In 1658,at the corner of the streets Git-le-Coeur and Le Hurepoix (the site of the latter being now occupied by the Quai des Augustins as far as Pont Saint-Michel),stood the great mansion which Francis I had bought and fitted up for the Duchesse d'Etampes.It was at this period if not in ruins at least beginning to show the ravages of time.Its rich interior decorations had lost their splendour and become antiquated.Fashion had taken up its abode in the Marais,near the Place Royale,and it was thither that profligate women and celebrated beauties now enticed the humming swarm of old rakes and young libertines.Not one of them all would have thought of residing in the mansion,or even in the quarter,wherein the king's mistress had once dwelt.It would have been a step downward in the social scale,and equivalent to a confession that their charms were falling in the public estimation.
Still,the old palace was not empty;it had,on the contrary,several tenants.Like the provinces of Alexander's empire,its vast suites of rooms had been subdivided;and so neglected was it by the gay world that people of the commonest deion strutted about with impunity where once the proudest nobles had been glad to gain admittance.There in semi-isolation and despoiled of her greatness lived Angelique-Louise de Guerchi,formerly companion to Mademoiselle de Pons and then maid of honour to Anne of Austria.Her love intrigues and the scandals they gave rise to had led to her dismissal from court.Not that she was a greater sinner than many who remained behind,only she was unlucky enough or stupid enough to be found out.Her admirers were so indiscreet that they had not left her a shred of reputation,and in a court where a cardinal is the lover of a queen,a hypocritical appearance of decorum is indispensable to success.
So Angelique had to suffer for the faults she was not clever enough to hide.Unfortunately for her,her income went up and down with the number and wealth of her admirers,so when she left the court all her possessions consisted of a few articles she had gathered together out of the wreck of her former luxury,and these she was now selling one by one to procure the necessaries of life,while she looked back from afar with an envious eye at the brilliant world from which she had been exiled,and longed for better days.All hope was not at an end for her.By a strange law which does not speak well for human nature,vice finds success easier to attain than virtue.There is no courtesan,no matter how low she has fallen,who cannot find a dupe ready to defend against the world an honour of which no vestige remains.
A man who doubts the virtue of the most virtuous woman,who shows himself inexorably severe when he discovers the lightest inclination to falter in one whose conduct has hitherto been above reproach,will stoop and pick up out of the gutter a blighted and tarnished reputation and protect and defend it against all slights,and devote his life to the attempt to restore lustre to the unclean thing dulled by the touch of many fingers.In her days of prosperity Commander de Jars and the king's treasurer had both fluttered round Mademoiselle de Guerchi,and neither had fluttered in vain.Short as was the period necessary to overcome her scruples,in as short a period it dawned on the two candidates for her favour that each had a successful rival in the other,and that however potent as a reason for surrender the doubloons of the treasurer had been,the personal appearance of the commander had proved equally cogent.
As both had felt for her only a passing fancy and not a serious passion,their explanations with each other led to no quarrel between them;silently and simultaneously they withdrew from her circle,without even letting her know they had found her out,but quite determined to revenge,themselves on her should a chance ever offer.However,other affairs of a similar nature had intervened to prevent their carrying out this laudable intention;Jeannin had laid siege to a more inaccessible beauty,who had refused to listen to his sighs for less than 30 crowns,paid in advance,and de Jars had become quite absorbed by his adventure with the convent boarder at La Raquette,and the business of that young stranger whom he passed off as his nephew.Mademoiselle de Guerchi had never seen them again;and with her it was out of sight out of mind.At the moment when she comes into our story she was weaving her toils round a certain Duc de Vitry,whom she had seen at court,but whose acquaintance she had never made,and who had been absent when the scandalous occurrence which led to her disgrace came to light.
He was a man of from twenty-five to twenty-six years of age,who idled his life away:his courage was undoubted,and being as credulous as an old libertine,he was ready to draw his sword at any moment to defend the lady whose cause he had espoused,should any insolent slanderer dare to hint there was a smirch on her virtue.Being deaf to all reports,he seemed one of those men expressly framed by heaven to be the consolation of fallen women;such a man as in our times a retired opera-dancer or a superannuated professional beauty would welcome with open arms.He had only one fault--he was married.It is true he neglected his wife,according to the custom of the time,and it is probably also true that his wife cared very little about his infidelities.But still she was an insurmountable obstacle to the fulfilment of Mademoiselle de Guerchi's hopes,who but for her might have looked forward to one day becoming a duchess.
For about three weeks,however,at the time we are speaking of,the duke had neither crossed her threshold nor written.He had told her he was going for a few days to Normandy,where he had large estates,but had remained absent so long after the date he had fixed for his return that she began to feel uneasy.What could be keeping him?
