It wanted an hour or so to noon next day as I drove across the Pont Neuf
in a closed carriage, and was borne down the Rue St. Dominique to the
portals of that splendid palace, facing the Jacobins, which bears the
title of the “Hôtel de Luynes,” and over the portals of which is carved
the escutcheon of our house.
Michelot--in obedience to the orders I had given him--got down only to
be informed that Madame la Duchesse was in the country. The lackey who
was summoned did not know where the lady might be found, nor when she
might return to Paris. And so I was compelled to drive back almost
despairingly to the Rue St. Antoine, and there lie concealed, nursing my
impatience, until my aunt should return.
Daily I sent Michelot to the Hôtel de Luynes to make the same inquiry,
and to return daily with the same dispiriting reply--that there was no
news of Madame la Duchesse.
In this fashion some three weeks wore themselves out, during which
period I lay in my concealment, a prey to weariness unutterable. I might
not venture forth save at night, unless I wore a mask; and as masks
were no longer to be worn without attracting notice--as during the late
king's reign--I dared not indulge the practice.
Certainly my ennui was greatly relieved by the visits of Montrésor,
which grew very frequent, the lad appearing to have conceived a kindness
for me; and during those three weeks our fellowship at nights over a
bottle or two engendered naturally enough a friendship and an intimacy
between us.
I had written to Andrea on the morrow of my return to Paris, to tell
him how kindly Montrésor had dealt with me, and some ten days later the
following letter was brought me by the lieutenant--to whom, for safety,
it had been forwarded:
“MY VERY DEAR GASTON:
I have no words wherewith to express my joy at the good news you send
me, which terminates the anxiety that has been mine since you left us on
the disastrous morning of our nuptials.
The uncertainty touching your fate, the fear that the worst might have
befallen you, and the realisation that I--for whom you have done so
much--might do naught for you in your hour of need, has been the one
cloud to mar the sunshine of my own bliss.
That cloud your letter has dispelled, and the knowledge of your safety
renders my happiness complete.
The Chevalier maintains his unforgiving mood, as no doubt doth also my
Lord Cardinal. But what to me are the frowns of either, so that my lady
smile? My little Geneviève is yet somewhat vexed in spirit at all this,
but I am teaching her to have faith in Time, the patron saint of all
lovers who follow not the course their parents set them. And so that
time may be allowed to intercede and appeal to the parent heart with
the potent prayer of a daughter's absence, I shall take my lady from
Chambord some three days hence. We shall travel by easy stages to
Marseilles, and there take ship for Palermo.
And so, dear, trusty friend, until we meet again, fare you well and
may God hold you safe from the wickedness of man, devil, and my Lord
Cardinal.
For all that you have done for me, no words of mine can thank you,
but should you determine to quit this France of yours, and journey to
Palermo after me, you shall never want a roof to shelter you or a board
to sit at, so long as roof and board are owned by him who signs himself,
in love at least, your brother--
“ANDREA DE MANCINI.”
With a sigh I set the letter down. A sigh of love and gratitude it was;
a sigh also of regret for the bright, happy boy who had been the source
alike of my recent joys and sorrows, and whom methought I was not
likely to see again for many a day, since the peaceful vegetation of his
Sicilian home held little attraction for me, a man of action.
It was on the evening of the last Sunday in May, whilst the bell of
the Jesuits, close by, was tinkling out its summons to vespers, that
Montrésor burst suddenly into my room with the request that I should
get my hat and cloak and go with him to pay a visit. In reply to my
questions--“Monseigneur's letter to Armand de Canaples,” he said, “has
borne fruit already. Come with me and you shall learn how.”
He led me past the Bastille and up the Rue des Tournelles to the door
of an unpretentious house, upon which he knocked. We were admitted by an
old woman to whom Montrésor appeared to be known, for, after exchanging
a word or two with her, he himself led the way upstairs and opened the
door of a room for me.
By the melancholy light of a single taper burning upon the table I
beheld a fair-sized room containing a curtained bed.
My companion took up the candle, and stepping to the bedside, he drew
apart the curtains.
Lying there I beheld a man whose countenance, despite its pallor and
the bloody bandages about his brow, I recognised for that of the little
spitfire Malpertuis.
As the light fell upon his face, the little fellow opened his eyes, and
upon beholding me at his side he made a sudden movement which wrung from
him a cry of pain.
“Lie still, Monsieur,” said Montrésor quietly.
But for all the lieutenant's remonstrances, he struggled up into a
sitting posture, requesting Montrésor to set the pillows at his back.
“Thank God you are here, M. de Luynes!” he said. “I learnt at Canaples
that you were not dead.”
“You have been to Canaples?”
“I was a guest of the Chevalier for twelve days. I arrived there on the
day after your departure.”
“You!” I ejaculated. “Pray what took you to Canaples?”
“What took me there?” he echoed, turning his feverish eyes upon me,
almost with fierceness. “The same motive that led me to join hands with
that ruffian St. Auban, when he spoke of waging war against Mancini; the
same motive that led me to break with him when I saw through his plans,
and when the abduction of Mademoiselle was on foot; the same motive that
made me come to you and tell you of the proposed abduction so that you
might interfere if you had the power, or cause others to do so if you
had not.”
I lay back in my chair and stared at him. Was this, then, another suitor
of Yvonne de Canaples, and were all men mad with love of her?
Presently he continued:
“When I heard that St. Auban was in Paris, having apparently abandoned
all hope in connection with Mademoiselle, I obtained a letter from M. de
la Rochefoucauld--who is an intimate friend of mine--and armed with this
I set out. As luck would have it I got embroiled in the streets of Blois
with a couple of cardinalist gentlemen, who chose to be offended by
lampoon of the Fronde that I was humming. I am not a patient man, and I
am even indiscreet in moments of choler. I ended by crying, 'Down with
Mazarin and all his creatures,' and I would of a certainty have had my
throat slit, had not a slight and elegant gentleman interposed, and,
exercising a wonderful influence over my assailants, extricated me from
my predicament. This gentleman was the Chevalier de Canaples. He was
strangely enough in a mood to be pleased by an anti-cardinalist ditty,
for his rage against Andrea de Mancini--which he took no pains to
conceal--had extended already to the Cardinal, and from morn till night
he did little else but revile the whole Italian brood--as he chose to
dub the Cardinal's family.”
I recognised the old knight's weak, vacillating character in this, a
creature of moods that, like the vane on a steeple, turns this way or
that, as the wind blows.
“I crave your patience, M. de Luynes,” he continued, “and beg of you
to hear my story so that you may determine whether you will save the
Canaples from the danger that threatens them. I only ask that you
dispatch a reliable messenger to Blois. But hear me out first. In virtue
as much of La Rochefoucauld's letters as of the sentiments which the
Chevalier heard me express, I became the honoured guest at his château.
Three days after my arrival I sustained a shock by the unexpected
appearance at Canaples of St. Auban. The Chevalier, however, refused
him admittance, and, baffled, the Marquis was forced to withdraw. But he
went no farther than Blois, where he hired himself a room at the Lys de
France. The Chevalier hated him as a mad dog hates water--almost as much
as he hated you. He spoke often of you, and always bitterly.”
Before I knew what I had said--
“And Mademoiselle?” I burst out. “Did she ever mention my name?”
Malpertuis looked up quickly at the question, and a wan smile flickered
round his lips.
“Once she spoke of you to me--pityingly, as one might speak of a dead
man whose life had not been good.”
“Yes, yes,” I broke in. “It matters little. Your story, M. Malpertuis.”
“After I had been at the château ten days, we learnt that Eugène de
Canaples had been sent to the Bastille. The news came in a letter penned
by his Eminence himself--a bitter, viperish letter, with a covert threat
in every line. The Chevalier's anger went white hot as he read the
disappointed Cardinal's epistle. His Eminence accused Eugène of being a
frondeur; M. de Canaples, whose politics had grown sadly rusted in the
country, asked me the meaning of the word. I explained to him the
petty squabbles between Court and Parliament, in consequence of the
extortionate imposts and of Mazarin's avariciousness. I avowed myself a
partisan of the Fronde, and within three days the Chevalier--who but
a little time before had sought an alliance with the Cardinal's
family--had become as rabid a frondeur as M. de Gondi, as fierce an
anticardinalist as M. de Beaufort.
“I humoured him in his new madness, with the result that ere long from
being a frondeur in heart, he thirsted to become a frondeur in deeds,
and he ended by begging me to bear a letter from him to the Coadjutor
of Paris, wherein he offered to place at M. de Gondi's disposal, towards
the expenses of the civil war which he believed to be imminent,--as,
indeed, it is,--the sum of sixty thousand livres.
“Now albeit I had gone to Canaples for purposes of my own, and not as
an agent of M. le Coadjuteur's, still for many reasons I saw fit to
undertake the Chevalier's commission. And so, bearing the letter
in question, which was hot and unguarded, and charged with endless
treasonable matter, I set out four days later for Paris, arriving here
yesterday.
“I little knew that I had been followed by St. Auban. His suspicions
must have been awakened, I know not how, and clearly they were confirmed
when I stopped before the Coadjutor's house last night. I was about to
mount the steps, when of a sudden I was seized from behind by half a
dozen hands and dragged into a side street. I got free for a moment and
attempted to defend myself, but besides St. Auban there were two others.
They broke my sword and attempted to break my skull, in which they went
perilously near succeeding, as you see. Albeit half-swooning, I had
yet sufficient consciousness left to realise that my pockets were being
emptied, and that at last they had torn open my doublet and withdrawn
the treasonable letter from the breast of it.
“I was left bleeding in the kennel, and there I lay for nigh upon an
hour until a passer-by succoured me and carried out my request to be
brought hither and put to bed.”
He ceased, and for some moments there was silence, broken only by the
wounded man's laboured breathing, which argued that his narrative had
left him fatigued. At last I sprang up.
“The Chevalier de Canaples must be warned,” I exclaimed.
“'T is an ugly business,” muttered Montrésor. “I'll wager a hundred that
Mazarin will hang the Chevalier if he catches him just now.”
“He would not dare!” cried Malpertuis.
“Not dare?” echoed the lieutenant. “The man who imprisoned the Princes
of Condé and Conti, and the Duke of Beaufort, not dare hang a provincial
knight with never a friend at Court! Pah, Monsieur, you do not know
Cardinal Mazarin.”
I realised to the full how likely Montrésor's prophecy was to be
fulfilled, and before I left Malpertuis I assured him that he had not
poured his story into the ears of an indifferent listener, and that I
would straightway find means of communicating with Canaples.