The Short Reign of Pippin IV Read online

  “Holy mackerel!” said Tod. “Wait till my old man hears this-”

  As though in celebration of the king’s return, the summer slipped benignly over France—warm, but not hot; cool, but not cold.

  The rains waited until the flowers of the vines exchanged their pollen and set their clusters densely, and then gentle moisture stirred the growth. The earth gave sugar and the warm air breed. Before a single grape ripened, it was felt that, barring some ugly trick by nature, this would be a vintage year, the kind remembered from the time when an old man was young.

  And the wheat headed full and yellow. The butter took an unearthly sweetness from the vintage grass. The truffles crowded one another under the ground. The geese happily stuffed themselves until their livers nearly burst. The farmers complained, as their duty demanded, but even their complaints had a cheerful tone.

  From overseas the tourists boiled in and every one of them was rich and appreciative so that the porters were seen to smile whether you believe it or not. Taxi drivers scowled in a good-humored way, and one or two were heard to say that perhaps ruin would not come this year, an admission they will not care to have repeated.

  And what of the political groups now firmly rooted in the Privy Council? Even they had an era of good feeling. Christian Christians saw the churches full. Christian Atheists saw them empty.

  The Socialists went happily about writing their own constitution for France.

  The Communists were very busy explaining to one another a shift in the party line which seemed to place leadership in the hands of the people, a subtlety later to be explained and exploited. Besides this, the collective leadership in the Kremlin not only had congratulated the French Crown but had offered a tremendous loan.

  Alexis Kroupoff, writing in Pravda, proved beyond question that Lenin had foreseen this move on the part of the French and had approved of it as a step in the direction of eventual socialization. This explanation put the French Communists under an obligation not only to tolerate but actually to support the monarchy.

  The Non-Tax-Payers’ League was lulled to a state of bliss, since American and Russian loans made it unnecessary to collect any taxes at all. A few pessimists argued that there would come a day of reckoning, but these were laughed to scorn as prophets of gloom and pilloried by caricatures in nearly all the French press.

  The French Rotary Club grew to such proportions that it achieved the strength and influence of a party itself.

  The landlords prepared their plan for government subsidy in addition to a rise in rent ceilings.

  Right and Left Centrists were so confident of the future that they freely suggested a rise in prices together with a lowering of wages, and no riots ensued, which proved to most people that the Communists had indeed been defanged.

  To such a stable government there was no end to the loans America was happy to advance. The outpouring of American money had the effect of strengthening the Royalist parties of Portugal, Spain, and Italy.

  England looked dourly on.

  At Versailles the nobility happily quarreled over an honors list of four thousand names while a secret committee went forward with plans for restoring the land of France to its ancient and obviously its proper owners.

  As Marie was one of the first to point out, it was the king this and the king that. . . No one will ever know what the queen went through. Being a queen takes some doing, but you are never going to make a man understand this. Marie had ladies in waiting, certainly, but just ask a lady in waiting to do something and see where you get. And it wasn’t as though there were nearly enough servants and what there were were public servants who would argue for an hour rather than turn a dust cloth and then complain to the privy councilor who had procured the appointment.

  Consider, for a moment, that gigantic old dustbox Versailles. How could any human being keep it clean? The halls and staircases and chandeliers and corners and wainscoting seemed to draw dust. There had never been any plumbing worth mentioning inside the place, although there were millions of pipes to the fountains and the fish ponds outside.

  The kitchens were miles away from the apartments, and just try to get a modem servant to carry a covered tray from the kitchens to the royal apartments. The king could not eat his meals in the state dining rooms. If he did he would have two hundred dinner guests, and the royal family were just managing to scrape by as it was. In dividing the royal monies nobody gave a thought to the queen. She ran from morning until night, and still the housekeeping kept ahead of her. The extravagance was enough to drive a good Frenchwoman insane.

  Besides all this, there were the nobles in residence. Their bowings and scrapings and grand manners disgusted Marie. They were always deferring to her opinion and then not listening, particularly when she asked them—asked them nicely, mind you—please to turn out the lights when they left a room, please to pick up their dirty clothes, please to clean the bathtub after themselves. But it was worse than that. They ignored her requests that they stop breaking up the furniture to burn in the fireplaces, stop emptying their chamber pots in the garden. It was impossible for Marie to figure to herself how such people could live with themselves.

  And would the king listen? King indeed! He had his head in the clouds even more than he had had when he played at being an astronomer.

  Clotilde was no help to her. Clotilde was in love, not in love like a well-brought-up French girl, but in slob-love like an American student at the Sorbonne. And Clotilde had got so grand or so forgetful that she no longer made her bed or even washed out her underthings.

  Worst of all, Marie had no one to talk to, to complain to, to gossip with.

  There is no doubt that every woman needs another woman now and then as an escape valve for the pressures of being a woman. For her the man’s releases are not available, the killing of small or large animals, vicarious murder from a seat at the prize ring. Flight into the hidden kingdom of the abstract is denied her. The Church and the confessor can let out some of the tensions, but even that is sometimes not enough.

  Marie needed the sanctuary of another woman. Her good sense revolted against the ladies in waiting and the intolerable corps of nobles. Being queen, she was fearful of old friends of her Marigny days, because they could not fail to use their fancied influence in the interest of their husbands.

  Queen Marie, casting in her mind, thought of her old friend and schoolmate Suzanne Lescault.

  Sister Hyacinthe was perfect as a companion to the queen. Her order was able to change a rule and to uncloister the nun upon recognition of certain advantages which might accrue to itself as well as the natural satisfaction of knowing that the dear queen was in good hands. Sister Hyacinthe was removed to Versailles and encelled in a lovely little room overlooking box hedges and a carp pool—a few steps, indeed, from the royal apartments.

  It may never be known exactly how much Sister Hyacinthe contributed to the peace and security of France. For example:

  The queen closed the door firmly, put her fists on her hips, and breathed so tightly that her nostrils whitened. “Suzanne, I’m not going to put up with that dirty Duchess of P—another minute—the insulting, insufferable slut. Do you know what she said to me?”

  “Gently, Marie.” said Sister Hyacinthe. “Gently, my dear.”

  “What do you mean gently? I don’t have to suffer—”

  “Of course not, dear. Hand me a cigarette, will you?”

  “What am I going to do?” the queen cried.

  Sister Hyacinthe slipped a hairpin around the cigarette to keep stain from her fingers, and she blew the smoke from lips pursed to whistle. “Ask the duchess if she ever hears from Gogi!”

  “Who?”

  “Gogi,” said Sister Hyacinthe. “He was a high-wire man, very handsome, but nervous. So many artists are.”

  “Ha!” said Marie, “I understand. I’ll do it! Then we’ll see what she does with her lifted face.”

  “You mean those scars, dear? No. Her face was not lifted. It was,
you might say, dropped. Gogi was very nervous.”

  Marie charged for the door, her eyes shining. Under her breath, as she searched the long painted halls, she muttered, “My dear Duchess—have you heard from Gogi lately?”

  Or again:

  “Suzanne, the king is being a bore about this mistress business. The Privy Council have appealed to me. Do you think you could talk to the king about it?”

  “I have just the mistress for him,” said Sister Hyacinthe. “Grand-niece of our Superior—quiet, well bred, a little stocky, but, Marie, she does beautiful needlework. She could be valuable to you.”

  “He won’t consider her. He won’t even discuss it.”

  “He won’t have to see her,” said Sister Hyacinthe. “In fact, it might be better if he didn’t.”

  Or again:

  “I don’t know what I'm going to do with Clotilde. She’s sloppy and listless. She won’t pick up her clothes. She’s selfish and inattentive.”

  “We have this problem in the order sometimes, dear, particularly with young girls who confuse other impulses with the religious.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “Walk calmly up to her and punch her in the nose.”

  “What good will that do?”

  “It will get her attention,” said Sister Hyacinthe.

  The queen never regretted calling in her old friend. And in the palace the wayward nobility began to be nervously aware of a force, of an iron influence which could be neither ignored nor sneered out of existence.

  For her birthday, Marie presented Sister Hyacinthe with a daily foot massage by the best man in Paris. She ordered a tall screen with two holes near the bottom, through which Suzanne’s feet and ankles could protrude.

  “I don’t know what I would do without her,” said the queen.

  “What?” the king asked.

  Pippin was in a state of shock for a long time. He said to himself in wonder and in fear, “I am the king and I don’t even know what a king is.” He read the stories of his ancestors. “But they wanted to be kings,” lie told himself. “At least most of them did. And some of them wanted to be more. There I have it. If I could only find some sense of mission, of divinity of purpose.”

  He visited his uncle again. “Am I right in thinking that you would be glad if you were not related to me?” he asked.

  Uncle Charlie said, “You take it too hard.”

  “That’s easy to say.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry I said it. I am your loyal subject.”

  “Well, suppose there were a revolt?”

  “Do you want truth or loyalty?”

  “I don’t know—both, I guess.”

  Uncle Charlie said, “I will not hide from you that my position as your uncle has increased my business. I am doing very well, particularly with the tourists.”

  “Then your loyalty is tied to profit. Would you be disloyal if you suffered a loss?”

  Uncle Charlie went behind a screen and brought out a bottle of cognac. “With water?” he asked.

  “How good is the cognac?”

  “I suggest water. . . . Now. You want to turn over stones and find the insects underneath. One always hopes for virtue—right up to the point of exercising it. I hope I would stick with you to the death. But I also hope that I would have the judgment to join the opposition a few moments before it is generally apparent that it will succeed.”

  “You are very honest, my uncle.”

  “Can you tell me what is really troubling you?”

  Pippin sipped his fine ál'eau. He said uncertainly, “The function of a king is to rule. To rule, one must have power. To have power one must take power . . .”

  “Go on, child.”

  “The men who forced the crown on me were not intent on giving anything away.”

  “Ah! You learn, I see. You are becoming what is called cynical by those who fear reality. And you feel that you are a wheel unturning, a plant without a flower.”

  “Something like that. A king without power is a contradiction in terms, and a king with power is an abomination.”

  “Excuse me,” said Uncle Charlie. “Mice are moving on the cheese.” He went to the front of his shop. “Yes?” Pippin heard him say. “It is lovely. If I told you who I suspect painted it—No. I must say I do not know. Notice the brushwork here, see how the composition soars—and the subject, the costume—Oh! That? A nothing. Came in with a pile of trash from the cellar of a chateau. I haven’t inspected it. I suppose you could buy it, but would it be wise? I would have to ask two hundred thousand francs because it would cost me that to have it cleaned and inspected. Consider again! Here, for example, is a Rouault about which there is no doubt . . .” There was a time of soft muttering, and then Uncle Charlie’s voice. “Won’t you let me dust it? I tell you I have not even inspected it.”

  In a few moments he came back, rubbing his hands. “I’m ashamed of you,” said the king.

  Charles Martel went to a pile of dirty unframed canvases in a comer. “I must replace it,” he said. “I do my best to discourage them. Perhaps I would feel worse if I did not know they thought they were cheating me.” He carried the dusty painting to the front. “Ah, come in, Clotilde,” he said. “Your father is here.” He called, “It’s Clotilde and the Egg Prince.”

  The three of them came past the red velvet drapery which hung over the doorway, and their passage left a thin cloud of dust in the air.

  “Good evening, sir,” said Tod. “He’s teaching me the business. We’re going to open galleries in Dallas and Cincinnati and one in Beverly Hills.”

  “Shame on him!” said the king.

  “I try to discourage them but they demand—” Uncle Charlie began.

  “Very clever,” said the king. “But who tricks them into demanding?”

  “I don’t think that’s quite fair, sir,” said Tod. “The first function of business is to create the demand and the second to fulfill it. Think of all the things that wouldn’t be made at all if people hadn’t been told they needed them—medicines and cosmetics and deodorants. Can you say, sir, that the automobile is wasteful and unnecessary—that it keeps people in debt for transportation they don’t need? You can’t say that to people who want automobiles even if they and you know it is true.”

  “The line must be drawn somewhere,” Pippin said. “Has my fine uncle told you why the Mona Lisa was stolen?”

  “Now wait, dear nephew!”

  Pippin cried, “He usually starts it—I can’t mention any names but I have heard—’ Heard indeed!”

  “It never made any sense to me,” Tod said. “The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. Right? And then, after a year, it was returned. Do you mean they returned a fake?”

  “Not at all,” said the king. “The picture in the Louvre is genuine.”

  Clotilde pouted. “Must we talk business?”

  “Wait, Bugsy, I want to hear.”

  “Go on, my uncle,” said the king. “It’s your story. It’s your—“

  “I can’t say I approved of it,” said Charles Martel, “and yet no honest person was injured.”

  Clotilde said, “Oh, tell him and get it over with.”

  “Well, I can’t mention any names but I have heard that during the time the Mona Lisa was—away, eight Mona Lisas were bought by very rich men.”

  “Where?”

  “Well, wherever very rich men were—Brazil, Argentina, Texas, New York, Hollywood . . .”

  “But why was the original returned?”

  “Well you see, once the picture was returned, there was no further search for the—ah—thief.”

  “Ah!” said Tod. “But how about the people who bought the fakes?”

  Uncle Charlie said piously, “When you buy a stolen masterpiece, you are committing a crime. But even though they must hide the treasure, there do seem to be men capable of this. If, after they have bought, they discover the treasure to be a, shall we say, replica, these men are still not likely to discuss it. Ther
e are, I am told, rich men who are willing to be dishonest. I believe I am safe in saying there are none who are willing to admit they are fools.”

  Tod laughed. “So if they had been honest—”

  “Exactly,” said Uncle Charlie.

  “Then why is the king against it?”

  “He is sensitive.”

  Tod turned toward the king.

  Pippin said slowly, “I believe that all men are honest where they are disinterested. I believe that most people are vulnerable where they are interested. I believe that some men are honest in spite of interest. It seems to me reprehensible to search out areas of weakness and to exploit them.”

  “Aren’t you going to have some difficulty being king, sir?” Tod asked.

  “He is already,” Clotilde said bitterly. “He not only wants to be above everything, every human weakness, he wants his family to be too. He wants everybody to be good—and people just aren’t good.”

  Pippin said, “Stop there, miss! I will not have you say that. People are good—just as long as they can be. Everybody wants to be good. That is why I resent it when goodness is made difficult or impossible for them.”

  Uncle Charlie said vindictively, “Before they came in, you were talking about power. You were saying, I believe, that a king without power is emasculate. If that is so, my dear nephew, what do you think of the proposition that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely?”

  The king said, “Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts, perhaps fear of a loss of power.”

  “But does not power create in other men the impulse which must cause fear in the holder of power? Can power exist without the ultimate fear that makes corruption? Can you have one without the other?”

  “Oh, dear!” said Pippin. “I wish I knew.”

  Uncle Charlie bored in. “If you took power, don’t you think the very people who made you king would turn against you?”

  The king threw up his hands, “And you told me to relax! To you these things are only ideas. To me—I eat them and dress in them, breathe them and dream of them. Uncle Charlie, this is no intellectual game to me. It is anguish.”