_ BOOK III. FRANCE
CHAPTER IX. THE NEWS
"Lady Kitty! Lady Kitty! Have you heard the news?"
Thus, breathless, the Countess of Warrington, Lady Catharine's English neighbor in exile, who burst into the drawing-room early in the morning, not waiting for announcement of her presence.
"Nay, not yet, my dear," said Lady Catharine, advancing and embracing her. "What is it, pray? Has the poodle swallowed a bone, or the baby perhaps cut another tooth? And, forsooth, how is the little one?"
Lady Emily Warrington, slender, elegant, well clad, and for the most part languorously calm, was in a state of excitement quite without her customary
aplomb. She sank into a seat, fanning herself with a vigor which threatened ruin to the precious slats of a fan which bore the handiwork of Watteau.
"The streets are full of it," said she. "Have you not heard, really?"
"I must say, not yet. But what is it?"
"Why, the quarrel between the regent and his director-general, Mr. Law."
"No, I have not heard of it." Lady Catharine sought refuge behind her own fan. "But tell me" she continued.
"But that is not all. 'Twas the reason for the quarrel. Paris is all agog. 'Twas about a woman!"
"You mean--there was--a woman?"
"Yes, it all happened last night, at the Palais Royal. The woman is dead--died last night. 'Tis said she fell in a fit at the very table--'twas at a little supper given by the regent--and that when they came to her she was quite dead."
"But Mr. Law--"
"'Twas he that killed her!"
"Good God! What mean you?" cried Lady Catharine, her own face blanching behind her protecting fan. The blood swept back upon her heart, leaving her cold as a statue.
"Why," continued the caller, in her own excitement to tell the news scarce noting what went on before her, "it seems that this mysterious beauty of the regent's, of whom there has been so much talk, proved to be none other than a former mistress of this same Mr. Law, who is reputed to have been somewhat given to that sort of thing, though of late monstrous virtuous, for some cause or other. Mr. Law came suddenly upon her at the table of the regent, arrayed in some kind of savage finery--for 'twas in fashion a mask that evening, as you must know. And what doth my director-general do, so high and mighty? Why, in spite of the regent and in spite of all those present, he upbraids her, taunts her, reviles her, demanding that she fall on her knees before him, as it seems indeed she would have done--as, forsooth, half the dames of Paris would do to-day! Then, all of a sudden, my Lord Director changes, and he craves pardon of the woman and of the regent, and so stalks off and leaves the room! And now then the poor creature walks to the table, would lift a glass of wine, and so--'tis over! 'Twas like a play! Indeed all Paris is like a play nowadays. Of course you know the rest."
A gesture of negative came from the hand that lay in Lady Catharine's lap. The busy gossip went on.
"The regent, be sure, was angry enough at this cheapening of his own wares before all, and perhaps 'tis true he had a fancy for the woman. At any rate, 'tis said that this very morning he quarreled hotly with Mr. Law. The latter gave back words hot as he received, and so they had it violent enough. 'Tis stated on the Quinquempoix that another must take Mr. Law's place. But if Mr. Law goes, what will become of the System? And what would the System be without Mr. Law? And what would Paris be without the System? Why, listen, Lady Catharine! I gained fifty thousand livres yesterday, and my coachman, the rascal, in some manner seems to have done quite as well for himself. I doubt not he will yet build a mansion of his own, and perhaps my husband may drive for him! These be strange days indeed. I only hope they may continue, in spite of what my husband says."
"And what says he?" asked Lady Catharine, her own voice sounding to her unfamiliar and far away.
"Why, that the city is mad, and that this soon must end--this Mississippi bubble, as my Lord Stair calls it at the embassy."
"Yet I have heard all France is prosperous."
"Oh, yes indeed. 'Tis said that but yesterday the kingdom paid four millions of its debt to Bavaria, three millions of its debt to Sweden--yet these are not the most pressing debts of France."
"Meaning--"
"Why, the debts of the regent to his friends--those are the important things. But the other day he gave eighty thousand livres to Madame Chateauthiers, as a little present. He gave two hundred thousand livres to the Abbe Something-or-other, who asked for it, and another thousand livres to that rat Dubois. The thief D'Argenson ever counsels him to give in abundance now that he hath abundance, and the regent is ready with a vengeance with his compliance. Saint Simon, that priggish duke, has had a million given him to repay a debt his father took on for the king a generation ago. To the captain of the guard the regent gives six hundred thousand livres, for carrying the fan of the regent's forgotten wife; to the Prince Courtenay, two hundred thousand, most like because the prince said he had need of it; a pension of two hundred thousand annually to the Marquise de Bellefonte, the second such sum, because perhaps she once made eyes at him; a pension of sixty thousand livres to a three-year-old relative to the Prince de Conti, because Conti cried for it; one hundred thousand livres to Mademoiselle Haidee, because she has a consumption; and as much more to the Duchesse de Falari, because she has not a consumption. Bah! The credit of France might indeed, as my husband says, be called leaking through the slats of fans."
"But, look you!" she went on, "how Mr. Law feathers his own nest. He bought lately, for a half million livres, the house of the Comte de Tesse; and on the same day, as you know, the Hotel Mazarin. There is no limit to his buying of estates. This, so says my husband, is the great proof of his honesty. He puts his money here in France, and does not send it over seas. He seems to have no doubt, and indeed no fear, of anything."
Lady Warrington paused, half for want of breath. Silence fell in the great room. A big and busy fly, deep down in the crystal
cylindre which sheltered a taper on a near-by table, buzzed out a droning protest. The face of Lady Catharine was averted.
"You did not tell me, Lady Emily," said she, with woman's feigned indifference, "what was the name of this poor woman of the other evening."
"Why, so I had forgot--and 'tis said that Mr. Law, after all, comported himself something of the gentleman. No one knows how far back the affair runs, nor how serious it was. And indeed I have seen no one who ever heard of the woman before."
"And the name?"
"'Twas said Mr. Law called her Mary Connynge."
The big fly, deep down in the crystal cage, buzzed on audibly; and to one who heard it, the drone of the lazy wings seemed like the roars of a thousand tempests. _