Paris lay quiet enough between the midnight and the dawn. All the noise
and brilliance and turbulence, all the gayety and folly and fancy of the
royal ball had died away and left the Palais Royal and the capital to
peace. Little waves of frivolity had drifted this way and that from the
ebbing sea to the haven of this great house and that great house, where
certain of those that had made merry in the king's gardens now made
merrier still at a supper as of the gods. The Palace of Gonzague was one
of those great houses. The hall where the Three Louis gazed at one
another--one so brave, one so comely, one so royal--was indeed a
brilliant solitude where the lights of many candles illuminated only the
painted canvases throned over emptiness. But from behind the great gilded
doors came the sound of many voices, men's voices and women's voices,
full of mirth and the clatter of glasses. His Highness Prince Louis de
Gonzague was entertaining at supper a chosen company of friends--flowers
from the king's garland carefully culled. There were the brilliant,
insolent youths, who formed the party of Gonzague; there were the light,
bright, desirable women whom the party of Gonzague especially favored
among the many of their kind in Paris. Nocé was there, and Oriol and
Taranne and Navailles and the others, and the dainty, daring, impudent
Cidalise and her sisters of the opera, and Oriol's flame, who made game
of him--all very pretty, all very greedy, as greedy of food and wine as
they were greedy of gold and kisses, and all very merry. One face was
wanting from the habitual familiars of Gonzague. The little, impertinent
Marquis de Chavernay was not present. Gonzague had not thought fit to
include him in the chosen of that night. Chavernay was getting to be too
critical of his kinsman's conduct. Chavernay was not as sympathetic with
his kinsman's ambitions and wishes as his kinsman would have had him be.
At the head of the table sat the illustrious host, beaming with an air of
joyousness that astonished even his friends. It was as though the sun
that had shone for so long upon all their lives, and in whose light and
heat they had prospered, had suddenly taken upon himself a braver
radiance, a fiercer effulgence, in the glow of which they all, men and
women alike, seemed to feel their personal fortunes patently flourishing.
No one knew why Louis de Gonzague was so gladsome that night; no one, of
course, ventured to ask the reason of his gayety. It was enough for
those, his satellites, who prospered by his favor and who battened on his
bounty that the prince, who was their leader, chose on this occasion to
show a spirit of careless mirth that made the thought of serving him, and
of gaining by that service, more than ever attractive.
Outside, in the deserted hall, the Three Louis stared at one another,
heedless of the laughter behind the gilded doors, indifferent to the
hilarity, regardless of the license characteristic of a supper-party in
such a house at such an hour. For long enough the Three Louis kept one
another company, while the great wax candles dwindled slowly, and the
noise and laughter beyond seemed interminable. Then the door of the
antechamber opened, and the hunchback entered the hall and paused for a
moment, glancing at each of the Three Louis, with a look of love for one,
a look of hate for the other, and a look of homage for the third. At the
hunchback's heels came Cocardasse and Passepoil, waiting on events. The
hunchback stood for a moment listening to the noise and jollity beyond
the doors. Then he turned to his followers:
"My enemy makes merry to-night. I think I shall take the edge off his
merriment by-and-by. But the trick has its risks, and we hazard our
lives. Would you like to leave the game? I can play it alone."
Cocardasse answered with his favorite salute: "I am with you in this if
it ends in the gallows."