Towards the autumn of 1601, when the affair of M. de Biron, which was
so soon to fill the mouths of the vulgar, was already much in the minds
of those whom the King honoured with his confidence, I was one day
leaving the hall at the Arsenal, after giving audience to such as
wished to see me, when Maignan came after me and detained me; reporting
that a gentleman who had attended early, but had later gone into the
garden, was still in waiting. While Maignan was still speaking the
stranger himself came up, with some show of haste but none of
embarrassment; and, in answer to my salutation and inquiry what I could
do for him, handed me a letter. He had the air of a man not twenty,
his dress was a trifle rustic; but his strong and handsome figure set
off a face that would have been pleasing but for a something fierce in
the aspect of his eyes. Assured that I did not know him, I broke the
seal of his letter and found that it was from my old flame Madame de
Bray, who, as Mademoiselle de St. Mesmin, had come so near to being my
wife; as will be remembered by those who have read the early part of
these memoirs.
The young man proved to be her brother, whom she commended to my good
offices, the impoverishment of the family being so great that she could
compass no more regular method of introducing him to the world, though
the house of St. Mesmin is truly respectable and, like my own, allied
to several of the first consequence. Madame de Bray recalled our old
TENDRESSE to my mind, and conjured me so movingly by it--and by the
regard which her family had always entertained for me--that I could not
dismiss the application with the hundred others of like tenor that at
that time came to me with each year. That I might do nothing in the
dark, however, I invited the young fellow to walk with me in the
garden, and divined, even before he spoke, from the absence of timidity
in his manner, that he was something out of the common. "So you have
come to Paris to make your fortune?" I said.
"Yes, sir," he answered.
"And what are the tools with which you propose to do it?" I continued,
between jest and earnest.
"That letter, sir," he answered simply; "and, failing that, two horses,
two suits of clothes, and two hundred crowns."
"You think that those will suffice?" I said, laughing.
"With this, sir," he answered, touching his sword; "and a good courage."
I could not but stand amazed at his coolness; for he spoke to me as
simply as to a brother, and looked about him with as much or as little
curiosity as Guise or Montpensier. It was evident that he thought a
St. Mesmin equal to any man under the King; and that of all the St.
Mesmins he did not value himself least.
"Well," I said, after considering him, "I do not think that I can help
you much immediately. I should be glad to know, however, what plans
you have formed for yourself."
"Frankly, sir," he said, "I thought of this as I travelled; and I
decided that fortune can be won by three things--by gold, by steel, and
by love. The first I have not, and for the last I have a better use.
Only the second is left. I shall be Crillon."
I looked at him in astonishment; for the assurance of his manner
exceeded that of his words. But I did not betray the feeling. "Crillon
was one in a million," I said drily.
"So am I," he answered.
I confess that the audacity of this reply silenced me. I reflected
that the young man who--brought up in the depths of the country, and
without experience, training or fashion--could so speak in the face of
Paris was so far out of the common that I hesitated to dash his hopes
in the contemptuous way which seemed most natural. I was content to
remind him that Crillon had lived in times of continual war, whereas
now we were at peace; and, bidding him come to me in a week, I hinted
that in Paris his crowns would find more frequent opportunities of
leaving his pockets than his sword its sheath.
He parted from me with this, seeming perfectly satisfied with his
reception; and marched away with the port of a man who expected
adventures at every corner, and was prepared to make the most of them.
Apparently he did not take my hint greatly to heart, however; for when
I next met him, within the week, he was fashionably dressed, his hair
in the mode, and his company as noble as himself. I made him a sign to
stop, and he came to speak to me.
"How many crowns are left?" I said jocularly.
"Fifty," he answered, with perfect readiness.
"What!" I said, pointing to his equipment with something of the
indignation I felt, "has this cost the balance?
"No," he answered. "On the contrary, I have paid three months' rent in
advance and a month's board at Zaton's; I have added two suits to my
wardrobe, and I have lost fifty crowns on the dice."
"You promise well!" I said.
He shrugged his shoulders quite in the fashionable manner. "Always
courage!" he said; and he went on, smiling.
I was walking at the time with M. de Saintonge, and he muttered, with a
sneer, that it was not difficult to see the end, or that within the
year the young braggart would sink to be a gaming-house bully. I said
nothing, but I confess that I thought otherwise; the lad's disposition
of his money and his provision for the future seeming to me so
remarkable as to set him above ordinary rules.
From this time I began to watch his career with interest, and I was not
surprised when, in less than a month, something fell out that led the
whole court to regard him with a mixture of amusement and expectancy.
One evening, after leaving the King's closet, I happened to pass
through the east gallery at the Louvre, which served at that time as
the outer antechamber, and was the common resort as well of all those
idlers who, with some pretensions to fashion, lacked the ENTREE, as of
many who with greater claims preferred to be at their ease. My passage
for a moment stilled the babel which prevailed. But I had no sooner
reached the farther door than the noise broke out again; and this with
so sudden a fury, the tumult being augmented by the crashing fall of a
table, as caused me at the last moment to stand and turn. A dozen
voices crying simultaneously, "Have a care!" and "Not here! not
here!" and all looking the same way, I was able to detect the three
principals in the FRACAS. They were no other than M. de St. Mesmin,
Barradas--a low fellow, still remembered, who was already what
Saintonge had prophesied that the former would become--and young St.
Germain, the eldest son of M. de Clan.
I rather guessed than heard the cause of the quarrel, and that St.
Mesmin, putting into words what many had known for years and some made
their advantage of, had accused Barradas of cheating. The latter's fury
was, of course, proportioned to his guilt; an instant challenge while I
looked was his natural answer. This, as he was a consummate swordsman,
and had long earned his living as much by fear as by fraud, should have
been enough to stay the greediest stomach; but St. Mesmin was not
content. Treating the knave, the word once passed, as so much dirt, he
transferred his attack to St. Germain, and called on him to return the
money he had won by betting on Barradas.
St. Germain, a young spark as proud and headstrong as St. Mesmin
himself, and possessed of friends equal to his expectations, flung back
a haughty refusal. He had the advantage in station and popularity; and
by far the larger number of those present sided with him. I lingered a
moment in curiosity, looking to see the accuser with all his boldness
give way before the almost unanimous expression of disapproval. But my
former judgment of him had been correctly formed; so far from being
browbeaten or depressed by his position, he repeated the demand with a
stubborn persistence that marvellously reminded me of Crillon; and
continued to reiterate it until all, except St. Germain himself, were
silent. "You must return my money!" he kept on saying monotonously.
"You must return my money. This man cheated, and you won my money.
You must pay or fight."
"With a dead man?" St. Germain replied, gibing at him.
"No, with me."
"Barradas will spit you!" The other scoffed. "Go and order your
coffin, and do not trouble me."
"I shall trouble you. If you did not know that he cheated, pay; and if
you did know, fight."
"I know?" St. Germain retorted fiercely. "You madman! Do you mean to
say that I knew that he cheated?"
"I mean what I say!" St. Mesmin returned stolidly. "You have won my
money. You must return it. If you will not return it, you must fight."
I should have heard more, but at that moment the main door opened, and
two or three gentlemen who had been with the King came out. Not
wishing to be seen watching the brawl, I moved away and descended the
stairs; and Varenne overtaking me a moment later, and entering on the
Biron affair--of which I had just been discussing the latest
developments with the King--I forgot St. Mesmin for the time, and only
recalled him next morning when Saintonge, being announced, came into my
room in a state of great excitement, and almost with his first sentence
brought out his name.
"Barradas has not killed him then?" I said, reproaching myself in a
degree for my forgetfulness.
"No! He, Barradas!" Saintonge answered.
"No?" I exclaimed.
"Yes!" he said. "I tell you, M. le Marquis, he is a devil of a
fellow--a devil of a fellow! He fought, I am told, just like Crillon;
rushed in on that rascal and fairly beat down his guard, and had him
pinned to the ground before he knew that they had crossed swords!"
"Well," I said, "there is one scoundrel the less. That is all."
"Ah, but that is not all!" my visitor replied more seriously. "It
should be, but it is not; and it is for that reason I am come to you.
You know St. Germain?"
"I know that his father and you are--well, that you take opposite
sides," I said smiling.
"That is pretty well known," he answered coldly. "Anyway, this lad is
to fight St. Germain to-morrow; and now I hear that M. de Clan, St.
Germain's father, is for shutting him up. Getting a LETTRE DE CACHET
or anything else you please, and away with him."
"What! St. Germain?" I said.
"No!" M. de Saintonge answered, prolonging the sound to the utmost.
"St. Mesmin!"
"Oh," I said, "I see."
"Yes," the Marquis retorted pettishly, "but I don't. I don't see. And
I beg to remind you, M. de Rosny, that this lad is my wife's second
cousin through her step-father, and that I shall resent any
interference with him. I have spent enough and done enough in the
King's service to have my wishes respected in a small matter such as
this; and I shall regard any severity exercised towards my kinsman as a
direct offence to myself. Whereas M. de Clan, who will doubtless be
here in a few minutes, is--"
"But stop," I said, interrupting him, "I heard you speaking of this
young fellow the other day. You did not tell me then that he was your
kinsman."
"Nevertheless he is; my wife's second cousin," he answered with heat.
"And you wish him to--"
"Be let alone!" he replied interrupting me in his turn more harshly
than I approved. "I wish him to be let alone. If he will fight St.
Germain, and kill or be killed, is that the King's affair that he need
interfere? I ask for no interference," M. de Saintonge continued
bitterly, "only for fair play and no favour. And for M. de Clan who is
a Republican at heart, and a Bironist, and has never done anything but
thwart the King, for him to come now, and--faugh! it makes me sick."
"Yes," I said drily; "I see."
"You understand me?"
"Yes," I said, "I think so."
"Very well," he replied haughtily--he had gradually wrought himself
into a passion; "be good enough to bear my request in mind then; and my
services also. I ask no more, M. de Rosny, than is due to me and to
the King's honour."
And with that, and scarcely an expression of civility, he left me.
Some may wonder, I know, that, having in the Edict of Blois, which
forbade duelling and made it a capital offence, an answer to convince
even his arrogance, I did not use this weapon; but, as a fact, the
edict was not published until the following June, when, partly in
consequence of this affair and at my instance, the King put it forth.
Saintonge could scarcely have cleared the gates before his prediction
was fulfilled. His enemy arrived hot foot, and entered to me with a
mien so much lowered by anxiety and trouble that I hardly knew him for
the man who had a hundred times rebuffed me, and whom the King's offers
had found consistently obdurate. All I had ever known of M. de Clan
heightened his present humility and strengthened his appeal; so that I
felt pity for him proportioned not only to his age and necessity, but
to the depth of his fall. Saintonge had rightly anticipated his
request; the first, he said, with a trace of his old pride, that he had
made to the King in eleven years: his son, his only son and only
child--the single heir of his name! He stopped there and looked at me;
his eyes bright, his lips trembling and moving without sound, his hands
fumbling on his knees.
"But," I said, "your son wishes to fight, M. de Clan?"
He nodded.
"And you cannot hinder him?"