'LE ROI EST MORT!'
IT was M. d'Agen's breastpiece saved my life by warding off the point
of the varlet's sword, so that the worst injury I got was the loss of
my breath for five minutes, with a swimming in the head and a kind of
syncope. These being past, I found myself on my back on the ground,
with a man's knee on my breast and a dozen horsemen standing round me.
The sky reeled dizzily before my eyes and the men's figures loomed
gigantic; yet I had sense enough to know what had happened to me, and
that matters might well be worse.
Resigning myself to the prospect of captivity, I prepared to ask for
quarter; which I did not doubt I should receive, since they had taken
me in an open skirmish, and honestly, and in the daylight. But the man
whose knee already incommoded me sufficiently, seeing me about to
speak, squeezed me on a sudden so fiercely, bidding me at the same
time in a gruff whisper be silent, that I thought I could not do
better than obey.
Accordingly I lay still, and as in a dream, for my brain was still
clouded, heard someone say, 'Dead! Is he? I hoped we had come in time.
Well, he deserved a better fate. Who is he, Rosny?'
'Do you know him, Maignan?' said a voice which sounded strangely
familiar.
The man who knelt upon me answered, 'No, my lord. He is a stranger to
me. He has the look of a Norman.'
'Like enough!' replied a high-pitched voice I had not heard before.
'For he rode a good horse. Give me a hundred like it, and a hundred
men to ride as straight, and I would not envy the King of France.'
'Much less his poor cousin of Navarre,' the first speaker rejoined in
a laughing tone, 'without a whole shirt to his back or a doublet that
is decently new. Come, Turenne, acknowledge that you are not so badly
off after all!'
At that word the cloud which had darkened my faculties swept on a
sudden aside. I saw that the men into whose hands I had fallen wore
white favours, their leader a white plume; and comprehended without
more that the King of Navarre had come to my rescue, and beaten off
the Leaguers who had dismounted me. At the same moment the remembrance
of all that had gone before, and especially of the scene I had
witnessed in the king's chamber, rushed upon my mind with such
overwhelming force that I fell into a fury of impatience at the
thought of the time I had wasted; and rising up suddenly I threw off
Maignan with all my force, crying out that I was alive--that I was
alive, and had news.
The equerry did his best to restrain me, cursing me under his breath
for a fool, and almost squeezing the life out of me. But in vain, for
the King of Navarre, riding nearer, saw me struggling. 'Hallo! hallo!
'tis a strange dead man,' he cried, interposing. 'What is the meaning
of this? Let him go! Do you hear, sirrah? Let him go!'
The equerry obeyed and stood back sullenly, and I staggered to my
feet, and looked round with eyes which still swam and watered. On the
instant a cry of recognition greeted me, with a hundred exclamations
of astonishment. While I heard my name uttered on every side in a
dozen different tones, I remarked that M. de Rosny, upon whom my eyes
first fell, alone stood silent, regarding me with a face of sorrowful
surprise.
'By heavens, sir, I knew nothing of this!' I heard the King of Navarre
declare, addressing himself to the Vicomte de Turenne. 'The man is
here by no connivance of mine. Interrogate him yourself, if you will.
Or I will. Speak, sir,' he continued, turning to me with his
countenance hard and forbidding. 'You heard me yesterday, what I
promised you? Why, in God's name, are you here to-day?'
I tried to answer, but Maignan had so handled me that I had not breath
enough, and stood panting.
'Your Highness's clemency in this matter,' M. de Turenne said, with a
sneer, 'has been so great he trusted to its continuance. And doubtless
he thought to find you alone. I fear I am in the way.'
I knew him by his figure and his grand air, which in any other company
would have marked him for master; and forgetting the impatience which
a moment before had consumed me--doubtless I was still light-headed--I
answered him. 'Yet I had once the promise of your lordship's
protection,' I gasped.
'My protection, sir?' he exclaimed, his eyes gleaming angrily.
'Even so,' I answered. 'At the inn at Etampes, where M. de Crillon
would have fought me.'
He was visibly taken aback. 'Are you that man?' he cried.
'I am. But I am not here to prate of myself,' I replied. And with
that--the remembrance of my neglected errand flashing on me again--I
staggered to the King of Navarre's side, and, falling on my knees,
seized his stirrup. 'Sire, I bring you news! great news! dreadful
news!' I cried, clinging to it. 'His Majesty was but a quarter of an
hour ago stabbed in the body in his chamber by a villain monk. And is
dying, or, it may be, dead.'
'Dead? The King!' Turenne cried with an oath. 'Impossible!'
Vaguely I heard others crying, some this, some that, as surprise and
consternation, or anger, or incredulity moved them. But I did not
answer them, for Henry, remaining silent, held me spellbound and awed
by the marvellous change which I saw fall on his face. His eyes became
on a sudden suffused with blood, and seemed to retreat under his heavy
brows; his cheeks turned of a brick-red colour; his half-open lips
showed his teeth gleaming through his beard; while his great nose,
which seemed to curve and curve until it well-nigh met his chin, gave
to his mobile countenance an aspect as strange as it was terrifying.
Withal he uttered for a time no word, though I saw his hand grip the
riding-whip he held in a convulsive grasp, as though his thought were
''Tis mine! Mine! Wrest it away who dares!'
'Bethink you, sir,' he said at last, fixing his piercing eyes on me,
and speaking in a harsh, low tone, like the growling of a great dog,
'this is no jesting-time. Nor will you save your skin by a ruse. Tell
me, on your peril, is this a trick?'
'Heaven forbid, sire!' I answered with passion. 'I was in the chamber,
and saw it with my own eyes. I mounted on the instant, and rode hither
by the shortest route to warn your Highness to look to yourself. Monks
are many, and the Holy Union is not apt to stop half-way.'
I saw he believed me, for his face relaxed. His breath seemed to come
and go again, and for the tenth part of a second his eyes sought M. de
Rosny's. Then he looked at me again. 'I thank you, sir,' he said,
bowing gravely and courteously, 'for your care for me--not for your
tidings, which are of the sorriest. God grant my good cousin and king
may be hurt only. Now tell us exactly--for these gentlemen are equally
interested with myself--had a surgeon seen him?'
I replied in the negative, but added that the wound was in the groin,
and bled much.
'You said a few minutes ago, "dying or already dead!"' the King of
Navarre rejoined. 'Why?'
'His Majesty's face was sunken,' I stammered.
He nodded. 'You may be mistaken,' he said. 'I pray that you are. But
here comes Mornay. He may know more.'
In a moment I was abandoned, even by M. de Turenne, so great was the
anxiety which possessed all to learn the truth. Maignan alone, under
pretence of adjusting a stirrup, remained beside me, and entreated me
in a low voice to begone. 'Take this horse, M. de Marsac, if you
will,' he urged, 'and ride back the way you came. You have done what
you came to do. Go back, and be thankful.'
'Chut!' I said, 'there is no danger.'
'You will see,' he replied darkly, 'if you stay here. Come, come, take
my advice and the horse,' he persisted, 'and begone! Believe me, it
will be for the best.'
I laughed outright at his earnestness and his face of perplexity. 'I
see you have M. de Rosny's orders to get rid of me,' I said. 'But I am
not going, my friend. He must find some other way out of his
embarrassment, for here I stay.'
'Well, your blood be on your own head,' Maignan retorted, swinging
himself into the saddle with a gloomy face. 'I have done my best to
save you!'
'And your master!' I answered, laughing.
For flight was the last thing I had in my mind. I had ridden this ride
with a clear perception that the one thing I needed was a footing at
Court. By the special kindness of Providence I had now gained this;
and I was not the man to resign it because it proved to be scanty and
perilous. It was something that I had spoken to the great Vicomte face
to face and not been consumed, that I had given him look for look and
still survived, that I had put in practice Crillon's lessons and come
to no harm.
Nor was this all. I had never in the worst times blamed the King of
Navarre for his denial of me. I had been foolish, indeed, seeing that
it was in the bargain, had I done so; nor had I ever doubted his
good-will or his readiness to reward me should occasion arise. Now, I
flattered myself, I had given him that which he needed, and had
hitherto lacked--an excuse, I mean, for interference in my behalf.
Whether I was right or wrong in this notion I was soon to learn, for
at this moment Henry's cavalcade, which had left me a hundred paces
behind, came to a stop, and while some of the number waved to me to
come on, one spurred back to summon me to the king. I hastened to obey
the order as fast as I could, but I saw on approaching that though all
was at a standstill till I came up, neither the King of Navarre nor M.
de Turenne was thinking principally of me. Every face, from Henry's to
that of his least important courtier, wore an air of grave
preoccupation; which I had no difficulty in ascribing to the doubt
present in every mind, and outweighing every interest, whether the
King of France was dead, or dying, or merely wounded.
'Quick, sir!' Henry said with impatience, as soon as I came within
hearing. 'Do not detain me with your affairs longer than is necessary.
M. de Turenne presses me to carry into effect the order I gave
yesterday. But as you have placed yourself in jeopardy on my account I
feel that something is due to you. You will be good enough, therefore,
to present yourself at once at M. la Varenne's lodging, and give me
your parole to remain there without stirring abroad until your affair
is concluded.'
Aware that I owed this respite, which at once secured my present
safety and promised well for the future, to the great event that, even
in M. de Turenne's mind, had overshadowed all others, I bowed in
silence. Henry, however, was not content with this. 'Come, sir,' he
said sharply, and with every appearance of anger, 'do you agree to
that?'
I replied humbly that I thanked him for his clemency.
'There is no need of thanks,' he replied coldly. 'What I have done is
without prejudice to M. de Turenne's complaint. He must have justice.'
I bowed again, and in a moment the troop were gone at a gallop towards
Meudon, whence, as I afterwards learned, the King of Navarre, attended
by a select body of five-and-twenty horsemen, wearing private arms,
rode on at full speed to St. Cloud to present himself at His Majesty's
bedside. A groom who had caught the Cid, which had escaped into the
town with no other injury than a slight wound in the shoulder,
by-and-by met me with the horse; and in this way I was enabled to
render myself with some decency at Varenne's lodging, a small house at
the foot of the hill, not far from the Castle-gate.
Here I found myself under no greater constraint than that which my own
parole laid upon me; and my room having the conveniency of a window
looking upon the public street, I was enabled from hour to hour to
comprehend and enter into the various alarms and surprises which made
that day remarkable. The manifold reports which flew from mouth to
mouth on the occasion, as well as the overmastering excitement which
seized all, are so well remembered, however, that I forbear to dwell
upon them, though they served to distract my mind from my own
position. Suffice it that at one moment we heard that His Majesty was
dead, at another that the wound was skin deep, and again that we might
expect him at Meudon before sunset. The rumour that the Duchess de
Montpensier had taken poison was no sooner believed than we were asked
to listen to the guns of Paris firing _feux de joie_ in honour of the
King's death.
The streets were so closely packed with persons telling and hearing
these tales that I seemed from my window to be looking on a fair. Nor
was all my amusement without doors; for a number of the gentlemen of
the Court, hearing that I had been at St. Cloud in the morning, and in
the very chamber, a thing which made me for the moment the most
desirable companion in the world, remembered on a sudden that they had
a slight acquaintance with me, and honoured me by calling upon me and
sitting a great part of the day with me. From which circumstance I
confess I derived as much hope as they diversion; knowing that
courtiers are the best weather-prophets in the world, who hate nothing
so much as to be discovered in the company of those on whom the sun
does not shine.
The return of the King of Navarre, which happened about the middle of
the afternoon, while it dissipated the fears of some and dashed the
hopes of others, put an end to this state of uncertainty by
confirming, to the surprise of many, that His Majesty was in no
danger. We learned with varying emotions that the first appearances,
which had deceived, not myself only, but experienced leeches, had been
themselves belied by subsequent conditions; and that, in a word, Paris
had as much to fear, and loyal men as much to hope, as before this
wicked and audacious attempt.
I had no more than stomached this surprising information, which was
less welcome to me, I confess, than it should have been, when the
arrival of M. d'Agen, who greeted me with the affection which he never
failed to show me, distracted my thoughts for a time. Immediately on
learning where I was and the strange adventures which had befallen me
he had ridden off; stopping only once, when he had nearly reached me,
for the purpose of waiting on Madame de Bruhl. I asked him how she had
received him.
'Like herself,' he replied with an ingenuous blush. 'More kindly than
I had a right to expect, if not as warmly as I had the courage to
hope.'
'That will come with time,' I said, laughing. 'And Mademoiselle de la
Vire?'
'I did not see her,' he answered, 'but I heard she was well. And a
hundred fathoms deeper in love,' he added, eyeing me roguishly, 'than
when I saw her last.'
It was my turn to colour now, and I did so, feeling all the pleasure
and delight such a statement was calculated to afford me. Picturing
mademoiselle as I had seen her last, leaning from her horse with love
written so plainly on her weeping face that all who ran might read, I
sank into so delicious a reverie that M. la Varenne, entering
suddenly, surprised us both before another word passed on either side.
His look and tone were as abrupt as it was in his nature, which was
soft and compliant, to make them. 'M. de Marsac,' he said, 'I am sorry
to put any constraint upon you, but I am directed to forbid you to
your friends. And I must request this gentleman to withdraw.'
'But all day my friends have come in and out,' I said with surprise.
'Is this a new order?'
'A written order, which reached me no farther back than two minutes
ago,' he answered plainly. 'I am also directed to remove you to a room
at the back of the house, that you may not overlook the street.'
'But my parole was taken,' I cried, with a natural feeling of
indignation.
He shrugged his shoulders. 'I am sorry to say that I have nothing to
do with that,' he answered. 'I can only obey orders. I must ask this
gentleman, therefore, to withdraw.'
Of course M. d'Agen had no option but to leave me; which he did, I
could see, notwithstanding his easy and confident expressions, with a
good deal of mistrust and apprehension. When he was gone, La Varenne
lost no time in carrying out the remainder of his orders. As a
consequence I found myself confined to a small and gloomy apartment
which looked, at a distance of three paces, upon the smooth face of
the rock on which the Castle stood. This change, from a window which
commanded all the life of the town, and intercepted every breath of
popular fancy, to a closet whither no sounds penetrated, and where the
very transition from noon to evening scarcely made itself known, could
not fail to depress my spirits sensibly; the more as I took it to be
significant of a change in my fortunes fully as grave. Reflecting that
I must now appear to the King of Navarre in the light of a bearer of
false tidings, I associated the order to confine me more closely with
his return from St. Cloud; and comprehending that M. de Turenne was
once more at liberty to attend to my affairs, I began to look about me
with forebodings which were none the less painful because the parole I
had given debarred me from any attempt to escape.
Sleep and habit enabled me, nevertheless, to pass the night in
comfort. Very early in the morning a great firing of guns, which made
itself heard even in my quarters, led me to suppose that Paris had
surrendered; but the servant who brought me my breakfast declined in a
surly fashion to give me any information. In the end, I spent the
whole day alone, my thoughts divided between my mistress and my own
prospects, which seemed to grow more and more gloomy as the hours
succeeded one another. No one came near me, no step broke the silence
of the house; and for a while I thought my guardians had forgotten
even that I needed food. This omission, it is true, was made good
about sunset, but still M. la Varenne did not appear, the servant
seemed to be dumb, and I heard no sounds in the house.
I had finished my meal an hour or more, and the room was growing dark,
when the silence was at last broken by quick steps passing along the
entrance. They paused, and seemed to hesitate at the foot of the
stairs, but the next moment they came on again, and stopped at my
door. I rose from my seat on hearing the key turned in the lock, and
my astonishment may be conceived when I saw no other than M. de
Turenne enter, and close the door behind him.
He saluted me in a haughty manner as he advanced to the table, raising
his cap for an instant and then replacing it. This done he stood
looking at me, and I at him, in a silence which on my side was the
result of pure astonishment; on his, of contempt and a kind of wonder.
The evening light, which was fast failing, lent a sombre whiteness to
his face, causing it to stand out from the shadows behind him in a way
which was not without its influence on me.
'Well! 'he said at last, speaking slowly and with unimaginable
insolence, 'I am here to look at you!'
I felt my anger rise, and gave him back look for look. 'At your will,'
I said, shrugging my shoulders.
'And to solve a question,' he continued in the same tone. 'To learn
whether the man who was mad enough to insult and defy _me_ was the old
penniless dullard some called him, or the dare-devil others painted
him.'
'You are satisfied now?' I said.
He eyed me for a moment closely; then with sudden heat he cried,
'Curse me if I am! Nor whether I have to do with a man very deep or
very shallow, a fool or a knave!'
'You may say what you please to a prisoner,' I retorted coldly.
'Turenne commonly does--to whom he pleases!' he answered. The next
moment he made me start by saying, as he drew out a comfit-box and
opened it, 'I am just from the little fool you have bewitched. If she
were in my power I would have her whipped and put on bread and water
till she came to her senses. As she is not, I must take another way.
Have you any idea, may I ask,' he continued in his cynical tone, 'what
is going to become of you, M. de Marsac?'
I replied, my heart inexpressibly lightened by what he had said of
mademoiselle, that I placed the fullest confidence in the justice of
the King of Navarre.
He repeated the name in a tone I did not understand.
'Yes, sir, the King of Navarre,' I answered firmly.
'Well, I daresay you have good reason to do so,' he rejoined with a
sneer. 'Unless I am mistaken he knew a little more of this affair than
he acknowledges.'
'Indeed? The King of Navarre?' I said, staring stolidly at him.
'Yes, indeed, indeed, the King of Navarre!' he retorted, mimicking me,
with a nearer approach to anger than I had yet witnessed in him. 'But
let him be a moment, sirrah!' he continued, 'and do you listen to me.
Or first look at that. Seeing is believing.'
He drew out as he spoke a paper, or, to speak more correctly, a
parchment, which he thrust with a kind of savage scorn into my hand.
Repressing for the moment the surprise I felt, I took it to the
window, and reading it with difficulty, found it to be a royal patent
drawn, as far as I could judge, in due form, and appointing some
person unknown--for the name was left blank--to the post of
Lieutenant-Governor of the Armagnac, with a salary of twelve thousand
livres a year!
'Well, sir?' he said impatiently.
'Well?' I answered mechanically. For my brain reeled; the exhibition
of such a paper in such a way raised extraordinary thoughts in my
mind.
'Can you read it?' he asked.
'Certainly,' I answered, telling myself that he would fain play a
trick on me.
'Very well,' he replied, 'then listen. I am going to condescend; to
make you an offer, M. de Marsac. I will procure you your freedom, and
fill up the blank, which you see there, with your name--upon one
condition.'
I stared at him with all the astonishment it was natural for me to
feel in the face of such a proposition, 'You will confer this office
on me?' I muttered incredulously.
'The king having placed it at my disposal,' he answered, 'I will. But
first let me remind you,' he went on proudly, 'that the affair has
another side. On the one hand I offer you such employment, M. de
Marsac, as should satisfy your highest ambition. On the other, I warn
you that my power to avenge myself is no less to-day than it was
yesterday; and that if I condescend to buy you, it is because that
course commends itself to me for reasons, not because it is the only
one open.'
I bowed, 'The condition, M. le Vicomte?' I said huskily, beginning to
understand him.
'That you give up all claim and suit to the hand of my kinswoman,' he
answered lightly. 'That is all. It is a simple and easy condition.'
I looked at him in renewed astonishment, in wonder, in stupefaction;
asking myself a hundred questions. Why did he stoop to bargain, who
could command? Why did he condescend to treat, who held me at his
mercy? Why did he gravely discuss my aspirations, to whom they must
seem the rankest presumption? Why?--but I could not follow it. I stood
looking at him in silence; in perplexity as great as if he had offered
me the Crown of France; in amazement and doubt and suspicion that knew
no bounds.
'Well!' he said at last, misreading the emotion which appeared in my
face. 'You consent, sir?'
'Never!' I answered firmly.
He started. 'I think I cannot have heard you aright,' he said,
speaking slowly and almost courteously. 'I offer you a great place and
my patronage, M. de Marsac. Do I understand that you prefer a prison
and my enmity?'
'On those conditions,' I answered.
'Think, think!' he said harshly.
'I have thought,' I answered.
'Ay, but have you thought where you are?' he retorted. 'Have you
thought how many obstacles lie between you and this little fool? How
many persons you must win over, how many friends you must gain? Have
you thought what it will be to have me against you in this, or which
of us is more likely to win in the end?'
'I have thought,' I rejoined.
But my voice shook, my lips were dry. The room had grown dark. The
rock outside, intercepting the light, gave it already the air of a
dungeon. Though I did not dream of yielding to him, though I even felt
that in this interview he had descended to my level, and I had had the
better of him, I felt my heart sink. For I remembered how men immured
in prisons drag out their lives always petitioning, always forgotten;
how wearily the days go, that to free men are bright with hope and
ambition. And I saw in a flash what it would be to remain here, or in
some such place; never to cross horse again, or breathe the free air
of heaven, never to hear the clink of sword against stirrup, or the
rich tones of M. d'Agen's voice calling for his friend!
I expected M. de Turenne to go when I had made my answer, or else to
fall into such a rage as opposition is apt to cause in those who
seldom encounter it. To my surprise, however, he restrained himself.
'Come,' he said, with patience which fairly astonished me, and so much
the more as chagrin was clearly marked in his voice, 'I know where you
put your trust. You think the King of Navarre will protect you. Well,
I pledge you the honour of Turenne that he will not; that the King of
Navarre will do nothing to save you. Now, what do you say?'
'As I said before,' I answered doggedly.
He took up the parchment from the table with a grim laugh. 'So much
the worse for you then!' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'So much
the worse for you! I took you for a rogue! It seems you are a fool!'