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Updated: June 3, 2025
Even after the death of M. de Noce, I tried to profit by the intimacy of those familiar conversations in which women are sometimes caught off their guard to sound her, but I could never learn what impertinence the viscount had exhibited towards his aunt.
Ah! you have seen her, Noce!" he said with a mocking smile. "Finally, in spite of all her allurements and beauty, the marchioness was lost sight of amid thoughts of the six thousand crowns which this fool of a husband could not get out of his head, and she went to bed all alone.
Even after the death of M. de Noce, I tried to profit by the intimacy of those familiar conversations in which women are sometimes caught off their guard to sound her, but I could never learn what impertinence the viscount had exhibited towards his aunt.
The Chevalier de Simiane was famous alike for his drinking powers and his gift of graceful verse; De Fargy was a polished wit, and the handsomest man in France, with an unrivalled reputation for gallantry; the Comte de Nocé was the Regent's most intimate friend from boyhood brother-in-law he called him, since they had not only tastes but even mistresses in common.
That impudent fellow Dubois scolded him for squeezing so many louis out of the good Regent. The yellow creature attempted to deny the fact. 'Nay, cried Dubois, 'you cannot contradict me: I see their very ghosts in your face." While my companion was thus amusing herself, Noce, unconscious of her panegyric on his personal attractions, joined us.
Nocé, leaning forward a little, called to the hunchback: "How speeds your suit?" The hunchback paused for a moment in his round to make a motion for silence. "Famously, gentlemen, famously. But you must not disturb my incantations." Navailles touched Nocé on the shoulder. "Let the dog have his day."
His insolence must have been excessive, for since that time Madame de Noce has refused to see her nephew, and up to the present moment never hears him named without a slight movement of her eyebrows. I did not at once guess the end at which the Comte de Noce aimed, in inviting us to go shooting; but I discovered later that he had played a pretty bold game.
Oriol flushed with a sudden wave of intelligence: "Perhaps some plot against his majesty." "Heaven knows," Navailles commented. Æsop interrupted the discussion with a dry laugh, dimly suggestive of the cackle of a jackdaw. "I know, gentlemen." Oriol stared at him. "You know?" Nocé gave vent to an angry laugh. "The hunchback knows."
Æsop, looking at the key with satisfaction, murmured to himself: "The best." As he moved slowly away from the king's tent a little crowd of Gonzague's friends Chavernay, Oriol, Navailles, Nocé, Gironne, Choisy, Albret, and Montaubert all laughing and talking loudly, crossed his path and perceived the hunchback, who seemed to them, naturally enough, a somewhat singular figure in such a scene.
After these again came Gonzague's own little tail of partisans, Navailles and Nocé, Taranne and Oriol, Choisy and Gironne, Albret and Montaubert, with Chavernay fluttering about them like an impudent butterfly, laughing at them, laughing at his august cousin, laughing at the king, laughing at himself laughing at everything.
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