess of Beaufort, on Easter
Eve, 1599, made so great a change in the relations of all at Court that
"Sourdis mourning" came to be a phrase for grief, genuine because
interested, an affair that might have had a serious issue began,
imperceptibly at the time, in the veriest trifle.

One day, while the King was still absent from Paris, I had a mind to
play tennis, and for that purpose summoned La Trape, who had the
charge of my balls, and sometimes, in the absence of better company,
played with me. Of late the balls he bought had given me small
satisfaction, and I bade him bring me the bag, that I might choose the
best. He did so, and I had not handled half-a- dozen before I found one,
and later three others, so much more neatly sewn than the rest, and in
all points so superior, that even an untrained eye could not fail to detect