Petticoat Rule

Solitude had taken hold of Lydie's fancy. She had allowed her mind to go roaming, fancy-free. Her thoughts were melancholy and anxious, and she sighed or frowned more than once. The air was becoming hotter and hotter every moment, and a gigantic bed of scarlet geraniums sent a curious acrid scent to her nostrils, which she found refreshing. Anon she succeeded in shutting out from her eyes the picture of those gardeners maiming the rose-trees and bosquets, and in seeing only that distant horizon with the vague, tiny fleecy clouds which were hurrying quite gaily and freely to some unknown destination, far, no doubt, from this world of craft and affectation. She shut her ears to the sound of miladi's shrill laugh and the chatter of senseless fools behind her, and only tried to hear the rippling murmur of the water in the fountains, the merry chirrup of the sparrows, and far, very far away, the sweet, sad note of a lark soaring upward to the serene morning sky.

The sound of a footstep on the flag-stones of the balcony broke in on her meditations. Her father, still wearing that troubled look, was coming out to join her. Fortunately miladi had chosen to remain indoors.

Impulsively now, for her nerves were still quivering with the tension of recent introspection, she went straight up to this man whom she most fully trusted in all the world, and took his hands in both hers.

"My dear, dear father," she pleaded, with her wonted earnestness, "you will help me, will you not?"

He looked more troubled than ever at her words, almost pathetic in his obvious helplessness, as he ejaculated feebly:

"But what can we do, my dear child?"

"Send Le Monarque to meet Prince Charles Edward," she urged; "it is so simple."

"It is very hazardous, and would cost a vast amount of money. In the present state of the Treasury – "

"My dear father, France can afford the luxury of not selling her honour."

"And the English will be furious with us."

"The English cannot do more than fight us, and they are doing that already!" she retorted.

"The risks, my dear child, the risks!" he protested again.

"What risks, father dear?" she said eagerly. "Tell me, what do we risk by sending Le Monarque with secret orders to the Scottish coast, to a spot known to no one save to Lord Eglinton and myself, confided to my husband by the unfortunate young Prince before he started on this miserable expedition? Captain Barre will carry nothing that can in any way betray the secret of his destination nor the object of his journey – my husband's seal-ring on his finger, nothing more; this token he will take on shore himself – not even the ship's crew will know aught that would be fatal if betrayed."

"But the English can intercept Le Monarque!"

"We must run that risk," she retorted. "Once past the coast of England, Scotland is lonely enough. Le Monarque will meet no other craft, and Captain Barre knows the secrets of his own calling – he has run a cargo before now."

"This is childish obstinacy, Lydie, and I do not recognize the statesman in this sentimental chit, who prates nonsense like a schoolgirl imbued with novel-reading," said the Duke now with marked impatience; "and pray, if His Majesty should put a veto on your using one of his ships for this privateering expedition?"

"I propose sending Le Monarque to-morrow," rejoined Lydie quietly. "Captain Barre will have his orders direct from the Ministry of Finance; and then we'll obtain His Majesty's sanction on the following day."

"But this is madness, my child!" exclaimed the Duke. "You cannot openly set at defiance the wishes of the King!"

"The wishes of the King?" she cried, with sudden vehemence. "Surely, surely, my dear, dear father, you cannot mean what you suggest! Think! oh, think just for one moment! That poor young man, who was our guest, whom we all liked – he broke bread with us in our own house, our beautiful château de la Tour d'Aumont, which has never yet been defiled by treachery. And you talk of leaving him there in that far-off land which has proved so inhospitable to him? Of leaving him there either to perish miserably of want and starvation or to fall into the hands of that Hanoverian butcher whose name has become a by-word for unparalleled atrocities?"

She checked herself, and then resumed more calmly:

"Nay, my dear father, I pray you let us cease this argument; for once in the history of our happy life together you and I look at honour from opposite points of view."

"Yes, my dear, I see that, too," he rejoined, speaking now with some hesitation. "I wish I could persuade you to abandon the idea."

"To abandon the unfortunate young Prince, you mean, to break every promise we ever made to him – to become the by-word in our turn for treachery and cowardice in every country in Europe – and why?" she added, with helpless impatience, trying to understand, dreading almost to question. "Why? Why?"

Then, as her father remained silent, with eyes persistently fixed on some vague object in the remote distance, she said, as if acting on a sudden decisive thought:

"Father, dear, is it solely a question of cost?"

"Partly," he replied, with marked hesitation.

"Partly? Well, then, dear, we will remove one cause of your unexplainable opposition. You may assure His Majesty in my name that the voyage of Le Monarque shall cost the Treasury nothing."

Then as her father made no comment, she continued more eagerly:

"Lord Eglinton will not deny me, as you know; he is rich and Charles Edward Stuart is his friend. What Le Monarque has cost for provisioning, that we will immediately replace. For the moment we will borrow this ship from His Majesty's navy. That he cannot refuse! and I give you and His Majesty my word of honour that Le Monarque shall not cost the Treasury one single sou – even the pay of her crew shall be defrayed by us from the moment that she sails out of Le Havre until the happy moment when she returns home with Prince Charles Edward Stuart and his friends safe and sound aboard."

There was silence between them for awhile. The Duc d'Aumont's eyes were fixed steadily on a distant point on the horizon, but Lydie's eyes never for a second strayed away from her father's face.

"Will Le Monarque have a long journey to make?" asked the Duke lightly.

"Yes!" she replied.

"To the coast of Scotland?"

"Yes."

"The west coast, of course?"

"Why should you ask, dear?"

She asked him this question quite casually, then, as he did not reply, she asked it again, this time with a terrible tightening of her heart-strings. Suddenly she remembered her suspicions, when first she caught the glance of intelligence which passed swiftly from him to miladi.

With a quick gesture of intense agitation she placed a hand on his wrist.

"Father!" she said in a scarce audible murmur.

"Yes, my dear. What is it?"

"I don't know. I – I have been much troubled of late. I do not think that my perceptions are perhaps as keen as they were – and as you say, this matter of the Stuart Prince has weighed heavily on my mind. Therefore, will you forgive me, dear, if – if I ask you a question which may sound undutiful, disloyal to you?"

"Of course I will forgive you, dear," he said, after a slight moment of hesitation. "What is it?"

He had pulled himself together, and now met his daughter's glance with sufficient firmness, apparently to reassure her somewhat, for she said more quietly:

"Will you give me your word of honour that you personally know of no act of treachery which may be in contemplation against the man who trusts in the honour of France?"

Her glowing eyes rested upon his; they seemed desirous of penetrating to the innermost recesses of his soul. M. le Duc d'Aumont tried to bear the scrutiny without flinching but he was no great actor, nor was he in the main a dishonourable man, but he thought his daughter unduly chivalrous, and he held that political considerations were outside the ordinary standards of honour and morality.

Anyway he could not bring himself to give her a definite reply; her hand still grasped his wrist – he took it in his own and raised it to his lips.

"My father!" she pleaded, her voice trembling, her eyes still fixed upon him, "will you not answer my question?"

"It is answered, my dear," he replied evasively. "Do you think it worthy of me – your father – to protest mine honesty before my own child?"

She looked at him no longer, and gently withdrew her hand from his grasp. She understood that, indeed, he had answered her question.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WEIGHT OF ETIQUETTE

Perhaps certain characteristics which milor the Marquis of Eglinton had inherited from his English grandfather caused him to assume a more elaborate costume for his petit lever than the rigid court etiquette of the time had prescribed.

According to every mandate of usage and fashion, when, at exactly half-past ten o'clock, he had asked M. Achille so peremptorily for his shoes and then sat on the edge of his bed, with legs dangling over its sides, he should have been attired in a flowered dressing gown over a lace-ruffled chemise de nuit, and a high-peaked bonnet-de-coton with the regulation tassel should have taken the place of the still absent perruque.

Then all the distinguished gentlemen who stood nearest to him would have known what to do. They had all attended petits levers of kings, courtisanes, and Ministers, ever since their rank and dignities entitled them so to do. Mme. la Comtesse de Stainville, for instance, would have stepped aside at this precise juncture with a deep curtsey and mayhap a giggle or a smirk – since she was privileged to be frivolous – whereupon M. Achille would with the proper decorum due to so solemn a function have handed M. le Contrôleur's day shirt to the visitor of highest rank there present, who was privileged to pass it over milor's head.

That important formality accomplished, the great man's toilet could be completed by M. le valet-de-chambre himself. But who had ever heard of a Minister's petit-lever being brought to a close without the ceremony of his being helped on with his shirt by a prince of the blood, or at least a marshal of France?

However, le petit Anglais had apparently some funny notions of his own – heirlooms, no doubt, from that fog-ridden land beyond the seas, the home of his ancestors – and vainly had Monsieur Achille, that paragon among flunkeys, tried to persuade his Marquis not to set the hitherto inviolate etiquette of the Court of France quite so flagrantly at defiance.

All his efforts had been in vain.

Monsieur d'Argenson, who was present on this 13th of August, 1746, tells us that when milor did call for his shoes at least ten minutes too soon, and was thereupon tenderly reproached by Madame la Comtesse de Stainville for this ungallant haste, he was already more than half dressed.

True, the flowered robe-de-chambre was there – and vastly becoming, too, with its braided motifs and downy lining of a contrasting hue – but when milor threw off the coverlet with a boyish gesture of impatience, he appeared clad in a daintily frilled day-shirt, breeches of fine faced cloth, whilst a pair of white silk stockings covered his well-shaped calves.

True, the perruque was still absent, but so was the regulation cotton night-cap; instead of these, milor, with that eccentricity peculiar to the entire British race, wore his own hair slightly powdered and tied at the nape of the neck with a wide black silk bow.

Monsieur Achille looked extremely perturbed, and, had his rigorous features ventured to show any expression at all, they would undoubtedly have displayed one of respectful apology to all the high-born gentlemen who witnessed this unedifying spectacle. As it was, the face of Monsieur le valet-de-chambre was set in marble-like rigidity; perhaps only the slightest suspicion of a sigh escaped his lips as he noted milor's complete unconsciousness of the enormity of his offense.

Monsieur le Contrôleur had been in the very midst of an animated argument with Madame de Stainville anent the respective merits of rose red and turquoise blue as a foil to a mellow complexion. This argument he had broken off abruptly by calling for his shoes. No wonder Irène pouted, her pout being singularly becoming.

"Had I been fortunate enough in pleasing your lordship with my poor wit," she said, "you had not been in so great a hurry to rid yourself of my company."

"Nay, madame, permit me to explain," he protested gently. "I pray you try and remember that for the last half-hour I have been the happy yet feeble target for the shafts aimed at me by your beauty and your wit. Now I always feel singularly helpless without my waistcoat and my shoes. I feel like a miserable combatant who, when brought face to face with a powerful enemy, hath been prevented from arming himself for the fray."

"But etiquette – " she protested.

"Etiquette is a jade, madame," he retorted; "shall not you and I turn our backs on her?"

In the meantime M. Achille had, with becoming reverence, taken M. le Contrôleur's coat and waistcoat in his august hands, and stood there holding them with just that awed expression of countenance which a village curé would wear when handling a reliquary.

With that same disregard for ceremony which had characterized him all along, Lord Eglinton rescued his waistcoat from those insistent hands, and, heedless of Achille's look of horror, he slipped it on and buttoned it himself with quick, dexterous fingers, as if he had never done anything else in all his life.

For a moment Achille was speechless. For the first time perhaps in the history of France a Minister of Finance had put his waistcoat on himself, and this under his – Achille's – administration. The very foundations of his belief were tottering before his eyes; desperately now he clung to the coat, ready to fight for its possession and shed his blood if need be for the upkeep of the ancient traditions of the land.

"Will milor take his coat from the hands of Monseigneur le Prince de Courtenai – prince of the blood?" he asked, with a final supreme effort for the reëstablishment of those traditions, which were being so wantonly flouted.

"His Majesty will be here directly," interposed Irène hastily.

"His Majesty never comes later than half-past ten," protested milor feebly, "and he has not the vaguest idea how to help a man on with his coat. He has had no experience and I feel that mine would become a heap of crumpled misery if his gracious hands were to insinuate it over my unworthy shoulders."

He made a desperate effort to gain possession of his coat, but this time M. Achille was obdurate. It seemed as if he would not yield that coat to any one save at the cost of his own life.

"Then it is the privilege of Monseigneur le Prince de Courtenai," he said firmly.

"But M. de Courtenai has gone to flirt with my wife!" ejaculated Lord Eglinton in despair.

"In that case no doubt M. le Duc de Luxembourg will claim the right – "

"Mais comment donc?" said the Duke with great alacrity, as, in spite of milor's still continued feeble protests, he took the coat from the hands of M. Achille.

M. de Luxembourg was very pompous and very slow, and there was nothing that Lord Eglinton hated worse than what he called amateur valeting. But now there was nothing for it but forbearance and resignation; patience, too, of which le petit Anglais had no more than a just share. He gathered the frills of his shirt sleeves in his hands and tried not to look as if he wished M. de Luxembourg at the bottom of the nearest pond; but at this very moment Monseigneur le Prince de Courtenai, who, it appeared, had not gone to flirt with Madame la Marquise, since the latter was very much engaged elsewhere, but had merely been absorbed in political discussions with M. de Vermandois, suddenly realized that one of his numerous privileges was being encroached upon.

Not that he had any special desire to help M. le Contrôleur-Général on with his coat, but because he was ever anxious that his proper precedence as quasi prince of the blood should always be fully recognized. So he gave a discreet cough just sufficiently loud to attract M. Achille's notice, and to warn M. le Duc de Luxembourg that he was being presumptuous.

Without another word the coat was transferred from the hands of the Maréchal to those of the quasi-royal Prince, whilst Eglinton, wearing an air of resigned martyrdom, still waited for his coat, the frills of his shirt sleeves gripped tightly in his hands.

Monseigneur advanced. His movements were always sedate, and he felt pleased that every one who stood close by had noticed that the rank and precedence, which were rightfully his, had been duly accorded him, even in so small a matter, by no less a personage than M. le Contrôleur-Général des Finances.

He now held the coat in perfect position, and Lord Eglinton gave a sigh of relief, when suddenly the great doors at the end of the long room were thrown wide open, and the stentorian voices of the royal flunkeys announced:

"Messieurs, Mesdames! His Majesty the King!"

The buzz of talk died down, giving place to respectful murmurs. There was a great rustle of silks and brocades, a clink of dress swords against the parquet floor, as the crowd parted to make way for Louis XV. The various groups of political disputants broke up, as if scattered by a fairy wand; soon all the butterflies that had hovered in the further corners of the room fluttered toward the magic centre.

Here an avenue seemed suddenly to form itself of silken gowns, of brocaded panniers, of gaily embroidered coats, topped by rows of powdered perruques that bent very low to the ground as, fat, smiling, pompous, and not a little bored, His Majesty King Louis XV made slow progress along the full length of the room, leaning lightly on the arm of the inevitable Marquise de Pompadour, and nodding with great condescension to the perruqued heads as he passed.

Near the window embrasure he met la Marquise d'Eglinton and M. le Duc d'Aumont, her father. To Lydie he extended a gracious hand, and engaged her in conversation with a few trivial words. This gave Mme. de Pompadour the opportunity of darting a quick glance, that implied an anxious query, at the Duc d'Aumont, to which he responded with an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

All the while M. le Contrôleur-Général des Finances was still standing, shirt frills in hand, his face a picture of resigned despair, his eyes longingly fixed on his own coat, which Monseigneur de Courtenai no longer held up for him.

Indeed, Monseigneur, a rigid stickler for etiquette himself, would never so far have forgotten what was due to the house of Bourbon as to indulge in any pursuit – such as helping a Minister on with his coat – at the moment when His Majesty entered a room.

He bowed with the rest of them, and thus Louis XV at the end of his progress, found the group around milor's bedside; his cousin de Courtenai bowing, Monsieur Achille with his nose almost touching his knees, and milor Eglinton in shirt sleeves looking supremely uncomfortable, and not a little sheepish.

"Ah! ce cher milor!" said the King with charming bonhomie, as he took the situation in at a glance. "Nay, cousin, I claim an ancient privilege! Monsieur le Contrôleur-Général, have you ever been waited on by a King of France?"

"Never to my knowledge, Sire," stammered le petit Anglais.

Louis XV was quite delightful to-day; so fresh and boyish in his movements, and with an inimitable laisser aller and friendliness in his manner which caused many pairs of eyes to stare, and many hearts to ponder.

"Let this be an epoch-making experience in your life, then," he said gaily. "Is this your coat?"

And without more ado he took that much-travelled garment from Monseigneur de Courtenai's hands.

Such condescension, such easy graciousness had not been witnessed for years! And His Majesty was not overfond of that State-appointed Ministry of Finance of which milor was the nominal head.

"His Majesty must be sorely in need of money!" was a whispered comment which ran freely enough round the room.

Withal the King himself seemed quite unconscious of the wave of interest to which his gracious behaviour was giving rise. He was holding up the coat, smiling benevolently at M. le Contrôleur, who appeared to be more than usually nervous, and now made no movement toward that much-desired portion of his attire.

"Allons, milor, I am waiting," said King Louis at last.

"Er – that is," murmured Lord Eglinton pitiably, "could I have my coat right side out?"

"Ohé! par ma foi!" quoth the King with easy familiarity, "your pardon, milor, but 'tis seldom I hold such an article in my hands, and I believe, by all the saints in the calendar, that I was holding it upside down, wrong side out, sleeves foremost, and collar awry!"

He laughed till his fat sides ached, and tears streamed from his eyes; then, amidst discreet murmurs of admiration at so much condescension, such gracious good humour, the ceremony of putting on M. le Contrôleur's coat was at last performed by the King of France, and milor, now fully clothed and apparently much relieved in his mind, was able to present his respects to Madame de Pompadour.

CHAPTER XIV

ROYAL FAVOURS

Apparently there was to be no end to royal graciousness this morning, as every one who looked could see. Hardly was the coat on M. le Contrôleur's shoulders than the King engaged him in conversation, whilst Mme. de Pompadour dropped into the armchair lately vacated by Monseigneur de Courtenai. The well-drilled circle of courtiers and ladies, including la belle Irène herself, retired discreetly. Once more there was a barrier of emptiness and parquet flooring round the inner group, now composed of His Majesty, of M. le Contrôleur-Général, and of Mme. de Pompadour. Into these sacred precincts no one would have dared to step. Lydie, having paid her respects to His Majesty, had not joined that intimate circle, and it seemed as if Louis XV had noted her absence, and was duly relieved thereat.

Anon M. le Duc d'Aumont approached the King, offering him a chair. Louis took it, and in the act of so doing he contrived to whisper four quick words in his Prime Minister's ear.

"Eh bien! Your daughter?"

Lord Eglinton just then was busy trying to find a suitable place whereon to deposit his own insignificant person, and blushing violently because Mme. de Pompadour had laughingly waved her fan in the direction of his monumental bed; M. le Duc, therefore, whilst adjusting a cushion behind the King's back, was able to reply hurriedly:

"Impossible, Sire!"

"And l'Anglais?"

"I have not yet tried."

"Ah! ah! ah!" laughed Pompadour merrily. "M. le Contrôleur-Général des Finances, are all Englishmen as modest as you?"

"I – I don't know, Madame. I don't know very many," he replied.

"Here is M. le Contrôleur too bashful to sit on the edge of his own bed in my presence," she continued, still laughing. "Nay, milor, I'll wager that you were reclining on those downy cushions when you were flirting with Mme. de Stainville."

"Only under the compulsion of my valet-de-chambre, Madame," he protested, "or I'd have got up hours ago."

"Is he such a tyrant, then?" asked Louis.

"Terrible, your Majesty."

"You are afraid of him?"

"I tremble at his look."

"Ah! it is well M. le Contrôleur-Général des Finances should tremble sometimes, even if only before his valet-de-chambre," sighed Louis XV with comic pathos.

"But, Sire, I tremble very often!" protested Lord Eglinton.

"I' faith he speaks truly," laughed Mme. de Pompadour, "since he trembles before his wife."

"And we tremble before M. le Contrôleur," concluded the King gaily.

"Before me, Sire?"

"Aye, indeed, since our Parliaments have made you our dragon."

"A good-tempered, meek sort of dragon, Sire, you'll graciously admit."

"That we will, milor, and gladly!" said Louis XV, now with somewhat too exuberant good-humour; "and you'll not have cause to regret that meekness, for your King hath remained your friend."

Then, as Lord Eglinton seemed either too much overcome by the amazing condescension, or too bashful to respond, his Majesty continued more sedately: