Considering our adventures together, I felt justified in addressing him, so I said, as soon as I got close enough:
“Monsieur, I hope you find yourself well?”
“Perfectly,” he replied courteously. “And you, Monsieur?”
“The same,” I replied. “I am glad to hear of it. I could not have made so large a hole in you as I thought, the night before last.”
He looked at me, puzzled for a moment; then his countenance cleared, and he said, laughing:
“It is the common mistake. You take me for my brother, Gaston Cheverny, who now lies at his lodging ill—his complaint probably small-pox or measles—” he winked as he said this. “I am Monsieur Regnard Cheverny, at your service—the elder brother, by three years, of Gaston Cheverny.”
I saw, then, on closer examination, that he was indeed the elder, and his seniority was very plain. But in feature, in complexion, in gait, in voice, he was more like his brother than would seem possible. He then went on, affably, to tell of his brother’s continued improvement. We talked a while together. Regnard Cheverny, like his brother, was no man of milk and water, and once seen, was likely to be remembered. But I soon perceived that their souls were as unlike as their bodies were like. It is true, I had seen Gaston Cheverny only once, but the circumstances of that meeting were not to be forgotten. I am not given to sudden loves, 56 but I had loved Gaston Cheverny at first sight. I loved him for his foolhardiness, his presumption, in fighting me; I loved him because he loved fighting; I loved him because he could laugh in the face of death—in short, it was one of those strange kinships of the soul which make one man feel of another, the first time he sees him—“We are brothers.” And in the same way, I misliked Regnard Cheverny. He was a man strong enough to inspire love or hate. I have myself often heard that writing fellow, the Duc de St. Simon, say that love and hatred spring from the same root, and I believe it.
I also saw that Regnard Cheverny was a man of parts, and so regarded. I found out by the accident of conversation, that he had a head for affairs—a thing rare in his class. It was inherited from some of his Scotch ancestors, no doubt—for the Cheverny family had intermarried with the Scotch Jacobites, and had a large strain of Scotch blood in them. As Jacques Haret had told me, Regnard Cheverny had, during the preceding year, become possessed of the last remnant of Jacques Haret’s fortune, in Castle Haret, in Brabant, which had been sold for a song under the accumulated debts of many generations of Harets. I looked with interest at a young man, who, at twenty-three years of age, had so well feathered his nest; for his original patrimony, I inferred at the time, and found afterward to be true, was small. He was handsomer than his brother, being more matured, and there were a thousand subtile differences between them; but it all came down to this—Gaston Cheverny was to be loved—Regnard Cheverny was not.
57
Presently, supper was announced. It was there, around the table, that wit sparkled. Mademoiselle Lecouvreur sat at the head, with Count Saxe on one hand and Monsieur Voltaire on the other. She loved my master the best of any person in the world—but she knew that Monsieur Voltaire loved her the best of any one in the world—and he was very capable of love.
Monsieur Voltaire, as everybody knew, was to be sent packing to England, but with his usual adroitness, he made out that England was the country of all others he wished to see; that my Lord Bolingbroke—Harry St. John, as Monsieur Voltaire called him—was his dearest friend; and as for Sir Isaac Newton, one would have thought that he and Voltaire had exchanged nightcaps often. The valor of the English nation Monsieur Voltaire could not extol enough. My master listened to this with a grin, and then remarked that the English were in truth a valiant nation, but that the only Englishman he had ever met in hand to hand encounter was a scavenger whom he had no trouble in pitching headforemost out of his own cart. At this, Monsieur Voltaire sighed and said impudently: “Perhaps Count Saxe would favor the company with his story of bending horseshoes with his hands and twisting a farrier’s nail into a practicable corkscrew,” as if Count Saxe were always telling those things! Then he took another turn—this mischievous Voltaire—and paid Count Saxe most elaborate compliments on his prospects of becoming Duke of Courland.
“It is a great, a splendid destiny,” said he. “Fighting every day and hour—but that’s to your taste. An unruly people—but you were born to reign. A climate, 58 snow all the winter, rain all the other seasons—but you are robust and can stand it. And a duchess, Anna Iwanowna, with all the graces of a Calmuck Venus, waiting to become your duchess! But you ever adored the ladies, and are the very man to please a Calmuck princess!”
“Monsieur, you are most kind. Thank you for your congratulations,” replied Count Saxe, gravely. “If the Calmuck princess fancies me it will only be because she has not seen you. Men of letters are highly esteemed in Courland—where they are not much known.”
Monsieur Voltaire took snuff meditatively—and I trembled for my master.
“When you are Duke of Courland,” said this tigerish monkey of a Voltaire, “Peggy Kirkpatrick says, you will be ‘cousin’ to the Kings of France and Spain.” Madame Riano had bawled Count Saxe’s affairs and Courland all over Paris. “You will be ‘most Illustrious’ to the Emperor, and ‘most Illustrious and most Mighty’ to the King of Poland.”
The villain stopped and took snuff again. I felt my choler rising, and would have given my sword to have had my hand in his collar at that moment; he had already been caned twice, and ought to have been bastinadoed. Actually, persons were beginning to smile at Count Saxe, who turned red and white both, as Voltaire kept on:
“The Duke of Courland has the right of coining money, which the King of Poland has not. The revenue is three hundred thousand crowns, and the army eighteen thousand men.”
How the devil the fellow knew this, I can not tell.
59
“He also has the right of raising taxes with the consent of the Diet—and if the Diet is handsomely treated, taxes can be raised as high as the moon. And more.”
Here he paused, and looked about him solemnly. Everybody was on the broad grin, except Count Saxe, Mademoiselle Lecouvreur and myself. I had almost gnawed my under lip off.
“The Duke of Courland is also pope. He is summus episcopus—which is Pope of Courland.”
At this—will it be believed?—there was, in spite of Count Saxe’s presence there, a shout of laughter. When it subsided a little, I, who had not laughed at all, had something to say.
“Monsieur Voltaire,” said I, “I have good news, great news for you. This day, in the garden of the Tuileries, I saw two persons—nay, two personages—that, it is well known, you have often expressed a strong desire to see. Both of them were inquiring about you.”
Monsieur Voltaire pricked up his ears; it was well-known that he loved the society of the great. As for myself, the company listened to me, because they had never known me to open my mouth before, at supper, except to put something in it.
“Ah,” said Monsieur Voltaire, putting his snuff-box in his pocket, and speaking debonairly. “It was probably Cardinal Fleury—and the Duc de Bourbon. I have reason to know they would like to make peace with me; but it must be peace on my terms, not theirs!”
“No, Monsieur,” I replied. “They were the Duc de Rohan and Monsieur Beauregard!”
Now, these were the two men who had each caused Voltaire a caning, and whom he had been burning to 60 meet for revenge. When I spoke their names there was a pause—Monsieur Voltaire’s eyes lighted up like two volcanoes. He turned on me a look that would have split a barrel, but did not make me wink an eyelash. Then there was a shout, a brawl of laughter, that rang to the ceiling and made the girandoles dance. I think what made the company laugh so was the notion that I, Babache, captain of Uhlans, should