LITMIR.BIZ

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of those who entered the Palais Royal. Against the King and, above all, against the Queen.”

      The Duke, on his last visit to Paris, had not been concerned with the Duc de Chartres’s activities, but he had disliked him on sight. There was something pretentious and unpleasant about him and though he had, there was no doubt about it, a popularity with the people, he was in himself shifty and very untrustworthy, a man whose friendship was, to say the least of it, undesirable.

      Yet the Duc de Chartres had greeted him now, the Duke noted, with a gushing effusion that pretended, at least to those who knew no better, that their acquaintanceship in the past had been close and intimate.

      Sipping his wine, the Duke was all the time conscious of Amé standing a little behind him, discreetly self-effacing and yet to the Duke at any rate difficult to ignore.

      The Duc de Chartres had not, however, given her more than a passing glance and his friends had not even deigned to notice the presence of a page.

      They were all laughing and talking. The ladies, in their full-skirted gowns and glittering with jewels, were as colourful and fragrant as the flowers that filled this room, as they had filled the corridor and the hall. There was no pause in the conversation.

      The Duke set down his glass on the side table with an air of decision.

      “This has been most enjoyable,” he said. “But you must forgive me if I take my leave. I have arranged to be in Paris before evening.”

      There was a sudden pause. It was as if those present were aware of the importance of what had been said. It was too, as if they were all upon a stage and the minor actors hung back, waiting for the leading man.

      The Duc de Chartres laughed.

      “My dear fellow, that is impossible, we have promised ourselves the pleasure of your company for a few days, perhaps a week. For you to go now would spoil everything and all my plans of all the fantasies that I have devised for your entertainment.”

      “It is with sincere regret that I must refuse such kindness,” the Duke began, when with an imperious hand the Duc de Chartres seemed literally to sweep his words away.

      “There can be no arguments, all is arranged. Five or six days, my dear Duke, and then you can continue your journey.”

      There was, the Duke was well aware of it, a threat behind the pleasant persuasive words. For a moment the eyes of the two men met. The Frenchman’s expression was still one of amiability and yet the Duke could sense a sinister determination behind the fulsome smile.

      He knew then what he had suspected from the moment his coach had been intercepted on the road.

      He was a prisoner and for a moment he tried hard to guess the reason.

      Then one of the ladies lifted her glass and said with a coquettish smile,

      “To the English Duke, our gain is, of course, the loss of Paris.”

      It was then that the Duke understood the situation as clearly as if the Duc himself had put it into words. This was yet another step to humiliate the Queen. It was quite obvious that, as one of the premier Noblemen in England, he would, on his arrival in France, call first at the Court of Versailles. Hugo Waltham would have notified the British Ambassador of his intended visit and word would have been carried to Louis and Marie Antoinette and there would, without any doubt, be an invitation to Court awaiting him immediately on his arrival in Paris.

      That he should delay his arrival to be the guest of the Queen’s most bitter enemy was something that could not fail to cause consternation and even dismay at Versailles. The Duke knew that, although outwardly he was going to France in no official capacity but merely as a visitor and a pleasure-seeker, he was yet a representative of his own country and his title made him a person of seniority and entitled to take precedence over all those at the French Court save the immediate Royal family.

      That he should be tricked into the situation in which he now found himself was intolerable to say the least of it. And yet, what could he do? The guards at the door of the Château had not been there unintentionally, the armed escort that had brought his coach from the high road to the Château were all part of the unspoken but very obvious threat that lay beneath the Duc de Chartres’ most insistent hospitality.

      Indeed there was, the Duke now realised, nothing that he could do save acquiesce with as good a grace as possible rather than let those who had ranged themselves against him see both his chagrin and his annoyance.

      “You must let me show you my garden from the balcony,” the Duc was saying. “The roses are better this year than they have been for a very long time and I have made some alterations to the lake, which I consider a masterpiece in landscape design.”

      As he spoke, he led the way onto a balcony leading out from the salon and the Duke followed.

      “I regret most sincerely, my dear old fellow, that your valet is not with you,” the Duc de Chartres went on. “My own man shall attend to you. He is a Genoese. There is no one in the whole length and breadth of France who can tie a cravat as he can and he has invented a special pomade for the hair which, I swear, is nothing more than a stroke of genius.”

      “Your kindness overwhelms me,” the Duke remarked.

      His host appeared to ignore the sarcasm in his voice. They then admired the garden, the ladies simpered coquettishly at the Duke and then, when he was finding the whole falseness of it infinitely wearing, the Duc de Chartres exclaimed,

      “It is nearly time for déjeuner. I am sure, Melyncourt, that you would like to wash.”

      With Amé a silent shadow at his heels the Duke climbed a broad marble staircase to the first floor. The suite into which they were shown appeared to be in a more ancient part of the Château than the rooms they had just left. The Duke knew immediately on entering the bedchamber that it had been chosen because it overlooked the lake and it was impossible therefore to escape that way.

      The footman who had shown them the way, after asking if there was anything they required, bowed and left them alone. And yet, even then, when Amé would have spoken, the Duke held up his fingers to his lips and listened at the door for a moment to be quite certain that the manservant was out of earshot.

      “Speak softly,” he said at length, “and in English.”

      “What does this mean?” Amé asked. “Tell me quickly. Why are we here and who are these people?”

      In answer the Duke sat down in one of the high velvet armchairs that stood on either side of the fireplace.

      “It is very clever,” he said, “and something that I could never have anticipated in a thousand years.”

      “Explain to me, Your Grace,” Amé pleaded.

      “On one thing at any rate I can set your mind at rest,” the Duke said. “This is not because of you.”

      “Then why have we been brought here?” Amé enquired.

      “As an insult to the Queen,” the Duke replied.”

      Amé looked puzzled and the Duke explained the reason why the Duc de Chartres had forced his hospitality upon them.

      “The Duc is the acknowledged enemy of the Queen,” the Duke went on. “There has, I understand, in the last few years been a great change of feeling about her. At one time the populace acclaimed her and she was cheered whenever she went. A little while ago it could honestly have been said that the people of Paris loved her. Now everything has altered. I remember someone who was here last year telling me that when Her Majesty appeared in public she was received in silence and some of the crowds were even hostile and that one man, and one man only, was responsible for this. Philippe, Duc de Chartres.”

      “But why?” Amé asked.

      “Who can understand the mind of such a man?” the Duke replied. “Lampoons, pamphlets and leaflets, which are scurrilous, libellous and at times obscene, are passed from hand to hand and sold

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