A good post in the family of a prince of the blood, when it is given by the credit, and on the recommendation of a friend, like the Comte de Guiche, is worth at least twelve thousand livres per annum; and by the means which M.
Malicorne had taken to make his revenues fructify, twelve thousand livres might rise to twenty thousand.Then, when once an incumbent of this post, he would marry Mademoiselle de Montalais.Mademoiselle de Montalais, of a half noble family, not only would be dowered, but would ennoble Malicorne.But, in order that Mademoiselle de Montalais, who had not a large patrimonial fortune, although an only daughter, should be suitably dowered, it was necessary that she should belong to some great princess, as prodigal as the dowager Madame was covetous.And in order that the wife should not be of one party whilst the husband belonged to the other, a situation which presents serious inconveniences, particularly with characters like those of the future consorts -- Malicorne had imagined the idea of making the central point of union the household of Monsieur, the king's brother.Mademoiselle de Montalais would be maid of honor to Madame.M.Malicorne would be officer to Monsieur.
It is plain the plan was formed by a clear head; it is plain, also, that it had been bravely executed.Malicorne had asked Manicamp to ask a brevet of maid of honor of the Comte de Guiche; and the Comte de Guiche had asked this brevet of Monsieur, who had signed it without hesitation.
The constructive plan of Malicorne -- for we may well suppose that the combinations of a mind as active as his were not confined to the present, but extended to the future -- the constructive plan of Malicorne, we say, was this: --To obtain entrance into the household of Madame Henrietta for a woman devoted to himself, who was intelligent, young, handsome, and intriguing; to learn, by means of this woman, all the feminine secrets of the young household, whilst he, Malicorne, and his friend Manicamp, should, between them, know all the male secrets of the young community.It was by these means that a rapid and splendid fortune might be acquired at one and the same time.Malicorne was a vile name; he who bore it had too much wit to conceal this truth from himself; but an estate might be purchased; and Malicorne of some place, or even De Malicorne itself, for short, would ring more nobly on the ear.
It was not improbable that a most aristocratic origin might be hunted up by the heralds for this name of Malicorne;might it not come from some estate where a bull with mortal horns had caused some great misfortune, and baptized the soil with the blood it had spilt? Certes, this plan presented itself bristling with difficulties: but the greatest of all was Mademoiselle de Montalais herself.
Capricious, variable, close, giddy, free, prudish, a virgin armed with claws, Erigone stained with grapes, she sometimes overturned, with a single dash of her white fingers, or with a single puff from her laughing lips, the edifice which had exhausted Malicorne's patience for a month.
Love apart, Malicorne was happy; but this love, which he could not help feeling, he had the strength to conceal with care; persuaded that at the lest relaxing of the ties by which he had bound his Protean female, the demon would overthrow him and laugh at him.He humbled his mistress by disdaining her.Burning with desire, when she advanced to tempt him, he had the art to appear ice, persuaded that if he opened his arms, she would run away laughing at him.On her side, Montalais believed she did not love Malicorne;whilst, on the contrary, in reality she did.Malicorne repeated to her so often his protestation of indifference, that she finished sometimes, by believing him; and then she believed she detested Malicorne.If she tried to bring him back by coquetry, Malicorne played the coquette better than she could.But what made Montalais hold to Malicorne in an indissoluble fashion, was that Malicorne always came cram full of fresh news from the court and the city; Malicorne always brought to Blois a fashion, a secret, or a perfume;that Malicorne never asked for a meeting, but, on the contrary, required to be supplicated to receive the favors he burned to obtain.On her side Montalais was no miser with stories.By her means Malicorne learnt all that passed at Blois, in the family of the dowager Madame; and he related to Manicamp tales that made him ready to die with laughing, which the latter, out of idleness, took ready-made to M.de Guiche, who carried them to Monsieur.
Such, in two words, was the woof of petty interests and petty conspiracies which united Blois with Orleans and Orleans with Paris; and which was about to bring into the last named city, where she was to produce so great a revolution, the poor little La Valliere, who was far from suspecting, as she returned joyfully, leaning on the arm of her mother, for what a strange future she was reserved.As to the good man, Malicorne -- we speak of the syndic of Orleans -- he did not see more clearly into the present than others did into the future; and had no suspicion as he walked, every day, between three and five o'clock, after his dinner, upon the Place Sainte-Catherine, in his gray coat, cut after the fashion of Louis XIII.and his cloth shoes with great knots of ribbon, that it was he who was paying for all those bursts of laughter, all those stolen kisses, all those whisperings, all those little keepsakes, and all those bubble projects which formed a chain of forty-five leagues in length, from the palais of Blois to the Palais-Royal.
