It was late evening on the twenty-ninth of November when I rode into
Paris through the Orleans gate. The wind was in the north-east, and a
great cloud of vapour hung in the eye of an angry sunset. The air seemed
to be heavy with smoke, the kennels reeked, my gorge rose at the city’s
smell; and with all my heart I envied the man who had gone out of it by
the same gate nearly two months before, with his face to the south and
the prospect of riding day after day and league after league across
heath and moor and pasture. At least he had had some weeks of life
before him, and freedom and the open air, and hope and uncertainty;
while I came back under doom, and in the pall of smoke that hung over
the huddle of innumerable roofs saw a gloomy shadowing of my own fate.
For make no mistake. A man in middle life does not strip himself of
the worldly habit with which experience has clothed him, does not run
counter to all the hard saws and instances by which he has governed his
course so long, without shiverings and doubts and horrible misgivings,
and struggles of heart. At least a dozen times between the Loire and
Paris I asked myself what honour was, and what good it could do me when
I lay rotting and forgotten; if I were not a fool following a Jack o’
Lanthorn; and whether, of all the men in the world, the relentless man
to whom I was returning would not be the first to gibe at my folly?
However, shame kept me straight; shame and the memory of Mademoiselle’s
looks and words. I dared not be false to her again; I could not, after
speaking so loftily, fall so low, And therefore--though not without many
a secret struggle and quaking--I came, on the last evening but one of
November, to the Orleans gate, and rode slowly and sadly through the
streets by the Luxembourg on my way to the Pont au Change.
The struggle had sapped my last strength, however; and with the first
whiff of the gutters, the first rush of barefooted gamins under my
horse’s hoofs, the first babel of street cries--the first breath, in a
word, of Paris--there came a new temptation; to go for one last night to
Zaton’s, to see the tables again and the faces of surprise, to be for an
hour or two the old Berault. That would be no breach of honour, for in
any case I could not reach the Cardinal before to-morrow. And it could
do no harm. It could make no change in anything. It would not have been
a thing worth struggling about, indeed; only--only I had in my inmost
heart a suspicion that the stoutest resolutions might lose their force
in that atmosphere; and that there even such a talisman as the memory of
a woman’s looks and words might lose its virtue.
Still, I think that I should have succumbed in the end if I had not
received at the corner of the Luxembourg a shock which sobered me
effectually. As I passed the gates, a coach, followed by two outriders,
swept out of the Palace courtyard; it was going at a great pace, and
I reined my jaded horse on one side to give it room. By chance as it
whirled by me, one of the leather curtains flapped back, and I saw for a
second by the waning light--the nearer wheels were no more than two feet
from my boot--a face inside.
A face and no more, and that only for a second. But it froze me. It was
Richelieu’s, the Cardinal’s; but not as I had been wont to see it--keen,
cold, acute, with intellect and indomitable will in every feature. This
face was contorted with the rage of impatience, was grim with the fever
of haste, and the fear of death. The eyes burned under the pale brow,
the moustache bristled, the teeth showed through the beard; I could
fancy the man crying ‘Faster! Faster!’ and gnawing his nails in the
impotence of passion; and I shrank back as if I had been struck. The
next moment the outriders splashed me, the coach was a hundred paces
ahead, and I was left chilled and wondering, foreseeing the worst, and
no longer in any mood for Zaton’s.
Such a revelation of such a man was enough to appal me, for a moment
conscience cried out that he must have heard that Cocheforet had escaped
him, and through me. But I dismissed the idea as soon as formed. In the
vast meshes of the Cardinal’s schemes Cocheforet could be only a small
fish; and to account for the face in the coach I needed a cataclysm, a
catastrophe, a misfortune as far above ordinary mishaps as this man’s
intellect rose above the common run of minds.
It was almost dark when I crossed the bridges, and crept despondently to
the Rue Savonnerie. After stabling my horse I took my bag and holsters,
and climbing the stairs to my old landlord’s--I remember that the place
had grown, as it seemed to me, strangely mean and small and ill-smelling
in my absence--I knocked at the door. It was promptly opened by the
little tailor himself, who threw up his arms and opened his eyes at
sight of me.
‘By Saint Genevieve!’ he said, ‘if it is not M. de Berault?’
‘It is,’ I said. It touched me a little, after my lonely journey,
to find him so glad to see me; though I had never done him a greater
benefit than sometimes to unbend with him and borrow his money. ‘You
look surprised, little man!’ I continued, as he made way for me to
enter. ‘I’ll be sworn that you have been pawning my goods and letting
my room, you knave!’ ‘Never, your Excellency!’ he answered. ‘On the
contrary, I have been expecting you.’
‘How?’ I said. ‘To-day?’
‘To-day or to-morrow,’ he answered, following me in and closing the
door. ‘The first thing I said when I heard the news this morning
was--now we shall have M. de Berault back again. Your Excellency will
pardon the children,’ he continued, bobbing round me, as I took the old
seat on the three-legged stool before the hearth. ‘The night is cold and
there is no fire in your room.’
While he ran to and fro with my cloak and bags, little Gil, to whom
I had stood at St Sulpice’s, borrowing ten crowns the same day, I
remember, came shyly to play with my sword hilt.
‘So you expected me back when you heard the news, Frison, did you?’ I
said, taking the lad on my knee.
‘To be sure, your Excellency,’ he answered, peeping into the black pot
before he lifted it to the hook.
‘Very good. Then now let us hear what the news is,’ I said drily.
‘Of the Cardinal, M. de Berault.’
‘Ah! And what?’ He looked at me, holding the heavy pot suspended in his
hands.
‘You have not heard?’ he exclaimed in astonishment.
‘Not a tittle. Tell it me, my good fellow.’
‘You have not heard that his Eminence is disgraced?’
I stared at him. ‘Not a word,’ I said.
He set down the pot.
‘Then your Excellency must have made a very long journey indeed,’ he
said with conviction. ‘For it has been in the air a week or more, and I
thought that it had brought you back. A week? A month, I dare say. They
whisper that it is the old Queen’s doing. At any rate, it is certain
that they have cancelled his commissions and displaced his officers.
There are rumours of immediate peace with Spain. Everywhere his enemies
are lifting up their heads; and I hear that he has relays of horses set
all the way to the coast that he may fly at any moment. For what I know
he may be gone already.’
‘But, man--’ I said, surprised out of my composure. ‘The King! You
forget the King. Let the Cardinal once pipe to him and he will dance.
And they will dance too!’ I added grimly.
‘Yes,’ Frison answered eagerly. ‘True, your Excellency, but the King
will not see him. Three times to-day, as I am told, the Cardinal
has driven to the Luxembourg and stood like any common man in the
ante-chamber, so that I hear it was pitiful to see him. But his Majesty
would not admit him. And when he went away the last time I am told that
his face was like death! Well, he was a great man, and we may be worse
ruled, M. de Berault, saving your presence. If the nobles did not like
him, he was good to the traders and the bourgeoisie, and equal to all.’
‘Silence, man! Silence, and let me think,’ I said, much excited. And
while he bustled to and fro, getting my supper, and the firelight
played about the snug, sorry little room, and the child toyed with his
plaything, I fell to digesting this great news, and pondering how I
stood now and what I ought to do. At first sight, I know, it seemed to
me that I had nothing to do but to sit still. In a few hours the man
who had taken my bond would be powerless, and I should be free; in a few
hours I might smile at him. To all appearance the dice had fallen well
for me. I had done a great thing, run a great risk, won a woman’s love;
and, after all, I was not to pay the penalty.
But a word which fell from Frison as he fluttered round me, pouring out
the broth and cutting the bread, dropped into my mind and spoiled my
satisfaction.
‘Yes, your Excellency,’ he said, confirming something he had stated
before and which I had missed, ‘and I am told that the last time he came
into the gallery there was not a man of all the scores who had been at
his levee last Monday would speak to him. They fell off like
rats--just like rats--until he was left standing alone. And I have
seen him!’--Frison lifted up his eyes and his hands and drew in his
breath--‘Ah! I have seen the King look shabby beside him! And his eye! I
would not like to meet it now.’
‘Pish!’ I growled. ‘Someone has fooled you. Men are wiser than that.’
‘So? Well, your Excellency understands,’ he answered meekly. ‘But--there
are no cats on a cold hearth.’
I told him again that he was a fool. But for all that, and my reasoning,
I felt uncomfortable. This was a great man, if ever a great man lived,
and they were all leaving him; and I--well, I had no cause to love him.
But I had taken his money, I had accepted his commission, and I
had betrayed him. These three things being so, if he fell before I
could--with the best will in the world--set myself right with him, so
much the better for me. That was my gain--the fortune of war, the turn
of the dice. But if I lay hid, and took time for my ally, and being here
while he still stood, though tottering, waited until he fell, what of my
honour then? What of the grand words I had said to Mademoiselle at Agen?
I should be like the recreant in the old romance, who, lying in the
ditch while the battle raged, came out afterwards and boasted of his
courage.
And yet the flesh was weak. A day, twenty-four hours, two days, might
make the difference between life and death, love and death; and I
wavered. But at last I settled what I would do. At noon the next day,
the time at which I should have presented myself if I had not heard this
news, at that time I would still present myself. Not earlier; I owed
myself the chance. Not later; that was due to him.
Having so settled it, I thought to rest in peace. But with the first
light I was awake, and it was all I could do to keep myself quiet until
I heard Frison stirring. I called to him then to know if there was any
news, and lay waiting and listening while he went down to the street to
learn. It seemed an endless time before he came back; an age, when he
came back, before he spoke.
‘Well, he has not set off?’ I asked at last, unable to control my
eagerness.
Of course he had not; and at nine o’clock I sent Frison out again; and
at ten and eleven--always with the same result. I was like a man waiting
and looking and, above all, listening for a reprieve; and as sick as
any craven. But when he came back, at eleven, I gave up hope and dressed
myself carefully. I suppose I had an odd look then, however, for Frison
stopped me at the door, and asked me, with evident alarm, where I was
going.
I put the little man aside gently.
‘To the tables,’ I said, ‘to make a big throw, my friend.’
It was a fine morning, sunny, keen, pleasant, when I went out into the
street; but I scarcely noticed it. All my thoughts were where I was
going, so that it seemed but a step from my threshold to the Hotel
Richelieu; I was no sooner gone from the one than I found myself at the
other. Now, as on a memorable evening when I had crossed the street in
a drizzling rain, and looked that way with foreboding, there were two or
three guards, in the Cardinal’s livery, loitering in front of the great
gates. Coming nearer, I found the opposite pavement under the Louvre
thronged with people, not moving about their business, but standing all
silent, all looking across furtively, all with the air of persons who
wished to be thought passing by. Their silence and their keen looks had
in some way an air of menace. Looking back after I had turned in towards
the gates, I found them devouring me with their eyes.
And certainly they had little else to look at. In the courtyard, where,
some mornings, when the Court was in Paris, I had seen a score of
coaches waiting and thrice as many servants, were now emptiness and
sunshine and stillness. The officer on guard, twirling his moustachios,
looked at me in wonder as I passed him; the lackeys lounging in the
portico, and all too much taken up with whispering to make a pretence of
being of service, grinned at my appearance. But that which happened when
I had mounted the stairs and came to the door of the ante-chamber outdid
all. The man on guard would have opened the door, but when I went to
enter, a major-domo who was standing by, muttering with two or three of
his kind, hastened forward and stopped me.
‘Your business, Monsieur, if you please?’ he said inquisitively; while I
wondered why he and the others looked at me so strangely.
‘I am M. de Berault,’ I answered sharply. ‘I have the entree.’
He bowed politely enough.
‘Yes, M. de Berault, I have the honour to know your face,’ he said.
‘But--pardon me. Have you business with his Eminence?’
‘I have the common business,’ I answered sharply. ‘By which many of us
live, sirrah! To wait on him.’
‘But--by appointment, Monsieur?’
‘No,’ I said, astonished. ‘It is the usual hour. For the matter of that,
however, I have business with him.’
The man still looked at me for a moment in seeming embarrassment. Then
he stood aside and signed to the door-keeper to open the door. I passed
in, uncovering; with an assured face and steadfast mien, ready to meet
all eyes. In a moment, on the threshold, the mystery was explained.
The room was empty.