THE STRANGE REQUEST OF MLLE. D'ARENCY
I was disappointed in the interview that I had with Mlle. d'Arency in
the gardens of the Tuileries, the next day. I saw her for only a few
minutes, and then within sight of other of Catherine's ladies. Although
I lost nothing of the ground I had taken, neither did I gain anything
further. Afterward, at court receptions and _fêtes_, and, sometimes, in
the palace galleries, when she was off duty, I contrived to meet her.
She neither gave me opportunities nor avoided me. All the progress that
I made was in the measure of my infatuation for her. When I begged for a
meeting at which we might not be surrounded by half the court, she
smiled, and found some reason to prevent any such interview in the near
future. So, if I had carried things very far at our first meeting in the
Louvre, I now paid for my exceptional fortune by my inability to carry
them a step further.
Thus matters went for several days, during which the assertion of De
Rilly was proven true,--that my duties as a member of the French Guards
would leave me some time for pleasure. Thanks to De Quelus, and to his
enemy, Bussy d'Amboise, I made acquaintances both in the King's following
and in that of the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou. De Rilly made me
known to many who belonged to neither camp, and were none the worse for
that. Our company lodged in the Faubourg St. Honore, but I led the life
of a gentleman of pleasure, when off duty, and, as such, I had a private
lodging within the town, near the Louvre, more pretentious than the
whitewashed chamber in the Rue St. Denis. I drank often in cabarets,
became something of a swaggerer, and something of a fop,--though never
descending to the womanishness of the King's minions,--and did not allow
my great love affair, which I never mentioned save in terms of mystery,
to hinder me from the enjoyment of lesser amours of transient duration.
At this time everybody was talking of the feud between the King's
favorites and the followers of the Duke of Anjou. The King's minions
openly ridiculed Anjou for his ungainliness, which was all the greater
for his look of settled discontent and resentment. His faithful and
pugnacious Bussy retaliated by having his pages dress like the King's
minions,--with doublets of cloth of gold, stiff ruffs, and great
plumes,--and so attend him at the Twelfth Day _fêtes_. The minions, in
their turn, sought revenge on Bussy by attacking him, on the following
night, while he was returning from the Louvre to his lodgings. He eluded
them, and the next morning he accused M. de Grammont of having led the
ambuscade. De Quelus then proposed that all the King's gentlemen should
meet all those of the Duke in a grand encounter to the death. The Duke's
followers gladly accepted the challenge. Three hundred men on each side
would have fought, had not the King resolutely forbidden the duel. De
Quelus, that night, led a number of gentlemen in an attack on Bussy's
lodgings. Bussy and his followers made a stout resistance, the tumult
becoming so great that the Marechal de Montmorency called out the Scotch
Guard to clear the street in front of Bussy's house; and it was time.
Several gentlemen and servants were lying in their blood; and some of
these died of their wounds.
It was openly known, about the court, that the Duke of Anjou held the
King to be privy to these attacks on Bussy, and was frightfully enraged
thereby; and that the King, in constant fear of the Duke's departure to
join the Huguenots,--which event would show the King's inability to
prevent sedition even in the royal family, and would give the Guise party
another pretext to complain of his incompetence,--would forcibly obstruct
the Duke's going.
It was this state of affairs that made Catherine de Medici again take up
her abode in the Louvre, that she might be on the ground in the event of
a family outbreak, which was little less probable to occur at night than
in the daytime. She had lately lived part of the time in her new palace
of the Tuileries, and part of the time in her Hotel des Filles Repenties,
holding her council in either of these places, and going to the Louvre
daily for the signature of the King to the documents of her own
fabrication. At this time, Mlle. d'Arency was one of the ladies of the
Queen-mother's bedchamber, and so slept in the Louvre. What should I be
but such a fool as, when off duty, to pass certain hours of the night in
gazing up at the window of my lady's chamber, as if I were a lover in an
Italian novel! Again I must beg you to remember that I was only
twenty-one, and full of the most fantastic ideas. I had undertaken an
epic love affair, and I would omit none of the picturesque details that
example warranted.
Going, one evening in February, to take up my post opposite the Louvre, I
suddenly encountered a gentleman attended by two valets with torches. I
recognized him as De Noyard, who had twice or thrice seen me about the
palaces, but had never spoken to me. I was therefore surprised when, on
this occasion, he stopped and said to me, in a low and polite tone:
"Monsieur, I have seen you, once or twice, talking with M. Bussy
d'Amboise, and I believe that, if you are not one of his intimates, you,
at least, wish him no harm."
"You are right, monsieur," I said, quite mystified.
"I am no friend of his," continued M. de Noyard, in his cold,
dispassionate tone, "but he is a brave man, who fights openly, and, so
far, he is to be commended. I believe he will soon return from the
Tuileries, where he has been exercising one of the horses of the Duke of
Anjou. I have just come from there myself. On the way, I espied, without
seeming to see them, a number of the gentlemen of the King waiting behind
the pillars of the house with a colonnade, near the Porte St. Honore."
"One can guess what that means."
"So I thought. As for me, I have more important matters in view than
interfering with the quarrels of young hot-heads; but I think that there
is yet time for Bussy d'Amboise to be warned, before he starts to return
from the Tuileries."
"M. de Noyard, I thank you," I said, with a bow of genuine respect, and
in a moment I was hastening along the Rue St. Honore.
I understood, of course, the real reasons why De Noyard himself had not
gone back to warn Bussy. Firstly, those in ambush would probably have
noticed his turning back, suspected his purpose, and taken means to
defeat it. Secondly, he was a man from whom Bussy would have accepted
neither warning nor assistance; yet he was not pleased that any brave man
should be taken by surprise, and he gave me credit for a similar feeling.
I could not but like him, despite my hidden suspicion that there was
something between Mlle. d'Arency and him.
I approached the house with the colonnade, feigning carelessness, as if I
were returning to my military quarters in the faubourg. The Porte St.
Honore was still open, although the time set for its closing was past.
Suddenly a mounted figure appeared in the gateway, which, notwithstanding
the dusk, I knew, by the way the rider sat his horse, to be that of
Bussy. I was too late to warn him; I could only give my aid.
Three figures rushed out from beneath the supported upper story of the
house, and made for Bussy with drawn swords. With a loud oath he reined
back his horse on its haunches, and drew his own weapon, with which he
swept aside the two points presented at him from the left. One of the
three assailants had planted himself in front of the horse, to catch its
bridle, but saw himself now threatened by Bussy's sword, which moved with
the swiftness of lightning. This man thereupon fell back, but stood ready
to obstruct the forward movement of the horse, while one of the other
two ran around to Bussy's right, so that the rider might be attacked,
simultaneously on both sides.
This much I had time to see before drawing my sword and running up to
attack the man on the horseman's left, whom I suddenly recognized as De
Quelus. At the same instant I had a vague impression of a fourth
swordsman rushing out from the colonnade, and, before I could attain my
object, I felt a heavy blow at the base of my skull, which seemed
almost to separate my head from my neck, and I fell forward, into
darkness and oblivion.
I suppose that the man, running to intercept me, had found a thrust less
practicable than a blow with the hilt of a dagger.
When I again knew that I was alive, I turned over and sat up. Several
men--bourgeois, vagabonds, menials, and such--were standing around,
looking down at me and talking of the affray. I looked for Bussy and De
Quelus, but did not see either. At a little distance away was another
group, and people walked from that group to mine, and _vice versa._
"Where is M. Bussy?" I asked.
"Oho, this one is all right!" cried one, who might have been a clerk or a
student; "he asks questions. You wish to know about Bussy, eh? You ought
to have seen him gallop from the field without a scratch, while his
enemies pulled themselves together and took to their heels."
"What is that, over there?" I inquired, rising to my feet, and
discovering that I was not badly hurt.
"A dead man who was as much alive as any of us before he ran to help M.
Bussy. It is always the outside man who gets the worst of it, merely for
trying to be useful. There come the soldiers of the watch, after the
fight is over."
I walked over to the other group and knelt by the body on the ground. It
was that of a gentleman whom I had sometimes seen in Bussy's company. He
was indeed dead. The blood was already thickening about the hole that a
sword had made in his doublet.
The next day the whole court was talking of the wrath of the Duke of
Anjou at this assault upon his first gentleman-in-waiting. I was ashamed
of having profited by the influence of De Quelus, who, I found, had not
recognized me on the previous evening. Anjou's rage continued deep. He
showed it by absenting himself from the wedding of Saint-Luc, one of De
Quelus's companions in the King's favor and in the attack on Bussy.
Catherine, knowing how the King's authority was weakened by the squabbles
between him and his brother, took the Duke out to Vincennes for a walk in
the park and a dinner at the château, that his temper might cool. She
persuaded him to show a conciliatory spirit and attend the marriage ball
to be held that night in the great hall of the Louvre. This was more than
she could persuade Marguerite to do, who accompanied mother and son to
Vincennes, sharing the feelings of the Duke for three reasons,--her love
for him, her hatred for her brother, the King, and her friendship for
Bussy d'Amboise. It would have been well had the Duke been, like his
sister, proof against his mother's persuasion. For, when he arrived at
the ball, he was received by the King's gentlemen with derisive looks,
and one of them, smiling insolently in the Duke's piggish, pockmarked
face, said, "Doubtless you have come so late because the night is most
favorable to your appearance."
Suppose yourself in the Duke's place, and imagine his resentment. He
turned white and left the ball. Catherine must have had to use her utmost
powers to keep peace in the royal family the next day.
On the second morning after the ball, I heard, from De Rilly, that the
King had put his brother under arrest, and kept him guarded in the Duke's
own apartment, lest he should leave Paris and lead the rebellion which
the King had to fear, not only on its own account, but because of the
further disrepute into which it would bring him with his people. The
King, doubtless, soon saw, or was made to see, that this conduct towards
his brother--who had many supporters in France and was then affianced to
Queen Elizabeth of England--would earn only condemnation; for, on the day
after the arrest, he caused the court to assemble in Catherine's
apartments, and there De Quelus went ironically through the form of an
apology to the Duke, and a reconciliation with Bussy. The exaggerated
embrace which Bussy gave De Quelus made everybody laugh, and showed that
this peace-making was not to be taken seriously. Soon after it, Bussy
d'Amboise and several of his followers left Paris.
The next thing I saw, which had bearing on the difference between the
King and Monsieur his brother, was the procession of penitents in which
Monsieur accompanied the King through the streets, after the hollow
reconciliation. I could scarcely convince myself that the
sanctimonious-looking person, in coarse penitential robe, heading the
procession through the mire and over the stones of Paris, from shrine to
shrine, was the dainty King whom I had beheld in sumptuous raiment in the
gallery of the Louvre. The Duke of Anjou, who wore ordinary attire,
seemed to take to this mummery like a bear, ready to growl at any moment.
His demeanor was all that the King's gentlemen could have needed as a
subject for their quips and jokes.
Two evenings after this, I was drinking in the public room of an inn,
near my lodgings in the town, when a young gentleman named Malerain, who,
though not a Scot, was yet one of the Scotch bodyguard, sat down at my
table to share a bottle with me.
"More amusement at the palace," he said to me. "To think that, any one of
these nights, I may be compelled to use force against the person of the
King's brother, and that some day he may be King! I wonder if he will
then bear malice?"
"What is the new trouble at the Louvre?" I asked.
"It is only the old trouble. Monsieur has been muttering again, I
suppose, and this, with the fact that Bussy d'Amboise keeps so quiet
outside of Paris, has led the King to fear that Monsieur has planned to
escape to the country. At least, it has been ordered that every member of
the Duke's household, who does not have to attend at his retiring, must
leave the palace at night; and Messieurs de l'Archant, De Losses, and the
other captains, have received orders from the King that, if Monsieur
attempts to go out after dark, he must be stopped. Suppose it becomes my
duty to stop him? That will be pleasant, will it not? To make it worse, I
am devoted to a certain damsel who is devoted to Queen Marguerite, who is
devoted to Monsieur, her brother. And here I am inviting misfortune,
too, by drinking wine on the first Friday in Lent. I ought to have
followed the example of the King, who has been doing penance all day in
the chapel of the Hôtel de Bourbon."
"Let us hope that the King will be rewarded for his penance by the
submission of Monsieur. I, for one, hope that if Monsieur attempts to get
away, he will run across some Scotchman of the Guard who will not scruple
to impede a prince of France. For if he should lead a Huguenot army
against the King, I, as one of the Guards, might be called on to oppose
my fellow-Protestants."
"Oh, the Duke does not wish to join the Huguenots. All he desires is to
go to the Netherlands, where a throne awaits him if he will do a little
fighting for it."
"I fear he would rather revenge himself on the King for what he has had
to endure at court."
Presently Malerain left to go on duty at the Louvre, and soon I followed,
to take up my station in sight of the window where Mlle. d'Arency slept.
The night, which had set in, was very dark, and gusts of cold wind came
up from the Seine. The place where, in my infatuation and affectation, I
kept my lover's watch, was quite deserted. The Louvre loomed up gigantic
before me, the lights gleaming feebly in a few of its many windows,
serving less to relieve its sombre aspect than to suggest unknown, and,
perhaps, sinister doings within.
I laugh at myself now for having maintained those vigils by night beneath
a court lady's window; but you will presently see that, but for this
boyish folly, my body would have been sleeping in its grave these many
years past, and I should have never come to my greatest happiness.
Suddenly my attention was attracted to another window than that on which
I had fixed my gaze. This other window appertained to the apartments of
the King's sister, Queen Marguerite, and what caused me to transfer my
attention to it was the noise of its being opened. Then a head was thrust
out of it,--the small and graceful head of Marguerite herself. She looked
down at the moat beneath, and in either direction, and apparently saw no
one, I being quite in shadow; then she drew her head in.
Immediately a rope was let down into the moat, whose dry bed was about
five times a tall man's length below the window, which was on the second
story. Out of the window came a man of rather squat figure, who let
himself boldly and easily down the rope. As soon as he had reached the
bed of the moat, he was followed out of the window and down the rope by a
second man, who came bunglingly, as if in great trepidation. This person,
in his haste, let go the rope before he was quite down, but landed on
his feet. Then a third figure came out from the chamber and down the
cable, whereupon Marguerite's head again appeared in the opening, and I
could see the heads of two waiting-women behind her. But the Queen of
Navarre manifestly had no intention of following the three men. These now
clambered up the side of the moat, and the one who had been first down
turned and waved her a silent adieu, which she returned with a graceful
gesture of her partly bare arm. The three men then rapidly plunged into
one of the abutting streets and were gone. All this time I stood inactive
and unobserved.
Marguerite remained at the window to cast another look around. Suddenly,
from out the darkness at the base of the Louvre, as if risen from the
very earth at the bottom of the moat, sprang the figure of a man, who
started toward the guard-house as if his life depended on his speed.
Marguerite drew her head in at once with a movement of great alarm. An
instant later the rope was drawn up and the window closed.
Two conjectures came into my head, one after the other, each in a flash.
The one was that Marguerite had availed herself of the fraternal quarrel
that occupied the King's attention to plan an escape to her husband, King
Henri of Navarre, and that these three men had gone from a consultation
in her apartments to further the project. The other conjecture was that
they were but some of Monsieur's followers who had transgressed the new
rule, requiring their departure from the palace at nightfall, and had
taken this means of leaving to avoid discovery. If the former conjecture
embodied the truth, my sympathies were with the plot; for it little
pleased me that the wife of our Huguenot leader should remain at the
French court, a constant subject of scandalous gossip. If the second
guess was correct, I was glad of an opportunity to avert, even slight,
trouble from the wilful but charming head of Marguerite. In either case,
I might serve a beautiful woman, a queen, the wife of a Huguenot king.
Certainly, if that man, paid spy or accidental interloper, should reach
the guard-house with information that three men had left the Louvre by
stealth, the three men might be overtaken and imprisoned, and great
annoyance brought to Marguerite. All this occupied my mind but an
instant. Before the man had taken ten steps, I was after him.
He heard me coming, looked around, saw my hand already upon my
sword-hilt, and shouted, "The guard! Help!" I saw that, to avoid a
disclosure, I must silence him speedily; yet I dared not kill him, for he
might be somebody whose dead body found so near the palace would lead to
endless investigations, and in the end involve Marguerite, for suppose
that the King had set him to watch her? Therefore I called to him, "Stop
and face me, or I will split you as we run!"
The man turned at once, as if already feeling my sword-point entering his
back. Seeing that I had not even drawn that weapon, he, himself, drew a
dagger and raised it to strike. But I was too quick and too long of arm
for him. With my gloved fist I gave him a straight blow on the side of
the chin, and he dropped like a felled tree, at the very moat's edge,
over which I rolled him that he might recover in safety from the effects
of the shock.
I knew that, when he should awake, he would not dare inform the guard,
for the three men would then be far away, and he would have no evidence
to support his story. He would only put himself in danger of having
fabricated a false accusation against the King's sister.
I deemed it best to go from the vicinity of the Louvre at once, and I did
so, with a last wistful look at the windows behind which Mlle. d'Arency
might or might not be reposing. I did not reappear there until the next
morning. The first person I then met was Malerain, who was coming from
the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, where he had been making up for
previous neglect of devotions.
"Well," I said, as I stood before him, and twisted my up-shooting
mustaches, in unconscious imitation of him, "I trust you found your
quarter on duty last night an easy one. You must thank me for saving you
some labor."
"What do you mean?" he asked, with a look of sudden interest.
"Nothing, only that you might have been called on to give chase to some
flying bird or other, if I had not knocked down a rascal who was running
to inform the guard."
"And you saw the bird fly?" he said, with increasing astonishment.
"From an opening in that great cage," I replied, looking towards
the Louvre.
"Then I, for myself, am glad you knocked down the said rascal who would
have made falçons of us to bring the bird down. But be more cautious.
Suppose what you did should reach the ears of the King?"
"Why should the King concern himself?"
"Monsieur, is it possible that you don't know that the bird that flew
from the Louvre last night was the Duke of Anjou?"
It was now my turn to stare in astonishment.
"But," I said, "what use for him to leave the palace? There would be the
gates of Paris to pass."
"There is more than one way to cross the fortifications of Paris,
especially when one has such an ally as Bussy d'Amboise, free, to arrange
matters. Monsieur is at this moment certainly on his way to some
stronghold of his own. The King is mad with rage. Queen Marguerite is
looking innocent and astonished, but I'll wager she had a hand in this
evasion. My friend, I am under obligations to you!"
"How?"
"Why, since Queen Marguerite undoubtedly rejoices at her favorite
brother's escape, and you helped to make it good, she owes you gratitude.
So do all her maids, who, naturally, share in her feelings and benefit by
her joy. Now, that gratitude extends of course to your friends, of whom I
am one. Therefore a good turn is due me from one of those maids in
particular, and for that I am obliged to you!"
I laughed at this fantastic extension of a debt of gratitude.
"Doubtless," I said; "but since neither Marguerite nor the maid knows
anything about my share in the matter, I don't see how you are going to
collect the debt."
Malerain said nothing, but there was already that in his mind which,
absurd as it might seem at that time, was to save me when death should
rise threateningly about me on every side. It is a world in which much
comes from little.
I was somewhat agitated at realizing that I had been the means of aiding
an escape which might result in opposing the troops of the King to those
of certain Huguenot leaders; but this thought was suddenly driven from my
mind by a sight which caused me to leave Malerain abruptly, and make for
one of the streets that led from the Louvre to the midst of the town.
It was Mlle. d'Arency, mounted on a plumed horse, with tassellated
trappings, which was led by a young equerry who wore Catherine's colors,
and followed by two mounted lackeys in similar livery. Beside her rode
the stout, elderly woman who usually attended her. Mlle. d'Arency wore a
mask of black velvet, but that could not conceal her identity from eyes
to which every line of her pretty head, every motion of her graceful
person, had become familiar in actual contemplation and in dreams. Her
cloak and gown were, alike, of embroidered velvet of the color of red
wine, as was the velvet toque which sat perched on her dark brown hair.
I followed her at some distance, resolved to find an opportunity for a
seemingly accidental meeting. I supposed that she was going to visit some
of the shops,--perhaps for the Queen-mother, perhaps for herself.
She led me on and on, until I began to wonder what could be her
destination. She avoided the streets of fine shops, such as were
patronized by the court, skirted market-places, and continued, in a
general easterly direction, until she had crossed both the Rue St. Denis
and the Rue St. Martin. At last, turning out of the Rue St. Antoine, she
reached, by a little street lined with bakeries, a quiet square before a
small church, of which I never even learned the name. She and the stout
woman dismounted, and entered the church, leaving her male attendants
outside with the horse.
"Oho," I mused, stopping at the door of a pastry-cook's at the place
where the little street joined the square; "she chooses an obscure place
for her devotions. Evidently she prefers to mingle solitude with them, so
I must not disturb her."
I decided, therefore, to wait at the pastry-cook's till she should come
out, and then to encounter her as if by chance. I would have, at least, a
word in payment for having come so far afoot.
The pastry-cook must have been convinced of two things before Mlle.
d'Arency came out of church: first, that his fortune was made if this new
customer, myself, should only continue to patronize him; second, that
there existed, at least, one human stomach able to withstand unlimited
quantities of his wares.
I stood back in the shop, devouring one doughy invention after another,
with my ear alert for the sound of her horse's hoofs on the stones. At
last it occurred to me that she might have left the square by some other
street. I made for the door of the shop to look. As I did so, a man
rapidly passed the shop, going from the square towards the Rue St.
Antoine. Was not that figure known to me? I hastened to the street. My
first glance was towards the church. There stood her horse, and her three
attendants were walking up and down in the sunlight. Then I looked after
the man; I thought that the figure looked like that of De Noyard.
He disappeared into the Rue St. Antoine, having given me no opportunity
to see his face. I would have followed, to make sure, roused into an
intolerable jealousy at the idea of a secret meeting between Mlle.
d'Arency and him, but that I now heard the full melodious voice of the
lady herself. Looking around, I saw her on the steps of the church, with
her middle-aged companion. At that instant her eyes met mine.
I advanced, with an exaggerated bow, sweeping the stones of the street
with the plumes of my hat.
"So it is true!" I said, making no effort to control my agitation, and
restraining my voice only that the lackeys might not hear; "you love
that man!"
She looked at me steadily for a moment, and then said, "Do you mean M.
de Noyard?"
"Ah, you admit it!"
"I admit nothing. But if I did love him, what right would you have to
call me to account?"
"The right of a man who adores you, mademoiselle."
"That is no right at all. A man's right concerning a woman must be
derived from her own actions. But come inside the church, monsieur."
She made a gesture to her attendants, and reentered the church. I
followed her. We stood together before the font in the dim light.
"And now," she continued, facing me, "suppose I grant that I have so
acted as to give you a right to question me; what then? Is it my fault
that you have followed me this morning? Is it, then, any more my fault
that I have been followed, also, by M. de Noyard?"
"But he must have been here before you."
"What does that prove? A score of people in the Louvre knew yesterday
that I was coming to this church to-day."
"But so deserted a church,--so out of the way! Who would come here from
the Louvre but for a tryst?"
She smiled, indulgently. "Can a thing have no cause except the obvious
one?" she said. "I visit this church once every month, because, obscure
though it be, it is associated with certain events in the history of my
ancestors."
"But," I went on, though beginning to feel relieved, "if M. de Noyard was
thrusting his presence on you, why did he leave before you did?"
"Probably because he knew that I would not leave the church while he
remained to press his company upon me outside."
The low tones that we had to use, on account of our surroundings, gave
our conversation an air of confidence and secrecy that was delicious to
me; and now her voice fell even lower, when she added:
"I take the pains to explain these things to you, monsieur, because I do
not wish you to think that I have intrigues;" and she regarded me fixedly
with her large gray eyes, which in the dimness of the place were darker
and more lustrous than usual.
Delightfully thrilled at this, I made to take her hand and stoop to kiss
it, but stopped for a last doubt.
"Mademoiselle," I said, "I think you only the most adorable woman in the
world. But there is one thing which has cost me many a sleepless hour,
many a jealous surmise. If I could be reassured as to the nature of your
errand that night when I first saw you--"
"Oh!" she laughed, "I was coming from an astrologer's."
"But you were not coming from the direction of Ruggieri's house."
"There are many astrologers in Paris, besides Ruggieri. Although the
Queen-mother relies implicitly on him, one may sometimes get a more
pleasing prediction from another; or, another may be clear on a point on
which he is vague."
"But the hour--"
"I took the time when I was not on duty, and he kept me late. It was for
a friend that I visited the astrologer,--a friend who was required in the
palace all that evening. The astrologer had to be consulted that night,
as my friend wished to be guided in a course that she would have to take
the next morning. Now, Monsieur Curiosity, are you satisfied?"
This time I took her hand and pressed my lips upon it.
She was silent for a moment, noting the look of admiration on my face.
Then, quickly, and in little more than a whisper, she said:
"I have answered your questions, though not admitting your right to ask
them. Would you know how to gain that right?"
"Tell me!" I said, my heart beating rapidly with elation.
"Challenge M. de Noyard, and kill him!"
I stared in astonishment.
"Now you may know whether or not I love him," she added.
"But, mademoiselle,--why--"
"Ah, that is the one thing about which I must always refuse to be
questioned! I ask you this service. Will you grant it?"
"If he has given you offence," I said, "certainly I will seek him at
once."
"Not a word of me is to be said between you! He must not know that I have
spoken to you."
"But a man is not to be killed without reason."
"A pretext is easily invented."
"Certainly,--a pretext to hide the cause of a quarrel from the world. But
the real cause ought to be known to both antagonists."
"I shall not discuss what ought or ought not to be. I ask you, will you
fight this man and try to kill him? I request nothing unusual,--men are
killed every day in duels. You are a good swordsman; Bussy d'Amboise
himself has said so. Come! will you do this?" She looked up at me with a
slight frown of repressed petulance.
"If you will assure me that he has affronted you, and permit me to let
him know, privately, the cause of my quarrel."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, with irritation, "must a lady give a hundred reasons
when she requests a service of a gentleman?"
"One sufficient reason, when it is a service like this."
"Well, I shall give none. I desire his death,--few gentlemen would ask a
further reason."
"I had not thought you so cruel, mademoiselle, as to desire the death
of any man."
"God forbid that I should desire the death of any other man! So,
monsieur, I must understand that you refuse to serve me in this?"
Her contemptuous look made me sigh. "Can you not see, mademoiselle, that
to resolve deliberately and secretly on a man's death, and with
premeditation to create a pretext for a challenge, is little better than
assassination?"
"A fine excuse to avoid risking your life!"
Again I had to endure a look of profound scorn from her.
"Mademoiselle," I replied, patiently, "I would that you might see how
ready I am to fight when an affront is given me or some one needs a
defender."
"Oh!" she said, with an ironical smile. "Then to show yourself a lion
against De Noyard, you require only that he shall affront you, or that
some one shall need a defender against him! Suppose that _I_ should ever
be in such need?"
"You know that in your defence I would fight an army."
Her smile now lost its irony, and she assumed a look of conciliation,
which I was both surprised and rejoiced to behold.
"Well, monsieur, it is pleasant to know that, if you will not take the
offensive for me, you will, at least, act readily on the defensive if
the occasion comes."
Much relieved at the turn the conversation had taken, I now undertook to
continue it to my advantage. After some bantering, maintained with gaiety
on her part, she said that she must return to the Louvre. Then, as she
would not have me accompany her in the streets, I begged her to appoint
another meeting. She evaded my petition at first, but, when I took her
hand and refused to release it until she should grant my request, she
said, after a little submissive shrug of her shoulders:
"Very well. Follow me, at a distance, from this church, and observe a
house before which I shall stop for a moment as if to adjust my cloak. It
is a house that has been taken by a friend of mine, one of the
Queen-mother's ladies. I shall be there tomorrow afternoon."
"Alas! To-morrow I shall be on duty till six in the evening."
"Then come at seven. Knock three times on the street door." And with that
she slipped her hand from mine, and hastened lightly out of the church. I
stood alone by the font, delighted and bewildered. There was so much to
mystify me that I did not even search my mind for explanations. I thought
my happiness about to be attained, and left it for the future to
explain,--as it did!