WHAT VALUE A VALOIS PRINCE SET UPON HIS WORD
I
To Gilles de Crohin, when he woke to consciousness one morning in his
former lodging in La Fère, the whole of the past few weeks appeared
indeed like a long dream.
Cambray--Jacqueline--his mask--his deceit--that last day upon the
ramparts--were they not all the creations of his fevered brain?
Surely a whole lifetime could not be crowded into so short a space of
time. No man could have lived through so much, loved so
passionately, have lost and fought and conquered so strenuously, all
within a few weeks.
And when, after many days' enforced rest and a good deal of attention
from a skilful leech backed by Maître Jehan's unwavering care, he was
once more on his feet and was able to relate to Madame la Reyne de
Navarre the many vicissitudes of his perilous adventure, it seemed to
him as if he were recounting to a child, fairy tales and dream
stories which had never been.
It was only at evening, when he wandered round the little Dutch
garden at the back of the house where he lodged, that Jacqueline came
to him, aglow with life--a living, breathing, exquisite reality. For
the Madonna lilies were all abloom in that garden just then: tall,
stately white lilies, which bordered one of the narrow paths. They
had slender, pale green stems, their fragrance filled the evening air
and the soft breeze stirred their delicate crowns. Then it would
seem to Gilles as if his Jacqueline were walking down the path beside
him, that the breeze blew the tendrils of her fair hair against his
nostrils and that her voice filled his ear with its sweet, melodious
sound. A big heartache would make the rough soldier sigh with
longing then. Unseen by any one, alone with his thoughts of her, he
would stretch out his arms to that tantalizing vision which seemed so
real and was yet so far, so very far away.
Madame la Reyne would at times chaff him about his moodiness, and he
himself was ready to laugh aloud at his own folly. What right had
he--the uncouth soldier of fortune, the homeless adventurer--to think
of the great and noble lady, who was as far removed from him as were
the stars? What right indeed? Even though Marguerite de Navarre,
lavish in her gratitude, had already showered honours and wealth upon
the man who had served her so faithfully.
'Monseigneur le Prince de Froidmont,' she had said to him with solemn
earnestness, on the day when first she had realized how completely he
had worked out her own schemes; 'the lands of Froide Monte, which are
some of the richest in Acquitaine, were a part of my dowry when I
married. They are yours now, as they once were the property of your
forebears. They are yours, with their forests, their streams and
their castles. Take them as a poor token of my lifelong gratitude.'
And when Gilles demurred, half-indifferent even to so princely a
gift, she added with her habitual impatience: 'Pardieu, Messire, why
should you be too proud to accept a gift from me, seeing that I was
not too proud to ask so signal a service of you?'
Even so, that gift--so graciously offered, so welcome to the man's
pride of ancestry--had but little value in his sight, since he could
not do with it the one thing that mattered, which was to lay it at
Jacqueline's feet.
'Do not look so morose, Messire,' Marguerite de Navarre said
teasingly. 'I vow that you have left your heart captive in Cambray.'
Then as Gilles, after this straight hit, remained silent and
absorbed, she added gaily: 'Have no fear, Messire! When _Monsieur_
is Lord of the Netherlands, he will force the lady of your choice
into granting you her favours. Remember!' she said more seriously,
'that the Prince de Froidmont can now aspire to the hand of the
richest and most exalted lady in the land.'
'Monseigneur is still far from being Lord of the Netherlands,' Gilles
said dryly, chiefly with a view to inducing a fresh train of thought
in the royal lady's mind.
Marguerite shrugged her pretty shoulders.
'He still procrastinates,' she admitted. 'He should be at La Fère by
now, with five thousand troops. Everything was ready when I left
Paris.'
'He has found something else to distract him,' rejoined Gilles, with
unconscious bitterness. 'Perhaps Mme. de Marquette has resumed her
sway over him, the while Cambray waits and starves.'
'Chien sabe?' allowed Madame la Reyne with an impatient sigh.
II
The while Cambray waits and starves! That was indeed the deathly
sting which poisoned Gilles de Crohin's very life during those four
dreary months, while _Monsieur_ Duc d'Anjou was ostensibly making
preparations for his expedition for the relief of the beleaguered
city. Ostensibly in truth, for very soon his fond sister had to
realize that, now as always, that fickle brother of hers was playing
his favourite game of procrastination and faithlessness. With him,
in fact, faithlessness had become an obsession. It seemed as if he
could not act or think straight, as if he could not keep his word.
Now, while he was supposed to recruit his troops, to consult with his
officers, to provide for engines and munitions of war, he actually
deputed his long-suffering and still faithful friend, Gilles de
Crohin, to do the work for him. His own thoughts had once more
turned to a possible marriage--not with Jacqueline de Broyart, to
whom he was bound by every conceivable tie of honour and of
loyalty--but with Elizabeth of England, whom he coveted because of
her wealth, and the power which so brilliant an alliance would place
in his hands.
But of these thoughts he did not dare to speak even to the adoring
sister, who most certainly would have turned her back on him for ever
had she known that he harboured such dishonourable projects. He did
not dare to speak of them even to Gilles, for he felt that this would
strain his friend's loyalty to breaking point. He entered outwardly
into the spirit of the proposed expedition with all the zest which he
could muster, but the moment he was no longer under Marguerite de
Navarre's own eyes he did not lift another finger in its organization.
'Turenne and la Voute are quite capable of going to the relief of
Cambray without me,' he said to Gilles with a yawn and a lazy stretch
of his long, loose limbs. 'I have never been counted a good
commander, and Parma is always a difficult problem to tackle. Let
Turenne go, I say. My brother Henri lauds him as the greatest
general of the day, and the rogue hath fought on the Spanish side
before now, so he hath all their tricks at his fingers' ends.'
_Monsieur_ was in Paris then, and Marguerite de Navarre, wellnigh
distraught, had entreated Gilles to stir him into immediate activity.
'Cambray will fall before that indolent brother of mine gets there,
Messire,' she had pleaded, with tears of impotent anger in her eyes.
Gilles had gone. He needed no goad even for so distasteful a task.
'Cambray might fall!' The thought drove him into a fever, from which
he could find no solace save in breathless activity. He found
_Monsieur_ in his Palace in Paris, surrounded by the usual crowd of
effeminate youngsters and idle women, decked out in new-fangled,
impossible clothes, the creations of his own fancy, indolent,
vicious, incorrigible. Just now, when Gilles had come to speak to
him of matters that meant life or death, honour or shame, the future
welfare or downfall of a nation, he was lounging in a huge armchair,
his feet resting on a pile of cushions. He was wearing one of his
favourite satin suits, with slashed doublet all covered with tags and
ribbons; he had gold earrings in his ears and was nursing a litter of
tiny hairless puppies, whom he was teasing with the elaborate
insignia of the Order of the Holy Ghost, wrought in gold and set with
diamonds, which he wore on a blue ribband round his neck.
Gilles looked down on him with a contempt that was no longer
good-humoured. Cambray was waiting and starving whilst this
miserable coxcomb idled away the hours! Two months had gone by and
practically nothing had been done. There were no troops, no
munitions, no arms; and Cambray was waiting and starving! God alone
knew what miseries were being endured by those valiant burghers over
there, whom Gilles' own voice had so easily rallied once to a
stubborn and heroic defence! God alone knew what his exquisite
Jacqueline was being made to suffer! At the thought, his very soul
writhed in torment. He could have raised his hands in measureless
anger against that effeminate nincompoop, and crushed the last spark
of a profligate and useless life out of him. As it was, he had to
entreat, to argue, almost to kneel, pleading the cause of Cambray and
of his proud Jacqueline--his perfect and unapproachable lily, whom
this miserable rag of manhood was casting aside and spurning with a
careless wave of the hand.
Ye gods! That he, of all men, should have been assigned such a rôle!
That Fate should have destined him to plead for the very honour and
safety of the woman whom he worshipped, with a man whom he despised!
And yet he argued and he entreated because Madame la Reyne herself
vowed that no one could keep her brother in the path of integrity
now, except his friend Gilles de Crohin. She had begged him not to
leave Monsieur, not for a day, not if possible for an hour!
'He will give us the slip again,' she begged most earnestly; 'and be
off to England after his wild-goose chase. Elizabeth will never
marry him--never! And we shall remain before the world, uselessly
discredited and shamed.'
Alas! much precious time had in the meanwhile been lost. News had
come through that the Duke of Parma had given up the thought of
taking Cambray by storm and had left del Fuente in temporary command
with orders to reduce her by starvation.
But this was two months ago.
Marguerite de Navarre, wearied to death, harassed by _Monsieur's_
inactivity, obstructed by the King of France, was on the verge of
despair. Cambray, according to the most haphazard calculations, must
be on the point of surrender.
III
Early in July, _Monsieur_, stung into a semblance of activity by
perpetual nagging from his sister and constant goading from Gilles,
did send M. de Turenne with an insufficient force, ill-equipped and
ill-found, to effect a surprise attack against the Spanish army.
We know how signally that failed. The blame naturally was lavishly
distributed. M. de Turenne, ignorant of his ground, had, it was
averred, employed guides who led him astray. Spies and traitors
amongst his troops were also supposed to have got wind of his plans
and to have betrayed them to the Spanish commander. Certain it is
that Turenne's small force was surprised, cut up, Turenne himself
taken prisoner and that la Voute, his second, only escaped a like
fate by disguising himself as a woman and running with the best of
them back to La Fère.
The blow had fallen, sudden, swift and terrible. When the news was
brought to Marguerite of Navarre she was seized with so awful an
attack of choler, that she fell into unconsciousness and had to take
to her bed.
She sent for Gilles, who was eating out his heart in Paris, playing
the watch-dog over a dissolute Prince. At her command he proceeded
at once to La Fère.
'All is not lost, Messire,' she said to him, as soon as his calm,
trust-inspiring presence had infused some semblance of hope into her
heart. 'But we must not allow _Monsieur_ to exert himself any more
in the matter. His incapacity alone matches his indolence.'
She felt so ashamed and so humiliated, that Gilles wellnigh forgot
the grudge, which he really owed her for that pitiable adventure into
which she had thrust him, and which was even now ending in disaster.
'My spirit is wellnigh broken,' she continued, with pathetic
self-depreciation. 'If only, out of all this misery, we could save
one shred of our honour!'
'Will your Majesty let me try?' Gilles said simply.
'What do you mean?' she riposted.
'Let me gather an army together. Let me do battle against the Duke
of Parma. Monseigneur hath proved himself unwilling. We court
disaster by allowing him thus to fritter away both time and men. It
was Turenne yesterday; it will be Condé to-morrow, or Montmorency or
Bussy--anybody, any unfortunate or incompetent who is willing to
serve him! In God's name, Madame la Reyne,' urged Gilles, with a
tone of bitter reproach, 'do not let us procrastinate any longer!
Cambray is in her death-agony. Let _me_ go to her aid!'
She made a final, half-hearted protest.
'No! No!' she said. 'You cannot, must not leave your post. If you
do not keep watch over _Monsieur_, we shall lose him altogether.'
'Better that,' he retorted grimly, 'than that we should lose Cambray.'
'There you are right, Messire. Cambray now is bound up with our
honour.'
She had become like a child--so different to her former self-assured,
almost arrogant self. Gilles, whose firm purpose gave him the
strength, had little ado to mould her to his will. She had become
malleable, yielding, humble in her helplessness. Marguerite de
Navarre was actually ready to listen to advice, to let another think
for her and scheme. She accepted counsel with a blindness and
submissiveness which were truly pathetic. And Gilles--with the
vision before him of Jacqueline enduring all the horrors of a
protracted siege--was experiencing a semblance of happiness at
thought that at last he would have the power of working for her. So
he set to with a will, to make the harassed Queen see eye to eye with
him, to make her enter into his ideas and his plans.
'Your Majesty,' he said, 'has offered me the richest lands in
Aquitaine. I entreat you to take them back and to give me their
worth in money, and I'll gather together an army that will know how
to fight. Then, when we are sure of victory, _Monsieur_ can come and
himself take command. But in the meanwhile, we will beat the Duke of
Parma and relieve Cambray. This I swear to you by the living God!'
Marguerite was soon swept off her feet by his determination and his
enthusiasm. With naïve surrender, she laid down her burden and left
Gilles to shoulder it. Now at last he could work for his Jacqueline!
He could fight for her, die for her when the time came! He could
drive the foe from her gates and bequeath to her, ere he fell, the
freedom of the country she loved so well.
Night and day he toiled, not only with heart and will but with the
frenzy of despair; while Marguerite, ever hopeful, ever deluded where
that contemptible brother of hers was concerned, flew to Paris to
keep a watch over him, then back to La Fère to concert with
Gilles--hoping against hope that all would still be well, ready to
forgive Monsieur even for the seventy times seventh time, confident
that she would still see him entering Cambray and marching thence
from city to city, the chosen Lord of the Netherlands, more puissant
than any King.
IV
On the last day of July, Gilles de Crohin had his forces ready,
equipped, armed, provisioned, at La Fère, where Marguerite de Navarre
came herself in order to wish him and the expedition God speed.
But _Monsieur_--who had promised, nay sworn, he would come too, in
order to take command in person at the last, when victory was
assured--_Monsieur_ had not arrived.
For two sennights the devoted sister and the faithful friend waited
for him; but he did not come. Marguerite sent courier upon courier
after him to Paris, but he evaded them all, and at one time nobody
knew where he had hidden himself. To his other vices and failings,
this descendant of a once noble race had added the supreme act of a
coward. What that final weary waiting meant for Gilles, not even a
veracious chronicler can describe. With Cambray almost in sight,
with the Spanish armies not two leagues away, with his Jacqueline
enduring every horror and every misery which the aching heart of an
absent lover can conjure up before his tortured mind, he was forced
to remain in idleness, eating out his heart in regret, remorse and
longing, doubtful as to what the future might bring, tortured even
with the fear that, mayhap, in Cambray only a flower-covered mound of
earth would mark the spot where his Jacqueline slept the last sleep
of eternal rest.
Then at last, upon the fourteenth day of August, a letter came by
runner from _Monsieur_, for the Queen of Navarre. It had been
written in Paris more than a week ago, and obviously had been
purposely delayed. It began with many protestations of good-will, of
love for his sister and of confidence in his friend. Then the letter
went on in a kind of peevish strain:
'I am quite convinced, My dear sister, that I am altogether unfit
for the kind of attack which the present Situation demands. Now
Gilles has a great deal more Energy than I have, and a great deal
more Knowledge. As you know, I never had any longing for
military Glory, and feel absolutely no desire to make a State
Entry into Cambray with a swarm of starved or diseased Flemings
hanging to my stirrup-leathers. Let Gilles to all that. He
seems to have had a liking for that unsavoury Crowd. Then, by
and by, if the Spaniards, in the meanwhile, do not frustrate his
Designs by giving him a beating, I shall be ready to take up once
more the negotiations for my proposed Sovereignty of the
Netherlands. But understand, My dear Sister, that this happy
Event must come to pass without the co-operation of a Flemish
bride. Frankly, I have no liking for the Race, and would be
jeopardising My whole Future, by selling Myself to the first
Dutch wench that an untoward Fate would throw in My way. Entre
nous, Elizabeth of England has not been so haughty with Me of
late. Get Me that Kingdom of the Netherlands by all means, My
dear. I verily believe that this accrued Dignity would ensure
the favourable Acceptance of My suit by the English Queen.'
Marguerite had never made any secret before Gilles of her brother's
perfidy. Even this infamous letter she placed loyally before him
now. When he had finished reading it and she saw the look of
measureless contempt which flashed through his eyes, she could have
cried with shame and misery.
'What to do, Messire?' she exclaimed piteously. 'Oh, my God! what to
do?'
'Relieve Cambray first and foremost, Madame,' he replied firmly.
'After that, we shall see.'
'But the Flemish lords!' she rejoined. 'Their anger! Their
contempt! I could not bear it, Messire! The shame of it all will
kill me!'
'It has got to be borne, Madame! Cambray has suffered enough. It is
our turn now.'
Nor would he discuss the matter any further, even with her. The
expedition had been entrusted to his hands, and nothing would delay
him now. Cambray was waiting and starving, every hour might mean her
final surrender. The Spanish commander--apprised of _Monsieur_ le
Duc d'Anjou's arrival with a strong force--had already offered
battle. Gilles was only too eager to accept the issue.
On the fifteenth day of August, 1581, that battle was fought on the
plains outside Cambray. The issue was never in doubt for one moment.
Le Carpentier asserts that the Duke of Parma, after six hours'
stubborn fighting, surrendered his position and all his forts and
retired in great haste in the direction of Valenciennes.