"The Duc de Lenoncourt and the Duc de Navarreins have made mention of you to the King,"added the Marquise;"they praised your absolute and entire devotion,and said that some distinction ought to avenge your treatment in the Liberal press.The name and title of Rubempre,to which you have a claim through your mother,would become illustrious through you,they said.The King gave his lordship instructions that evening to prepare a patent authorizing the Sieur Lucien Chardon to bear the arms and title of the Comtes de Rubempre,as grandson of the last Count by the mother's side.'Let us favor the songsters'(chardonnerets)'of Pindus,'said his Majesty,after reading your sonnet on the Lily,which my cousin luckily remembered to give the Duke.--'Especially when the King can work miracles,and change the song-bird into an eagle,'M.de Navarreins replied."Lucien's expansion of feeling would have softened the heart of any woman less deeply wounded than Louise d'Espard de Negrepelisse;but her thirst for vengeance was only increased by Lucien's graciousness.
Des Lupeaulx was right;Lucien was wanting in tact.It never crossed his mind that this history of the patent was one of the mystifications at which Mme.d'Espard was an adept.Emboldened with success and the flattering distinction shown to him by Mlle.des Touches,he stayed till two o'clock in the morning for a word in private with his hostess.Lucien had learned in Royalist newspaper offices that Mlle.
des Touches was the author of a play in which La petite Fay,the marvel of the moment was about to appear.As the rooms emptied,he drew Mlle.des Touches to a sofa in the boudoir,and told the story of Coralie's misfortune and his own so touchingly,that Mlle.des Touches promised to give the heroine's part to his friend.
That promise put new life into Coralie.But the next day,as they breakfasted together,Lucien opened Lousteau's newspaper,and found that unlucky anecdote of the Keeper of the Seals and his wife.The story was full of the blackest malice lurking in the most caustic wit.
Louis XVIII.was brought into the story in a masterly fashion,and held up to ridicule in such a way that prosecution was impossible.
Here is the substance of a fiction for which the Liberal party attempted to win credence,though they only succeeded in adding one more to the tale of their ingenious calumnies.
The King's passion for pink-scented notes and a correspondence full of madrigals and sparkling wit was declared to be the last phase of the tender passion;love had reached the Doctrinaire stage;or had passed,in other words,from the concrete to the abstract.The illustrious lady,so cruelly ridiculed under the name of Octavie by Beranger,had conceived (so it was said)the gravest fears.The correspondence was languishing.The more Octavie displayed her wit,the cooler grew the royal lover.At last Octavie discovered the cause of her decline;her power was threatened by the novelty and piquancy of a correspondence between the august scribe and the wife of his Keeper of the Seals.
That excellent woman was believed to be incapable of writing a note;she was simply and solely godmother to the efforts of audacious ambition.Who could be hidden behind her petticoats?Octavie decided,after making observations of her own,that the King was corresponding with his Minister.
She laid her plans.With the help of a faithful friend,she arranged that a stormy debate should detain the Minister at the Chamber;then she contrived to secure a tete-a-tete,and to convince outraged Majesty of the fraud.Louis XVIII.flew into a royal and truly Bourbon passion,but the tempest broke on Octavie's head.He would not believe her.Octavie offered immediate proof,begging the King to write a note which must be answered at once.The unlucky wife of the Keeper of the Seals sent to the Chamber for her husband;but precautions had been taken,and at that moment the Minister was on his legs addressing the Chamber.The lady racked her brains and replied to the note with such intellect as she could improvise.
"Your Chancellor will supply the rest,"cried Octavie,laughing at the King's chagrin.
There was not a word of truth in the story;but it struck home to three persons--the Keeper of the Seals,his wife,and the King.It was said that des Lupeaulx had invented the tale,but Finot always kept his counsel.The article was caustic and clever,the Liberal papers and the Orleanists were delighted with it,and Lucien himself laughed,and thought of it merely as a very amusing canard.
He called next day for des Lupeaulx and the Baron du Chatelet.The Baron had just been to thank his lordship.The Sieur Chatelet,newly appointed Councillor Extraordinary,was now Comte du Chatelet,with a promise of the prefecture of the Charente so soon as the present prefect should have completed the term of office necessary to receive the maximum retiring pension.The Comte DU Chatelet (for the DU had been inserted in the patent)drove with Lucien to the Chancellerie,and treated his companion as an equal.But for Lucien's articles,he said,his patent would not have been granted so soon;Liberal persecution had been a stepping-stone to advancement.Des Lupeaulx was waiting for them in the Secretary-General's office.That functionary started with surprise when Lucien appeared and looked at des Lupeaulx.
