Making so early a start from Etampes that the inn, which had continued
in an uproar till long after midnight, lay sunk in sleep when we rode
out of the yard, we reached Meudon about noon next day. I should be
tedious were I to detail what thoughts my mistress and I had during that
day’s journey--the last, it might be, which we should take together;
or what assurances we gave one another, or how often we, repented the
impatience which had impelled us to put all to the touch. Madame, with
kindly forethought, detached herself from us, and rode the greater part
of the distance with Fanchette; but the opportunities she gave us
went for little; for, to be plain, the separation we dreaded seemed to
overshadow us already. We uttered few words, through those few were to
the purpose, but riding hand-in-hand, with full hearts, and eyes which
seldom quitted one another, looked forward to Meudon and its perils
with such gloomy forebodings as our love and my precarious position
suggested.
Long before we reached the town, or could see more of it than the
Chateau, over which the Lilies of France and the broad white banner
of the Bourbons floated in company, we found ourselves swept into the
whirlpool which surrounds an army. Crowds stood at all the cross-roads,
wagons and sumpter-mules encumbered the bridges; each moment a horseman
passed us at a gallop, or a troop of disorderly rogues, soldiers only in
name, reeled, shouting and singing, along the road. Here and there, for
a warning to the latter sort, a man, dangled on a rude gallows; under
which sportsmen returning from the chase and ladies who had been for an
airing rode laughing on their way.
Amid the multitude entering the town we passed unnoticed. A little way
within the walls we halted to inquire where the Princess of Navarre had
her lodging. Hearing that she occupied a house in the town, while her
brother had his quarters in the Chateau, and the King of France at St.
Cloud, I stayed my party in a by-road, a hundred paces farther on, and,
springing from the Cid, went to my mistress’s knee.
‘Mademoiselle,’ I said formally, and so loudly that all my men might
hear, ‘the time is come. I dare not go farther with you. I beg you,
therefore, to bear me witness that as I took you so I have brought you
back, and both with your good-will. I beg that you will give me this
quittance, for it may serve me.’
She bowed her head and laid her ungloved hand on mine, which I had
placed on, the pommel of her saddle. ‘Sir,’ she answered in a broken
voice, ‘I will not give you this quittance, nor any quittance from me
while I live.’ With that she took off her mask before them all, and I
saw the tears running down her white face. ‘May God protect you, M. de
Marsac,’ she continued, stooping until her face almost touched mine,
‘and bring you to the thing you desire. If not, sir, and you pay too
dearly for what you have done for me, I will live a maiden all my days.
And, if I do not, these men may shame me!’
My heart was too full for words, but I took the glove she held out to
me, and kissed her hand with my knee bent. Then I waved--for I could not
speak--to madame to proceed; and with Simon Fleix and Maignan’s men to
guard them they went on their way. Mademoiselle’s white face looked back
to me until a bend in the road hid them, and I saw them no more.
I turned when all were gone, and going heavily to where my Sard stood
with his head drooping, I climbed to the saddle, and rode at a foot-pace
towards the Chateau. The way was short and easy, for the next turning
showed me the open gateway and a crowd about it. A vast number of people
were entering and leaving, while others rested in the shade of the wall,
and a dozen grooms led horses up and down. The sunshine fell hotly on
the road and the courtyard, and flashed back by the cuirasses of the
men on guard, seized the eye and dazzled it with gleams of infinite
brightness. I was advancing alone, gazing at all this with a species
of dull indifference which masked for the moment the suspense I felt at
heart, when a man, coming on foot along the street, crossed quickly to
me and looked me in the face.
I returned his look, and seeing he was a stranger to me, was for passing
on without pausing. But he wheeled beside me and uttered my name in a
low voice.
I checked the Cid and looked down at him. ‘Yes,’ I said mechanically, ‘I
am M. de Marsac. But I do not know you.’
‘Nevertheless I have been watching for you for three days,’ he replied.
‘M. de Rosny received your message. This is for you.’
He handed me a scrap of paper. ‘From whom?’ I asked.
‘Maignan,’ he answered briefly. And with that, and a stealthy look
round, he left me, and went the way he had been going before.
I tore open the note, and knowing that Maignan could not write, was
not surprised to find that it lacked any signature. The brevity of its
contents vied with the curtness of its bearer. ‘In Heaven’s name go back
and wait,’ it ran. ‘Your enemy is here, and those who wish you well are
powerless.’
A warning so explicit, and delivered under such circumstances, might
have been expected to make me pause even then. But I read the message
with the same dull indifference, the same dogged resolve with which the
sight of the crowded gateway before me had inspired me. I had not come
so far and baffled Turenne by an hour to fail in my purpose at the last;
nor given such pledges to another to prove false to myself. Moreover,
the distant rattle of musketry, which went to show that a skirmish was
taking place on the farther side of the Castle, seemed an invitation to
me to proceed; for now, if ever, my sword might earn protection and a
pardon. Only in regard to M. de Rosny, from whom I had no doubt that the
message came, I resolved to act with prudence; neither making any appeal
to him in public nor mentioning his name to others in private.
The Cid had borne me by this time into the middle of the throng about
the gateway, who, wondering to see a stranger of my appearance arrive
without attendants, eyed me with a mixture of civility and forwardness.
I recognised more than one man whom I had seen about the Court at St.
Jean d’Angely six months before; but so great is the disguising power of
handsome clothes and equipments that none of these knew me. I beckoned
to the nearest, and asked him if the King of Navarre was in the Chateau.
‘He has gone to see the King of France at St. Cloud,’ the man answered,
with something of wonder that anyone should be ignorant of so important
a fact. ‘He is expected here in an hour.’
I thanked him, and calculating that I should still have time and to
spare before the arrival of M. de Turenne, I dismounted, and taking the
rein over my arm, began to walk up and down in the shade of the wall.
Meanwhile the loiterers increased in numbers as the minutes passed. Men
of better standing rode up, and, leaving their horses in charge of their
lackeys, went into the Chateau. Officers in shining corslets, or with
boots and scabbards dulled with dust, arrived and clattered in through
the gates. A messenger galloped up with letters, and was instantly
surrounded by a curious throng of questioners; who left him only to
gather about the next comers, a knot of townsfolk, whose downcast
visages and glances of apprehension seemed to betoken no pleasant or
easy mission.
Watching many of these enter and disappear, while only the humbler
sort remained to swell the crowd at the gate, I began to experience the
discomfort and impatience which are the lot of the man who finds himself
placed in a false position. I foresaw with clearness the injury I was
about to do my cause by presenting myself to the king among the common
herd; and yet I had no choice save to do this, for I dared not run the
risk of entering, lest I should be required to give my name, and fail to
see the King of Navarre at all.
As it was I came very near to being foiled in this way; for I presently
recognised, and was recognised in turn, by a gentleman who rode up to
the gates and, throwing his reins to a groom, dismounted with an air
of immense gravity. This was M. Forget, the king’s secretary, and the
person to whom I had on a former occasion presented a petition. He
looked at me with eyes of profound astonishment, and saluting me stiffly
from a distance, seemed in two minds whether he should pass in or
speak to me. On second thoughts, however, he came towards me, and again
saluted me with a peculiarly dry and austere aspect.
‘I believe, sir, I am speaking to M. de Marsac?’ he said in a low voice,
but not impolitely.
I replied in the affirmative.
‘And that, I conclude, is your horse?’ he continued, raising his cane,
and pointing to the Cid, which I had fastened to a hook in the wall.
I replied again in the affirmative.
‘Then take a word of advice,’ he answered, screwing up his features, and
speaking in a dry sort of way. ‘Get upon its back without an instant’s
delay, and put as many leagues between yourself and Meudon as horse and
man may.’
‘I am obliged to you,’ I said, though I was greatly startled by his
words. ‘And what if I do not take your advice?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘In that case look to yourself!’ he retorted.
‘But you will look in vain!’
He turned on his heel, as he spoke, and in a moment was gone. I watched
him enter the Chateau, and in the uncertainty which possessed me whether
he was not gone--after salving his conscience by giving me warning--to
order my instant arrest, I felt, and I doubt not I looked, as ill at
ease for the time being as the group of trembling townsfolk who stood
near me. Reflecting that he should know his master’s mind, I recalled
with depressing clearness the repeated warnings the King of Navarre
had given me that I must not look to him for reward or protection. I
bethought me that I was here against his express orders: presuming on
those very services which he had given me notice he should repudiate.
I remembered that Rosny had always been in the same tale. And en fin
I began to see that mademoiselle and I had together decided on a step
which I should never have presumed to take on my own motion.
I had barely arrived at this conclusion when the trampling of hoofs and
a sudden closing in of the crowd round the gate announced the King of
Navarre’s approach. With a sick heart I drew nearer, feeling that the
crisis was at hand; and in a moment he came in sight, riding beside an
elderly man, plainly dressed and mounted, with whom he was carrying on
an earnest conversation. A train of nobles and gentlemen, whose martial
air and equipments made up for the absence of the gewgaws and glitter,
to which my eyes had become accustomed at Blois, followed close on his
heels. Henry himself wore a suit of white velvet, frayed in places
and soiled by his armour; but his quick eye and eager, almost fierce,
countenance could not fail to win and keep the attention of the least
observant. He kept glancing from side to side as he came on; and that
with so cheerful an air and a carriage so full at once of dignity and
good-humour that no one could look on him and fail to see that here was
a leader and a prince of men, temperate in victory and unsurpassed in
defeat.
The crowd raising a cry of ‘VIVE NAVARRE!’ as he drew near, he bowed,
with a sparkle in his eye. But when a few by the gate cried ‘VIVENT LES
ROIS!’ he held up his hand for silence, and said in a loud, clear voice,
‘Not that, my friends. There is but one king in France. Let us say
instead, “Vive le Roi!”’
The spokesman of the little group of townsfolk, who, I learned, were
from Arcueil, and had come to complain of the excessive number of troops
quartered upon them, took advantage of the pause to approach him. Henry
received the old man with a kindly look, and bent from his saddle to
hear what he had to say. While they were talking I pressed forward, the
emotion I felt on my own account heightened by my recognition of the man
who rode by the King of Navarre--who was no other than M. de la Noue. No
Huguenot worthy of the name could look on the veteran who had done
and suffered more for the cause than any living man without catching
something of his stern enthusiasm; and the sight, while it shamed
me, who a moment before had been inclined to prefer my safety to the
assistance I owed my country, gave me courage to step to the king’s
rein, so that I heard his last words to the men of Arcueil.
‘Patience, my friends,’ he said kindly. ‘The burden is heavy, but the
journey is a short one. The Seine is ours; the circle is complete. In a
week Paris must surrender. The king, my cousin, will enter, and you will
be rid of us. For France’s sake one week, my friends.’
The men fell back with low obeisances, charmed by his good-nature, and
Henry, looking up, saw me before him. In the instant his jaw fell. His
brow, suddenly contracting above eyes, which flashed with surprise and
displeasure, altered in a moment the whole aspect of his face; which
grew dark and stern as night. His first impulse was to pass by me; but
seeing that I held my ground, he hesitated, so completely chagrined by
my appearance that he did not know how to act, or in what way to deal
with me. I seized the occasion, and bending my knee with as much respect
as I had ever used to the King of France, begged to bring myself to his
notice, and to crave his protection and favour.
‘This is no time to trouble me, sir,’ he retorted, eyeing me with an
angry side-glance. ‘I do not know you. You are unknown to me, sir. You
must go to M. de Rosny.’
‘It would be useless sire,’ I answered, in desperate persistence.
‘Then I can do nothing for you,’ he rejoined peevishly. ‘Stand on one
side, sir.’
But I was desperate. I knew that I had risked all on the event, and must
establish my footing before M. de Turenne’s return, or run the risk
of certain recognition and vengeance. I cried out, caring nothing who
heard, that I was M. de Marsac, that I had come back to meet whatever my
enemies could allege against me.
‘VENTRE SAINT GRIS!’ Henry exclaimed, starting in his saddle with
well-feigned surprise. ‘Are you that man?’
‘I am, sire,’ I answered.
‘Then you must be mad!’ he retorted, appealing to those behind him.
‘Stark, staring mad to show your face here! ‘VENTRE SAINT GRIS! Are we
to have all the ravishers and plunderers in the country come to us?’
‘I am neither the one nor the other!’ I answered, looking with
indignation from him to the gaping train behind him.
‘That you will have to settle with M. de Turenne!’ he retorted, frowning
down at me with his whole face turned gloomy and fierce. ‘I know you
well, sir, now. Complaint has been made that you abducted a lady from
his Castle of Chize some time back.’
‘The lady, sire, is now in charge of the Princess of Navarre.’
‘She is?’ he exclaimed, quite taken aback.
‘And if she has aught of complaint against me,’ I continued with pride,’
I will submit to whatever punishment you order or M. de Turenne demands.
But if she has no complaint to make, and vows that she accompanied me
of her own free-will and accord, and has suffered neither wrong nor
displeasure at my hands, then, sire, I claim that this is a private
matter between myself and M. de Turenne.’
‘Even so I think you will have your hands full,’ he answered grimly.
At the same time he stopped by a gesture those who would have cried out
upon me, and looked at me himself with an altered countenance. ‘Do I
understand that you assert that the lady went of her own accord?’ he
asked.
‘She went and has returned, sire,’ I answered.
‘Strange!’ he ejaculated. ‘Have you married her?’
‘No, sire,’ I answered. ‘I desire leave to do so.’
‘Mon dieu! she is M. de Turenne’s ward,’ he rejoined, almost dumbfounded
by my audacity.
‘I do not despair of obtaining his assent, sire,’ I said patiently.
‘SAINT GRIS! the man is mad!’ he cried, wheeling his horse and facing
his train with a gesture of the utmost wonder. ‘It is the strangest
story I ever heard.’
‘But somewhat more to the gentleman’s credit than the lady’s!’ one said
with a smirk and a smile.
‘A lie!’ I cried, springing forward on the instant with a boldness which
astonished myself. ‘She is as pure as your Highness’s sister! I swear
it. That man lies in his teeth, and I will maintain it.’
‘Sir!’ the King of Navarre cried, turning on me with the utmost
sternness, ‘you forget yourself in my presence! Silence, and beware
another time how you let your tongue run on those above you. You have
enough trouble, let me tell you, on your hands already.’
‘Yet the man lies!’ I answered doggedly, remembering Crillon and his
ways. ‘And if he will do me the honour of stepping aside with me, I will
convince him of it!’
‘VENTRE SAINT GRIS!’ Henry replied, frowning, and dwelling on each
syllable of his favourite oath. ‘Will you be silent, sir, and let me
think? Or must I order your instant arrest?’
‘Surely that at least, sire,’ a suave voice interjected. And with that
a gentleman pressed forward from the rest, and gaining a place, of
‘vantage by the King’s side, shot at me a look of extreme malevolence.
‘My lord of Turenne will expect no less at your Highness’s hands,’ he
continued warmly. ‘I beg you will give the order on the spot, and hold
this person to answer for his misdeeds. M. de Turenne returns to-day.
He should be here now. I say again, sire, he will expect no less than
this.’
The king, gazing at me with gloomy eyes, tugged at his moustaches.
Someone had motioned the common herd to stand back out of hearing;
at the same time the suite had moved up out of curiosity and formed a
half-circle; in the midst of which I stood fronting the king, who had
La Noue and the last speaker on either hand. Perplexity and annoyance
struggled for the mastery in his face as he looked darkly down at
me, his teeth showing through his beard. Profoundly angered by my
appearance, which he had taken at first to be the prelude to disclosures
which must detach Turenne at a time when union was all-important, he
had now ceased to fear for himself; and perhaps saw something in the
attitude I adopted which appealed to his nature and sympathies.
‘If the girl is really back,’ he said at last, ‘M. d’Aremburg, I do-not
see any reason why I should interfere. At present, at any rate.’
‘I think, sire, M. de Turenne will see reason,’ the gentleman answered
drily.
The king coloured. ‘M. de Turenne,’ he began--
‘Has made many sacrifices at your request, sire,’ the other said with
meaning. ‘And buried some wrongs, or fancied wrongs, in connection with
this very matter. This person has outraged him in the grossest manner,
and in M. le Vicomte’s name I ask, nay I press upon you, that he be
instantly arrested, and held to answer for it.’
‘I am ready to answer for it now!’ I retorted, looking from face to face
for sympathy, and finding none save in M. de la Noue’s, who appeared
to regard me with grave approbation. ‘To the Vicomte de Turenne, or the
person he may appoint to represent him.’
‘Enough!’ Henry said, raising his hand and speaking in the tone of
authority he knew so well how to adopt. ‘For you, M. d’Aremburg, I thank
you. Turenne is happy in his friend. But; this gentleman came to me of
his own free will and I do not think it consistent with my honour to
detain him without warning given. I grant him an hour to remove himself
from my neighbourhood. If he be found after that time has elapsed,’ he
continued solemnly, ‘his fate be on his own head. Gentlemen, we are late
already. Let us on.’
I looked at him as he pronounced this sentence, and strove to find words
in which to make a final appeal to him. But no words came; and when he
bade me stand aside, I did so mechanically, remaining with my head bared
to the sunshine while the troop rode by. Some looked back at me with
curiosity, as at a man of whom they had heard a tale, and some with a
jeer on their lips; a few with dark looks of menace. When they were all
gone, and the servants who followed them had disappeared also, and I was
left to the inquisitive glances of the rabble who stood gaping after the
sight, I turned and went to the Cid, and loosed the horse with a feeling
of bitter disappointment.
The plan which mademoiselle had proposed and I had adopted in the forest
by St. Gaultier--when it seemed to us that our long absence and the
great events of which we heard must have changed the world and opened a
path for our return--had failed utterly. Things were as they had been;
the strong were still strong, and friendship under bond to fear. Plainly
we should have shewn ourselves wiser had we taken the lowlier course,
and, obeying the warnings given us, waited the King of Navarre’s
pleasure or the tardy recollection of Rosny. I had not then stood, as I
now stood, in instant jeopardy, nor felt the keen pangs of a separation
which bade fair to be lasting. She was safe, and that was much; but I,
after long service and brief happiness, must go out again alone, with
only memories to comfort me.
It was Simon Fleix’s voice which awakened me from this unworthy
lethargy--as selfish as it was useless--and, recalling me to myself,
reminded me that precious time was passing while I stood inactive. To
get at me he had forced his way through the curious crowd, and his face
was flushed. He plucked me by the sleeve, regarding the varlets round
him with a mixture of anger and fear.
‘Nom de Dieu! do they take you for a rope-dancer?’ he muttered in my
ear. ‘Mount, sir, and come. There is not a moment to be lost.’
‘You left her at Madame Catherine’s?’ I said.
‘To be sure,’ he answered impatiently. ‘Trouble not about her. Save
yourself, M. de Marsac. That is the thing to be done now.’
I mounted mechanically, and felt my courage return as the horse moved
under me. I trotted through the crowd, and without thought took the road
by which we had come. When we had ridden a hundred yards, however, I
pulled up ‘An hour is a short start,’ I said sullenly. ‘Whither?’
‘To St. Cloud,’ he answered promptly. ‘The protection of the King of
France may avail for a day or two. After that, there will still be the
League, if Paris have not fallen.’
I saw there was nothing else for it, and assented, and we set off. The
distance which separates Meudon from St. Cloud we might have ridden
under the hour, but the direct road runs across the Scholars’ Meadow,
a wide plain north of Meudon. This lay exposed to the enemy’s fire, and
was, besides, the scene of hourly conflicts between the horse of both
parties, so that to cross it without an adequate force was impossible.
Driven to make a circuit, we took longer to reach our destination, yet
did so without mishap; finding the little town, when we came in sight
of it, given up to all the bustle and commotion which properly belong to
the Court and camp.
It was, indeed, as full as it could be, for the surrender of Paris being
momentarily expected, St. Cloud had become the rendezvous as well of
the few who had long followed a principle as of the many who wait
upon success. The streets, crowded in, every part, shone with glancing
colours, with steel and velvet, the garb of fashion and the plumes of
war. Long lines of flags obscured the eaves and broke the sunshine,
while, above all, the bells of half a dozen churches rang merry answer
to the distant crash of guns. Everywhere on flag and arch and streamer
I read the motto, ‘Vive le Roi!’--words written, God knew then, and we
know now, in what a mockery of doom!