THE HEAD OF ERASMUS.
Waiting, and waiting alone! The gates were almost down now. The gang
of ruffians without, reinforced each moment by volunteers eager for
plunder, rained blows unceasingly on hinge and socket; and still hotter
and faster through a dozen rifts in the timbers came the fire of their
threats and curses. Many grew tired, but others replaced them. Tools
broke, but they brought more and worked with savage energy. They had
shown at first a measure of prudence; looking to be fired on, and to be
resisted by men, surprised, indeed, but desperate; and the bolder of
them only had advanced. But now they pressed round unchecked, meeting
no resistance. They would scarcely stand back to let the sledges have
swing; but hallooed and ran in on the creaking beams and beat them with
their fists, whenever the gates swayed under a blow.
One stout iron bar still held its place. And this I watched as if
fascinated. I was alone in the empty courtyard, standing a little
aside, sheltered by one of the stone pillars from which the gates hung.
Behind me the door of the house stood ajar. Candles, which the daylight
rendered garish, still burned in the rooms on the first floor, of which
the tall narrow windows were open. On the wide stone sill of one of
these stood Croisette, a boyish figure, looking silently down at me,
his hand on the latticed shutter. He looked pale, and I nodded and
smiled at him. I felt rather anger than fear myself; remembering, as
the fiendish cries half-deafened me, old tales of the Jacquerie and its
doings, and how we had trodden it out.
Suddenly the din and tumult flashed to a louder note; as when hounds on
the scent give tongue at sight. I turned quickly from the house,
recalled to a sense of the position and peril. The iron bar was
yielding to the pressure. Slowly the left wing of the gate was sinking
inwards. Through the widening chasm I caught a glimpse of wild, grimy
faces and bloodshot eyes, and heard above the noise a sharp cry from
Croisette--a cry of terror. Then I turned and ran, with a defiant
gesture and an answering yell, right across the forecourt and up the
steps to the door.
I ran the faster for the sharp report of a pistol behind me, and the
whirr of a ball past my ear. But I was not scared by it: and as my
feet alighted with a bound on the topmost step, I glanced back. The
dogs were halfway across the court. I made a bungling attempt to shut
and lock the great door--failed in this; and heard behind me a roar of
coarse triumph. I waited for no more. I darted up the oak staircase
four steps at a time, and rushed into the great drawing-room on my
left, banging the door behind me.
The once splendid room was in a state of strange disorder. Some of the
rich tapestry had been hastily torn down. One window was closed and
shuttered; no doubt Croisette had done it. The other two were open--as
if there had not been time to close them--and the cold light which they
admitted contrasted in ghastly fashion with the yellow rays of candles
still burning in the sconces. The furniture had been huddled aside or
piled into a barricade, a CHEVAUX DE FRISE of chairs and tables
stretching across the width of the room, its interstices stuffed with,
and its weakness partly screened by, the torn-down hangings. Behind
this frail defence their backs to a door which seemed to lead to an
inner room, stood Marie and Croisette, pale and defiant. The former
had a long pike; the latter levelled a heavy, bell-mouthed arquebuse
across the back of a chair, and blew up his match as I entered. Both
had in addition procured swords. I darted like a rabbit through a
little tunnel left on purpose for me in the rampart, and took my stand
by them.
"Is all right?" ejaculated Croisette turning to me nervously.
"All right, I think," I answered. I was breathless.
"You are not hurt?"
"Not touched!"
I had just time then to draw my sword before the assailants streamed
into the room, a dozen ruffians, reeking and tattered, with flushed
faces and greedy, staring eyes. Once inside, however, suddenly--so
suddenly that an idle spectator might have found the change
ludicrous--they came to a stop. Their wild cries ceased, and tumbling
over one another with curses and oaths they halted, surveying us in
muddled surprise; seeing what was before them, and not liking it.
Their leader appeared to be a tall butcher with a pole-axe on his
half-naked shoulder; but there were among them two or three soldiers in
the royal livery and carrying pikes. They had looked for victims only,
having met with no resistance at the gate, and the foremost recoiled
now on finding themselves confronted by the muzzle of the arquebuse and
the lighted match.
I seized the occasion. I knew, indeed, that the pause presented our
only chance, and I sprang on a chair and waved my hand for silence.
The instinct of obedience for the moment asserted itself; there was a
stillness in the room.
"Beware!" I cried loudly--as loudly and confidently as I could,
considering that there was a quaver at my heart as I looked on those
savage faces, which met and yet avoided my eye. "Beware of what you
do! We are Catholics one and all like yourselves, and good sons of the
Church. Ay, and good subjects too! VIVE LE ROI, gentlemen! God save
the King! I say." And I struck the barricade with my sword until the
metal rang again. "God save the King!"
"Cry VIVE LA MESSE!" shouted one.
"Certainly, gentlemen!" I replied, with politeness. "With all my
heart. VIVE LA MESSE! VIVE LA MESSE!"
This took the butcher, who luckily was still sober, utterly aback. He
had never thought of this. He stared at us as if the ox he had been
about to fell had opened its mouth and spoken, and grievously at a
loss, he looked for help to his companions.
Later in the day, some Catholics were killed by the mob. But their
deaths as far as could be learned afterwards were due to private feuds.
Save in such cases--and they were few--the cry of VIVE LA MESSE!
always obtained at least a respite: more easily of course in the
earlier hours of the morning when the mob were scarce at ease in their
liberty to kill, while killing still seemed murder, and men were not
yet drunk with bloodshed.
I read the hesitation of the gang in their faces: and when one asked
roughly who we were, I replied with greater boldness, "I am M. Anne de
Caylus, nephew to the Vicomte de Caylus, Governor, under the King, of
Bayonne and the Landes!" This I said with what majesty I could. "And
these" I continued--"are my brothers. You will harm us at your peril,
gentlemen. The Vicomte, believe me, will avenge every hair of our
heads."
I can shut my eyes now and see the stupid wonder, the baulked ferocity
of those gaping faces. Dull and savage as the men were they were
impressed; they saw reason indeed, and all seemed going well for us
when some one in the rear shouted, "Cursed whelps! Throw them over!"
I looked swiftly in the direction whence the voice came--the darkest
corner of the room the corner by the shuttered window. I thought I
made out a slender figure, cloaked and masked--a woman's it might be
but I could not be certain and beside it a couple of sturdy fellows,
who kept apart from the herd and well behind their fugleman.
The speaker's courage arose no doubt from his position at the back of
the room, for the foremost of the assailants seemed less determined.
We were only three, and we must have gone down, barricade and all,
before a rush. But three are three. And an arquebuse--Croisette's
match burned splendidly--well loaded with slugs is an ugly weapon at
five paces, and makes nasty wounds, besides scattering its charge
famously. This, a good many of them and the leaders in particular,
seemed to recognise. We might certainly take two or three lives: and
life is valuable to its owner when plunder is afoot. Besides most of
them had common sense enough to remember that there were scores of
Huguenots--genuine heretics--to be robbed for the killing, so why go
out of the way, they reasoned, to cut a Catholic throat, and perhaps
get into trouble. Why risk Montfaucon for a whim? and offend a man of
influence like the Vicomte de Caylus, for nothing!
Unfortunately at this crisis their original design was recalled to
their minds by the same voice behind, crying out, "Pavannes! Where is
Pavannes?"
"Ay!" shouted the butcher, grasping the idea, and at the same time
spitting on his hands and taking a fresh grip of the axe, "Show us the
heretic dog, and go! Let us at him."
"M. de Pavannes," I said coolly--but I could not take my eyes off the
shining blade of that man's axe, it was so very broad and sharp--"is
not here!"
"That is a lie! He is in that room behind you!" the prudent gentleman
in the background called out. "Give him up!"
"Ay, give him up!" echoed the man of the pole-axe almost good
humouredly, "or it will be the worse for you. Let us have at him and
get you gone!"
This with an air of much reason, while a growl as of a chained beast
ran through the crowd, mingled with cries of "A MORT LES HUGUENOTS!
VIVE LORRAINE!"--cries which seemed to show that all did not approve of
the indulgence offered us.
"Beware, gentlemen, beware," I urged, "I swear he is not here! I swear
it, do you hear?"
A howl of impatience and then a sudden movement of the crowd as though
the rush were coming warned me to temporize no longer. "Stay! Stay!"
I added hastily. "One minute! Hear me! You are too many for us.
Will you swear to let us go safe and untouched, if we give you passage?"
A dozen voices shrieked assent. But I looked at the butcher only. He
seemed to be an honest man, out of his profession.
"Ay, I swear it!" he cried with a nod.
"By the Mass?"
"By the Mass."
I twitched Croisette's sleeve, and he tore the fuse from his weapon,
and flung the gun--too heavy to be of use to us longer--to the ground.
It was done in a moment. While the mob swept over the barricade, and
smashed the rich furniture of it in wanton malice, we filed aside, and
nimbly slipped under it one by one. Then we hurried in single file to
the end of the room, no one taking much notice of us. All were
pressing on, intent on their prey. We gained the door as the butcher
struck his first blow on that which we had guarded--on that which we
had given up. We sprang down the stairs with bounding hearts, heard as
we reached the outer door the roar of many voices, but stayed not to
look behind--paused indeed for nothing. Fear, to speak candidly, lent
us wings. In three seconds we had leapt the prostrate gates, and were
in the street. A cripple, two or three dogs, a knot of women looking
timidly yet curiously in, a horse tethered to the staple--we saw
nothing else. No one stayed us. No one raised a hand, and in another
minute we had turned a corner, and were out of sight of the house.
"They will take a gentleman's word another time," I said with a quiet
smile as I put up my sword.
"I would like to see her face at this moment," Croisette replied. "You
saw Madame d'O?"
I shook my head, not answering. I was not sure, and I had a queer,
sickening dread of the subject. If I had seen her, I had seen oh! it
was too horrible, too unnatural! Her own sister! Her own brother
in-law!
I hastened to change the subject. "The Pavannes," I made shift to say,
"must have had five minutes' start."
"More," Croisette answered, "if Madame and he got away at once. If all
has gone well with them, and they have not been stopped in the streets
they should be at Mirepoix's by now. They seemed to be pretty sure
that he would take them in."
"Ah!" I sighed. "What fools we were to bring madame from that place!
If we had not meddled with her affairs we might have reached Louis long
ago our Louis, I mean."
"True," Croisette answered softly, "but remember that then we should
not have saved the other Louis as I trust we have. He would still be
in Pallavicini's hands. Come, Anne, let us think it is all for the
best," he added, his face shining with a steady courage that shamed me.
"To the rescue! Heaven will help us to be in time yet!"
"Ay, to the rescue!" I replied, catching his spirit. "First to the
right, I think, second to the left, first on the right again. That was
the direction given us, was it not? The house opposite a book-shop
with the sign of the Head of Erasmus. Forward, boys! We may do it yet."
But before I pursue our fortunes farther let me explain. The room we
had guarded so jealously was empty! The plan had been mine and I was
proud of it. For once Croisette had fallen into his rightful place.
My flight from the gate, the vain attempt to close the house, the
barricade before the inner door--these were all designed to draw the
assailants to one spot. Pavannes and his wife--the latter hastily
disguised as a boy--had hidden behind the door of the hutch by the
gates--the porter's hutch, and had slipped out and fled in the first
confusion of the attack.
Even the servants, as we learned afterwards, who had hidden themselves
in the lower parts of the house got away in the same manner, though
some of them--they were but few in all were stopped as Huguenots and
killed before the day ended. I had the more reason to hope that
Pavannes and his wife would get clear off, inasmuch as I had given the
Duke's ring to him, thinking it might serve him in a strait, and
believing that we should have little to fear ourselves once clear of
his house; unless we should meet the Vidame indeed.
We did not meet him as it turned out; but before we had traversed a
quarter of the distance we had to go we found that fears based on
reason were not the only terrors we had to resist. Pavannes' house,
where we had hitherto been, stood at some distance from the centre of
the blood-storm which was enwrapping unhappy Paris that morning. It
was several hundred paces from the Rue de Bethisy where the Admiral
lived, and what with this comparative remoteness and the excitement of
our own little drama, we had not attended much to the fury of the
bells, the shots and cries and uproar which proclaimed the state of the
city. We had not pictured the scenes which were happening so near.
Now in the streets the truth broke upon us, and drove the blood from
our cheeks. A hundred yards, the turning of a corner, sufficed. We
who but yesterday left the country, who only a week before were boys,
careless as other boys, not recking of death at all, were plunged now
into the midst of horrors I cannot describe. And the awful contrast
between the sky above and the things about us! Even now the lark was
singing not far from us; the sunshine was striking the topmost storeys
of the houses; the fleecy clouds were passing overhead, the freshness
of a summer morning was--
Ah! where was it? Not here in the narrow lanes surely, that echoed and
re-echoed with shrieks and curses and frantic prayers: in which bands
of furious men rushed up and down, and where archers of the guard and
the more cruel rabble were breaking in doors and windows, and hurrying
with bloody weapons from house to house, seeking, pursuing, and at last
killing in some horrid corner, some place of darkness--killing with
blow on blow dealt on writhing bodies! Not here, surely, where each
minute a child, a woman died silently, a man snarling like a
wolf--happy if he had snatched his weapon and got his back to the wall:
where foul corpses dammed the very blood that ran down the kennel, and
children--little children--played with them!
I was at Cahors in 1580 in the great street fight; and there women were
killed, I was with Chatillon nine years later, when he rode through the
Faubourgs of Paris, with this very day and his father Coligny in his
mind, and gave no quarter. I was at Courtas and Ivry, and more than
once have seen prisoners led out to be piked in batches--ay, and by
hundreds! But war is war, and these were its victims, dying for the
most part under God's heaven with arms in their hands: not men and
women fresh roused from their sleep. I felt on those occasions no such
horror, I have never felt such burning pity and indignation as on the
morning I am describing, that long-past summer morning when I first saw
the sun shining on the streets of Paris. Croisette clung to me, sick
and white, shutting his eyes and ears, and letting me guide him as I
would. Marie strode along on the other side of him, his lips closed,
his eyes sinister. Once a soldier of the guard whose blood-stained
hands betrayed the work he had done, came reeling--he was drunk, as
were many of the butchers--across our path, and I gave way a little.
Marie did not, but walked stolidly on as if he did not see him, as if
the way were clear, and there were no ugly thing in God's image
blocking it.
Only his hand went as if by accident to the haft of his dagger. The
archer--fortunately for himself and for us too--reeled clear of us. We
escaped that danger. But to see women killed and pass by--it was
horrible! So horrible that if in those moments I had had the
wishing-cap, I would have asked but for five thousand riders, and leave
to charge with them through the streets of Paris! I would have had the
days of the Jacquerie back again, and my men-at-arms behind me!
For ourselves, though the orgy was at its height when we passed, we
were not molested. We were stopped indeed three times--once in each of
the streets we traversed--by different bands of murderers. But as we
wore the same badges as themselves, and cried "VIVE LA MESSE!" and
gave our names, we were allowed to proceed. I can give no idea of the
confusion and uproar, and I scarcely believe myself now that we saw
some of the things we witnessed. Once a man gaily dressed, and
splendidly mounted, dashed past us, waving his naked sword and crying
in a frenzied way "Bleed them! Bleed them! Bleed in May, as good
to-day!" and never ceased crying out the same words until he passed
beyond our hearing. Once we came upon the bodies of a father and two
sons, which lay piled together in the kennel; partly stripped already.
The youngest boy could not have been more than thirteen, I mention this
group, not as surpassing others in pathos, but because it is well known
now that this boy, Jacques Nompar de Caumont, was not dead, but lives
to-day, my friend the Marshal de la Force.
This reminds me too of the single act of kindness we were able to
perform. We found ourselves suddenly, on turning a corner, amid a gang
of seven or eight soldiers, who had stopped and surrounded a handsome
boy, apparently about fourteen. He wore a scholar's gown, and had some
books under his arm, to which he clung firmly--though only perhaps by
instinct--notwithstanding the furious air of the men who were
threatening him with death. They were loudly demanding his name, as we
paused opposite them. He either could not or would not give it, but
said several times in his fright that he was going to the College of
Burgundy. Was he a Catholic? they cried. He was silent. With an
oath the man who had hold of his collar lifted up his pike, and
naturally the lad raised the books to guard his face. A cry broke from
Croisette. We rushed forward to stay the blow.
"See! see!" he exclaimed loudly, his voice arresting the man's arm in
the very act of falling. "He has a Mass Book! He has a Mass Book! He
is not a heretic! He is a Catholic!"
The fellow lowered his weapon, and sullenly snatched the books. He
looked at them stupidly with bloodshot wandering eyes, the red cross on
the vellum bindings, the only thing he understood. But it was enough
for him; he bid the boy begone, and released him with a cuff and an
oath.
Croisette was not satisfied with this, though I did not understand his
reason; only I saw him exchange a glance with the lad. "Come, come!"
he said lightly. "Give him his books! You do not want them!"
But on that the men turned savagely upon us. They did not thank us for
the part we had already taken; and this they thought was going too far.
They were half drunk and quarrelsome, and being two to one, and two
over, began to flourish their weapons in our faces. Mischief would
certainly have been done, and very quickly, had not an unexpected ally
appeared on our side.
"Put up! put up!" this gentleman cried in a boisterous voice--he was
already in our midst. "What is all this about? What is the use of
fighting amongst ourselves, when there is many a bonny throat to cut,
and heaven to be gained by it! put up, I say!"
"Who are you?" they roared in chorus.
"The Duke of Guise!" he answered coolly. "Let the gentlemen go, and
be hanged to you, you rascals!"
The man's bearing was a stronger argument than his words, for I am sure
that a stouter or more reckless blade never swaggered in church or
street. I knew him instantly, and even the crew of butchers seemed to
see in him their master. They hung back a few curses at him, but
having nothing to gain they yielded. They threw down the books with
contempt--showing thereby their sense of true religion; and trooped off
roaring, "TUES! TUES! Aux Huguenots!" at the top of their voices.
The newcomer thus left with us was Bure--Blaise Bure--the same who only
yesterday, though it seemed months and months back, had lured us into
Bezers' power. Since that moment we had not seen him. Now he had
wiped off part of the debt, and we looked at him, uncertain whether to
reproach him or no. He, however, was not one whit abashed, but
returned our regards with a not unkindly leer.
"I bear no malice, young gentlemen," he said impudently.
"No, I should think not," I answered.
"And besides, we are quits now," the knave continued.
"You are very kind," I said.
"To be sure. You did me a good turn once," he answered, much to my
surprise. He seemed to be in earnest now. "You do not remember it,
young gentleman, but it was you and your brother here"--he pointed to
Croisette--"did it! And by the Pope and the King of Spain I have not
forgotten it!"
"I have," I said.
"What! You have forgotten spitting that fellow at Caylus ten days ago?
CA! SA! You remember. And very cleanly done, too! A pretty stroke!
Well, M. Anne, that was a clever fellow, a very clever fellow. He
thought so and I thought so, and what was more to the purpose the most
noble Raoul de Bezers thought so too. You understand!"
He leered at me and I did understand. I understood that unwittingly I
had rid Blaise Bure of a rival. This accounted for the respectful,
almost the kindly way in which he had--well, deceived us.
"That is all," he said. "If you want as much done for you, let me
know. For the present, gentlemen, farewell!"
He cocked his hat fiercely, and went off at speed the way we had
ourselves been going; humming as he went,
"Ce petit homme tant joli,
Qui toujours cause et toujours rit,
Qui toujours baise sa mignonne
Dieu gard' de mal ce petit homme!"
His reckless song came back to us on the summer breeze. We watched him
make a playful pass at a corpse which some one had propped in ghastly
fashion against a door--and miss it--and go on whistling the same
air--and then a corner hid him from view.
We lingered only a moment ourselves; merely to speak to the boy we had
befriended.
"Show the books if anyone challenges you," said Croisette to him
shrewdly. Croisette was so much of a boy himself, with his fair hair
like a halo about his white, excited face, that the picture of the two,
one advising the other, seemed to me a strangely pretty one. "Show the
books and point to the cross on them. And Heaven send you safe to your
college."
"I would like to know your name, if you please," said the boy. His
coolness and dignity struck me as admirable under the circumstances.
"I am Maximilian de Bethune, son of the Baron de Rosny."
"Then," said Croisette briskly, "one good turn has deserved another.
Your father, yesterday, at Etampes--no it was the day before, but we
have not been in bed--warned us--"
He broke off suddenly; then cried, "Run! run!"
The boy needed no second warning indeed. He was off like the wind down
the street, for we had seen and so had he, the stealthy approach of two
or three prowling rascals on the look out for a victim. They caught
sight of him and were strongly inclined to follow him; but we were
their match in numbers. The street was otherwise empty at the moment:
and we showed them three excellent reasons why they should give him a
clear start.
His after adventures are well-known: for he, too, lives. He was
stopped twice after he left us. In each case he escaped by showing his
book of offices. On reaching the college the porter refused to admit
him, and he remained for some time in the open street exposed to
constant danger of losing his life, and knowing not what to do. At
length he induced the gatekeeper, by the present of some small pieces
of money, to call the principal of the college, and this man humanely
concealed him for three days. The massacre being then at an end, two
armed men in his father's pay sought him out and restored him to his
friends. So near was France to losing her greatest minister, the Duke
de Sully.
To return to ourselves. The lad out of sight, we instantly resumed our
purpose, and trying to shut our eyes and ears to the cruelty, and
ribaldry, and uproar through which we had still to pass, we counted our
turnings with a desperate exactness, intent only on one thing--to reach
Louis de Pavannes, to reach the house opposite to the Head of Erasmus,
as quickly as we could. We presently entered a long, narrow street.
At the end of it the river was visible gleaming and sparkling in the
sunlight. The street was quiet; quiet and empty. There was no living
soul to be seen from end to end of it, only a prowling dog. The noise
of the tumult raging in other parts was softened here by distance and
the intervening houses. We seemed to be able to breathe more freely.
"This should be our street," said Croisette.
I nodded. At the same moment I espied, half-way down it, the sign we
needed and pointed to it, But ah! were we in time? Or too late? That
was the question. By a single impulse we broke into a run, and shot
down the roadway at speed. A few yards short of the Head of Erasmus we
came, one by one, Croisette first, to a full stop. A full stop!
The house opposite the bookseller's was sacked! gutted from top to
bottom. It was a tall house, immediately fronting the street, and
every window in it was broken. The door hung forlornly on one hinge,
glaring cracks in its surface showing where the axe had splintered it.
Fragments of glass and ware, hung out and shattered in sheer
wantonness, strewed the steps: and down one corner of the latter a
dark red stream trickled--to curdle by and by in the gutter. Whence
came the stream? Alas! there was something more to be seen yet,
something our eyes instinctively sought last of all. The body of a man.
It lay on the threshold, the head hanging back, the wide glazed eyes
looking up to the summer sky whence the sweltering heat would soon pour
down upon it. We looked shuddering at the face. It was that of a
servant, a valet who had been with Louis at Caylus. We recognised him
at once for we had known and liked him. He had carried our guns on the
hills a dozen times, and told us stories of the war. The blood crawled
slowly from him. He was dead.
Croisette began to shake all over. He clutched one of the pillars,
which bore up the porch, and pressed his face against its cold surface,
hiding his eyes from the sight. The worst had come. In our hearts I
think we had always fancied some accident would save our friend, some
stranger warn him.
"Oh, poor, poor Kit!" Croisette cried, bursting suddenly into violent
sobs. "Oh, Kit! Kit!"