THE LAST OF THE VALOIS.
We are at Saint-Cloud. The time, the wars of the League. At the head of
the Leaguers is the Duc de Mayenne, only living brother of the Guises.
Henry III. commands the royal forces. With him is Henry of Navarre.
Since the Queen-mother’s death the King of France has become reconciled
to his brother-in-law. He shows himself almost a hero. They are both
defending the Crown to which Mayenne aspires. Eight months have passed
since the murder of the Balafré. That treacherous deed has done the King
no good; Mayenne lives to avenge his brother’s death, and the Catholic
party is still more alienated from the King since he has called a
heretic into his councils. The royal troops are lying encamped among the
hilly woodlands of the park towards Ville d’Avray and Meudon, then, as
now, pleasant to the eye.
On the 1st August, 1589, Henry sat in the long gallery of the palace
(until lately lined with pictures and gorgeously decorated), playing at
cards with his attendants. He holds himself so upright, that he moves
neither his head nor his feet, and his hands as little as possible. A
hood hangs upon his shoulders; a little cap, with a flower stuck in it,
is placed over one ear; round his neck, suspended by a broad blue
ribbon, is a basket of gold wickerwork, full of little puppies.
Monsieur d’O, Seigneur of Fiesnes and Maillebois, first gentleman of the
bed-chamber, and Governor of Paris, has been joking him about the
predictions of an astrologer, named Osman, who has arrived that evening
at Saint-Cloud in company with some noblemen.
“By our Ladye-mother! let us have him in and hear what he can say,”
cries the King. “These fellows are diverting. I will question him
myself.”
Osman is sent for; but startled at so sudden and unexpected an interview
with the King himself in such a whimsical attire, scarcely knows how to
reply to the gibes his Majesty addressed to him.
“Come, come,” says the King, “let us hear what you can do. They tell me
you draw horoscopes. Let me have a specimen of your skill.”
“Sire,” replies Osman, somewhat recovered from his confusion, “I will
obey you; but, as sure as fate, the heavens this night are unpropitious.
The light of the moon is veiled; there are signs of mourning among the
stars; lamentations and woe are written in the planets; a great
misfortune hangs over you--Beware!”
“By St. Denis!” cries the King, “the fellow is glib enough with his
tongue; but tell me, good heathen, are the stars in mourning for a king
or for an emperor?”
“Sire, they mourn over the approaching extinction of your race.”
“Heaven preserve us!” answers the King, with affected consternation,
caressing his puppies. “But tell me now, if you have any knowledge, what
do the celestial powers think of those accursed rebels, the Leaguers,
and their chief, the Duc de Mayenne? Is that bold traitor in favour
among the stars?”
Osman does not at once reply; but, advancing to the window, throws open
the sash, and silently observes the heavens.
“Sire, I see one star shining brightly in the firmament.”
“Where?” asks the King.
“Just over the Camp of Meudon, where Henry of Navarre lies this night.
But look, your Majesty, at that other star there over the woods. It
blazes for a moment; and now, see--it falls; it has disappeared behind
the palace!”
“By the mother of God,” says the King, reddening either with terror or
passion, “I have had enough of this gibberish. Hark ye, you wandering
Jew! no more of these ugly portents, or, by St. Louis, the guardian of
our race, we will hold you warrant for all that may happen to our
person.”
Osman shrunk back from the window, trembling with fright. He does not
wait for permission to depart, but as the King rises to address some
gentlemen he glides from the gallery.
“If ever I heard a voice hoarse with blood, it is his,” mutters the
astrologer, pointing to the King as he crept away. “By the brightness of
the celestial bodies, there will be evil this night. I will never draw
horoscope more, if to-morrow’s sun finds Henry of Valois alive. There is
blood on him, but he sees it not. His star has fallen, he beheld it; but
he understood not the portent.”
As Osman crosses the circular hall opening from the gallery and leading
to the principal staircase, he meets the Comte d’Auvergne[18] conversing
with a Dominican monk, whose sinister countenance expressed every evil
passion. A crowd of attendants had assembled and are listening to the
conversation.
“Good father,” says M. d’Auvergne, addressing the Dominican, “you must
not, at this late hour, insist on seeing his Majesty; he is engaged.”
“But, indeed, monseigneur, I do insist upon seeing him without a
moment’s delay, and alone. It is on a matter of life and death.” The
monk’s bold words and determined bearing evidently impress M. d’Auvergne
in his favour.
“Are you the bearer of any despatches for his Majesty?” he asks. “Those
might be delivered, although his Majesty has just retired and is at this
moment in his oratory, busy with his devotions.”
As he spoke, D’Auvergne scans him curiously; the monk perceives the
look, draws his cowl closer over his face, and withdraws from the full
glare of the lights on the staircase.
“I am the bearer of letters of the greatest importance,
monseigneur--letters from the President Harlay, now a prisoner of the
League; but I am charged to deliver them in person, and into the hand of
his Majesty alone. Nor is that all; I have a secret communication to
make, which it behoves the King to hear without delay. Good gentlemen,”
and he faces round to the courtiers who are gathered about him, “I pray
you, one of you, go to the King and tell him what I say.”
“Impossible,” replies the Count d’O, who came from the gallery at that
moment, and hears the last few words; “impossible. His Majesty is now
alone; I have just left him. He is fatigued, and desired not to be
disturbed.”
“Good God!” cries the monk, clasping his hands, “if I do not see him
to-night, I shall never see him.”
“And why not, I pray?” asks the Comte d’Auvergne. “Come and sup with my
people to-night; and to-morrow, as early as you please, I will take you
to his Majesty. Follow me.”
“I wash my hands of all the evil this delay will cause,” exclaims the
monk, following him reluctantly. “On your head be it, monseigneur.” They
quitted the hall together.
All this time Osman had stood near watching them. He had not lost a
syllable of the conversation. “Did I not say that there was blood?” he
mutters half aloud; “is it not true? The knowledge of it came to me in a
vision. Now I have read it also in the stars. The blood of the King is
on that monk. His robes are spotted with it. In his hand, while he
spoke, there was a dagger. None else beheld it; but I saw it, and the
point streamed with the King’s life-blood. Woe! woe! woe! Would that I
could
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE BLOIS.]
speak! Would that they would listen! Before many hours, death will be
within these walls. Alas! it is given to me to avert it if they would
but hear me.”
The astrologer slowly follows the steps of the Comte d’Auvergne and the
Dominican, descending the stairs after them. They enter a suite of rooms
on the ground floor of the palace. The monk had now thrown back his cowl
and displayed a face yet young, but seamed and wrinkled with deep lines.
His eyes are dull and bloodshot; his thin hair scarcely shades his
projecting forehead. He stands in the centre of the apartment, silent,
sullen, and preoccupied.
“What is your name?” asks the Count sternly, turning towards him.
“Jacques Clément,” is the short rejoinder.
“You say you are the bearer of letters to the King?”
“Yes,” replies he, “from Monsieur de Brienne and the President Harlay,
now both prisoners in the Bastille. There is my passport; you see it is
signed by Monsieur de Brienne.”
“Show me the President’s letter,” says D’Auvergne; “his writing is as
familiar to me as my own. If you are a spy, you will meet with no mercy
here,” and he measured him from head to foot with eyes full of doubt and
suspicion.
The monk draws forth a parcel of unsealed letters, which the Count reads
and examines.
“It is well,” he says. “These are proofs that you are a messenger from
the King’s friends. But how did you, carrying such dangerous
credentials, contrive to pass the gates of Paris? Answer me that, my
father.”
“My habit protected me,” replies the monk, devoutly crossing himself,
“our Blessed Lady gave me courage and address to escape from those
Philistines. Once past the gates, I came here in company with Monsieur
de la Guesle’s people.”
“You say, then, that you will answer with your head that two gates of
Paris will open to the King if he advances?”
“I swear before God that this is the truth,” replies the monk, again
crossing himself; “and my God is not that false one worshipped by the
Huguenot dogs under Henry of Navarre, but the true God of the Holy
Catholic Church. Let the King trust to his loyal Catholic subjects, and
beware of the heretics that are in his council and amongst his troops.”
And the monk scowls around. His eyes meet those of Osman the astrologer,
which are fixed on him with the intensity of a cat ready to spring.
Jacques Clément trembles. For an instant his courage forsakes him and he
turns pale.
“Well, father,” says D’Auvergne, laughing, “you are true to your
trade--a steady Catholic. We understand; you can smell a heretic a mile
off, I’ll be sworn.”
The monk makes no reply, and to avoid further discussion turns to a
table on which supper is spread, and sitting down, begins to eat.
The Attorney-General de la Guesle having been told of the arrival of a
mysterious monk, enters the room and confirms what he had said of their
meeting outside the gates of Paris.
The Comte d’Auvergne, after scrutinising Jacques Clément for some
minutes, turns aside to Monsieur de la Guesle, and whispers--
“I do not know why, but I have a strange suspicion of that fellow. All
he says seems fair enough and his papers are properly signed; but there
is something about his dark, sinister face and surly answers that alarms
me.”
Osman, seeing them converse apart, advances eagerly from the bottom of
the room, and addresses them in a low voice, “If monseigneur will only
listen to me, he will not admit this monk within a hundred miles of his
Majesty. The stars, Count, are----”
“Confound the stars!” interrupts Monsieur de la Guesle. “Do you take us
for a parcel of fools? Go prate elsewhere.”
The noblemen seat themselves at the upper end of the supper-table. The
Comte d’Auvergne, Monsieur de la Guesle, and other gentlemen are served
by an old valet who, after pouring out the wine all round, stands behind
the chair of his master, the Count. His eyes are fixed on Jacques
Clément, who had drawn forth from the folds of his sleeve a large dagger
with which he cuts up his meat.
“May it please monseigneur,” the valet whispers into the Count’s ear,
“the reverend father knows how to travel in these stormy times. He has
not forgotten to bring a goodly dagger with him; though perhaps the
breviary, being less useful, is forgotten.”
“Not so, brother,” answers the monk who, overhearing his whisper, draws
out a missal from his bosom; “I never travel without the one and the
other--defences for the body and the soul--whichever may most need it.”
But the garrulous old servant, once set talking, is not to be silenced.
He begins a long account, in a low voice, addressed to the Count, of how
the monk, on arriving, had entertained him and his fellows in the
courtyard with a history of the death of Holofernes the tyrant, by the
hands of a Jewish maiden Judith, the saviour of her country.
“A bloody tale, forsooth,” says M. de la Guesle, eying the monk.
“Ay, blood, blood!” mutters Osman who is seated below the salt, next the
Comte d’Auvergne. “See you not, my lord,” he continues, half aloud to
the Count, holding up his hand warningly, “that this monk is a mad
fanatic? Admit him to no speech with the King, I entreat you; he is mad,
monseigneur.”
“Oh,” answers the Count, in low voice, “I will watch over his Majesty.
As the bearer of letters of importance I cannot refuse him an audience,
but I will answer that no mischief comes of the meeting.”
Soon after, supper being ended, the party separates. The monk is
conducted to a bed; and Osman, heaving many heavy sighs, retires to the
room appropriated to him, where he consults the stars, until the dawn of
day obliterates them and ends his labour.
The next day is the 2d of August, and the King, who has been informed of
the arrival of a monk with letters over night, commands his early
attendance in his bed-chamber. The Comte d’Auvergne conducts Jacques
Clément into the presence of Henry, who sits in an arm-chair, only
partially dressed, close to the bed. As the communication is to be
private, the King signs to D’Auvergne, Clermont, and the other
attendants present, to retire to the farther end of the room; then he
stretches out his hand to receive the packet from Jacques Clément, who
in presenting it bows his head, and stands motionless, his arms crossed
on his breast.
As Henry’s attention is absorbed and his eyes are bent upon the page,
Jacques Clément suddenly draws out the dagger he carried concealed in
his sleeve, springs forward, and plunges it up to the hilt in the King’s
abdomen.
“Help!” groans the King, with difficulty plucking out the weapon and
flinging it on the floor. “Help! the wretch has stabbed me. I am
killed--kill him!”
D’Auvergne rushes forward. The pages and gentlemen in attendance, the
guards outside, and Monsieur de la Guesle, who is waiting for an
audience, all burst into the room.
The King is lying back in the arm-chair; a pool of blood stains the
floor from a deep wound; Jacques Clément still stands immovable before
him. Swords flash in the air; some fly to support the dying monarch,
some to raise an alarm over the palace; others, transported with fury,
fall upon the monk, who offers no resistance. He is speedily despatched.
Osman, hearing the uproar, enters. “What!” cries he, “is the King dead?”
“Not quite,” is the reply.
“Who did it?”
“Jacques Clément.”
“Sainte Marie!” groans the astrologer, wringing his hands, “if you had
listened to me this would never have happened. Did I not say there was
blood on that monk? Did I not say that the star of the House of Valois
had fallen? Alas! alas! If you had but listened!”
At this moment M. d’O and the Comte d’Auvergne leave the King’s room to
send for a surgeon.
“Why did you kill the assassin? We might have tortured him, and
discovered his accomplices,” says M. d’O, while they await the messenger
whom they had despatched.
“I did not kill him,” answered the Comte d’Auvergne. The King was seated
when he entered, and, taking the wretch’s papers in his hands, was busy
reading them. M. Clermont and I were present, but had retired a little
to leave his Majesty more at liberty. As he rose from his seat and was
addressing the monk, the traitor drew a dagger from his sleeve and
plunged it into the King’s stomach. The King cried out, “Kill him--he
has killed me!” and, drawing forth the dagger from the wound, gave two
or three cuts at the assassin, and then fell. We rushed to his aid, and
smote the fellow, who was unarmed, right and left. At the noise, the
doors burst open, and the gentlemen and pages in their rage finished him
with a hundred blows. Seeing that he was dead, I ordered him to be
stripped and thrown out of the window, in order to be recognised if
possible.”
“What does it matter who recognises him?” answers M. d’O. “Have the
papers that he showed the King disappeared also?”
Before the Count could reply the surgeon appears. He desires that every
one shall be turned out of the King’s bedroom whilst he examines him. He
pronounces the wound mortal; the dagger was poisoned. Henry, after great
anguish, expires in a few hours. The letters were forgeries. The body of
Jacques Clément, having first been drawn by four horses through the
streets of Saint-Cloud, is burned by the common hangman. He is much
lauded, however, at Rome, where Sixtus V. reigns as Pontiff; at Paris
his effigy is placed upon the altars beside the Host.
Meanwhile the King of Navarre is within his quarters at Meudon. His
minister Sully lodges a little way down the hill, in the house of a man
called Sauvat. Sully is just sitting down to supper, when his secretary
enters and desires him to go instantly to his master.
Henry of Navarre tells him that an express has arrived from Saint-Cloud,
and that the King is already dead, or dying. “Sully,” he says, “for what
I know, I may be at this very instance King of France. Yet, who will
support me? Half my army will desert if Henry be really dead. Not a
prince of the blood--not a minister will stand by me. I am here, as it
were, in the midst of an enemy’s country, with but a handful of
followers. What is to be done?”
“Stay where you are, Sire, is my advice,” answers Sully. “If you are,
indeed, now King of France, remain with such as are faithful to you. A
monarch should never fly. But let us go to Saint-Cloud and hear the
truth.”
“That is just what I desire,” answers Henry. “We will start as soon as
our horses are saddled.”
As they enter the gates of Saint-Cloud, a man rushes by them, shouting,
“The King is dead--the King is dead!” Henry reins up his horse. The
Swiss Guard, posted round the château, perceive him. They throw down
their arms and cast themselves at his feet. “Sire,” they cry, “now you
are our King and master, do not forsake us.” Biron, the Duc de
Bellegarde, the Comte d’O, M. de Châteauvieux, and De Dampierre come up;
they all warmly salute Henry as their sovereign.
But the bonfires that already blaze in the streets of Paris at the news
of the death of the King, warn Henry of Navarre that he must fight as
many battles to gain the Crown, as he has already done to secure his
personal liberty.