of his martyrdom had come. Thenceforth he looked with cold curiosity at
the arrangements that were made by the executioner and his men. After
hastily preparing a bed, the two assistants got ready certain appliances
called _boots_; which consisted of several planks, between which each
leg of the victim was placed. The legs thus placed were brought close
together. The apparatus used by binders to press their volumes between
two boards, which they fasten by cords, will give an exact idea of the
manner in which each leg of the prisoner was bound. We can imagine the
effect produced by the insertion of wooden wedges, driven in by hammers
between the planks of the two bound legs,--the two sets of planks of
course not yielding, being themselves bound together by ropes. These
wedges were driven in on a line with the knees and the ankles.
The choice of these places where there is little flesh, and where,
consequently, the wedge could only be forced in by crushing the bones,
made this form of torture, called the “question,” horribly painful. In
the “ordinary question” four wedges were driven in,--two at the knees,
two at the ankles; but in the “extraordinary question” the number was
increased to eight, provided the doctor certified that the prisoner’s
vitality was not exhausted. At the time of which we write the “boots”
were also applied in the same manner to the hands and wrists; but,
being pressed for time, the cardinal, the lieutenant-general, and the
chancellor spared Christophe that additional suffering.
The _proces verbal_ was begun; the provost dictated a few sentences as
he walked up and down with a meditative air, asking Christophe his name,
baptismal name, age, and profession; then he inquired the name of the
person from whom he had received the papers he had given to the queen.
“From the minister Chaudieu,” answered Christophe.
“Where did he give them to you?”
“In Paris.”
“In giving them to you he must have told you whether the queen-mother
would receive you with pleasure?”
“He told me nothing of that kind,” said Christophe. “He merely asked me
to give them to Queen Catherine secretly.”
“You must have seen Chaudieu frequently, or he would not have known that
you were going to Blois.”
“The minister did not know from me that in carrying furs to the queen
I was also to ask on my father’s behalf for the money the queen-mother
owes him; and I did not have time to ask the minister who had told him
of it.”
“But these papers, which were given to you without being sealed or
enveloped, contained a treaty between the rebels and Queen Catherine.
You must have seen that they exposed you to the punishment of all those
who assist in a rebellion.”
“Yes.”
“The persons who persuaded you to this act of high treason must have
promised you rewards and the protection of the queen-mother.”
“I did it out of attachment to Chaudieu, the only person whom I saw in
the matter.”
“Do you persist in saying you did not see the Prince de Conde?”
“Yes.”
“The Prince de Conde did not tell you that the queen-mother was inclined
to enter into his views against the Messieurs de Guise?”
“I did not see him.”
“Take care! one of your accomplices, La Renaudie, has been arrested.
Strong as he is, he was not able to bear the ‘question,’ which will now
be put to you; he confessed at last that both he and the Prince de Conde
had an interview with you. If you wish to escape the torture of the
question, I exhort you to tell me the simple truth. Perhaps you will
thus obtain your full pardon.”
Christophe answered that he could not state a thing of which he had no
knowledge, or give himself accomplices when he had none. Hearing these
words, the provost-marshal signed to the executioner and retired himself
to the inner room. At that fatal sign Christophe’s brows contracted,
his forehead worked with nervous convulsion, as he prepared himself to
suffer. His hands closed with such violence that the nails entered the
flesh without his feeling them. Three men seized him, took him to the
camp bed and laid him there, letting his legs hang down. While the
executioner fastened him to the rough bedstead with strong cords, the
assistants bound his legs into the “boots.” Presently the cords were
tightened, by means of a wrench, without the pressure causing much pain
to the young Reformer. When each leg was thus held as it were in a vice,
the executioner grasped his hammer and picked up the wedges, looking
alternately at the victim and at the clerk.
“Do you persist in your denial?” asked the clerk.
“I have told the truth,” replied Christophe.
“Very well. Go on,” said the clerk, closing his eyes.
The cords were tightened with great force. This was perhaps the most
painful moment of the torture; the flesh being suddenly compressed,
the blood rushed violently toward the breast. The poor boy could not
restrain a dreadful cry and seemed about to faint. The doctor was called
in. After feeling Christophe’s pulse, he told the executioner to wait a
quarter of an hour before driving the first wedge in, to let the
action of the blood subside and allow the victim to recover his full
sensitiveness. The clerk suggested, kindly, that if he could not bear
this beginning of sufferings which he could not escape, it would be
better to reveal all at once; but Christophe made no reply except to
say, “The king’s tailor! the king’s tailor!”
“What do you mean by those words?” asked the clerk.
“Seeing what torture I must bear,” said Christophe, slowly, hoping to
gain time to rest, “I call up all my strength, and try to increase it by
thinking of the martyrdom borne by the king’s tailor for the holy cause
of the Reformation, when the question was applied to him in presence of
Madame la Duchesse de Valentinois and the king. I shall try to be worthy
of him.”
While the physician exhorted the unfortunate lad not to force them
to have recourse to more violent measures, the cardinal and the duke,
impatient to know the result of the interrogations, entered the hall and
themselves asked Christophe to speak the truth, immediately. The young
man repeated the only confession he had allowed himself to make, which
implicated no one but Chaudieu. The princes made a sign, on which the
executioner and his assistant seized their hammers, taking each a wedge,
which then they drove in between the joints, standing one to right, the
other to left of their victim; the executioner’s wedge was driven in at
the knees, his assistant’s at the ankles.
The eyes of all present fastened on those of Christophe, and he, no
doubt excited by the presence of those great personages, shot forth such
burning glances that they appeared to have all the brilliancy of flame.
As the third and fourth wedges were driven in, a dreadful groan
escaped him. When he saw the executioner take up the wedges for the
“extraordinary question” he said no word and made no sound, but his eyes
took on so terrible a fixity, and he cast upon the two great princes who
were watching him a glance so penetrating, that the duke and cardinal
were forced to drop their eyes. Philippe le Bel met with the same
resistance when the torture of the pendulum was applied in his presence
to the Templars. That punishment consisted in striking the victim on the
breast with one arm of the balance pole with which money is coined,
its end being covered with a pad of leather. One of the knights thus
tortured, looked so intently at the king that Philippe could not detach
his eyes from him. At the third blow the king left the chamber on
hearing the knight summon him to appear within a year before the
judgment-seat of God,--as, in fact, he did. At the fifth blow, the
first of the “extraordinary question,” Christophe said to the cardinal:
“Monseigneur, put an end to my torture; it is useless.”
The cardinal and the duke re-entered the adjoining hall, and Christophe
distinctly heard the following words said by Queen Catherine: “Go on;
after all, he is only a heretic.”
She judged it prudent to be more stern to her accomplice than the
executioners themselves.
The sixth and seventh wedges were driven in without a word of complaint
from Christophe. His face shone with extraordinary brilliancy, due, no
doubt, to the excess of strength which his fanatic devotion gave
him. Where else but in the feelings of the soul can we find the power
necessary to bear such sufferings? Finally, he smiled when he saw the
executioner lifting the eighth and last wedge. This horrible torture had
lasted by this time over an hour.
The clerk now went to call the physician that he might decide whether
the eighth wedge could be driven in without endangering the life of the
victim. During this delay the duke returned to look at Christophe.
“_Ventre-de-biche_! you are a fine fellow,” he said to him, bending down
to whisper the words. “I love brave men. Enter my service, and you shall
be rich and happy; my favors shall heal those wounded limbs. I do not
propose to you any baseness; I will not ask you to return to your party
and betray its plans,--there are always traitors enough for that, and
the proof is in the prisons of Blois; tell me only on what terms are the
queen-mother and the Prince de Conde?”
“I know nothing about it, monseigneur,” replied Christophe Lecamus.
The physician came, examined the victim, and said that he could bear the
eighth wedge.
“Then insert it,” said the cardinal. “After all, as the queen says,
he is only a heretic,” he added, looking at Christophe with a dreadful
smile.
At this moment Catherine came with slow steps from the adjoining
apartment and stood before Christophe, coldly observing him. Instantly
she was the object of the closest attention on the part of the two
brothers, who watched alternately the queen and her accomplice. On this
solemn test the whole future of that ambitious woman depended; she felt
the keenest admiration for Christophe, yet she gazed sternly at him; she
hated the Guises, and she smiled upon them!
“Young man,” said the queen, “confess that you have seen the Prince de
Conde, and you will be richly rewarded.”
“Ah! what a business this is for you, madame!” cried Christophe, pitying
her.
The queen quivered.
“He insults me!” she exclaimed. “Why do you not hang him?” she cried,
turning to the two brothers, who stood thoughtful.
“What a woman!” said the duke in a glance at his brother, consulting him
by his eye, and leading him to the window.
“I shall stay in France and be revenged upon them,” thought the queen.
“Come, make him confess, or let him die!” she said aloud, addressing
Montresor.
The provost-marshal turned away his eyes, the executioners were busy
with the wedges; Catherine was free to cast one glance upon the martyr,
unseen by others, which fell on Christophe like the dew. The eyes of the
great queen seemed to him moist; two tears were in them, but they
did not fall. The wedges were driven; a plank was broken by the blow.
Christophe gave one dreadful cry, after which he was silent; his face
shone,--he believed he was dying.
“Let him die?” said the cardinal, echoing the queen’s last words with
a sort of irony; “no, no! don’t break that thread,” he said to the
provost.
The duke and the cardinal consulted together in a low voice.
“What is to be done with him?” asked the executioner.
“Send him to the prison at Orleans,” said the duke, addressing Monsieur
de Montresor; “and don’t hang him without my order.”
The extreme sensitiveness to which Christophe’s internal organism had
been brought, increased by a resistance which called into play every
power of the human body, existed to the same degree, in his senses. He
alone heard the following words whispered by the Duc de Guise in the ear
of his brother the cardinal:
“I don’t give up all hope of getting the truth out of that little fellow
yet.”
When the princes had left the hall the executioners unbound the legs of
their victim roughly and without compassion.
“Did any one ever see a criminal with such strength?” said the chief
executioner to his aids. “The rascal bore that last wedge when he ought
to have died; I’ve lost the price of his body.”
“Unbind me gently; don’t make me suffer, friends,” said poor Christophe.
“Some day I will reward you--”
“Come, come, show some humanity,” said the physician. “Monseigneur
esteems the young man, and told me to look after him.”
“I am going to Amboise with my assistants,--take care of him yourself,”
said the executioner, brutally. “Besides, here comes the jailer.”
The executioner departed, leaving Christophe in the hands of the
soft-spoken doctor, who by the aid of Christophe’s future jailer,
carried the poor boy to a bed, brought him some broth, helped him to
swallow it, sat down beside him, felt his pulse, and tried to comfort
him.
“You won’t die of this,” he said. “You ought to feel great inward
comfort, knowing that you have done your duty.--The queen-mother bids me
take care of you,” he added in a whisper.
“The queen is very good,” said Christophe, whose terrible sufferings had
developed an extraordinary lucidity in his mind, and who, after enduring
such unspeakable sufferings, was determined not to compromise the
results of his devotion. “But she might have spared me much agony be
telling my persecutors herself the secrets that I know nothing about,
instead of urging them on.”
Hearing that reply, the doctor took his cap and cloak and left
Christophe, rightly judging that he could worm nothing out of a man of
that stamp. The jailer of Blois now ordered the poor lad to be carried
away on a stretcher by four men, who took him to the prison in the town,
where Christophe immediately fell into the deep sleep which, they say,
comes to most mothers after the terrible pangs of childbirth.
IX. THE TUMULT AT AMBOISE
By moving the court to the chateau of Amboise, the two Lorrain princes
intended to set a trap for the leader of the party of the Reformation,
the Prince de Conde, whom they had made the king summon to his presence.
As vassal of the Crown and prince of the blood, Conde was bound to obey
the summons of his sovereign. Not to come to Amboise would constitute
the crime of treason; but if he came, he put himself in the power of the
Crown. Now, at this moment, as we have seen, the Crown, the council, the
court, and all their powers were solely in the hands of the Duc de
Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine. The Prince de Conde showed, at this
delicate crisis, a presence of mind and a decision and willingness which
made him the worthy exponent of Jeanne d’Albret and the valorous general
of the Reformers. He travelled at the rear of the conspirators as far
as Vendome, intending to support them in case of their success. When
the first uprising ended by a brief skirmish, in which the flower of
the nobility beguiled by Calvin perished, the prince arrived, with fifty
noblemen, at the chateau of Amboise on the very day after that fight,
which the politic Guises termed “the Tumult of Amboise.” As soon as
the duke and cardinal heard of his coming they sent the Marechal de
Saint-Andre with an escort of a hundred men to meet him. When the prince
and his own escort reached the gates of the chateau the marechal refused
entrance to the latter.
“You must enter alone, monseigneur,” said the Chancellor Olivier, the
Cardinal de Tournon, and Birago, who were stationed outside of the
portcullis.
“And why?”
“You are suspected of treason,” replied the chancellor.
The prince, who saw that his suite were already surrounded by the troop
of the Duc de Nemours, replied tranquilly: “If that is so, I will go
alone to my cousin, and prove to him my innocence.”
He dismounted, talked with perfect freedom of mind to Birago, the
Cardinal de Tournon, the chancellor, and the Duc de Nemours, from whom
he asked for particulars of the “tumult.”
“Monseigneur,” replied the duke, “the rebels had confederates in
Amboise. A captain, named Lanoue, had introduced armed men, who opened
the gate to them, through which they entered and made themselves masters
of the town--”
“That is to say, you opened the mouth of a sack, and they ran into it,”
replied the prince, looking at Birago.
“If they had been supported by the attack which Captain Chaudieu,
the preacher’s brother, was expected to make before the gate of the
Bon-Hommes, they would have been completely successful,” replied the Duc
de Nemours. “But in consequence of the position which the Duc de Guise
ordered me to take up, Captain Chaudieu was obliged to turn my flank
to avoid a fight. So instead of arriving by night, like the rest, this
rebel and his men got there at daybreak, by which time the king’s troops
had crushed the invaders of the town.”
“And you had a reserve force to recover the gate which had been opened
to them?” said the prince.
“Monsieur le Marechal de Saint-Andre was there with five hundred
men-at-arms.”
The prince gave the highest praise to these military arrangements.
“The lieutenant-general must have been fully aware of the plans of the
Reformers, to have acted as he did,” he said in conclusion. “They were
no doubt betrayed.”
The prince was treated with increasing harshness. After separating him
from his escort at the gates, the cardinal and the chancellor barred
his way when he reached the staircase which led to the apartments of the
king.
“We are directed by his Majesty, monseigneur, to take you to your own
apartments,” they said.
“Am I, then, a prisoner?”
“If that were the king’s intention you would not be accompanied by a
prince of the Church, nor by me,” replied the chancellor.
These two personages escorted the prince to an apartment, where guards
of honor--so-called--were given him. There he remained, without seeing
any one, for some hours. From his window he looked down upon the Loire
and the meadows of the beautiful valley stretching from Amboise to
Tours. He was reflecting on the situation, and asking himself whether
the Guises would really dare anything against his person, when the door
of his chamber opened and Chicot, the king’s fool, formerly a dependent
of his own, entered the room.
“They told me you were in disgrace,” said the prince.
“You’d never believe how virtuous the court has become since the death
of Henri II.”
“But the king loves a laugh.”
“Which king,--Francois II., or Francois de Lorraine?”
“You are not afraid of the duke, if you talk in that way!”
“He wouldn’t punish me for it, monseigneur,” replied Chicot, laughing.
“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“Hey! Isn’t it due to you on your return? I bring you my cap and bells.”
“Can I go out?”
“Try.”
“Suppose I do go out, what then?”
“I should say that you had won the game by playing against the rules.”
“Chicot, you alarm me. Are you sent here by some one who takes an
interest in me?”
“Yes,” said Chicot, nodding. He came nearer to the prince, and made him
understand that they were being watched and overheard.
“What have you to say to me?” asked the Prince de Conde, in a low voice.
“Boldness alone can pull you out of this scrape; the message comes from
the queen-mother,” replied the fool, slipping his words into the ear of
the prince.
“Tell those who sent you,” replied Conde, “that I should not have
entered this chateau if I had anything to reproach myself with, or to
fear.”
“I rush to report that lofty answer!” cried the fool.
Two hours later, that is, about one o’clock in the afternoon, before the
king’s dinner, the chancellor and Cardinal de Tournon came to fetch
the prince and present him to Francois II. in the great gallery of the
chateau of Amboise, where the councils were held. There, before the
whole court, Conde pretended surprise at the coldness with which the
little king received him, and asked the reason of it.
“You are accused, cousin,” said the queen-mother, sternly, “of taking
part in the conspiracy of the Reformers; and you must prove yourself a
faithful subject and a good Catholic, if you do not desire to draw down
upon your house the anger of the king.”
Hearing these words said, in the midst of the most profound silence, by
Catherine de’ Medici, on whose right arm the king was leaning, the Duc
d’Orleans being on her left side, the Prince de Conde recoiled three
steps, laid his hand on his sword with a proud motion, and looked at all
the persons who surrounded him.
“Those who said that, madame,” he cried in an angry voice, “lied in
their throats!”
Then he flung his glove at the king’s feet, saying: “Let him who
believes that calumny come forward!”
The whole court trembled as the Duc de Guise was seen to leave his
place; but instead of picking up the glove, he advanced to the intrepid
hunchback.
“If you desire a second in that duel, monseigneur, do me the honor to
accept my services,” he said. “I will answer for you; I know that you
will show the Reformers how mistaken they are if they think to have you
for their leader.”
The prince was forced to take the hand of the lieutenant-general of
the kingdom. Chicot picked up the glove and returned it to Monsieur de
Conde.
“Cousin,” said the little king, “you must draw your sword only for the
defence of the kingdom. Come and dine.”
The Cardinal de Lorraine, surprised at his brother’s action, drew him
away to his own apartments. The Prince de Conde, having escaped his
apparent danger, offered his hand to Mary Stuart to lead her to the
dining hall; but all the while that he made her flattering speeches he
pondered in his mind what trap the astute Balafre was setting for him.
In vain he worked his brains, for it was not until Queen Mary herself
betrayed it that he guessed the intention of the Guises.
“‘Twould have been a great pity,” she said laughing, “if so clever a
head had fallen; you must admit that my uncle has been generous.”
“Yes, madame; for my head is only useful on my shoulders, though one
of them is notoriously higher than the other. But is this really your
uncle’s generosity? Is he not getting the credit of it rather cheaply?
Do you think it would be so easy to take off the head of a prince of the
blood?”
“All is not over yet,” she said. “We shall see what your conduct will be
at the execution of the noblemen, your friends, at which the Council has
decided to make a great public display of severity.”
“I shall do,” said the prince, “whatever the king does.”
“The king, the queen-mother, and myself will be present at the
execution, together with the whole court and the ambassadors--”
“A fete!” said the prince, sarcastically.
“Better than that,” said the young queen, “an _act of faith_, an act of
the highest policy. ‘Tis a question of forcing the noblemen of France
to submit themselves to the Crown, and compelling them to give up their
tastes for plots and factions--”
“You will not break their belligerent tempers by the show of danger,
madame; you will risk the Crown itself in the attempt,” replied the
prince.
At the end of the dinner, which was gloomy enough, Queen Mary had the
cruel boldness to turn the conversation openly upon the trial of the
noblemen on the charge of being seized with arms in their hands, and to
speak of the necessity of making a great public show of their execution.
“Madame,” said Francois II., “is it not enough for the king of France to
know that so much brave blood is to flow? Must he make a triumph of it?”
“No, sire; but an example,” replied Catherine.
“It was the custom of your father and your grandfather to be present at
the burning of heretics,” said Mary Stuart.
“The kings who reigned before me did as they thought best, and I choose
to do as I please,” said the little king.
“Philip the Second,” remarked Catherine, “who is certainly a great king,
lately postponed an _auto da fe_ until he could return from the Low
Countries to Valladolid.”
“What do you think, cousin?” said the king to Prince de Conde.
“Sire, you cannot avoid it, and the papal nuncio and all the ambassadors
should be present. I shall go willingly, as these ladies take part in
the fete.”
Thus the Prince de Conde, at a glance from Catherine de’ Medici, bravely
chose his course.
* * * * *
At the moment when the Prince de Conde was entering the chateau
d’Amboise, Lecamus, the furrier of the two queens, was also arriving
from Paris, brought to Amboise by the anxiety into which the news of the
tumult had thrown both his family and that of Lallier. When the old man
presented himself at the gate of the chateau, the captain of the guard,
on hearing that he was the queens’ furrier, said:--
“My good man, if you want to be hanged you have only to set foot in this
courtyard.”
Hearing these words, the father, in despair, sat down on a stone at a
little distance and waited until some retainer of the two queens or some
servant-woman might pass who would give him news of his son. But he sat
there all day without seeing any one whom he knew, and was forced
at last to go down into the town, where he found, not without some
difficulty, a lodging in a hostelry on the public square where the
executions took place. He was obliged to pay a pound a day to obtain
a room with a window looking on the square. The next day he had the
courage to watch, from his window, the execution of all the abettors of
the rebellion who were condemned to be broken on the wheel or hanged, as
persons of little importance. He was happy indeed not to see his own son
among the victims.
When the execution was over he went into the square and put himself in
the way of the clerk of the court. After giving his name, and slipping
a purse full of crowns into the man’s hand, he begged him to look on the
records and see if the name of Christophe Lecamus appeared in either of
the three preceding executions. The clerk, touched by the manner and
the tones of the despairing father, took him to his own house. After
a careful search he was able to give the old man an absolute assurance
that Christophe was not among the persons thus far executed, nor among
those who were to be put to death within a few days.
“My dear man,” said the clerk, “Parliament has taken charge of the
trial of the great lords implicated in the affair, and also that of the
principal leaders. Perhaps your son is detained in the prisons of the
chateau, and he may be brought forth for the magnificent execution which
their Excellencies the Duc de Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine are now
preparing. The heads of twenty-seven barons, eleven counts, and seven
marquises,--in all, fifty noblemen or leaders of the Reformers,--are to
be cut off. As the justiciary of the county of Tourine is quite distinct
from that of the parliament of Paris, if you are determined to know
about your son, I advise you to go and see the Chancelier Olivier,
who has the management of this great trial under orders from the
lieutenant-general of the kingdom.”
The poor old man, acting on this advice, went three times to see the
chancellor, standing in a long queue of persons waiting to ask mercy
for their friends. But as the titled men were made to pass before
the burghers, he was obliged to give up the hope of speaking to the
chancellor, though he saw him several times leave the house to go either
to the chateau or to the committee appointed by the Parliament,--passing
each time between a double hedge of petitioners who were kept back by
the guards to allow him free passage. It was a horrible scene of anguish
and desolation; for among these petitioners were many women, wives,
mothers, daughters, whole families in distress. Old Lecamus gave much
gold to the footmen of the chateau, entreating them to put certain
letters which he wrote into the hand either of Dayelle, Queen Mary’s
woman, or into that of the queen-mother; but the footmen took the poor
man’s money and carried the letters, according to the general order
of the cardinal, to the provost-marshal. By displaying such unheard-of
cruelty the Guises knew that they incurred great dangers from revenge,
and never did they take such precautions for their safety as they did
while the court was at Amboise; consequently, neither the greatest of
all corrupters, gold, nor the incessant and active search which the old
furrier instituted gave him the slightest gleam of light on the fate of
his son. He went about the little town with a mournful air, watching the
great preparations made by order of the cardinal for the dreadful show
at which the Prince de Conde had agreed to be present.
Public curiosity was stimulated from Paris to Nantes by the means
adopted on this occasion. The execution was announced from all pulpits
by the rectors of the churches, while at the same time they gave thanks
for the victory of the king over the heretics. Three handsome balconies,
the middle one more sumptuous than the other two, were built against the
terrace of the chateau of Amboise, at the foot of which the executions
were appointed to take place. Around the open square, stagings were
erected, and these were filled with an immense crowd of people attracted
by the wide-spread notoriety given to this “act of faith.” Ten thousand
persons camped in the adjoining fields the night before the day on which
the horrible spectacle was appointed to take place. The roofs on the
houses were crowded with spectators, and windows were let at ten pounds
apiece,--an enormous sum in those days. The poor old father had engaged,
as we may well believe, one of the best places from which the eye could
take in the whole of the terrible scene, where so many men of noble
blood were to perish on a vast scaffold covered with black cloth,
erected in the middle of the open square. Thither, on the morning of the
fatal day, they brought the _chouquet_,--a name given to the block on
which the condemned man laid his head as he knelt before it. After
this they brought an arm-chair draped with black, for the clerk of the
Parliament, whose business it was to call up the condemned noblemen to
their death and read their sentences. The whole square was guarded from
early morning by the Scottish guard and the gendarmes of the king’s
household, in order to keep back the crowd which threatened to fill it
before the hour of the execution.
After a solemn mass said at the chateau and in the churches of the town,
the condemned lords, the last of the conspirators who were left alive,
were led out. These gentlemen, some of whom had been put to the torture,
were grouped at the foot of the scaffold and surrounded by monks, who
endeavored to make them abjure the doctrines of Calvin. But not a single
man listened to the words of the priests who had been appointed for
this duty by the Cardinal of Lorraine; among whom the gentlemen no doubt
feared to find spies of the Guises. In order to avoid the importunity of
these antagonists they chanted a psalm, put into French verse by Clement
Marot. Calvin, as we all know, had ordained that prayers to God should
be in the language of each country, as much from a principle of common
sense as in opposition to the Roman worship. To those in the crowd who
pitied these unfortunate gentlemen it was a moving incident to hear them
chant the following verse at the very moment when the king and court
arrived and took their places:--
“God be merciful unto us,
And bless us!
And show us the light of his countenance,
And be merciful unto us.”
The eyes of all the Reformers turned to their leader, the Prince de
Conde, who was placed intentionally between Queen Mary and the young Duc
d’Orleans. Catherine de’ Medici was beside the king, and the rest of the
court were on her left. The papal nuncio stood behind Queen Mary; the
lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the Duc de Guise, was on horseback
below the balcony, with two of the marshals of France and his staff
captains. When the Prince de Conde appeared all the condemned noblemen
who knew him bowed to him, and the brave hunchback returned their
salutation.
“It would be hard,” he remarked to the Duc d’Orleans, “not to be civil
to those about to die.”
The two other balconies were filled by invited guests, courtiers, and
persons on duty about the court. In short, the whole company of the
chateau de Blois had come to Amboise to assist at this festival of
death, precisely as it passed, a little later, from the pleasures of
a court to the perils of war, with an easy facility, which will always
seem to foreigners one of the main supports of their policy toward
France.
The poor syndic of the furriers of Paris was filled with the keenest joy
at not seeing his son among the fifty-seven gentlemen who were condemned
to die.
At a sign from the Duc de Guise, the clerk seated on the scaffold cried
in a loud voice:--
“Jean-Louis-Alberic, Baron de Raunay, guilty of heresy, of the crime of
_lese-majeste_, and assault with armed hand against the person of the
king.”
A tall handsome man mounted the scaffold with a firm step, bowed to the
people and the court, and said:
“That sentence lies. I took arms to deliver the king from his enemies,
the Guises.”
He placed his head on the block, and it fell. The Reformers chanted:--
“Thou, O God! hast proved us;
Thou hast tried us;
As silver is tried in the fire,
So hast thou purified us.”
“Robert-Jean-Rene Briquemart, Comte de Villemongis, guilty of the crime
of _lese-majeste_, and of attempts against the person of the king!”
called the clerk.
The count dipped his hands in the blood of the Baron de Raunay, and
said:--
“May this blood recoil upon those who are really guilty of those
crimes.”
The Reformers chanted:--
“Thou broughtest us into the snare;
Thou laidest afflictions upon our loins;
Thou hast suffered our enemies
To ride over us.”
“You must admit, monseigneur,” said the Prince de Conde to the papal
nuncio, “that if these French gentlemen know how to conspire, they also
know how to die.”
“What hatreds, brother!” whispered the Duchesse de Guise to the Cardinal
de Lorraine, “you are drawing down upon the heads of our children!”
“The sight makes me sick,” said the young king, turning pale at the flow
of blood.
“Pooh! only rebels!” replied Catherine de’ Medici.
The chants went on; the axe still fell. The sublime spectacle of men
singing as they died, and, above all, the impression produced upon the
crowd by the progressive diminution of the chanting voices, superseded
the fear inspired by the Guises.
“Mercy!” cried the people with one voice, when they heard the solitary
chant of the last and most important of the great lords, who was saved
to be the final victim. He alone remained at the foot of the steps by
which the others had mounted the scaffold, and he chanted:--
“Thou, O God, be merciful unto us,
And bless us,
And cause thy face to shine upon us.
Amen!”
“Come, Duc de Nemours,” said the Prince de Conde, weary of the part he
was playing; “you who have the credit of the skirmish, and who helped
to make these men prisoners, do you not feel under an obligation to ask
mercy for this one? It is Castelnau, who, they say, received your word
of honor that he should be courteously treated if he surrendered.”
“Do you think I waited till he was here before trying to save him?” said
the Duc de Nemours, stung by the stern reproach.
The clerk called slowly--no doubt he was intentionally slow:--
“Michel-Jean-Louis, Baron de Castelnau-Chalosse, accused and convicted
of the crime of _lese-majeste_, and of attempts against the person of
the king.”
“No,” said Castelnau, proudly, “it cannot be a crime to oppose the
tyranny and the projected usurpation of the Guises.”
The executioner, sick of his task, saw a movement in the king’s gallery,
and fumbled with his axe.
“Monsieur le baron,” he said, “I do not want to execute you; a moment’s
delay may save you.”
All the people again cried, “Mercy!”
“Come!” said the king, “mercy for that poor Castelnau, who saved the
life of the Duc d’Orleans.”
The cardinal intentionally misunderstood the king’s speech.
“Go on,” he motioned to the executioner, and the head of Castelnau fell
at the very moment when the king had pronounced his pardon.
“That head, cardinal, goes to your account,” said Catherine de’ Medici.
The day after this dreadful execution the Prince de Conde returned to
Navarre.
The affair produced a great sensation in France and at all the foreign
courts. The torrents of noble blood then shed caused such anguish to the
chancellor Olivier that his honorable mind, perceiving at last the
real end and aim of the Guises disguised under a pretext of defending
religion and the monarchy, felt itself no longer able to make head
against them. Though he was their creature, he was not willing to
sacrifice his duty and the Throne to their ambition; and he withdrew
from his post, suggesting l’Hopital as his rightful successor.
Catherine, hearing of Olivier’s suggestion, immediately proposed Birago,
and put much warmth into her request. The cardinal, knowing nothing of
the letter written by l’Hopital to the queen-mother, and supposing him
faithful to the house of Lorraine, pressed his appointment in opposition
to that of Birago, and Catherine allowed herself to seem vanquished.
From the moment that l’Hopital entered upon his duties he took measures
against the Inquisition, which the Cardinal de Lorraine was desirous
of introducing into France; and he thwarted so successfully all the
anti-gallican policy of the Guises, and proved himself so true a
Frenchmen, that in order to subdue him he was exiled, within three
months of his appointment, to his country-seat of Vignay, near Etampes.
The worthy old Lecamus waited impatiently till the court left Amboise,
being unable to find an opportunity to speak to either of the queens,
and hoping to put himself in their way as the court advanced along the
river-bank on its return to Blois. He disguised himself as a pauper,
at the risk of being taken for a spy, and by means of this travesty,
he mingled with the crowd of beggars which lined the roadway. After the
departure of the Prince de Conde, and the execution of the leaders, the
duke and cardinal thought they had sufficiently silenced the Reformers
to allow the queen-mother a little more freedom. Lecamus knew that,
instead of travelling in a litter, Catherine intended to go on
horseback, _a la planchette_,--such was the name given to a sort of
stirrup invented for or by the queen-mother, who, having hurt her leg on
some occasion, ordered a velvet-covered saddle with a plank on which she
could place both feet by sitting sideways on the horse and passing one
leg through a depression in the saddle. As the queen-mother had very
handsome legs, she was accused of inventing this method of riding, in
order to show them. The old furrier fortunately found a moment when
he could present himself to her sight; but the instant that the queen
recognized him she gave signs of displeasure.
“Go away, my good man, and let no one see you speak to me,” she said
with anxiety. “Get yourself elected deputy to the States-general, by
the guild of your trade, and act for me when the Assembly convenes at
Orleans; you shall know whom to trust in the matter of your son.”
“Is he living?” asked the old man.
“Alas!” said the queen, “I hope so.”
Lecamus was obliged to return to Paris with nothing better than those
doubtful words and the secret of the approaching convocation of the
States-general, thus confided to him by the queen-mother.
X. COSMO RUGGIERO
The Cardinal de Lorraine obtained, within a few days of the events
just related, certain revelations as to the culpability of the court of
Navarre. At Lyon, and at Mouvans in Dauphine, a body of Reformers, under
command of the most enterprising prince of the house of Bourbon had
endeavored to incite the populace to rise. Such audacity, after the
bloody executions at Amboise, astonished the Guises, who (no doubt to
put an end to heresy by means known only to themselves) proposed the
convocation of the States-general at Orleans. Catherine de’ Medici,
seeing a chance of support to her policy in a national representation,
joyfully agreed to it. The cardinal, bent on recovering his prey and
degrading the house of Bourbon, convoked the States for the sole purpose
of bringing the Prince de Conde and the king of Navarre (Antoine de
Bourbon, father of Henri IV.) to Orleans,--intending to make use of
Christophe to convict the prince of high treason if he succeeded in
again getting him within the power of the Crown.
After two months had passed in the prison at Blois, Christophe was
removed on a litter to a tow-boat, which sailed up the Loire to Orleans,
helped by a westerly wind. He arrived there in the evening and was taken
at once to the celebrated tower of Saint-Aignan. The poor lad, who did
not know what to think of his removal, had plenty of time to reflect on
his conduct and on his future. He remained there two months, lying
on his pallet, unable to move his legs. The bones of his joints were
broken. When he asked for the help of a surgeon of the town, the jailer
replied that the orders were so strict about him that he dared not allow
any one but himself even to bring him food. This severity, which placed
him virtually in solitary confinement, amazed Christophe. To his
mind, he ought either to be hanged or released; for he was, of course,
entirely ignorant of the events at Amboise.
In spite of certain secret advice sent to them by Catherine de’ Medici,
the two chiefs of the house of Bourbon resolved to be present at the
States-general, so completely did the autograph letters they received
from the king reassure them; and no sooner had the court established
itself at Orleans than it learned, not without amazement, from Groslot,
chancellor of Navarre, that the Bourbon princes had arrived.
Francois II. established himself in the house of the chancellor of
Navarre, who was also _bailli_, in other words, chief justice of the
law courts, at Orleans. This Groslot, whose dual position was one of
the singularities of this period--when Reformers themselves owned
abbeys--Groslot, the Jacques Coeur of Orleans, one of the richest
burghers of the day, did not bequeath his name to the house, for in
after years it was called Le Bailliage, having been, undoubtedly,
purchased either by the heirs of the Crown or by the provinces as the
proper place in which to hold the legal courts. This charming structure,
built by the bourgeoisie of the sixteenth century, which completes so
admirably the history of a period in which king, nobles, and burghers
rivalled each other in the grace, elegance, and richness of their
dwellings (witness Varangeville, the splendid manor-house of Ango, and
the mansion, called that of Hercules, in Paris), exists to this day,
though in a state to fill archaeologists and lovers of the Middle Ages
with despair. It would be difficult, however, to go to Orleans and not
take notice of the Hotel-de-Ville which stands on the place de l’Estape.
This hotel-de-ville, or town-hall, is the former Bailliage, the
mansion of Groslot, the most illustrious house in Orleans, and the most
neglected.
The remains of this old building will still show, to the eyes of an
archaeologist, how magnificent it was at a period when the houses of the
burghers were commonly built of wood rather than stone, a period when
noblemen alone had the right to build _manors_,--a significant word.
Having served as the dwelling of the king at a period when the court
displayed much pomp and luxury, the hotel Groslot must have been the
most splendid house in Orleans. It was here, on the place de l’Estape,
that the Guises and the king reviewed the burgher guard, of which
Monsieur de Cypierre was made the commander during the sojourn of the
king. At this period the cathedral of Sainte-Croix, afterward completed
by Henri IV.,--who chose to give that proof of the sincerity of his
conversion,--was in process of erection, and its neighborhood, heaped
with stones and cumbered with piles of wood, was occupied by the Guises
and their retainers, who were quartered in the bishop’s palace, now
destroyed.
The town was under military discipline, and the measures taken by
the Guises proved how little liberty they intended to leave to the
States-general, the members of which flocked into the town, raising
the rents of the poorest lodgings. The court, the burgher militia,
the nobility, and the burghers themselves were all in a state of
expectation, awaiting some _coup-d’Etat_; and they found themselves not
mistaken when the princes of the blood arrived. As the Bourbon princes
entered the king’s chamber, the court saw with terror the insolent
bearing of Cardinal de Lorraine. Determined to show his intentions
openly, he remained covered, while the king of Navarre stood before
him bare-headed. Catherine de’ Medici lowered her eyes, not to show the
indignation that she felt. Then followed a solemn explanation between
the young king and the two chiefs of the younger branch. It was short,
for that the first words of the Prince de Conde Francois II. interrupted
him, with threatening looks:
“Messieurs, my cousins, I had supposed the affair of Amboise over; I
find it is not so, and you are compelling us to regret the indulgence
which we showed.”
“It is not the king so much as the Messieurs de Guise who now address
us,” replied the Prince de Conde.
“Adieu, monsieur,” cried the little king, crimson with anger. When he
left the king’s presence the prince found his way barred in the great
hall by two officers of the Scottish guard. As the captain of the French
guard advanced, the prince drew a letter from his doublet, and said to
him in presence of the whole court:--
“Can you read that paper aloud to me, Monsieur de Maille-Breze?”
“Willingly,” said the French captain:--
“‘My cousin, come in all security; I give you my royal word that
you can do so. If you have need of a safe conduct, this letter
will serve as one.’”
“Signed?” said the shrewd and courageous hunchback.
“Signed ‘Francois,’” said Maille.
“No, no!” exclaimed the prince, “it is signed: ‘Your good cousin and
friend, Francois,’--Messieurs,” he said to the Scotch guard, “I follow
you to the prison to which you are ordered, on behalf of the king, to
conduct me. There is enough nobility in this hall to understand the
matter!”
The profound silence which followed these words ought to have
enlightened the Guises, but silence is that to which all princes listen
least.
“Monseigneur,” said the Cardinal de Tournon, who was following the
prince, “you know well that since the affair at Amboise you have made
certain attempts both at Lyon and at Mouvans in Dauphine against the
royal authority, of which the king had no knowledge when he wrote to you
in those terms.”
“Tricksters!” cried the prince, laughing.
“You have made a public declaration against the Mass and in favor of
heresy.”
“We are masters in Navarre,” said the prince.
“You mean to say in Bearn. But you owe homage to the Crown,” replied
President de Thou.
“Ha! you here, president?” cried the prince, sarcastically. “Is the
whole Parliament with you?”
So saying, he cast a look of contempt upon the cardinal and left the
hall. He saw plainly enough that they meant to have his head. The next
day, when Messieurs de Thou, de Viole, d’Espesse, the procureur-general
Bourdin, and the chief clerk of the court du Tillet, entered his
presence, he kept them standing, and expressed his regrets to see them
charged with a duty which did not belong to them. Then he said to the
clerk, “Write down what I say,” and dictated as follows:--
“I, Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conde, peer of the kingdom,
Marquis de Conti, Comte de Soissons, prince of the blood of
France, do declare that I formally refuse to recognize any
commission appointed to try me, because, in my quality and in
virtue of the privilege appertaining to all members of the royal
house, I can only be accused, tried, and judged by the Parliament
of peers, both Chambers assembled, the king being seated on his
bed of justice.”
“You ought to know that, gentlemen, better than others,” he added; “and
this reply is all that you will get from me. For the rest, I trust in
God and my right.”
The magistrates continued to address him notwithstanding his obstinate
silence. The king of Navarre was left at liberty, but closely watched;
his prison was larger than that of the prince, and this was the only
real difference in the position of the two brothers,--the intention
being that their heads should fall together.
Christophe was therefore kept in the strictest solitary confinement by
order of the cardinal and the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, for no
other purpose than to give the judges proof of the culpability of the
Prince de Conde. The letters seized on Lasagne, the prince’s secretary,
though intelligible to statesmen, where not sufficiently plain proof for
judges. The cardinal intended to confront the prince and Christophe by
accident; and it was not without intention that the young Reformer was
placed in one of the lower rooms in the tower of Saint-Aignan, with a
window looking on the prison yard. Each time that Christophe was
brought before the magistrates, and subjected to a close examination,
he sheltered himself behind a total and complete denial, which prolonged
his trial until after the opening of the States-general.
Old Lecamus, who by that time had got himself elected deputy of the
_tiers-etat_ by the burghers of Paris, arrived at Orleans a few days
after the arrest of the Prince de Conde. This news, which reached him at
Etampes, redoubled his anxiety; for he fully understood--he, who alone
knew of Christophe’s interview with the prince under the bridge near
his own house--that his son’s fate was closely bound up with that of the
leader of the Reformed party. He therefore determined to study the dark
tangle of interests which were struggling together at court in order
to discover some means of rescuing his son. It was useless to think of
Queen Catherine, who refused to see her furrier. No one about the court
whom he was able to address could give him any satisfactory information
about Christophe; and he fell at last into a state of such utter despair
that he was on the verge of appealing to the cardinal himself, when he
learned that Monsieur de Thou (and this was the great stain upon that
good man’s life) had consented to be one of the judges of the Prince de
Conde. The old furrier went at once to see him, and learned at last that
Christophe was still living, though a prisoner.
Tourillon, the glover (to whom La Renaudie sent Christophe on his way
to Blois), had offered a room in his house to the Sieur Lecamus for
the whole time of his stay in Orleans during the sittings of the
States-general. The glover believed the furrier to be, like himself,
secretly attached to the Reformed religion; but he soon saw that a
father who fears for the life of his child pays no heed to shades
of religious opinion, but flings himself prone upon the bosom of God
without caring what insignia men give to Him. The poor old man, repulsed
in all his efforts, wandered like one bewildered through the streets.
Contrary to his expectations, his money availed him nothing; Monsieur de
Thou had warned him that if he bribed any servant of the house of
Guise he would merely lose his money, for the duke and cardinal allowed
nothing that related to Christophe to transpire. De Thou, whose fame is
somewhat tarnished by the part he played at this crisis, endeavored to
give some hope to the poor father; but he trembled so much himself for
the fate of his godson that his attempts at consolation only alarmed the
old man still more. Lecamus roamed the streets; in three months he had
shrunk visibly. His only hope now lay in the warm friendship which for
so many years had bound him to the Hippocrates of the sixteenth century.
Ambroise Pare tried to say a word to Queen Mary on leaving the chamber
of the king, who was then indisposed; but no sooner had he named
Christophe than the daughter of the Stuarts, nervous at the prospect
of her fate should any evil happen to the king, and believing that the
Reformers were attempting to poison him, cried out:--
“If my uncles had only listened to me, that fanatic would have been
hanged already.”
The evening on which this fatal answer was repeated to old Lecamus, by
his friend Pare on the place de l’Estape, he returned home half dead
to his own chamber, refusing to eat any supper. Tourillon, uneasy about
him, went up to his room and found him in tears; the aged eyes showed
the inflamed red lining of their lids, so that the glover fancied for a
moment that he was weeping tears of blood.
“Comfort yourself, father,” said the Reformer; “the burghers of Orleans
are furious to see their city treated as though it were taken by
assault, and guarded by the soldiers of Monsieur de Cypierre. If the
life of the Prince de Conde is in any real danger we will soon demolish
the tower of Saint-Aignan; the whole town is on the side of the
Reformers, and it will rise in rebellion; you may be sure of that!”
“But, even if they hang the Guises, it will not give me back my son,”
said the wretched father.
At that instant some one rapped cautiously on Tourillon’s outer door,
and the glover went downstairs to open it himself. The night was dark.
In these troublous times the masters of all households took minute
precautions. Tourillon looked through the peep-holes cut in the door,
and saw a stranger, whose accent indicated an Italian. The man, who was
dressed in black, asked to speak with Lecamus on matters of business,
and Tourillon admitted him. When the furrier caught sight of his visitor
he shuddered violently; but the stranger managed, unseen by Tourillon,
to lay his fingers on his lips. Lecamus, understanding the gesture, said
immediately:--
“You have come, I suppose, to offer furs?”
“_Si_,” said the Italian, discreetly.
This personage was no other than the famous Ruggiero, astrologer to
the queen-mother. Tourillon went below to his own apartment, feeling
convinced that he was one too many in that of his guest.
“Where can we talk without danger of being overheard?” said the cautious
Florentine.
“We ought to be in the open fields for that,” replied Lecamus. “But we
are not allowed to leave the town; you know the severity with which the
gates are guarded. No one can leave Orleans without a pass from
Monsieur de Cypierre,” he added,--“not even I, who am a member of the
States-general. Complaint is to be made at to-morrow’s session of this
restriction of liberty.”
“Work like a mole, but don’t let your paws be seen in anything, no
matter what,” said the wary Italian. “To-morrow will, no doubt, prove a
decisive day. Judging by my observations, you may, perhaps, recover your
son to-morrow, or the day after.”
“May God hear you--you who are thought to traffic with the devil!”
“Come to my place,” said the astrologer, smiling. “I live in the tower
of Sieur Touchet de Beauvais, the lieutenant of the Bailliage, whose
daughter the little Duc d’Orleans has taken such a fancy to; it is there
that I observe the planets. I have drawn the girl’s horoscope, and it
says that she will become a great lady and be beloved by a king. The
lieutenant, her father, is a clever man; he loves science, and the queen
sent me to lodge with him. He has had the sense to be a rabid Guisist
while awaiting the reign of Charles IX.”
The furrier and the astrologer reached the house of the Sieur de
Beauvais without being met or even seen; but, in case Lecamus’ visit
should be discovered, the Florentine intended to give a pretext of an
astrological consultation on his son’s fate. When they were safely at
the top of the tower, where the astrologer did his work, Lecamus said to
him:--
“Is my son really living?”
“Yes, he still lives,” replied Ruggiero; “and the question now is how to
save him. Remember this, seller of skins, I would not give two farthings
for yours if ever in all your life a single syllable should escape you
of what I am about to say.”
“That is a useless caution, my friend; I have been furrier to the court
since the time of the late Louis XII.; this is the fourth reign that I
have seen.”
“And you may soon see the fifth,” remarked Ruggiero.
“What do you know about my son?”
“He has been put to the question.”
“Poor boy!” said the old man, raising his eyes to heaven.
“His knees and ankles were a bit injured, but he has won a royal
protection which will extend over his whole life,” said the Florentine
hastily, seeing the terror of the poor father. “Your little Christophe
has done a service to our great queen, Catherine. If we manage to pull
him out of the claws of the Guises you will see him some day councillor
to the Parliament. Any man would gladly have his bones cracked
three times over to stand so high in the good graces of this dear
sovereign,--a grand and noble genius, who will triumph in the end over
all obstacles. I have drawn the horoscope of the Duc de Guise; he will
be killed within a year. Well, so Christophe saw the Prince de Conde--”
“You who read the future ought to know the past,” said the furrier.
“My good man, I am not questioning you, I am telling you a fact. Now, if
your son, who will to-morrow be placed in the prince’s way as he passes,
should recognize him, or if the prince should recognize your son, the
head of Monsieur de Conde will fall. God knows what will become of his
accomplice! However, don’t be alarmed. Neither your son nor the prince
will die; I have drawn their horoscope,--they will live; but I do not
know in what way they will get out of this affair. Without distrusting
the certainty of my calculations, we must do something to bring
about results. To-morrow the prince will receive, from sure hands, a
prayer-book in which we convey the information to him. God grant
that your son be cautious, for him we cannot warn. A single glance
of recognition will cost the prince’s life. Therefore, although the
queen-mother has every reason to trust in Christophe’s faithfulness--”
“They’ve put it to a cruel test!” cried the furrier.
“Don’t speak so! Do you think the queen-mother is on a bed of roses? She
is taking measures as if the Guises had already decided on the death of
the prince, and right she is, the wise and prudent queen! Now listen to
me; she counts on you to help her in all things. You have some influence
with the _tiers-etat_, where you represent the body of the guilds
of Paris, and though the Guisards may promise you to set your son at
liberty, try to fool them and maintain the independence of the guilds.
Demand the queen-mother as regent; the king of Navarre will publicly
accept the proposal at the session of the States-general.”
“But the king?”
“The king will die,” replied Ruggiero; “I have read his horoscope. What
the queen-mother requires you to do for her at the States-general is a
very simple thing; but there is a far greater service which she asks of
you. You helped Ambroise Pare in his studies, you are his friend--”
“Ambroise now loves the Duc de Guise more than he loves me; and he is
right, for he owes his place to him. Besides, he is faithful to the
king. Though he inclines to the Reformed religion, he will never do
anything against his duty.”
“Curse these honest men!” cried the Florentine. “Ambroise boasted this
evening that he could bring the little king safely through his present
illness (for he is really ill). If the king recovers his health, the
Guises triumph, the princes die, the house of Bourbon becomes extinct,
we shall return to Florence, your son will be hanged, and the Lorrains
will easily get the better of the other sons of France--”
“Great God!” exclaimed Lecamus.
“Don’t cry out in that way,--it is like a burgher who knows nothing of
the court,--but go at once to Ambroise and find out from him what he
intends to do to save the king’s life. If there is anything decided on,
come back to me at once, and tell me the treatment in which he has such
faith.”
“But--” said Lecamus.
“Obey blindly, my dear friend; otherwise you will get your mind
bewildered.”
“He is right,” thought the furrier. “I had better not know more”; and he
went at once in search of the king’s surgeon, who lived at a hostelry in
the place du Martroi.
Catherine de’ Medici was at this moment in a political extremity very
much like that in which poor Christophe had seen her at Blois. Though
she had been in a way trained by the struggle, though she had exercised
her lofty intellect by the lessons of that first defeat, her present
situation, while nearly the same, had become more critical, more
perilous than it was at Amboise. Events, like the woman herself, had
magnified. Though she seemed to be in full accordance with the Guises,
Catherine held in her hand the threads of a wisely planned conspiracy
against her terrible associates, and was only awaiting a propitious
moment to throw off the mask. The cardinal had just obtained the
positive certainty that Catherine was deceiving him. Her subtle Italian
spirit felt that the Younger branch was the best hindrance she could
offer to the ambition of the duke and the cardinal; and (in spite of the
advice of the two Gondis, who urged her to let the Guises wreak their
vengeance on the Bourbons) she defeated the scheme concocted by them
with Spain to seize the province of Bearn, by warning Jeanne d’Albret,
queen of Navarre, of that threatened danger. As this state secret was
known only to them and to the queen-mother, the Guises knew of course
who had betrayed it, and resolved to send her back to Florence. But in
order to make themselves perfectly sure of what they called her treason
against the State (the State being the house of Lorraine), the duke and
cardinal confided to her their intention of getting rid of the king of
Navarre. The precautions instantly taken by Antoine proved conclusively
to the two brothers that the secrets known only to them and the
queen-mother had been divulged by the latter. The cardinal instantly
taxed her with treachery, in presence of Francois II.,--threatening her
with an edict of banishment in case of future indiscretion, which might,
as they said, put the kingdom in danger.
Catherine, who then felt herself in the utmost peril, acted in the
spirit of a great king, giving proof of her high capacity. It must be
added, however, that she was ably seconded by her friends. L’Hopital
managed to send her a note, written in the following terms:--
“Do not allow a prince of the blood to be put to death by a
committee; or you will yourself be carried off in some way.”
Catherine sent Birago to Vignay to tell the chancellor (l’Hopital)
to come to Orleans at once, in spite of his being in disgrace. Birago
returned the very night of which we are writing, and was now a few
miles from Orleans with l’Hopital, who heartily avowed himself for the
queen-mother. Chiverni, whose fidelity was very justly suspected by the
Guises, had escaped from Orleans and reached Ecouen in ten hours, by
a forced march which almost cost him his life. There he told the
Connetable de Montmorency of the peril of his nephew, the Prince de
Conde, and the audacious hopes of the Guises. The Connetable, furious
at the thought that the prince’s life hung upon that of Francois II.,
started for Orleans at once with a hundred noblemen and fifteen hundred
cavalry. In order to take the Messieurs de Guise by surprise he avoided
Paris, and came direct from Ecouen to Corbeil, and from Corbeil to
Pithiviers by the valley of the Essonne.
“Soldier against soldier, we must leave no chances,” he said on the
occasion of this bold march.
Anne de Montmorency, who had saved France at the time of the invasion of
Provence by Charles V., and the Duc de Guise, who had stopped the second
invasion by the emperor at Metz, were, in truth, the two great warriors
of France at this period. Catherine had awaited this precise moment to
rouse the inextinguishable hatred of the Connetable, whose disgrace and
banishment were the work of the Guises. The Marquis de Simeuse, however,
who commanded at Gien, being made aware of the large force approaching
under command of the Connetable, jumped on his horse hoping to reach
Orleans in time to warn the duke and cardinal.
Sure that the Connetable would come to the rescue of his nephew, and
full of confidence in the Chancelier l’Hopital’s devotion to the royal
cause, the queen-mother revived the hopes and the boldness of the
Reformed party. The Colignys and the friends of the house of Bourbon,
aware of their danger, now made common cause with the adherents of the
queen-mother. A coalition between these opposing interests, attacked by
a common enemy, formed itself silently in the States-general, where it
soon became a question of appointing Catherine as regent in case the
king should die. Catherine, whose faith in astrology was much greater
than her faith in the Church, now dared all against her oppressors,
seeing that her son was ill and apparently dying at the expiration of
the time assigned to his life by the famous sorceress, whom Nostradamus
had brought to her at the chateau of Chaumont.
XI. AMBROISE PARE
Some days before the terrible end of the reign of Francois II., the king
insisted on sailing down the Loire, wishing not to be in the town of
Orleans on the day when the Prince de Conde was executed. Having yielded
the head of the prince to the Cardinal de Lorraine, he was equally
in dread of a rebellion among the townspeople and of the prayers and
supplications of the Princesse de Conde. At the moment of embarkation,
one of the cold winds which sweep along the Loire at the beginning of
winter gave him so sharp an ear-ache that he was obliged to return to
his apartments; there he took to his bed, not leaving it again until
he died. In contradiction of the doctors, who, with the exception of
Chapelain, were his enemies, Ambroise Pare insisted that an abscess was
formed in the king’s head, and that unless an issue were given to it,
the danger of death would increase daily. Notwithstanding the lateness
of the hour, and the curfew law, which was sternly enforced in Orleans,
at this time practically in a state of siege, Pare’s lamp shone from his
window, and he was deep in study, when Lecamus called to him from below.
Recognizing the voice of his old friend, Pare ordered that he should be
admitted.
“You take no rest, Ambroise; while saving the lives of others you
are wasting your own,” said the furrier as he entered, looking at the
surgeon, who sat, with opened books and scattered instruments, before
the head of a dead man, lately buried and now disinterred, in which he
had cut an opening.
“It is a matter of saving the king’s life.”
“Are you sure of doing it, Ambroise?” cried the old man, trembling.
“As sure as I am of my own existence. The king, my old friend, has a
morbid ulcer pressing on his brain, which will presently suffice it if
no vent is given to it, and the danger is imminent. But by boring the
skull I expect to release the pus and clear the head. I have already
performed this operation three times. It was invented by a Piedmontese;
but I have had the honor to perfect it. The first operation I performed
was at the siege of Metz, on Monsieur de Pienne, whom I cured, who was
afterwards all the more intelligent in consequence. His was an abscess
caused by the blow of an arquebuse. The second was on the head of a
pauper, on whom I wanted to prove the value of the audacious operation
Monsieur de Pienne had allowed me to perform. The third I did in Paris
on a gentleman who is now entirely recovered. Trepanning--that is the
name given to the operation--is very little known. Patients refuse it,
partly because of the imperfection of the instruments; but I have at
last improved them. I am practising now on this skull, that I may be
sure of not failing to-morrow, when I operate on the head of the king.”
“You ought indeed to be very sure you are right, for your own head would
be in danger in case--”
“I’d wager my life I can cure him,” replied Ambroise, with the
conviction of a man of genius. “Ah! my old friend, where’s the danger of
boring into a skull with proper precautions? That is what soldiers do in
battle every day of their lives, without taking any precautions.”
“My son,” said the burgher, boldly, “do you know that to save the king
is to ruin France? Do you know that this instrument of yours will place
the crown of the Valois on the head of the Lorrain who calls himself
the heir of Charlemagne? Do you know that surgery and policy are at this
moment sternly opposed to each other? Yes, the triumph of your genius
will be the death of your religion. If the Guises gain the regency, the
blood of the Reformers will flow like water. Be a greater citizen than
you are a surgeon; oversleep yourself to-morrow morning and leave a free
field to the other doctors who if they cannot cure the king will cure
France.”
“I!” exclaimed Pare. “I leave a man to die when I can cure him? No, no!
were I to hang as an abettor of Calvin I shall go early to court. Do you
not feel that the first and only reward I shall ask will be the life
of your Christophe? Surely at such a moment Queen Mary can deny me
nothing.”
“Alas! my friend,” returned Lecamus, “the little king has refused the
pardon of the Prince de Conde to the princess. Do not kill your religion
by saving the life of a man who ought to die.”
“Do not you meddle with God’s ordering of the future!” cried Pare.
“Honest men can have but one motto: _Fais ce que dois, advienne que
pourra_!--do thy duty, come what will. That is what I did at the siege
of Calais when I put my foot on the face of the Duc de Guise,--I ran the
risk of being strangled by his friends and his servants; but to-day I am
surgeon to the king; moreover I am of the Reformed religion; and yet the
Guises are my friends. I shall save the king,” cried the surgeon, with
the sacred enthusiasm of a conviction bestowed by genius, “and God will
save France!”
A knock was heard on the street door and presently one of Pare’s
servants gave a paper to Lecamus, who read aloud these terrifying
words:--
“A scaffold is being erected at the convent of the Recollets: the
Prince de Conde will be beheaded there to-morrow.”
Ambroise and Lecamus looked at each other with an expression of the
deepest horror.
“I will go and see it for myself,” said the furrier.
No sooner was he in the open street than Ruggiero took his arm and asked
by what means Ambroise Pare proposed to save the king. Fearing some
trickery, the old man, instead of answering, replied that he wished to
go and see the scaffold. The astrologer accompanied him to the place des
Recollets, and there, truly enough, they found the carpenters putting up
the horrible framework by torchlight.
“Hey, my friend,” said Lecamus to one of the men, “what are you doing
here at this time of night?”
“We are preparing for the hanging of heretics, as the blood-letting at
Amboise didn’t cure them,” said a young Recollet who was superintending
the work.
“Monseigneur the cardinal is very right,” said Ruggiero, prudently; “but
in my country we do better.”
“What do you do?” said the young priest.
“We burn them.”
Lecamus was forced to lean on the astrologer’s arm, for his legs gave
way beneath him; he thought it probable that on the morrow his son would
hang from one of those gibbets. The poor old man was thrust between two
sciences, astrology and surgery, both of which promised him the life of
his son, for whom in all probability that scaffold was now erecting. In
the trouble and distress of his mind, the Florentine was able to knead
him like dough.
“Well, my worthy dealer in minever, what do you say now to the Lorraine
jokes?” whispered Ruggiero.
“Alas! you know I would give my skin if that of my son were safe and
sound.”
“That is talking like your trade,” said the Italian; “but explain to
me the operation which Ambroise means to perform upon the king, and in
return I will promise you the life of your son.”
“Faithfully?” exclaimed the old furrier.
“Shall I swear it to you?” said Ruggiero.
Thereupon the poor old man repeated his conversation with Ambroise Pare
to the astrologer, who, the moment that the secret of the great surgeon
was divulged to him, left the poor father abruptly in the street in
utter despair.
“What the devil does he mean, that miscreant?” cried Lecamus, as he
watched Ruggiero hurrying with rapid steps to the place de l’Estape.
Lecamus was ignorant of the terrible scene that was taking place around
the royal bed, where the imminent danger of the king’s death and the
consequent loss of power to the Guises had caused the hasty erection
of the scaffold for the Prince de Conde, whose sentence had been
pronounced, as it were by default,--the execution of it being delayed by
the king’s illness.
Absolutely no one but the persons on duty were in the halls, staircases,
and courtyard of the royal residence, Le Bailliage. The crowd of
courtiers were flocking to the house of the king of Navarre, on whom the
regency would devolve on the death of the king, according to the laws of
the kingdom. The French nobility, alarmed by the audacity of the Guises,
felt the need of rallying around the chief of the younger branch, when,
ignorant of the queen-mother’s Italian policy, they saw her the apparent
slave of the duke and cardinal. Antoine de Bourbon, faithful to his
secret agreement with Catherine, was bound not to renounce the regency
in her favor until the States-general had declared for it.
The solitude in which the king’s house was left had a powerful effect
on the mind of the Duc de Guise when, on his return from an inspection,
made by way of precaution through the city, he found no one there but
the friends who were attached exclusively to his own fortunes. The
chamber in which was the king’s bed adjoined the great hall of the
Bailliage. It was at that period panelled in oak. The ceiling, composed
of long, narrow boards carefully joined and painted, was covered with
blue arabesques on a gold ground, a part of which being torn down about
fifty years ago was instantly purchased by a lover of antiquities. This
room, hung with tapestry, the floor being covered with a carpet, was
so dark and gloomy that the torches threw scarcely any light. The vast
four-post bedstead with its silken curtains was like a tomb. Beside her
husband, close to his pillow, sat Mary Stuart, and near her the Cardinal
de Lorraine. Catherine was seated in a chair at a little distance. The
famous Jean Chapelain, the physician on duty (who was afterwards chief
physician to Charles IX.) was standing before the fireplace. The deepest
silence reigned. The young king, pale and shrunken, lay as if buried in
his sheets, his pinched little face scarcely showing on the pillow. The
Duchesse de Guise, sitting on a stool, attended Queen Mary, while on the
other side, near Catherine, in the recess of a window, Madame de Fiesque
stood watching the gestures and looks of the queen-mother; for she knew
the dangers of her position.
In the hall, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Monsieur de
Cypierre, governor of the Duc d’Orleans and now appointed governor of
the town, occupied one corner of the fireplace with the two Gondis.
Cardinal de Tournon, who in this crisis espoused the interests of the
queen-mother on finding himself treated as an inferior by the Cardinal
de Lorraine, of whom he was certainly the ecclesiastical equal,
talked in a low voice to the Gondis. The marshals de Vieilleville
and Saint-Andre and the keeper of the seals, who presided at the
States-general, were talking together in a whisper of the dangers to
which the Guises were exposed.
The lieutenant-general of the kingdom crossed the room on his entrance,
casting a rapid glance about him, and bowed to the Duc d’Orleans whom he
saw there.
“Monseigneur,” he said, “this will teach you to know men. The Catholic
nobility of the kingdom have gone to pay court to a heretic prince,
believing that the States-general will give the regency to the heirs of
a traitor who long detained in prison your illustrious grandfather.”
Then having said these words, which were destined to plough a furrow
in the heart of the young prince, he passed into the bedroom, where the
king was not so much asleep as plunged in a heavy torpor. The Duc de
Guise was usually able to correct the sinister aspect of his scarred
face by an affable and pleasing manner, but on this occasion, when
he saw the instrument of his power breaking in his very hands, he was
unable to force a smile. The cardinal, whose civil courage was equal to
his brother’s military daring, advanced a few steps to meet him.
“Robertet thinks that little Pinard is sold to the queen-mother,” he
whispered, leading the duke into the hall; “they are using him to work
upon the members of the States-general.”
“Well, what does it signify if we are betrayed by a secretary when all
else betrays us?” cried the lieutenant-general. “The town is for the
Reformation, and we are on the eve of a revolt. Yes! the _Wasps_ are
discontented”; he continued, giving the Orleans people their nickname;
“and if Pare does not save the king we shall have a terrible uprising.
Before long we shall be forced to besiege Orleans, which is nothing but
a bog of Huguenots.”
“I have been watching that Italian woman,” said the cardinal, “as she
sits there with absolute insensibility. She is watching and waiting,
God forgive her! for the death of her son; and I ask myself whether we
should not do a wise thing to arrest her at once, and also the king of
Navarre.”
“It is already more than we want upon our hands to have the Prince de
Conde in prison,” replied the duke.
The sound of a horseman riding in haste to the gate of the Bailliage
echoed through the hall. The duke and cardinal went to the window,
and by the light of the torches which were in the portico the duke
recognized on the rider’s hat the famous Lorraine cross, which the
cardinal had lately ordered his partisans to wear. He sent an officer of
the guard, who was stationed in the antechamber, to give entrance to the
new-comer; and went himself, followed by his brother, to meet him on the
landing.
“What is it, my dear Simeuse?” asked the duke, with that charm of manner
which he always displayed to military men, as soon as he recognized the
governor of Gien.
“The Connetable has reached Pithiviers; he left Ecouen with two thousand
cavalry and one hundred nobles.”
“With their suites?”
“Yes, monseigneur,” replied Simeuse; “in all, two thousand six hundred
men. Some say that Thore is behind them with a body of infantry. If
the Connetable delays awhile, expecting his son, you still have time to
repulse him.”
“Is that all you know? Are the reasons of this sudden call to arms made
known?”
“Montmorency talks as little as he writes; go you and meet him, brother,
while I prepare to welcome him with the head of his nephew,” said the
cardinal, giving orders that Robertet be sent to him at once.
“Vieilleville!” cried the duke to the marechal, who came immediately.
“The Connetable has the audacity to come here under arms; if I go to
meet him will you be responsible to hold the town?”
“As soon as you leave it the burghers will fly to arms; and who can
answer for the result of an affair between cavalry and citizens in these
narrow streets?” replied the marechal.
“Monseigneur,” said Robertet, rushing hastily up the stairs, “the
Chancelier de l’Hopital is at the gate and asks to enter; are we to let
him in?”
“Yes, open the gate,” answered the cardinal. “Connetable and chancelier
together would be dangerous; we must separate them. We have been boldly
tricked by the queen-mother into choosing l’Hopital as chancellor.”
Robertet nodded to a captain of the guard, who awaited an answer at
the foot of the staircase; then he turned round quickly to receive the
orders of the cardinal.
“Monseigneur, I take the liberty,” he said, making one last effort, “to
point out that the sentence should be approved by _the king in council_.
If you violate the law on a prince of the blood, it will not be
respected for either a cardinal or a Duc de Guise.”
“Pinard has upset your mind, Robertet,” said the cardinal, sternly. “Do
you not know that the king signed the order of execution the day he was
about to leave Orleans, in order that the sentence might be carried out
in his absence?”
The lieutenant-general listened to this discussion without a word, but
he took his brother by the arm and led him into a corner of the hall.
“Undoubtedly,” he said, “the heirs of Charlemagne have the right to
recover the crown which was usurped from their house by Hugh Capet; but
can they do it? The pear is not yet ripe. Our nephew is dying, and the
whole court has gone over to the king of Navarre.”
“The king’s heart failed him, or the Bearnais would have been stabbed
before now,” said the cardinal; “and we could easily have disposed of
the Valois children.”
“We are very ill-placed here,” said the duke; “the rebellion of the town
will be supported by the States-general. L’Hopital, whom we protected
while the queen-mother opposed his appointment, is to-day against us,
and yet it is all-important that we should have the justiciary with us.
Catherine has too many supporters at the present time; we cannot send
her back to Italy. Besides, there are still three Valois princes--”
“She is no longer a mother, she is all queen,” said the cardinal. “In my
opinion, this is the moment to make an end of her. Vigor, and more and
more vigor! that’s my prescription!” he cried.
So saying, the cardinal returned to the king’s chamber, followed by the
duke. The priest went straight to the queen-mother.
“The papers of Lasagne, the secretary of the Prince de Conde, have been
communicated to you, and you now know that the Bourbons are endeavoring
to dethrone your son.”
“I know all that,” said Catherine.
“Well, then, will you give orders to arrest the king of Navarre?”
“There is,” she said with dignity, “a lieutenant-general of the
kingdom.”
At this instant Francois II. groaned piteously, complaining aloud of the
terrible pains in his ear. The physician left the fireplace where he was
warming himself, and went to the bedside to examine the king’s head.
“Well, monsieur?” said the Duc de Guise, interrogatively.
“I dare not take upon myself to apply a blister to draw the abscess.
Maitre Ambroise has promised to save the king’s life by an operation,
and I might thwart it.”
“Let us postpone the treatment till to-morrow morning,” said Catherine,
coldly, “and order all the physicians to be present; for we all know the
calumnies to which the death of kings gives rise.”
She went to her son and kissed his hand; then she withdrew to her own
apartments.
“With what composure that audacious daughter of a shop-keeper alluded
to the death of the dauphin, poisoned by Montecuculi, one of her own
Italian followers!” said Mary Stuart.
“Mary!” cried the little king, “my grandfather never doubted her
innocence.”
“Can we prevent that woman from coming here to-morrow?” said the queen
to her uncles in a low voice.
“What will become of us if the king dies?” returned the cardinal, in a
whisper. “Catherine will shovel us all into his grave.”
Thus the question was plainly put between Catherine de’ Medici and the
house of Lorraine during that fatal night. The arrival of the Connetable
de Montmorency and the Chancelier de l’Hopital were distinct indications
of rebellion; the morning of the next day would therefore be decisive.
XII. DEATH OF FRANCOIS II
On the morrow the queen-mother was the first to enter the king’s
chamber. She found no one there but Mary Stuart, pale and weary, who
had passed the night in prayer beside the bed. The Duchesse de Guise
had kept her mistress company, and the maids of honor had taken turns
in relieving one another. The young king slept. Neither the duke nor the
cardinal had yet appeared. The priest, who was bolder than the soldier,
had, it was afterward said, put forth his utmost energy during the
night to induce his brother to make himself king. But, in face of the
assembled States-general, and threatened by a battle with Montmorency,
the Balafre declared the circumstances unfavorable; he refused, against
his brother’s utmost urgency, to arrest the king of Navarre, the
queen-mother, l’Hopital, the Cardinal de Tournon, the Gondis, Ruggiero,
and Birago, objecting that such violent measures would bring on a
general rebellion. He postponed the cardinal’s scheme until the fate of
Francois II. should be determined.
The deepest silence reigned in the king’s chamber. Catherine,
accompanied by Madame de Fiesque, went to the bedside and gazed at her
son with a semblance of grief that was admirably simulated. She put
her handkerchief to her eyes and walked to the window where Madame de
Fiesque brought her a seat. Thence she could see into the courtyard.
It had been agreed between Catherine and the Cardinal de Tournon that
if the Connetable should successfully enter the town the cardinal would
come to the king’s house with the two Gondis; if otherwise, he would
come alone. At nine in the morning the duke and cardinal, followed
by their gentlemen, who remained in the hall, entered the king’s
bedroom,--the captain on duty having informed them that Ambroise Pare
had arrived, together with Chapelain and three other physicians, who
hated Pare and were all in the queen-mother’s interests.
A few moments later and the great hall of the Bailliage presented much
the same aspect as that of the Salle des gardes at Blois on the day when
Christophe was put to the torture and the Duc de Guise was proclaimed
lieutenant-governor of the kingdom,--with the single exception that
whereas love and joy overflowed the royal chamber and the Guises
triumphed, death and mourning now reigned within that darkened room, and
the Guises felt that power was slipping through their fingers. The maids
of honor of the two queens were again in their separate camps on either
side of the fireplace, in which glowed a monstrous fire. The hall was
filled with courtiers. The news--spread about, no one knew how--of some
daring operation contemplated by Ambroise Pare to save the king’s life,
had brought back the lords and gentlemen who had deserted the house the
day before. The outer staircase and courtyard were filled by an anxious
crowd. The scaffold erected during the night for the Prince de Conde
opposite to the convent of the Recollets, had amazed and startled the
whole nobility. All present spoke in a low voice and the talk was the
same mixture as at Blois, of frivolous and serious, light and earnest
matters. The habit of expecting troubles, sudden revolutions, calls to
arms, rebellions, and great events, which marked the long period during
which the house of Valois was slowly being extinguished in spite of
Catherine de’ Medici’s great efforts to preserve it, took its rise at
this time.
A deep silence prevailed for a certain distance beyond the door of the
king’s chamber, which was guarded by two halberdiers, two pages, and by
the captain of the Scotch guard. Antoine de Bourbon, king of Navarre,
held a prisoner in his own house, learned by his present desertion the
hopes of the courtiers who had flocked to him the day before, and was
horrified by the news of the preparations made during the night for the
execution of his brother.
Standing before the fireplace in the great hall of the Bailliage was
one of the greatest and noblest figures of that day,--the Chancelier de
l’Hopital, wearing his crimson robe lined and edged with ermine, and
his cap on his head according to the privilege of his office. This
courageous man, seeing that his benefactors were traitorous and
self-seeking, held firmly to the cause of the kings, represented by the
queen-mother; at the risk of losing his head, he had gone to Rouen to
consult with the Connetable de Montmorency. No one ventured to draw him
from the reverie in which he was plunged. Robertet, the secretary of
State, two marshals of France, Vieilleville, and Saint-Andre, and the
keeper of the seals, were collected in a group before the chancellor.
The courtiers present were not precisely jesting; but their talk was
malicious, especially among those who were not for the Guises.
Presently voices were heard to rise in the king’s chamber. The two
marshals, Robertet, and the chancellor went nearer to the door; for not
only was the life of the king in question, but, as the whole court knew
well, the chancellor, the queen-mother, and her adherents were in the
utmost danger. A deep silence fell on the whole assembly.
Ambroise Pare had by this time examined the king’s head; he thought the
moment propitious for his operation; if it was not performed suffusion
would take place, and Francois II. might die at any moment. As soon as
the duke and cardinal entered the chamber he explained to all present
that in so urgent a case it was necessary to trepan the head, and he now
waited till the king’s physician ordered him to perform the operation.
“Cut the head of my son as though it were a plank!--with that horrible
instrument!” cried Catherine de’ Medici. “Maitre Ambroise, I will not
permit it.”
The physicians were consulting together; but Catherine spoke in so loud
a voice that her words reached, as she intended they should, beyond the
door.
“But, madame, if there is no other way to save him?” said Mary Stuart,
weeping.
“Ambroise,” cried Catherine; “remember that your head will answer for
the king’s life.”
“We are opposed to the treatment suggested by Maitre Ambroise,” said the
three physicians. “The king can be saved by injecting through the ear
a remedy which will draw the contents of the abscess through that
passage.”
The Duc de Guise, who was watching Catherine’s face, suddenly went up to
her and drew her into the recess of the window.
“Madame,” he said, “you wish the death of your son; you are in league
with our enemies, and have been since Blois. This morning the Counsellor
Viole told the son of your furrier that the Prince de Conde’s head was
about to be cut off. That young man, who, when the question was applied,
persisted in denying all relations with the prince, made a sign of
farewell to him as he passed before the window of his dungeon. You saw
your unhappy accomplice tortured with royal insensibility. You are now
endeavoring to prevent the recovery of your eldest son. Your conduct
forces us to believe that the death of the dauphin, which placed the
crown on your husband’s head was not a natural one, and that Montecuculi
was your--”
“Monsieur le chancilier!” cried Catherine, at a sign from whom Madame de
Fiesque opened both sides of the bedroom door.
The company in the hall then saw the scene that was taking place in
the royal chamber: the livid little king, his face half dead, his eyes
sightless, his lips stammering the word “Mary,” as he held the hand
of the weeping queen; the Duchesse de Guise motionless, frightened by
Catherine’s daring act; the duke and cardinal, also alarmed, keeping
close to the queen-mother and resolving to have her arrested on the spot
by Maille-Breze; lastly, the tall Ambroise Pare, assisted by the king’s
physician, holding his instrument in his hand but not daring to begin
the operation, for which composure and total silence were as necessary
as the consent of the other surgeons.
“Monsieur le chancelier,” said Catherine, “the Messieurs de Guise wish
to authorize a strange operation upon the person of the king; Ambroise
Pare is preparing to cut open his head. I, as the king’s mother and a
member of the council of the regency,--I protest against what appears to
me a crime of _lese-majeste_. The king’s physicians advise an injection
through the ear, which seems to me as efficacious and less dangerous
than the brutal operation proposed by Pare.”
When the company in the hall heard these words a smothered murmur rose
from their midst; the cardinal allowed the chancellor to enter the
bedroom and then he closed the door.
“I am lieutenant-general of the kingdom,” said the Duc de Guise; “and I
would have you know, Monsieur le chancelier, that Ambroise, the king’s
surgeon, answers for his life.”
“Ah! if this be the turn that things are taking!” exclaimed Ambroise
Pare. “I know my rights and how I should proceed.” He stretched his arm
over the bed. “This bed and the king are mine. I claim to be sole master
of this case and solely responsible. I know the duties of my office; I
shall operate upon the king without the sanction of the physicians.”
“Save him!” said the cardinal, “and you shall be the richest man in
France.”
“Go on!” cried Mary Stuart, pressing the surgeon’s hand.