CHAPTER II. THE KING OF NAVARRE
CHAPTER III. BOOT AND SADDLE
CHAPTER IV. MADEMOISELLE DE LA VIRE
CHAPTER V. THE ROAD TO BLOIS
CHAPTER VI. MY MOTHER’S LODGING
CHAPTER VII. SIMON FLEIX
CHAPTER VIII. AN EMPTY ROOM
CHAPTER IX. THE HOUSE IN THE RUELLE D’ARCY
CHAPTER X. THE FIGHT ON THE STAIRS
CHAPTER XI. THE MAN AT THE DOOR
CHAPTER XII. MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, BARON DE ROSNY
CHAPTER XIII. AT ROSNY
CHAPTER XIV. M. DE RAMBOUILLET
CHAPTER XV. VILAIN HERODES
CHAPTER XVI. IN THE KING’S CHAMBER
CHAPTER XVII. THE JACOBIN MONK
CHAPTER XVIII. THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE
CHAPTER XIX. MEN CALL IT CHANCE
CHAPTER XX. THE KING’S FACE
CHAPTER XXI. TWO WOMEN
CHAPTER XXII. ‘LA FEMME DISPOSE’
CHAPTER XXIII. THE LAST VALOIS
CHAPTER XXIV. A ROYAL PERIL
CHAPTER XXV. TERMS OF SURRENDER
CHAPTER XXVI. MEDITATIONS
CHAPTER XXVII. TO ME, MY FRIENDS!
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CASTLE ON THE HILL
CHAPTER XXIX. PESTILENCE AND FAMINE
CHAPTER XXX. STRICKEN
CHAPTER XXXI. UNDER THE GREENWOOD
CHAPTER XXXII. A TAVERN BRAWL
CHAPTER XXXIII. AT MEUDON
CHAPTER XXXIV. ‘’TIS AN ILL WIND’
CHAPTER XXXV. ‘LE ROI EST MORT’
CHAPTER XXXVI. ‘VIVE LE ROI!’
A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE.
CHAPTER I. THE SPORT OF FOOLS.
The death of the Prince of Conde, which occurred in the spring of 1588,
by depriving me of my only patron, reduced me to such straits that the
winter of that year, which saw the King of Navarre come to spend his
Christmas at St. Jean d’Angely, saw also the nadir of my fortunes. I did
not know at this time--I may confess it to-day without shame--wither to
turn for a gold crown or a new scabbard, and neither had nor discerned
any hope of employment. The peace lately patched up at Blois between the
King of France and the League persuaded many of the Huguenots that their
final ruin was at hand; but it could not fill their exhausted treasury
or enable them to put fresh troops into the field.
The death of the Prince had left the King of Navarre without a rival
in the affections of the Huguenots; the Vicomte de Turenne, whose
turbulent; ambition already began to make itself felt, and M. de
Chatillon, ranking next to him. It was my ill-fortune, however, to be
equally unknown to all three leaders, and as the month of December which
saw me thus miserably straitened saw me reach the age of forty, which I
regard, differing in that from many, as the grand climacteric of a
man’s life, it will be believed that I had need of all the courage which
religion and a campaigner’s life could supply.
I had been compelled some time before to sell all my horses except the
black Sardinian with the white spot on its forehead; and I now found
myself obliged to part also with my valet de chambre and groom, whom I
dismissed on the same day, paying them their wages with the last links
of gold chain left to me. It was not without grief and dismay that I saw
myself thus stripped of the appurtenances of a man of birth, and driven
to groom my own horse under cover of night. But this was not the worst.
My dress, which suffered inevitably from this menial employment, began
in no long time to bear witness to the change in my circumstances; so
that on the day of the King of Navarre’s entrance into St. Jean I dared
not face the crowd, always quick to remark the poverty of those above
them, but was fain to keep within doors and wear out my patience in the
garret of the cutler’s house in the Rue de la Coutellerie, which was all
the lodging I could now afford.
Pardieu, ‘tis a strange world! Strange that time seems to me; more
strange compared with this. My reflections on that day, I remember, were
of the most melancholy. Look at it how I would, I could not but see that
my life’s spring was over. The crows’ feet were gathering about my eyes,
and my moustachios, which seemed with each day of ill-fortune to stand
out more fiercely in proportion as my face grew leaner, were already
grey. I was out at elbows, with empty pockets, and a sword which peered
through the sheath. The meanest ruffler who, with broken feather and
tarnished lace, swaggered at the heels of Turenne, was scarcely to be
distinguished from me. I had still, it is true, a rock and a few barren
acres in Brittany, the last remains of the family property; but the
small small sums which the peasants could afford to pay were sent
annually to Paris, to my mother, who had no other dower. And this I
would not touch, being minded to die a gentleman, even if I could not
live in that estate.
Small as were my expectations of success, since I had no one at the
king’s side to push my business, nor any friend at Court, I nevertheless
did all I could, in the only way that occurred to me. I drew up a
petition, and lying in wait one day for M. Forget, the King of Navarre’s
secretary, placed it in his hand, begging him to lay it before that
prince. He took it, and promised to do so, smoothly, and with as much
lip-civility as I had a right to expect. But the careless manner in
which he doubled up and thrust away the paper on which I had spent so
much labour, no less than the covert sneer of his valet, who ran after
me to get the customary present--and ran, as I still blush to remember,
in vain--warned me to refrain from hope.
In this, however, having little save hope left, I failed so signally
as to spend the next day and the day after in a fever of alternate
confidence and despair, the cold fit following the hot with perfect
regularity. At length, on the morning of the third day--I remember it
lacked but three of Christmas--I heard a step on the stairs. My landlord
living in his shop, and the two intervening floors being empty, I had no
doubt the message was for me, and went outside the door to receive it,
my first glance at the messenger confirming me in my highest hopes,
as well as in all I had ever heard of the generosity of the King of
Navarre. For by chance I knew the youth to be one of the royal pages; a
saucy fellow who had a day or two before cried ‘Old Clothes’ after me in
the street. I was very far from resenting this now, however, nor did
he appear to recall it; so that I drew the happiest augury as to the
contents of the note he bore from the politeness with which he presented
it to me.
I would not, however, run the risk of a mistake, and before holding out
my hand, I asked him directly and with formality if it was for me.
He answered, with the utmost respect, that it was for the Sieur de
Marsac, and for me if I were he.
‘There is an answer, perhaps?’ I said, seeing that he lingered.
‘The King of Navarre, sir,’ he replied, with a low bow, ‘will receive
your answer in person, I believe.’ And with that, replacing the hat
which he had doffed out of respect to me, he turned and went down the
stairs.
Returning to my room, and locking the door, I hastily opened the
missive, which was sealed with a large seal, and wore every appearance
of importance. I found its contents to exceed all my expectations. The
King of Navarre desired me to wait on him at noon on the following day,
and the letter concluded with such expressions of kindness and goodwill
as left me in no doubt of the Prince’s intentions. I read it, I confess,
with emotions of joy and gratitude which would better have become a
younger man, and then cheerfully sat down to spend the rest of the
day in making such improvements in my dress as seemed possible. With a
thankful heart I concluded that I had now escaped from poverty, at any
rate from such poverty as is disgraceful to a gentleman; and consoled
myself for the meanness of the appearance I must make at Court with the
reflection that a day or two would mend both habit and fortune.
Accordingly, it was with a stout heart that I left my lodgings a few
minutes before noon next morning, and walked towards the castle. It was
some time since I had made so public an appearance in the streets, which
the visit of the King of Navarre’s Court; had filled with an unusual
crowd, and I could not help fancying as I passed that some of the
loiterers eyed me with a covert smile; and, indeed, I was shabby enough.
But finding that a frown more than sufficed to restore the gravity of
these gentry, I set down the appearance to my own self-consciousness,
and, stroking my moustachios, strode along boldly until I saw before me,
and coming to meet me, the same page who had delivered the note.
He stopped in front of me with an air of consequence, and making me a
low bow--whereat I saw the bystanders stare, for he was as gay a young
spark as maid-of-honour could desire--he begged me to hasten, as the
king awaited me in his closet.
‘He has asked for you twice, sir,’ he continued importantly, the feather
of his cap almost sweeping the ground.
‘I think,’ I answered, quickening my steps, ‘that the king’s letter says
noon, young sir. If I am late on such an occasion, he has indeed cause
to complain of me.’
‘Tut, tut!’ he rejoined waving his hand with a dandified ‘It is no
matter. One man may steal a horse when another may not look over the
wall, you know.’
A man may be gray-haired, he may be sad-complexioned, and yet he may
retain some of the freshness of youth. On receiving this indication of a
favour exceeding all expectation, I remember I felt the blood rise to
my face, and experienced the most lively gratitude. I wondered who had
spoken in my behalf, who had befriended me; and concluding at last that
my part in the affair at Brouage had come to the king’s ears, though I
could not conceive through whom, I passed through the castle gates with
an air of confidence and elation which was not unnatural, I think, under
the circumstances. Thence, following my guide, I mounted the ramp and
entered the courtyard.
A number of grooms and valets were lounging here, some leading horses
to and fro, others exchanging jokes with the wenches who leaned from
the windows, while their fellows again stamped up and down to keep
their feet warm, or played ball against the wall in imitation of their
masters. Such knaves are ever more insolent than their betters; but
I remarked that they made way for me with respect, and with rising
spirits, yet a little irony, I reminded myself as I mounted the stairs
of the words, ‘whom the king delighteth to honour!’
Reaching the head of the flight, where was a soldier on guard, the page
opened the door of the antechamber, and standing aside bade me enter. I
did so, and heard the door close behind me.
For a moment I stood still, bashful and confused. It seemed to me that
there were a hundred people in the room, and that half the eyes which
met mine were women’s, Though I was not altogether a stranger to such
state as the Prince of Conde had maintained, this crowded anteroom
filled me with surprise, and even with a degree of awe, of which I was
the next moment ashamed. True, the flutter of silk and gleam of jewels
surpassed anything I had then seen, for my fortunes had never led me
to the king’s Court; but an instant’s reflection reminded me that my
fathers had held their own in such scenes, and with a bow regulated
rather by this thought than by the shabbiness of my dress, I advanced
amid a sudden silence.
‘M. de Marsac!’ the page announced, in a tone which sounded a little
odd in my ears; so much so, that I turned quickly to look at him. He was
gone, however, and when I turned again the eyes which met mine were
full of smiles. A young girl who stood near me tittered. Put out of
countenance by this, I looked round in embarrassment to find someone to
whom I might apply.
The room was long and narrow, panelled in chestnut, with a row of
windows on the one hand, and two fireplaces, now heaped with glowing
logs, on the other. Between the fireplaces stood a rack of arms. Round
the nearer hearth lounged a group of pages, the exact counterparts of
the young blade who had brought me hither; and talking with these were
as many young gentlewomen. Two great hounds lay basking in the heat,
and coiled between them, with her head on the back of the larger, was a
figure so strange that at another time I should have doubted my eyes. It
wore the fool’s motley and cap and bells, but a second glance showed me
the features were a woman’s. A torrent of black hair flowed loose about
her neck, her eyes shone with wild merriment, and her face, keen, thin,
and hectic, glared at me from the dog’s back. Beyond her, round the
farther fireplace, clustered more than a score of gallants and ladies,
of whom one presently advanced to me.
‘Sir,’ he said politely--and I wished I could match his bow--‘you wished
to see--?’
‘The King of Navarre,’ I answered, doing my best.
He turned to the group behind him, and said, in a peculiarly even,
placid tone, ‘He wishes to see the King of Navarre.’ Then in solemn
silence he bowed to me again and went back to his fellows.
Upon the instant, and before I could make up my mind how to take this, a
second tripped forward, and saluting me, said, ‘M. de Marsac, I think?’
‘At your service, sir,’ I rejoined. In my eagerness to escape the gaze
of all those eyes, and the tittering which was audible behind me, I took
a step forward to be in readiness to follow him. But he gave no sign.
‘M. de Marsac to see the King of Navarre’ was all he said, speaking as
the other had close to those behind. And with that he too wheeled round
and went back to the fire.
I stared, a first faint suspicion of the truth aroused in my mind.
Before I could act upon it, however--in such a situation it was no
easy task to decide how to act--a third advanced with the same measured
steps. ‘By appointment I think, sir?’ he said, bowing lower than the
others.
‘Yes,’ I replied sharply, beginning to grow warm, ‘by appointment at
noon.’
‘M. de Marsac,’ he announced in a sing-song tone to those behind him,
‘to see the King of Navarre by appointment at noon.’ And with a second
bow--while I grew scarlet with mortification he too wheeled gravely
round and returned to the fireplace.
I saw another preparing to advance, but he came too late. Whether my
face of anger and bewilderment was too much for them, or some among
them lacked patience to see the end, a sudden uncontrollable shout of
laughter, in which all the room joined, cut short the farce. God knows
it hurt me: I winced, I looked this way and that, hoping here or there
to find sympathy and help. But it seemed to me that the place rang
with gibes, that every panel framed, however I turned myself, a cruel,
sneering face. One behind me cried ‘Old Clothes,’ and when I turned
the other hearth whispered the taunt. It added a thousandfold to my
embarrassment that there was in all a certain orderliness, so that while
no one moved, and none, while I looked at them, raised their voices, I
seemed the more singled out, and placed as a butt in the midst.
One face amid the pyramid of countenances which hid the farther
fireplace so burned itself into my recollection in that miserable
moment, that I never thereafter forgot it; a small, delicate woman’s
face, belonging to a young girl who stood boldly in front of her
companions. It was a face full of pride, and, as I saw it then, of
scorn--scorn that scarcely deigned to laugh; while the girl’s graceful
figure, slight and maidenly, yet perfectly proportioned, seemed instinct
with the same feeling of contemptuous amusement.
The play, which seemed long enough to me, might have lasted longer,
seeing that no one there had pity on me, had I not, in my desperation,
espied a door at the farther end of the room, and concluded, seeing no
other, that it was the door of the king’s bedchamber. The mortification
I was suffering was so great that I did not hesitate, but advanced with
boldness towards it. On the instant there was a lull in the laughter
round me, and half a dozen voices called on me to stop.
‘I have come to see the king,’ I answered, turning on them fiercely, for
I was by this time in no mood for browbeating, ‘and I will see him!’
‘He is out hunting,’ cried all with one accord; and they signed
imperiously to me to go back the way I had come.
But having the king’s appointment safe in my pouch, I thought I had good
reason to disbelieve them; and taking advantage of their surprise--for
they had not expected so bold a step on my part--I was at the door
before they could prevent me. I heard Mathurine, the fool, who had
sprung to her feet, cry ‘Pardieu! he will take the Kingdom of Heaven
by force!’ and those were the last words I heard; for, as I lifted the
latch--there was no one on guard there--a sudden swift silence fell upon
the room behind me.
I pushed the door gently open and went in. There were two men sitting
in one of the windows, who turned and looked angrily towards me. For the
rest the room was empty. The king’s walking-shoes lay by his chair, and
beside them the boot-hooks and jack. A dog before the fire got up slowly
and growled, and one of the men, rising from the trunk on which he
had been sitting, came towards me and asked me, with every sign of
irritation, what I wanted there, and who had given me leave to enter.
I was beginning to explain, with some diffidence the stillness of
the room sobering me--that I wished to see the king, when he who had
advanced took me up sharply with, ‘The king? the king? He is not here,
man. He is hunting at St. Valery. Did they not tell you so outside?’
I thought I recognised the speaker, than whom I have seldom seen a man
more grave and thoughtful for his years, which were something less than
mine, more striking in presence, or more soberly dressed. And being
desirous to evade his question, I asked him if I had not the honour to
address M. du Plessis Mornay; for that wise and courtly statesman, now a
pillar of Henry’s counsels, it was.
‘The same, sir,’ he replied, abruptly, and without taking his eyes from
me. ‘I am Mornay. What of that?’
‘I am M. de Marsac,’ I explained. And there I stopped, supposing that,
as he was in the king’s confidence, this would make my errand clear to
him.
But I was disappointed. ‘Well, sir?’ he said, and waited impatiently.
So cold a reception, following such treatment as I had suffered outside,
would have sufficed to have dashed my spirits utterly had I not felt
the king’s letter in my pocket. Being pretty confident, however, that a
single glance at this would alter M. du Mornay’s bearing for the better,
I hastened, looking on it as a kind of talisman, to draw it out and
present it to him.
He took it, and looked at it, and opened it, but with so cold and
immovable an aspect as made my heart sink more than all that had gone
before. ‘What is amiss?’ I cried, unable to keep silence. ‘’Tis from the
king, sir.’
‘A king in motley!’ he answered, his lip curling.
The sense of his words did not at once strike home to me, and I
murmured, in great disorder, that the king had sent for me.
‘The king knows nothing of it,’ was his blunt answer, bluntly given. And
he thrust the paper back into my hands. ‘It is a trick,’ he continued,
speaking with the same abruptness, ‘for which you have doubtless
to thank some of those idle young rascals without. You had sent an
application to the king, I suppose? Just so. No doubt they got hold of
it, and this is the result. They ought to be whipped.’
It was not possible for me to doubt any longer that what he said was
true. I saw in a moment all my hopes vanish, all my plans flung to the
winds; and in the first shock of the discovery I could neither find
voice to answer him nor strength to withdraw. In a kind of vision I
seemed to see my own lean, haggard face looking at me as in a glass,
and, reading despair in my eyes, could have pitied myself.
My disorder was so great that M. du Mornay observed it. Looking more
closely at me, he two or three times muttered my name, and at last said,
‘M. de Marsac? Ha! I remember. You were in the affair of Brouage, were
you not?’
I nodded my head in token of assent, being unable at the moment to
speak, and so shaken that perforce I leaned against the wall, my head
sunk on my breast. The memory of my age, my forty years, and my poverty,
pressed hard upon me, filling me with despair and bitterness. I could
have wept, but no tears came.
M. du Mornay, averting his eyes from me, took two or three short,
impatient turns up and down the chamber when he addressed me again his
tone was full of respect, mingled with such petulance as one brave man
might feel, seeing another so hard pressed. ‘M. de Marsac,’ he said,
‘you have my sympathy. It is a shame that men who have served the
cause should be reduced to such straits. Were it, possible for me, to
increase my own train at present, I should consider it an honour to have
you with me. But I am hard put to it myself, and so are we all, and the
King of Navarre not least among us. He has lived for a month upon a wood
which M. de Rosny has cut down. I will mention your name to him, but I
should be cruel rather than kind were I not to warn you that nothing can
come of it.’
With that he offered me his hand, and, cheered as much by this mark
of consideration as by the kindness of his expressions, I rallied my
spirits. True, I wanted comfort more substantial, but it was not to be
had. I thanked him therefore as becomingly as I could, and seeing there
was no help for it, took my leave of him, and slowly and sorrowfully
withdrew from the room.
Alas! to escape I had to face the outside world, for which his kind
words were an ill preparation. I had to run the gauntlet of the
antechamber. The moment I appeared, or rather the moment the door closed
behind me, I was hailed with a shout of derision. While one cried,
‘Way! way for the gentleman who has seen the king!’ another hailed me
uproariously as Governor of Guyenne, and a third requested a commission
in my regiment.
I heard these taunts with a heart full almost to bursting. It seemed to
me an unworthy thing that, merely by reason of my poverty, I should be
derided by youths who had still all their battles before them; but to
stop or reproach them would only, as I well knew, make matters worse,
and, moreover, I was so sore stricken that I had little spirit left
even to speak. Accordingly, I made my way through them with what speed I
might, my head bent, and my countenance heavy with shame and depression.
In this way--I wonder there were not among them some generous enough
to pity me--I had nearly gained the door, and was beginning to breathe,
when I found my path stopped by that particular young lady of the Court
whom I have described above. Something had for the moment diverted her
attention from me, and it required a word from her companions to apprise
her of my near neighbourhood. She turned then, as one taken by surprise,
and finding me so close to her that my feet all but touched her gown,
she stepped quickly aside, and with a glance as cruel as her act, drew
her skirts away from contact with me.
The insult stung me, I know not why, more than all the gibes which
were being flung at me from every side, and moved by a sudden impulse I
stopped, and in the bitterness of my heart spoke to her. ‘Mademoiselle,’
I said, bowing low--for, as I have stated, she was small, and more
like a fairy than a woman, though her face expressed both pride and
self-will--‘Mademoiselle,’ I said sternly, ‘such as I am, I have fought
for France! Some day you may learn that there are viler things in the
world--and have to bear them--than a poor gentleman!’
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before I repented of them, for
Mathurine, the fool, who was at my elbow, was quick to turn them into
ridicule. Raising her hands above our heads, as in act to bless us,
she cried out that Monsieur, having gained so rich an office, desired
a bride to grace it; and this, bringing down upon us a coarse shout
of laughter and some coarser gibes, I saw the young girl’s face flush
hotly.
The next moment a voice in the crowd cried roughly ‘Out upon his wedding
suit!’ and with that a sweetmeat struck me in the face. Another and
another followed, covering me with flour and comfits. This was the last
straw. For a moment, forgetting where I was, I turned upon them, red
and furious, every hair in my moustachios bristling. The next, the full
sense of my impotence and of the folly of resentment prevailed with me,
and, dropping my head upon my breast, I rushed from the room.
I believe that the younger among them followed me, and that the cry of
‘Old Clothes!’ pursued me even to the door of my lodgings in the Rue de
la Coutellerie. But in the misery of the moment, and my strong desire
to be within doors and alone, I barely noticed this, and am not certain
whether it was so or not.