For a while we were but a melancholy party. The incident I have last
related which seemed to admit of more explanations than one--left me
in a state of the greatest perplexity; and this prevailed with me for a
time, and was only dissipated at length by my seeing my own face, as it
were, in a glass. For, chancing presently to look behind me, I observed
that Simon Fleix was riding, notwithstanding his fine hat and feather
and his new sword, in a posture and with an air of dejection difficult
to exaggerate; whereon the reflection that master and man had the same
object in their minds--nay, the thought that possibly he bore in his
bosom a like token to that which lay warm in mine--occurring to me, I
roused myself as from some degrading dream, and, shaking up the Cid,
cantered forward to join Rosny, who, in no cheerful mood himself, was
riding steadily forward, wrapped to his eyes in his cloak.
The news of the King of Navarre’s illness had fallen on him, indeed, in
the midst of his sanguine scheming with the force of a thunderbolt.
He saw himself in danger of losing at once the master he loved and the
brilliant future to which he looked forward; and amid the imminent crash
of his hopes and the destruction of the system in which he lived, he had
scarcely time to regret the wife he was leaving at Rosny or the quiet
from which he was so suddenly called. His heart was in the South, at La
Ganache, by Henry’s couch. His main idea was to get there quickly at all
risks. The name of the King of Navarre’s physician was constantly on his
lips. ‘Dortoman is a good man. If anyone call save him, Dortoman will,’
was his perpetual cry. And whenever he met anyone who had the least
appearance of bearing news, he would have me stop and interrogate him,
and by no means let the traveller go until he had given us the last
rumour from Blois--the channel through which all the news from the South
reached us.
An incident which occurred at the inn that evening cheered him somewhat;
the most powerful minds being prone, I have observed, to snatch at omens
in times of uncertainty. An elderly man, of strange appearance, and
dressed in an affected and bizarre fashion, was seated at table when we
arrived. Though I entered first in my assumed capacity of leader of the
party, he let me pass before him without comment, but rose and solemnly
saluted M. de Rosny, albeit the latter walked behind me and was much
more plainly dressed. Rosny returned his greeting and would have passed
on; but the stranger, interposing with a still lower bow, invited him to
take his seat, which was near the fire and sheltered from the draught,
at the same time making as if he would himself remove to another place.
‘Nay,’ said my companion, surprised by such an excess of courtesy, ‘I do
not see why I should take your place, sir.’
‘Not mine only,’ the old man rejoined, looking at him with a
particularity and speaking with an emphasis which attracted our
attention, ‘but those of many others, who I can assure you will very
shortly yield them up to you, whether they will or not.’
M. de Rosny shrugged his shoulders and passed on, affecting to suppose
the old man wandered. But privately he thought much of his words, and
more when he learned that he was an astrologer from Paris, who had the
name, at any rate in this country, of having studied under Nostradamus.
And whether he drew fresh hopes from this, or turned his attention more
particularly as we approached Blois to present matters, certainly he
grew more cheerful, and began again to discuss the future, as though
assured of his master’s recovery.
‘You have never been to the King’s Court?’ he said presently, following
up, as I judged, a train of thought in his own mind. ‘At Blois, I mean.’
‘No; nor do I feel anxious to visit it,’ I answered. ‘To tell you the
truth, M. le Baron,’ I continued with some warmth, ‘the sooner me are
beyond Blois, the better I shall be pleased. I think we run some risk
there, and, besides, I do not fancy a shambles. I do not think I could
see the king without thinking of the Bartholomew, nor his chamber
without thinking of Guise.’
‘Tut, tut!’ he said, ‘you have killed a man before now.’
‘Many,’ I answered.
‘Do they trouble you?’
‘No, but they were killed in fair fight,’ I replied, ‘That makes a
difference.’
‘To you,’ he said drily. ‘But you are not the King of France, you see.
Should you ever come across him,’ he continued, flicking his horse’s
ears, a faint smile on his lips, ‘I will give you a hint. Talk to him of
the battles at Jarnac and Moncontour, and praise your Conde’s father! As
Conde lost the fight and, he won it, the compliment comes home to him.
The more hopelessly a man has lost his powers, my friend, the more
fondly he regards them, and the more highly he prizes the victories he
call no longer gain.’
‘Ugh!’ I muttered.
‘Of the two parties at Court,’ Rosny continued, calmly overlooking my
ill-humour, ‘trust D’Aumont and Biron and the French clique. They are
true to France at any rate. But whomsoever you see consort with the two
Retzs--the King of Spain’s jackals as men name them--avoid him for a
Spaniard and a traitor.’
‘But the Retzs are Italians,’ I objected peevishly.
‘The same thing,’ he answered curtly. ‘They cry, “Vive le Roi!” but
privately they are for the League, or for Spain, or for whatever may
most hurt us; who are better Frenchmen than themselves, and whose leader
will some day, if God spare his life, be King of France.’
‘Well, the less I have to do with the one or the other of them, save at
the sword’s point, the better I shall be pleased,’ I rejoined.
On that he looked at me with a queer smile; as was his way when he had
more in his mind than appeared. And this, and something special in the
tone of his conversation, as well, perhaps, as my own doubts about my
future and his intentions regarding me, gave me an uneasy feeling;
which lasted through the day, and left me only when more immediate peril
presently rose to threaten us.
It happened in this way. We had reached the outskirts of Blois, and were
just approaching the gate, hoping to pass through it without attracting
attention, when two travellers rode slowly out of a lane, the mouth of
which we were passing. They eyed us closely as they reined in to let
us go by; and M. de Rosny, who was riding with his horse’s head at my
stirrup, whispered me to press on. Before I could comply, however, the
strangers cantered by us, and turning in the saddle when abreast of us
looked us in the face. A moment later one of them cried loudly, ‘It is
he!’ and both pulled their horses across the road, and waited for us to
come up.
Aware that if M. de Rosny were discovered he would be happy if he
escaped with imprisonment, the king being too jealous of his Catholic
reputation to venture to protect a Huguenot, however illustrious, I saw
that the situation was desperate; for, though we were five to two,
the neighbourhood of the city--the gate being scarcely a bow-shot
off--rendered flight or resistance equally hopeless. I could think of
nothing for it save to put a bold face on the matter, and, M. de Rosny
doing the same, we advanced in the most innocent way possible.
‘Halt, there!’ cried one of the strangers sharply. ‘And let me tell you,
sir, you are known.’
‘What if I am?’ I answered impatiently, still pressing on. ‘Are you
highwaymen, that you stop the way?’
The speaker on the other side looked at me keenly, but in a moment
retorted, ‘Enough trifling, sir! Who YOU are I do not know. But the
person riding at your rein is M. de Rosny. Him I do know, and I warn him
to stop.’
I thought the game was lost, but to my surprise my companion answered
at once and almost in the same words I had used. ‘Well, sir, and what of
that?’ he said.
‘What of that?’ the stranger exclaimed, spurring his horse so as still
to bar the way. ‘Why, only this, that you must be a madman to show
yourself on this side of the Loire.’
‘It is long since I have seen the other,’ was my companion’s unmoved
answer.
‘You are M. de Rosny? You do not deny it?’ the man cried in
astonishment.
‘Certainly I do not deny it,’ M. de Rosny answered bluntly. ‘And more,
the day has been, sir,’ he continued with sudden fire, ‘when few at his
Majesty’s Court would have dared to chop words with Solomon de Bethune,
much less to stop him on the highway within a mile of the palace. But
times are changed with me, sir, and it would seem with others also, if
true men rallying to his Majesty in his need are to be challenged by
every passer on the road.’
‘What! Are you Solomon de Bethune?’ the man cried incredulously.
Incredulously, but his countenance fell, and his voice was full of
chagrin and disappointment,
‘Who else, sir?’ M. de Rosny replied haughtily. ‘I am, and, as far as I
know, I have as much right on this side of the Loire as any other man.’
‘A thousand pardons.’
‘If you are not satisfied--’
‘Nay, M. de Rosny, I am perfectly satisfied.’
The stranger repented this with a very crestfallen air, adding, ‘A
thousand pardons’; and fell to making other apologies, doffing his hat
with great respect. ‘I took you, if you will pardon me saying so, for
your Huguenot brother, M. Maximilian,’ he explained. ‘The saying goes
that he is at Rosny.’
‘I can answer for that being false,’ M. de Rosny answered peremptorily,
‘for I have just come from there, and I will answer for it he is not
within ten leagues of the place. And now, sir, as we desire to enter
before the gates shut, perhaps you will excuse us.’ With which he bowed,
and I bowed, and they bowed, and we separated. They gave us the road,
which M. de Rosny took with a great air, and we trotted to the gate, and
passed through it without misadventure.
The first street we entered was a wide one, and my companion took
advantage of this to ride up abreast of me. ‘That is the kind of
adventure our little prince is fond of,’ he muttered. ‘But for my part,
M. de Marsac, the sweat is running down my forehead. I have played the
trick more than once before, for my brother and I are as like as two
peas. And yet it would have gone ill with us if the fool had been one of
his friends.’
‘All’s well that ends well,’ I answered in a low voice, thinking it an
ill time for compliments. As it was, the remark was unfortunate, for M.
de Rosny was still in the act of reining back when Maignan called out to
us to say we were being followed.
I looked behind, but could see nothing except gloom and rain and
overhanging eaves and a few figures cowering in doorways. The servants,
however, continued to maintain that it was so, and we held, without
actually stopping, a council of war. If detected, we were caught in a
trap, without hope of escape; and for the moment I am sure M. do Rosny
regretted that he had chosen this route by Blois--that he had thrust
himself, in his haste and his desire to take with him the latest news,
into a snare so patent. The castle--huge, dark, and grim--loomed before
us at the end of the street in which we were, and, chilled as I was
myself by the sight, I could imagine how much more appalling it must
appear to him, the chosen counsellor of his master, and the steadfast
opponent of all which it represented.
Our consultation came to nothing, for no better course suggested
itself than to go as we had intended to the lodging commonly used by my
companion. We did so, looking behind us often, and saying more than once
that Maignan must be mistaken. As soon as we had dismounted, however,
and gone in, he showed us from the window a man loitering near; and
this confirmation of our alarm sending us to our expedients again, while
Maignan remained watching in a room without a light, I suggested that I
might pass myself off, though ten years older, for my companion.
‘Alas!’ he said, drumming with his fingers on the table ‘there are too
many here who know me to make that possible. I thank you all the same.’
‘Could you escape on foot? Or pass the wall anywhere, or slip through
the gates early?’ I suggested.
‘They might tell us at the Bleeding Heart,’ he answered. But I doubt it.
I was a fool, sir, to put my neck into Mendoza’s halter, and that is a
fact. But here is Maignan. What is it, man?’ he continued eagerly.
‘The watcher is gone, my lord,’ the equerry answered.
‘And has left no one?’
‘No one that I can see.’
We both went into the next room and looked from the windows. The man
was certainly not where we had seen him before. But the rain was falling
heavily, the eaves were dripping, the street was a dark cavern with
only here and there a spark of light, and the fellow might be lurking
elsewhere. Maignan, being questioned, however, believed he had gone off
of set purpose.
‘Which may be read half a dozen ways,’ I remarked.
‘At any rate, we are fasting,’ M. de Rosny answered. Give me a full man
in a fight. Let us sit down and eat. It is no good jumping in the dark,
or meeting troubles half way.’
We were not through our meal, however, Simon Fleix waiting on us with a
pale face, when Maignan came in again from the dark room. ‘My lord,’ he
said quietly, ‘three men have appeared. Two of them remain twenty paces
away. The third has come to the door.’ As he spoke we heard a cautious
summons below, Maignan was for going down, but his master bade him
stand. Let the woman of the house go,’ he said.
I remarked and long remembered M. de Rosny’s SANG-FROID on this
occasion. His pistols he had already laid on a chair beside him throwing
his cloak over them; and now, while we waited, listening in breathless
silence, I saw him hand a large slice of bread-and-meat to his equerry,
who, standing behind his chair, began eating it with the same coolness.
Simon Fleix, on the other hand, stood gazing at the door, trembling in
every limb, and with so much of excitement and surprise in his attitude
that I took the precaution of bidding him, in a low voice, do nothing
without orders. At the same moment it occurred to me to extinguish two
of the four candles which had been lighted; and I did so, M. de Rosny
nodding assent, just as the muttered conversation which was being
carried on below ceased, and a man’s tread sounded on the stairs.
It was followed immediately by a knock on the outside of our door.
Obeying my companion’s look, I cried, ‘Enter!’
A slender man of middle height, booted and wrapped up, with his face
almost entirely hidden by a fold of his cloak, came in quickly, and
closing the door behind him, advanced towards the table. ‘Which is M. de
Rosny?’ he said.
Rosny had carefully turned his face from the light, but at the sound
of the other’s voice he sprang up with a cry of relief. He was about to
speak, when the newcomer, raising his hand peremptorily, continued, ‘No
names, I beg. Yours, I suppose, is known here. Mine is not, nor do I
desire it should be. I want speech of you, that is all.’
‘I am greatly honoured,’ M. de Rosny replied, gazing at him eagerly.
‘Yet, who told you I was here?’
‘I saw you pass under a lamp in the street,’ the stranger answered. ‘I
knew your horse first, and you afterwards, and bade a groom follow you.
Believe me,’ he added, with a gesture of the hand, ‘you have nothing to
fear from me.’
‘I accept the assurance in the spirit in which it is offered,’ my
companion answered with a graceful bow, ‘and think myself fortunate
in being recognised’--he paused a moment and then continued--‘by a
Frenchman and a man of honour.’
The stranger shrugged his shoulders. ‘Your pardon, then,’ he said, ‘if I
seem abrupt. My time is short. I want to do the best with it I can. Will
you favour me?’
I was for withdrawing, but M. de Rosny ordered Maignan to place lights
in the next room, and, apologising to me very graciously, retired
thither with the stranger, leaving me relieved indeed by these peaceful
appearances, but full of wonder and conjectures who this might be, and
what the visit portended. At one moment I was inclined to identify
the stranger with M. de Rosny’s brother; at another with the English
ambassador; and then, again, a wild idea that he might be M. de Bruhl
occurred to me. The two remained together about a quarter of an hour and
then came out, the stranger leading the way, and saluting me politely
as he passed through the room. At the door he turned to say, ‘At nine
o’clock, then?’
‘At nine o’clock,’ M. de Rosny replied, holding the door open. ‘You will
excuse me if I do not descend, Marquis?’
‘Yes, go back, my friend,’ the stranger answered. And, lighted by
Maignan, whose face on such occasions could assume the most stolid air
in the world, he disappeared down the stairs, and I heard him go out.
M. de Rosny turned to me, his eyes sparkling with joy, his face and mien
full of animation. ‘The King of Navarre is better,’ he said. ‘He is said
to be out of danger. What do you think of that, my friend?’
‘That is the best news I have heard for many a day,’ I answered. And I
hastened to add, that France and the Religion had reason to thank God
for His mercy.
‘Amen to that,’ my patron replied reverently. ‘But that is not all--that
is not all.’ And he began to walk up and down the room humming the 118th
Psalm a little above his breath--
La voici l’heureuse journee
Que Dieu a faite a plein desir;
Par nous soit joie demenee,
Et prenons en elle plaisir.
He continued, indeed, to walk up and down the floor so long, and with so
joyful a countenance and demeanour, that I ventured, at last to remind
him of my presence, which he had clearly forgotten. ‘Ha! to be sure,’
he said, stopping short and looking at me with the utmost good-humour.
‘What time is it? Seven. Then until nine o’clock, my friend, I crave
your indulgence. En fin, until that time I must keep counsel. Come,
I am hungry still. Let us sit down, and this time I hope we may not be
interrupted. Simon, set us on a fresh bottle. Ha! ha! VIVENT LE ROI ET
LE ROI DE NAVARRE!’ And again he fell to humming the same psalm--
O Dieu eternel, je te prie,
Je te prie, ton roi maintiens:
O Dieu, je te prie et reprie,
Sauve ton roi et l’entretiens!
doing so with a light in his eyes and a joyous emphasis, which impressed
me the more in a man ordinarily so calm and self-contained. I saw that
something had occurred to gratify him beyond measure, and, believing his
statement that this was not the good news from La Ganache only, I waited
with the utmost interest and anxiety for the hour of nine, which had
no sooner struck than our former visitor appeared with the same air of
mystery and disguise which had attended him before.
M. de Rosny, who had risen on hearing his step and had taken up his
cloak, paused with it half on and half off, to cry anxiously, ‘All is
well, is it not?’
‘Perfectly,’ the stranger replied, with a nod.
‘And my friend?’
Yes, on condition that you answer for his discretion and fidelity.’ And
the stranger glanced involuntarily at me who stood uncertain whether to
hold my ground or retire.
‘Good,’ M. de Rosny cried. Then he turned to me with a mingled air
of dignity and kindness, and continued: ‘This is the gentleman. M. de
Marsac, I am honoured with permission to present you to the Marquis de
Rambouillet, whose interest and protection I beg you to deserve, for he
is a true Frenchman and a patriot whom I respect.’
M. de Rambouillet saluted me politely. ‘Of a Brittany family, I think?’
he said.
I assented; and he replied with something complimentary. But afterwards
he continued to look at me in silence with a keenness and curiosity I
did not understand. At last, when M. de Rosny’s impatience had reached
a high pitch, the marquis seemed impelled to add something. ‘You quite
understand M. de Rosny?’ he said. ‘Without saying anything disparaging
of M. de Marsac, who is, no doubt, a man of honour’--and he bowed to me
very low--‘this is a delicate matter, and you will introduce no one into
it, I am sure, whom you cannot trust as yourself.’
‘Precisely,’ M. de Rosny replied, speaking drily, yet with a grand
air which fully matched his companion’s. ‘I am prepared to trust this
gentleman not only with my life but with my honour.’
‘Nothing more remains to be said then,’ the marquis rejoined, bowing
to me again. ‘I am glad to have been the occasion of a declaration so
flattering to you, sir.’
I returned his salute in silence, and obeying M. de Rosny’s muttered
direction put on, my cloak and sword. M. de Rosny took up his pistols.
‘You will have no need of those,’ the Marquis said with a high glance.
‘Where we are going, no,’ my companion answered, calmly continuing to
dispose them about him. ‘But the streets are dark and not too safe.’
M. de Rambouillet laughed. ‘That is the worst of you Huguenots,’ he
said. ‘You never know when to lay suspicion aside.’
A hundred retorts sprang to my lips. I thought of the Bartholomew, of
the French fury of Antwerp, of half a dozen things which make my blood
boil to this day. But M. de Rosny’s answer was the finest of all.
‘That is true, I am afraid,’ he said quietly. ‘On the other hand, you
Catholics--take the late M. de Guise for instance--have the habit of
erring on the other side, I think, and sometimes trust too far.’
The marquis, without making any answer to this home-thrust, led the way
out, and we followed, being joined at the door of the house by a couple
of armed lackeys, who fell in behind us. We went on foot. The night was
dark, and the prospect out of doors was not cheering. The streets were
wet and dirty, and notwithstanding all our care we fell continually into
pitfalls or over unseen obstacles. Crossing the PARVIS of the cathedral,
which I remembered, we plunged in silence into an obscure street near
the river, and so narrow that the decrepit houses shut out almost
all view of the sky. The gloom of our surroundings, no less than my
ignorance of the errand on which we were bound, filled me with anxiety
and foreboding. My companions keeping strict silence, however, and
taking every precaution to avoid being recognised, I had no choice but
to do likewise.
I could think, and no more. I felt myself borne along by an irresistible
current, whither and for what purpose I could not tell; an experience to
an extent strange at my age the influence of the night and the weather.
Twice we stood aside to let a party of roisterers go by, and the
excessive care M. de Rambouillet evinced on these occasions to avoid
recognition did not tend to reassure me or make me think more lightly of
the unknown business on which I was bound.
Reaching at last an open space, our leader bade us in a low voice be
careful and follow him closely. We did so and crossed in this way and in
single file a narrow plank or wooden bridge; but whether water ran below
or a dry ditch only, I could not determine. My mind was taken up at the
moment with the discovery which I had just made, that the dark building,
looming huge and black before us with a single light twinkling here and
there at great heights, was the Castle of Blois.