HOW A NOBLE PRINCE PRACTISED THE GENTLE
ART OF PROCRASTINATION
I
Now, all that which I have related occurred during the month of
February in the year 1578--three years and more ago.
After which I come to my story.
We will leave the subject of Messire Gilles' dream, an it please you;
we will even leave that gallant if somewhat out-at-elbows gentleman
in the tap-room of the only hostelry of which the little town of La
Fère could boast, where he must needs wait for the good pleasure of
no less a personage than François Hercule, Duke of Alençon and of
Anjou--usually styled '_Monsieur_'--who was own brother to His Very
Christian Majesty, King Henry III of France, and whom Gilles de
Crohin, Sire de Froidmont, was serving for the nonce.
M. le Duc d'Alençon and d'Anjou was closeted upstairs with the Queen
of Navarre, that faithful and adoring sister who had already
committed many follies for his sake, and who was ready to commit as
many more. What she saw to adore and worship in this degenerate and
indolent scion of the princely house of Valois, in this foppish
profligate devoid alike of morals and of valour, no historian has
ever been able to fathom. That he had some hidden qualities that
were as noble as they have remained unknown to tradition, we must
assume from the very fact that Marguerite, Queen of Navarre, one of
the most brilliant women of that or any epoch and the wife of one of
the most dazzling and fascinating men of his day, lavished the
resources of her intellect and of her sisterly love upon that
graceless coxcomb.
Picture her now--that beautiful, clever woman--full of energy, of
vitality and of burning ambition, pacing the narrow room in the
humble hostelry of a second-rate city, up and down like some caged
and exquisite wild animal, the while that same fondly-adored brother
sat there silent and surly, his long legs, encased in breeches of
delicate green satin, stretched out before him, his not unattractive
face, framed in by an over-elaborate ruffle, bent in moody
contemplation of his velvet shoes, the while his perfumed and slender
hands fidgeted uneasily with the folds of his mantle or with the
slashings of his doublet.
On the table before him lay a letter, all crumpled and partly torn,
which Marguerite had just thrown down in an access of angry
impatience.
'By all the saints, François,' she said tartly, 'you would provoke an
angel into exasperation. In Heaven's name, tell me what you mean to
do.'
_Monsieur_ did not reply immediately. He stretched out his legs
still further before him; he shook his mantle into place; he smoothed
down the creases of his satin breeches; then he contemplated his
highly polished nails. Marguerite of Navarre, with flaming cheeks
and blazing eyes, stood by, looking down on him with ever-growing
irritability not unmixed with contempt.
'François!' she exclaimed once more, evidently at the end of her
patience.
'Gently, my dear Margot; gently!' said _Monsieur_, with the
peevishness of a spoilt child. 'Holy Virgin, how you do fume!
Believe me, choler is bad for the stomach and worse for the
complexion. And, after all, where is the hurry? One must have time
to think.'
'Think! Think!' she retorted. ''Tis two days since M. d'Inchy's
letter came and he sends anon for his answer.'
'Which means,' he argued complacently, 'that there is no cause to
come to a decision for at least half an hour.'
An angry exclamation broke from Marguerite's full lips.
'My dear Margot,' said the Duke fretfully, 'marriage is a very
serious thing, and----'
He paused, frowning, for his sister had burst into ironical laughter.
'I am well aware,' he resumed dryly, 'that you, my dear, look upon it
as a cause for levity, and that poor Navarre, your husband----'
'I pray you, dear brother,' she broke in coldly, 'do not let the pot
call the kettle black. 'Tis neither in good taste nor yet opportune.
M. d'Inchy will send for his answer anon. You must make up your mind
now, whether you mean to accept his proposal or not.'
Again _Monsieur_ remained silent for awhile. Procrastination was as
the breath of his body to him. Even now he drew the letter--every
word of which he probably knew already by heart--towards him and fell
to re-reading it for the twentieth time.
II
Marguerite of Navarre, biting her lips and almost crying with
vexation, went up to the deep window embrasure and, throwing open the
casement, she rested her elbow on the sill and leaned her cheek
against her hand.
The open courtyard of the hostelry was at her feet, and beyond it the
market-place of the sleepy little town with its quaint, narrow houses
and tall crow's foot gables and curious signs, rudely painted,
swinging on iron brackets in the breeze. It was early afternoon of a
mild day in February, and in the courtyard of the hostelry there was
the usual bustle attendant upon the presence of a high and mighty
personage and of his numerous suite.
Men-at-arms passed to and fro; burghers from the tiny city, in dark
cloth clothes and sombre caps, came to pay their respects; peasants
from the country-side brought produce for sale; serving-men in drab
linen and maids in gaily-coloured kerchiefs flitted in and out of the
hostelry and across the yard with trays of refreshments for the
retinue of M. le Duc d'Anjou and of Madame la Reynede Navarre, own
brother and sister of the King of France. Indeed, it was not often
that so great a prince and so exalted a lady had graced La Fère with
their presence, and the hostelry had been hard put to it to do honour
to two such noble guests. Mine host and his wife and buxom daughters
were already wellnigh sick with worry, for though Madame la Reyne de
Navarre and M. le Duc, her brother, were very exacting and their
gentlemen both hungry and thirsty, not one among these, from
_Monsieur_ downwards, cared to pay for what he had. And while the
little town seethed with soldiery and with loud-voiced gentlemen, the
unfortunate burghers who housed them and the poor merchants and
peasants who had to feed them, almost sighed for the Spanish
garrisons who, at any rate, were always well-paid and paying.
Down below in the courtyard there was constant jingling of spurs and
rattle of sabres, loud language and ribald laughter; but when the
casement flew open and the Queen of Navarre's face appeared at the
window, the latter, at any rate, was at once suppressed. In the
shade and across a narrow wooden bench on which they sat astride, a
couple of gentlemen-at-arms were throwing dice, surrounded by a mixed
and gaping crowd--soldiers, servants, maids and peasants--who
exchanged pleasantries while watching the game.
Marguerite looked down on them for a moment or two, and an impatient
frown appeared between her brows. She did not like the look of her
brother's 'gentlemen,' for they were of a truth very much
out-at-elbows, free of speech and curt of manner. The fact that they
were never paid and often left in the lurch, if not actually sold to
their enemies by _Monsieur_, accounted, no doubt, for all the laxity,
and Marguerite swore to herself even then, that if ever her favourite
brother reached the ambitious goal for which she was scheming on his
behalf, one of his first acts of sovereignty should be to dismiss
such down-at-heel, out-at-elbows swashbucklers as were, for instance,
Messire Gilles de Crohin and many others. After which vow Marguerite
de Navarre once more turned to her brother, trying to assume
self-control and calmness which she was far from feeling. He
appeared still absorbed in the contemplation of the letter, and as he
looked up lazily and encountered her blazing eyes, he yawned
ostentatiously.
'François!' she burst out angrily.
'Well, my dear?' he retorted.
'M. le Baron d'Inchy,' she continued more quietly, 'hath taken
possession of Cambray and the Cambrésis and driven the pro-Spanish
Archbishop into exile. He offers to deliver up the Cambrésis and to
open the gates of Cambray to you immediately, whilst M. le Comte de
Lalain will hand you over, equally readily, the provinces of
Hainault, of Flanders and of Artois.'
'I know all that,' he muttered.
'You might be Duke of Hainault and Artois,' she went on with
passionate enthusiasm. 'You might found a new kingdom of the
Netherlands, with yourself as its first sovereign lord--and you
hesitate!!! Holy Joseph! Holy Legions of Angels!' she added, with a
bitter sigh of pent-up exasperation. 'What have I done that I should
be plagued with such a nincompoop for a brother?'
François d'Alençon and d'Anjou laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
'The provinces are worth considering,' he said coolly. 'Cambray is
attractive, and I would not object to the Duchies of Artois and
Hainault, or even to a Kingdom of the Netherlands. But...!'
'Well?' she broke in testily. 'What is the "but"?'
He sighed and made a sour grimace. 'There is a bitter pill to
swallow with all that sugar,' he replied. 'You appear to be
forgetting that, my very impetuous sister!'
It was Marguerite's turn to shrug her pretty shoulders.
'Bah!' she said contemptuously. 'A wife! You call that a bitter
pill! Jacqueline de----what is her name?'
_Monsieur_ referred to the letter.
'Jacqueline de Broyart,' he said dryly.
'Well! Jacqueline de Broyart,' she continued, more composedly, 'is
said to be attractive. M. d'Inchy says so.'
'A merchant must praise the goods which he offers for sale,' remarked
Monsieur.
'And even if she be ill-favoured,' retorted Marguerite dryly, 'she
brings the richest duchies in the Netherlands and the influence of
her name and family as her marriage portion. Surely a kingdom is
worth a wife.'
'Sometimes.'
'In this case, François,' urged Marguerite impatiently. Then, with
one of those sudden changes of mood which were one of her main
charms, she added with a kind of gentle and solemn earnestness: 'You
in your turn appear to forget, my exasperating brother, that 'tis I
who have worked for you, just as I always have done heretofore, I who
made friends for you with these loutish, ill-mannered Flemings, and
who prepared the way which has led to such a brilliant goal. Whilst
you wasted your substance in riotous living in our beloved Paris, I
was half-killing myself with ennui in this abominable Flemish
climate, I was drinking the poisonous waters of Spa so as to remain
in touch with the governors of all these disaffected provinces and
insidiously turning their minds towards looking for a prince of the
house of France to be their deliverer and their ruler. Now my
labours are bearing fruit. Don John of Austria is more hated
throughout the Netherlands than he was before my coming hither, the
provinces are more wearied of the Spanish yoke--they are more ready
to accept a foreign ruler, even though he be a Catholic to boot. You
have now but to stretch a hand, and all the golden harvest prepared
by me will fall into it without another effort on your part save that
of a prompt decision. So let me tell you, once and for all, Monsieur
my brother, that if you refuse that golden harvest now, if you do not
accept the Baron d'Inchy's offer, never as long as I live will I
raise another finger to help you or to advance your welfare. And
this I hereby do swear most solemnly and pray to the Virgin to
register my vow!'
The Duke, unaccustomed to his charming sister's earnestness, had
listened to her without departing from his sullen mood. When she had
finished her tirade he shrugged his shoulders and yawned.
'How you do talk, my dear Margot!' he said coolly. 'To hear you one
would imagine that I was an incorrigible rogue, an immoral profligate
and a do-nothing.'
'Well, what else are you?' she retorted.
'A much maligned, overworked prince.'
She laughed, and despite her choler a look of genuine affection crept
into her eyes as she met the reproachful glance of the brother whom
she loved so dearly, and whose faults she was always ready to condone.
'By the Mass!' quoth he. 'You talk of having worked and slaved for
me--and so you have, I'll own--but, far from leading a dissipated
life in Paris the while, I toiled and slaved, intrigued and
conspired, too--aye, and risked my life a hundred times so that I
might fall in with your schemes.'
'Oh!' she broke in with a good-natured laugh. 'Let us be just,
Monsieur my brother. You allowed others to toil and slave and
intrigue and conspire, and to risk their life in your cause----'
''Tis you are unjust, Margot,' he retorted hotly. 'Why, think you
then, that I was arrested by order of my brother the King, and thrown
into the dungeon of Vincennes----?'
'You would not have been arrested, my dear,' said Marguerite dryly,
'if you had not chosen to be arrested.'
'The King, our brother, does not approve of your schemes, my Margot.'
'He is the dog in the manger,' she replied. 'Though Flanders and
Hainault and the Netherlands are not for him, he does not wish to see
you a more powerful prince than he.'
'So, you see----'
'But you knew,' she broke in quickly, 'you knew four and twenty hours
before the order of your arrest was issued that the King had already
decided on signing it. You had ample time for leaving Paris and
joining me at Spa. Six precious months would not have been
wasted----'
'Well! I escaped out of Vincennes as soon as I could.'
'Yes!' she retorted, once more fuming and raging, and once more
pacing up and down the room like a fretful animal in a cage.
'Procrastination! Time wasted! Shelving of important decisions!...'
He pointed leisurely to the letter.
'There's no time lost,' he said.
'Time wasted is always lost,' she argued. 'The tone of M. le Baron
d'Inchy is more peremptory this time than it was six months ago.
There is a "take it or leave it" air about this letter. The
provinces are waxing impatient. The Prince of Orange is rapidly
becoming the idol of the Netherlands. What you reject he will no
doubt accept. He is a man--a man of action, not a laggard----'
'But I am not rejecting anything!' exclaimed _Monsieur_ irritably.
'Then, for God's sake, François----!'
Marguerite de Navarre paused, standing for a few seconds quite still,
her whole attitude one of rigid expectancy. The next moment she had
run back to the window. But now she leaned far out of the casement,
heedless if the men below saw the Queen of Navarre and smiled over
her eagerness. Her keen ears had caught the sound of an approaching
troop of men; the clatter of horses' hoofs upon the hard road was
already drawing perceptibly nearer.
'Messire Gilles!' she called out impatiently to one of the
dice-throwers, who was continuing his game unperturbed.
In a moment the man was on his feet. He looked up and saw the
Queen's pretty face framed in by the casement-window; and a pretty
woman was the only thing on God's earth which commanded Gilles de
Crohin's entire respect. Immediately he stood at attention,
silhouetted against the sunlit market-place beyond--a tall, martial
figure, with face weather-beaten and forehead scarred, the record of
a hundred fights depicted in every line of the sinewy limbs, the
powerful shoulders, the look of self-assurance in the deep-set eyes
and the strong, square jaw.
III
There was nothing very handsome about Messire Gilles de Crohin. That
portrait of him by Rembrandt--a mere sketch--done some years later,
suggests a ruggedness of exterior which might have been even
repulsive at times, when passion or choler distorted the irregular
features. Only the eyes, grey and profound, and the full lips, ever
ready to smile, may have been attractive. In a vague way he
resembled the royal master whom he was serving now. The features
were not unlike those of François, Duc d'Alençon et d'Anjou, but cast
in a rougher, more powerful mould and fashioned of stouter clay. The
resemblance is perhaps more striking in the picture than it could
have been in the original, for the Duke's skin was almost as smooth
as a woman's, his hair and sparse, pointed beard were always
exquisitely brushed and oiled; whereas Gilles' skin was that of a man
who has spent more nights in the open than in a downy bed, and his
moustache--he did not wear the fashionable beard--was wont to
bristle, each hair standing aloof from its neighbour, whenever
Messire Gilles bridled with amusement or with rage.
Then, again, Gilles looked older than the Duke, even though he was, I
think, the younger of the two by several years; but we may take it
that neither his cradle nor his youth had been watched over with such
tender care as those of the scion of the house of France, and though
dissipation and a surfeit of pleasure had drawn many lines on the
placid face of the one man, hard fighting and hard living had left
deeper imprints still on that of the other. Still, the resemblance
was there, and though Gilles' limbs indicated elasticity and power,
whereas those of the Prince of Valois were more slender and loosely
knit, the two men were much of a height and build, sufficiently so,
at any rate, to cause several chroniclers--notably the Queen of
Navarre herself--to aver that Gilles de Crohin's personality ofttimes
shielded that of _Monsieur_, Duke of Anjou and of Alençon, and that
Messire Gilles was ofttimes requisitioned to impersonate the master
whom he served and resembled, especially when any danger at the hand
of an outraged husband or father, or of a hired assassin lurked for
the profligate prince behind a hedge or in the angle of a dark
street. Nor was that resemblance to be altogether wondered at,
seeing that the de Froidmonts claimed direct descent from the house
of Valois and still quartered the Flower o' the Lily on ground azure
upon their escutcheon, with the proud device: 'Roy ne suys, ne Duc,
ne Prince, ne Comte; je suys Sire de Froide Monte.'[1] They had
indeed played at one time an important part in the destinies of the
princely house, until fickle Fortune took so resolutely to turning
her back upon the last descendants of the noble race.
[1] 'Am neither King, nor Duke, nor Prince, nor Count; am Sire de
Froide Monte.'
Marguerite of Navarre was too thoroughly a woman not to appreciate
the appearance of one who was so thoroughly a man. Gilles de Crohin
may have been out-at-elbows, but even the rough leather jerkin which
he wore and the faded kerseymere of his doublet could not altogether
mar a curious air of breeding and of power which was not in accord
with penury and a position of oft humiliating dependence. So,
despite her impatience, she gazed on Gilles for a moment or two with
quick satisfaction ere she said:
''Tis Monseigneur d'Inchy's messenger we hear, is it not, Messire?'
'I doubt not, your Majesty,' replied Gilles.
'Then I pray you,' she added, 'conduct him to my brother's presence
directly he arrives.'
And even whilst the sound of approaching horsemen drew nearer and
nearer still, and anon a great clatter upon the rough paving stones
of the courtyard announced their arrival, Marguerite turned back into
the room. She ran to her brother's chair and knelt down beside him.
She put fond arms round his shoulders and forced him to look into her
tear-filled eyes.
'François,' she pleaded, with the tenderness of a doting mother.
'_Mon petit_ François! For my sake, if not for yours! You don't
know how I have toiled and worked so that this should come to pass.
I want you to be great and mighty and influential. I hate your being
in the humiliating position of a younger brother beside Henri, who is
so arrogant and dictatorial with us all. François, dear, I have
worked for you because I love you. Let me have my reward!'
_Monsieur_ sighed like the spoilt child he really was, and made his
habitual sour grimace.
'You are too good to me, Margot,' he said somewhat churlishly. 'I
would you had left the matter alone. Our brother Henri cannot live
for ever, and his good wife has apparently no intention of presenting
him with a son.'
'Our brother Henri,' she insisted, 'can live on until you are too old
to enjoy the reversion of the throne of France, and Louise de
Lorraine is still young--who knows? The Duchies of Artois and
Hainault and the Sovereignty of the Netherlands to-day are worth more
than the vague perspective of the throne of France mayhap ten or a
dozen years hence----'
'And my marriage with Elizabeth of England?' he protested.
'Elizabeth of England will never marry you, François,' she replied
earnestly. 'She is too fanatical a Protestant ever to look with
favour on a Catholic prince. She will keep you dangling round her
skirts and fool you to the top of her bent, but Milor of Leycester
will see to it that you do not wed the Queen of England.'
'If I marry this Flemish wench I shall be burning my boats----'
'What matter?' she retorted hotly, 'if you enter so glorious a
harbour?'
There was nothing in the world that suited _Monsieur's_ temperament
better than lengthy discussions over a decision, which could thereby
be conveniently put off. Even now he would have talked and argued
and worn his sister's patience down to breaking point if suddenly the
corridor outside had not resounded with martial footsteps and the
jingling of swords and spurs.
'François!' pleaded Marguerite for the last time.
And the Duke, still irresolute, still longing to procrastinate, gave
a final sigh of sullen resignation.
'Very well!' he said. 'Since you wish it----'
'I do,' she replied solemnly. 'I do wish it most earnestly, most
sincerely. You _will_ accept, François?'
'Yes.'
'You promise?'
Again he hesitated. Then, as the footsteps halted outside the door
and Marguerite almost squeezed the breath out of his body with the
pressure of her young strong arms, he said reluctantly: 'I promise!'
Then, immediately--for fear he should be held strictly to his
word--he added quickly: 'On one condition.'
'What is that?' she asked.
'That I am not asked to plight my troth to the wench till after I
have seen her; for I herewith do swear most solemnly that I would
repudiate her at the eleventh hour--aye, at the very foot of the
altar steps, if any engagement is entered into in my name to which I
have not willingly subscribed.'
This time he spoke so solemnly and with such unwonted decision that
Marguerite thought it best to give way. At the back of her
over-quick mind she knew that by hook or by crook she would presently
devise a plan which would reconcile his wishes to her own.
'Very well,' she said after an almost imperceptible moment of
hesitation. 'It shall be as you say.'
And despite the half-hearted promise given by the
arch-procrastinator, there was a look of triumph and of joy on Queen
Marguerite's piquant features now. She rose to her feet and hastily
dried her tears.
There was a rap at the door. Marguerite seated herself on a
cushioned chair opposite her brother and called out serenely: 'Enter!'