We had made our way slowly and with much jostling as far as the
principal street, finding the press increase as we advanced, when I
heard, as I turned a corner, my name called, and, looking up, saw at
a window the face of which I was in search. After that half a minute
sufficed to bring M. d’Agen flying to my side, when nothing, as I
had expected, would do but I must dismount where I was and share his
lodging. He made no secret of his joy and surprise at sight of me, but
pausing only to tell Simon where the stable was, haled me through the
crowd and up his stairs with a fervour and heartiness which brought the
tears to my eyes, and served to impress the company whom I found above
with a more than sufficient sense of my importance.
Seeing him again in the highest feather and in the full employment of
all those little arts and graces which served as a foil to his real
worth, I took it as a great honour that he laid them aside for the
nonce; and introduced me to the seat of honour and made me known to his
companions with a boyish directness and a simple thought for my comfort
which infinitely pleased me. He bade his landlord, without a moment’s
delay, bring wine and meat and everything which could refresh a
traveller, and was himself up and down a hundred times in a minute,
calling to his servants for this or that, or railing at them for their
failure to bring me a score of things I did not need. I hastened to make
my excuses to the company for interrupting them in the midst of their
talk; and these they were kind enough to accept in good part. At the
same time, reading clearly in M. d’Agen’s excited face and shining eyes
that he longed to be alone with me, they took the hint, and presently
left us together.
‘Well,’ he said, coming back from the door, to which he had conducted
them, ‘what have you to tell me, my friend? She is not with you?’
‘She is with Mademoiselle de la Vire at Meudon,’ I answered, smiling.
‘And for the rest, she is well and in better spirits.’
‘She sent me some message? he asked.
I shook my head. ‘She did not know I should see you,’ I answered.
‘But she--she has spoken of me lately?’ he continued, his face falling.
‘I do not think she has named your name for a fortnight,’ I answered,
laughing. ‘There’s for you! Why, man,’ I continued, adopting a different
tone, and laying my hand on his shoulder in a manner which reassured
him at least; as much as my words, ‘are you so young a lover as to be
ignorant that a woman says least of that of which she thinks most?
Pluck up, courage! Unless I am mistaken, you have little to be afraid of
except the past. Only have patience.’
‘You think so?’ he said gratefully.
I assured him that I had no doubt of it; and on that he fell into a
reverie, and I to watching him. Alas for the littleness of our natures!
He had received me with open arms, yet at sight of the happiness which
took possession of his handsome face I gave way to the pettiest feeling
which can harbour in a man’s breast. I looked at him with eyes of envy,
bitterly comparing my lot with that which fate had reserved for him. He
had fortune, good looks, and success on his side, great relations, and
high hopes; I stood in instant jeopardy, my future dark, and every path
which presented itself so hazardous that I knew not which to adopt. He
was young, and I past my prime; he in favour, and I a fugitive.
To such reflections he put an end in a way which made me blush for my
churlishness. For, suddenly awaking out, of his pleasant dream, he asked
me about myself and my fortunes, inquiring eagerly how I came to be in
St. Cloud, and listening to the story of my adventures with a generous
anxiety which endeared him to me more and more. When I had done--and by
that time Simon had joined us, and was waiting at the lower end of the
room--he pronounced that I must see the king.
‘There is nothing else for it,’ he said.
‘I have come to see him,’ I answered.
‘Mon dieu, yes!’ he continued, rising from his seat and looking at me
with a face of concern. ‘No one else can help you.’
I nodded.
‘Turenne has four thousand men here. You can do nothing against so
many?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘The question is, will the king protect me?’
‘It is he or no one,’ M. d’Agen answered warmly. ‘You cannot see him
to-night: he has a Council. To-morrow at daybreak you may. You must lie
here to-night, and I will set my fellows to watch, and I think you will
be safe. I will away now and see if my uncle will help. Can you think of
anyone else who would speak for you?’
I considered, and was about to answer in the negative, when Simon, who
had listened with a scared face, suggested M. de Crillon.
‘Yes, if he would,’ M. d’Agen exclaimed, looking at the lad with
approbation. ‘He has weight with the king.’
‘I think he might,’ I replied slowly. ‘I had a curious encounter with
him last night. And with that I told M. d’Agen of the duel I fought at
the inn.
‘Good!’ he said, his eyes sparkling. ‘I wish I had been there to see. At
any rate we will try him. Crillon fears no one, not even the king.’
So it was settled. For that night I was to keep close in my friend’s
lodging, showing not even my nose at the window.
When he had gone on his errand, and I found myself alone in the room,
I am fain to confess that I fell very low in my spirits. M. d’Agen’s
travelling equipment lay about the apartment, but failed to give any but
an untidy air to its roomy bareness. The light was beginning to
wane, the sun was gone. Outside, the ringing of bells and the distant
muttering of guns, with the tumult of sounds which rose from the crowded
street, seemed to tell of joyous life and freedom, and all the hopes and
ambitions from which I was cut off.
Having no other employment, I watched the street, and keeping myself
well retired from the window saw knots of gay riders pass this way and
that through the crowd, their corslets shining and their voices
high. Monks and ladies, a cardinal and an ambassador, passed under my
eyes--these and an endless procession of townsmen and beggars, soldiers
and courtiers, Gascons, Normans and Picards. Never had I seen such a
sight or so many people gathered together. It seemed as if half Paris
had come out to make submission, so that while my gorge rose against my
own imprisonment, the sight gradually diverted my mind from my private
distresses, by bidding me find compensation for them in the speedy and
glorious triumph of the cause.
Even when the light failed the pageant did not cease, but, torches and
lanthorns springing into life, turned night into day. From every side
came sounds of revelry or strife. The crowd continued to perambulate
the streets until a late hour, with cries of ‘VIVE LE ROI!’ and ‘VIVE
NAVARRE!’ while now and again the passage of a great noble with his
suite called forth a fresh outburst of enthusiasm. Nothing seemed
more certain, more inevitable, more clearly predestinated than that
twenty-four hours must see the fall of Paris.
Yet Paris did not fall.
When M. d’Agen returned a little before midnight, he found me still
sitting in the dark looking from the window. I heard him call roughly
for lights, and apprised by the sound of his voice that something was
wrong, I rose to meet him. He stood silent awhile, twirling his small
moustaches, and then broke into a passionate tirade, from which I was
not slow to gather that M. de Rambouillet declined to serve me.
‘Well,’ I said, feeling for the young man’s distress and embarrassment,
‘perhaps he is right.’
‘He says that word respecting you came this evening,’ my friend
answered, his cheeks red with shame, ‘and that to countenance you after
that would only be to court certain humiliation. I did not let him off
too easily, I assure you,’ M. d’Agen continued, turning away to evade
my gaze; ‘but I got no satisfaction. He said you had his good-will, and
that to help you he would risk something, but that to do so under these
circumstances would be only to injure himself.’
‘There is still Crillon,’ I said, with as much cheerfulness as I could
assume. ‘Pray Heaven he be there early! Did M. de Rambouillet say
anything else?’
‘That your only chance was to fly as quickly and secretly as possible.’
‘He thought; my situation desperate, then?’
My friend nodded; and scarcely less depressed on my account than ashamed
on his own, evinced so much feeling that it was all I could do to
comfort him; which I succeeded in doing only when I diverted the
conversation to Madame de Bruhl. We passed the short night together,
sharing the same room and the same bed, and talking more than we
slept--of madame and mademoiselle, the castle on the hill, and the camp
in the woods, of all old days en fin, but little of the future. Soon
after dawn Simon, who lay on a pallet across the threshold, roused me
from a fitful sleep into which I had just fallen, and a few minutes
later I stood up dressed and armed, ready to try the last chance left to
me.
M. d’Agen had dressed stage for stage with me, and I had kept silence.
But when he took up his cap, and showed clearly that he had it in his
mind to go with me, I withstood him. ‘No, I said, ‘you can do me little
good, and may do yourself much harm.’
‘You shall not go without one friend,’ he cried fiercely.
‘Tut, tut!’ I said. ‘I shall have Simon.’
But Simon, when I turned to speak to him, was gone. Few men are at their
bravest in the early hours of the day, and it did not surprise me that
the lad’s courage had failed him. The defection only strengthened,
however, the resolution I had formed that I would not injure M. d’Agen;
though it was some time before I could persuade him that I was in
earnest, and would go alone or not at all. In the end he had to content
himself with lending me his back and breast, which I gladly put on,
thinking it likely enough that I might be set upon before I reached the
castle. And then, the time being about seven, I parted from him with
many embraces and kindly words, and went into the street with my sword
under my cloak.
The town, late in rising after its orgy, lay very still and quiet. The
morning was grey and warm, with a cloudy sky. The flags, which had made
so gay, a show yesterday, hung close to the poles, or flapped idly and
fell dead again. I walked slowly along beneath them, keeping a sharp
look-out on every side; but there were few persons moving in the
streets, and I reached the Castle gates without misadventure. Here was
something of life; a bustle of officers and soldiers passing in and out,
of courtiers whose office made their presence necessary, of beggars who
had flocked hither in the night for company. In the middle of these I
recognised on a sudden and with great surprise Simon Fleix walking my
horse up and down. On seeing me he handed it to a boy, and came up to
speak to me with a red face, muttering that four legs were better than
two. I did not say much to him, my heart being full and my thoughts
occupied with the presence chamber and what I should say there; but
I nodded kindly to him, and he fell in behind me as the sentries
challenged me. I answered them that I sought M. de Crillon, and so
getting by, fell into the rear of a party of three who seemed bent on
the same errand as myself.
One of these was a Jacobin monk, whose black and white robes, by
reminding me of Father Antoine, sent a chill to my heart. The
second, whose eye I avoided, I knew to be M. la Guesle, the king’s
Solicitor-General. The third was a stranger to me. Enabled by M. la
Guesle’s presence to pass the main guards without challenge, the party
proceeded through a maze of passages and corridors, conversing together
in a low tone; while I, keeping in their train with my face cunningly
muffled, got as far by this means as the ante-chamber, which I found
almost empty. Here I inquired of the usher for M. de Crillon, and
learned with the utmost consternation that he was not present.
This blow, which almost stunned me, opened my eyes to the precarious
nature of my position, which only the early hour and small attendance
rendered possible for a moment. At any minute I might be recognised
and questioned, or my name be required; while the guarded doors of the
chamber shut me off as effectually from the king’s face and grace as
though I were in Paris, or a hundred leagues away. Endeavouring to the
best of my power to conceal the chagrin and alarm which possessed me as
this conviction took hold of me, I walked to the window; and to hide my
face more completely and at the same time gain a moment to collect my
thoughts, affected to be engaged in looking through it.
Nothing which passed in the room, however, escaped me. I marked
everything and everyone, though all my thought was how I might get to
the king. The barber came out of the chamber with a silver basin, and
stood a moment, and went in again with an air of vast importance. The
guards yawned, and an officer entered, looked round, and retired. M. la
Guesle, who had gone in to the presence, came out again and stood near
me talking with the Jacobin, whose pale nervous face and hasty movements
reminded me somehow of Simon Fleix. The monk held a letter or petition
in his hand, and appeared to be getting it by heart, for his lips moved
continually. The light which fell on his face from the window showed it
to be of a peculiar sweaty pallor, and distorted besides. But supposing
him to be devoted, like many of his kind, to an unwholesome life, I
thought nothing of this; though I liked him little, and would have
shifted my place but for the convenience of his neighbourhood.
Presently, while I was cudgelling my brains, a person came out and spoke
to La Guesle; who called in his turn to the monk, and started hastily
towards the door. The Jacobin followed. The third person who had entered
in their company had his attention directed elsewhere at the moment; and
though La Guesle called to him, took no heed. On the instant I grasped
the situation. Taking my courage in my hands, I crossed the floor behind
the monk; who, hearing me, or feeling his robe come in contact with
me, presently started and looked round suspiciously, his face wearing a
scowl so black and ugly that I almost recoiled from him, dreaming for
a moment that I saw before me the very spirit of Father Antoine. But as
the man said nothing, and the next instant averted his gaze, I hardened
my heart and pushed on behind him, and passing the usher, found myself
as by magic in the presence which had seemed a while ago as unattainable
by my wits as it was necessary to my safety.
It was not this success alone, however, which caused my heart to beat
more hopefully. The king was speaking as I entered, and the gay tones
of his voice seemed to promise a favourable reception. His Majesty sat
half-dressed on a stool at the farther end of the apartment, surrounded
by five or six noblemen, while as many attendants, among whom I hastened
to mingle, waited near the door.
La Guesle made as if he would advance, and then, seeing the king’s
attention was not on him, held back. But in a moment the king saw him
and called to him. ‘Ha, Guesle!’ he said with good-temper, ‘is it you?
Is your friend with you?’
The Solicitor went forward with the monk at his elbow, and I had leisure
to remark the favourable change which had taken place in the king, who
spoke more strongly and seemed in better health than of old. His
face looked less cadaverous under the paint, his form a trifle less
emaciated. That which struck me more than anything, however, was the
improvement in his spirits. His eyes sparkled from time to time, and he
laughed continually, so that I could scarcely believe that he was the
same man whom I had seen overwhelmed with despair and tortured by his
conscience.
Letting his attention slip from La Guesle, he began to bandy words with
the nobleman who stood nearest to him; looking up at him with a roguish
eye, and making bets on the fall of Paris.
‘Morbleu!’ I heard him cry gaily, ‘I would give a thousand pounds to see
the ‘Montpensier this morning! She may keep her third crown for
herself. Or, PESTE! we might put her in a convent. That would be a fine
vengeance!’
‘The veil for the tonsure,’ the nobleman said with a smirk.
‘Ay. Why not? She would have made a monk of me,’ the king rejoined
smartly. ‘She must be ready to hang herself with her garters this
morning, if she is not dead of spite already. Or, stay, I had forgotten
her golden scissors. Let her open a vein with them. Well, what does your
friend want, La Guesle?’
I did not hear the answer, but it was apparently satisfactory, for in
a minute all except the Jacobin fell back, leaving the monk standing
before the king; who, stretching out his hand, took from him a letter.
The Jacobin, trembling visibly, seemed scarcely able to support the
honour done him, and the king, seeing this, said in a voice audible
to all, ‘Stand up, man. You are welcome. I love a cowl as some love a
lady’s hood. And now, what is this?’
He read a part of the letter and rose. As he did so the monk leaned
forward as though to receive the paper back again, and then so swiftly,
so suddenly, with so unexpected a movement that no one stirred until all
was over, struck the king in the body with a knife! As the blade flashed
and was hidden, and His Majesty with a deep sob fell back on the stool,
then, and not till then, I knew that I had missed a providential chance
of earning pardon and protection. For had I only marked the Jacobin as
we passed the door together, and read his evil face aright, a word, one
word, had done for me more than the pleading of a score of Crillons!
Too late a dozen sprang forward to the king’s assistance; but before
they reached him he had himself drawn the knife from the wound and
struck the assassin with it on the head. While some, with cries of
grief, ran to support Henry, from whose body the blood was already
flowing fast, others seized and struck down the wretched monk. As they
gathered round him I saw him raise himself for a moment on his knees and
look upward; the blood which ran down his face, no less than the
mingled triumph and horror of his features, impressed the sight on
my recollection. The next instant three swords were plunged into
his breast, and his writhing body, plucked up from the floor amid a
transport of curses, was forced headlong through the casement and flung
down to make sport for the grooms and scullions who stood below.
A scene of indescribable confusion followed, some crying that the
king was dead, while others called for a doctor, and some by name for
Dortoman. I expected to see the doors closed and all within secured,
that if the man had confederates they might be taken. But there was no
one to give the order. Instead, many who had neither the ENTREE nor
any business in the chamber forced their way in, and by their cries and
pressure rendered the hub-bub and tumult a hundred times worse. In the
midst of this, while I stood stunned and dumbfounded, my own risks and
concerns forgotten, I felt my sleeve furiously plucked, and, looking
round, found Simon at my elbow. The lad’s face was crimson, his eyes
seemed, starting from his head.
‘Come,’ he muttered, seizing my arm. ‘Come!’ And without further
ceremony or explanation he dragged me towards the door, while his face
and manner evinced as much heat and impatience as if he had been himself
the assassin. ‘Come, there is not a moment to be lost,’ he panted,
continuing his exertions without the least intermission.
‘Whither?’ I said, in amazement, as I reluctantly permitted him to
force me along the passage and through the gaping crowd on the stairs.
‘Whither, man?’
‘Mount and ride!’ was the answer he hissed in my ear. ‘Ride for your
life to the King of Navarre--to the King of France it may be! Ride as
you have never ridden before, and tell him the news, and bid him look
to himself! Be the first, and, Heaven helping us, Turenne may do his
worst!’
I felt every nerve in my body tingle as I awoke to his meaning. Without
a word I left his arm, and flung myself into the crowd which filled the
lower passage to suffocation. As I struggled fiercely with them Simon
aided me by crying ‘A doctor! a doctor! make way there!’ and this
induced many to give place to me under the idea that I was an accredited
messenger. Eventually I succeeded in forcing my way through and reaching
the courtyard; being, as it turned out, the first person to issue from
the Chateau. A dozen people sprang towards me with anxious eyes and
questions on their lips; but I ran past them and, catching the Cid,
which was fortunately at hand, by the rein, bounded into the saddle.
As I turned the horse to the gate I heard Simon cry after me. ‘The
Scholars’ Meadow! Go that way!’ and then I heard no more. I was out of
the yard and galloping bare-headed down the pitched street, while women
snatched their infants up and ran aside, and men came startled to the
doors, crying that the League was upon us. As the good horse flung up
his head and bounded forward, hurling the gravel behind him with hoofs
which slid and clattered on the pavement, as the wind began to whistle
by me, and I seized the reins in a shorter grip, I felt my heart bound
with exultation. I experienced such a blessed relief and elation as the
prisoner long fettered and confined feels when restored to the air of
heaven.
Down one street and through a narrow lane we thundered, until a broken
gateway stopped with fascines--through which the Cid blundered and
stumbled--brought us at a bound into the Scholars’ Meadow just as the
tardy sun broke through the clouds and flooded the low, wide plain with
brightness. Half a league in front of us the towers of Meudon rose to
view on a hill. In the distance, to the left, lay the walls of Paris,
and nearer, on the same side, a dozen forts and batteries; while here
and there, in that quarter, a shining clump of spears or a dense mass of
infantry betrayed the enemy’s presence.
I heeded none of these things, however, nor anything except the towers
of Meudon, setting the Cid’s head straight for these and riding on at
the top of his speed. Swiftly ditch and dyke came into view before us
and flashed away beneath us. Men lying in pits rose up and aimed at us;
or ran with cries to intercept us. A cannon-shot fired from the fort
by Issy tore up the earth to one side; a knot of lancers sped from the
shelter of an earthwork in the same quarter, and raced us for half a
mile, with frantic shouts and threats of vengeance. But all such efforts
were vanity. The Cid, fired by this sudden call upon his speed, and
feeling himself loosed--rarest of events--to do his best, shook the foam
from his bit, and opening his blood-red nostrils to the wind, crouched
lower and lower; until his long neck, stretched out before him, seemed,
as the sward swept by, like the point of an arrow speeding resistless to
its aim.
God knows, as the air rushed by me and the sun shone in my face, I cried
aloud like a boy, and though I sat still and stirred neither hand nor
foot, lest I should break the good Sard’s stride, I prayed wildly that
the horse which I had groomed with my own hands and fed with my last
crown might hold on unfaltering to the end. For I dreamed that the fate
of a nation rode in my saddle; and mindful alike of Simon’s words, ‘Bid
him look to himself,’ and of my own notion that the League would not be
so foolish as to remove one enemy to exalt another, I thought nothing
more likely than that, with all my fury, I should arrive too late, and
find the King of Navarre as I had left the King of France.
In this strenuous haste I covered a mile as a mile has seldom been
covered before; and I was growing under the influence of the breeze
which whipped my temples somewhat more cool and hopeful, when I saw on
a sudden right before me, and between me and Meudon, a handful of men
engaged in a MELEE. There were red and white jackets in it--leaguers and
Huguenots--and the red coats seemed to be having the worst of it. Still,
while I watched, they came off in order, and unfortunately in such a way
and at such a speed that I saw they must meet me face to face whether
I tried to avoid the encounter or not. I had barely time to take in the
danger and its nearness, and discern beyond both parties the main-guard
of the Huguenots, enlivened by a score of pennons, when the Leaguers
were upon me.
I suppose they knew that no friend would ride for Meudon at that pace,
for they dashed at me six abreast with a shout of triumph; and before
I could count a score we met. The Cid was still running strongly, and I
had not thought to stay him, so that I had no time to use my pistols. My
sword I had out, but the sun dazzled me and the men wore corslets, and I
made but poor play with it; though I struck out savagely, as we crashed
together, in my rage at this sudden crossing of my hopes when all seemed
done and gained. The Cid faced them bravely--I heard the distant huzza
of the Huguenots--and I put aside one point which threatened my throat.
But the sun was in my eyes and something struck me on the head. Another
second, and a blow in the breast forced me fairly from the saddle.
Gripping furiously at the air I went down, stunned and dizzy, my last
thought as I struck the ground being of mademoiselle, and the little
brook with the stepping-stones.