A few weeks before the death of the Duchess of Beaufort, on Easter Eve,
1599, made so great a change in the relations of all at Court that
"Sourdis mourning" came to be a phrase for grief, genuine because
interested, an affair that might have had a serious issue began,
imperceptibly at the time, in the veriest trifle.
One day, while the King was still absent from Paris, I had a mind to
play tennis, and for that purpose summoned La Trape, who had the charge
of my balls, and sometimes, in the absence of better company, played
with me. Of late the balls he bought had given me small satisfaction,
and I bade him bring me the bag, that I might choose the best. He did
so, and I had not handled half-a-dozen before I found one, and later
three others, so much more neatly sewn than the rest, and in all points
so superior, that even an untrained eye could not fail to detect the
difference.
"Look, man!" I said, holding out one of these for his inspection.
"These are balls; the rest are rubbish. Cannot you see the difference?
Where did you buy these? At Constant's?"
He muttered, "No, my lord," and looked confused.
This roused my curiosity. "Where, then?" I said sharply.
"Of a man who was at the gate yesterday."
"Oh!" I said. "Selling tennis balls?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Some rogue of a marker," I exclaimed, "from whom you bought filched
goods! Who was it, man?"
"I don't know his name," La Trape answered. "He was a Spaniard."
"Well?"
"Who wanted to have an audience of your excellency."
"Ho!" I said drily. "Now I understand. Bring me your book. Or, tell
me, what have you charged me for these balls?"
"Two francs," he muttered reluctantly.
"And never gave a sou, I'll swear!" I retorted. "You took the poor
devil's balls, and left him at the gate! Ay, it is rogues like you get
me a bad name!" I continued, affecting more anger than I felt--for, in
truth, I was rather pleased with my quickness in discovering the cheat.
"You steal and I bear the blame, and pay to boot! Off with you and
find the fellow, and bring him to me, or it will be the worse for you!"
Glad to escape so easily, La Trape ran to the gate; but he failed to
find his friend, and two or three days elapsed before I thought again
of the matter, such petty rogueries being ingrained in a great man's
VALETAILLE, and being no more to be removed than the hairs from a man's
arm. At the end of that time La Trape came to me, bringing the
Spaniard; who had appeared again at the gate. The stranger proved to
be a small, slight man, pale and yet brown, with quick-glancing eyes.
His dress was decent, but very poor, with more than one rent neatly
darned. He made me a profound reverence, and stood waiting, with his
cap in his hand, to be addressed; but, with all his humility, I did not
fail to detect an easiness of deportment and a propriety that did not
seem absolutely strange since he was a Spaniard, but which struck me,
nevertheless, as requiring some explanation. I asked him, civilly, who
he was. He answered that his name was Diego.
"You speak French?"
"I am of Guipuzcoa, my lord," he answered, "where we sometimes speak
three tongues."
"That is true," I said. "And it is your trade to make tennis balls?"
"No, my lord; to use them," he answered with a certain dignity.
"You are a player, then?"
"If it please your excellency."
"Where have you played?"
"At Madrid, where I was the keeper of the Duke of Segovia's court; and
at Toledo, where I frequently had the honour of playing against M. de
Montserrat."
"You are a good player?"
"If your excellency," he answered impulsively, "will give me an
opportunity--"
"Softly, softly," I said, somewhat taken aback by his earnestness.
"Granted that you are a player, you seem to have played to small
purpose.. Why are you here, my friend, and not in Madrid?"
He drew up his sleeves, and showed me that his wrists were deeply
scarred.
I shrugged my shoulders. "You have been in the hands of the Holy
Brotherhood?" I said.
"No, my lord," he answered bitterly. "Of the Holy Inquisition."
"You are a Protestant?"
He bowed.
On that I fell to considering him with more attention, but at the same
time with some distrust; reflecting that he was a Spaniard, and
recalling the numberless plots against his Majesty of which that nation
had been guilty. Still, if his tale were true he deserved support;
with a view therefore to testing this I questioned him farther, and
learned that he had for a long time disguised his opinions, until,
opening them in an easy moment to a fellow servant, he found himself
upon the first occasion of quarrel betrayed to the Fathers. After
suffering much, and giving himself up for lost in their dungeons, he
made his escape in a manner sufficiently remarkable, if I might believe
his story. In the prison with him lay a Moor, for whose exchange
against a Christian taken by the Sallee pirates an order came down. It
arrived in the evening; the Moor was to be removed in the morning. An
hour after the arrival of the news, however, and when the two had just
been locked up for the night, the Moor, overcome with excess of joy,
suddenly expired. At first the Spaniard was for giving the alarm; but,
being an ingenious fellow, in a few minutes he summoned all his wits
together and made a plan. Contriving to blacken his face and hands
with charcoal he changed clothes with the corpse, and muffling himself
up after the fashion of the Moors in a cold climate he succeeded in the
early morning in passing out in his place. Those who had charge of him
had no reason to expect an escape, and once on the road he had little
difficulty in getting away, and eventually reached France after a
succession of narrow chances.
All this the man told me so simply that I knew not which to admire
more, the daring of his device--since for a white man to pass for a
brown is beyond the common scope of such disguises--or his present
modesty in relating it. However, neither of these things seemed to my
mind a good reason for disbelief. As to the one, I considered that an
impostor would have put forward something more simple; and as to the
other, I have all my life long observed that those who have had strange
experiences tell them in a very ordinary way. Besides, I had fresh in
my mind the diverting escape of the Duke of Nemours from Lyons, which I
have elsewhere related. On the other hand, and despite all these
things, the story might be false; so with a view to testing one part of
it, at least, I bade him come and play with me that afternoon.
"My lord," he said bluntly, "I had rather not. For if I defeat your
excellency, I may defeat also your good intentions. And if I permit
you to win, I shall seem to be an impostor."
Somewhat surprised by his forethought, I reassured him on this point;
and his game, which proved to be one of remarkable strength and
finesse, and fairly on an equality, as it seemed to me, with that of
the best French players, persuaded me that at any rate the first part
of his tale was true. Accordingly I made him a present, and, in
addition, bade Maignan pay him a small allowance for a while. For this
he showed his gratitude by attaching himself to my household; and as it
was the fashion at that time to keep tennis masters of this class, I
found it occasionally amusing to pit him against other well-known
players. In the course of a few weeks he gained me great credit; and
though I am not so foolish as to attach importance to such trifles,
but, on the contrary, think an old soldier who stood fast at Coutras,
or even a clerk who has served the King honestly--if such a prodigy
there be--more deserving than these professors, still I do not err on
the other side; but count him a fool who, because he has solid cause to
value himself, disdains the ECLAT which the attachment of such persons
gives him in the public eye.
The man went by the name of Diego the Spaniard, and his story, which
gradually became known, together with the excellence of his play, made
him so much the fashion that more than one tried to detach him from my
service. The King heard of him, and would have played with him, but
the sudden death of Madame de Beaufort, which occurred soon afterwards,
threw the Court into mourning; and for a while, in pursuing the
negotiations for the King's divorce, and in conducting a correspondence
of the most delicate character with the Queen, I lost sight of my
player--insomuch, that I scarcely knew whether he still formed part of
my suite or not.
My attention was presently recalled to him, however, in a rather
remarkable manner. One morning Don Antonio d'Evora, Secretary to the
Spanish Embassy, and a brother of that d'Evora who commanded the
Spanish Foot at Paris in '94, called on me at the Arsenal, to which I
had just removed, and desired to see me. I bade them admit him; but as
my secretaries were at the time at work with me, I left them and
received him in the garden--supposing that he wished to speak to me,
about the affair of Saluces, and preferring, like the King my master,
to talk of matters of State in the open air.
However, I was mistaken. Don Antonio said nothing about Savoy, but
after the usual preliminaries, which a Spaniard never omits, plunged
into a long harangue upon the comity which, now that peace reigned,
should exist between the two nations. For some time I waited patiently
to learn what he would be at; but he seemed to be lost in his own
eloquence, and at last I took him up.
"All this is very well, M. d'Evora," I said. "I quite agree with you
that the times are changed, that amity is not the same thing as war,
and that a grain of sand in the eye is unpleasant," for he had said all
of these things. "But I fail, being a plain man and no diplomatist, to
see what you want me to do."
"It is the smallest matter," he said, waving his hand gracefully.
"And yet," I retorted, "you seem to find a difficulty in coming at it."
"As you do at the grain of sand in the eye," he answered wittily.
"After all, however, in what you say, M. de Rosny, there is some truth.
I feel that I am, on delicate ground; but I am sure that you will
pardon me. You have in your suite a certain Diego."
"It may be so," I said, masking my surprise, and affecting indifference.
"A tennis-player."