[Illustration]
I
_A flash of lightning._
At the stair-foot the landlord stopped me. "Here, lad, take a candle.
The stairs are dark, and, since I like your looks, I would not have you
break your neck."
"And give the house a bad name," I said.
"No fear of that; my house has a good name. There is no fairer inn in
all Paris. And your chamber is a good chamber, though you will have
larger, doubtless, when you are Minister of Finance."
This raised a laugh among the tavern idlers, for I had been bragging a
bit of my prospects. I retorted:
"When I am, Maître Jacques, look out for a rise in your taxes."
The laugh was turned on mine host, and I retired with the honours of
that encounter. And though the stairs were the steepest I ever climbed,
I had the breath and the spirit to whistle all the way up. What mattered
it that already I ached in every bone, that the stair was long and my
bed but a heap of straw in the garret of a mean inn in a poor quarter? I
was in Paris, the city of my dreams!
I am a Broux of St. Quentin. The great world has never heard of the
Broux? No matter; they have existed these hundreds of years, Masters of
the Forest, and faithful servants of the dukes of St. Quentin. The great
world has heard of the St. Quentins? I warrant you! As loudly as it has
of Sully and Villeroi, Trémouille and Biron. That is enough for the
Broux.
I was brought up to worship the saints and M. le Duc, and I loved and
revered them alike, by faith, for M. le Duc, at court, seemed as far
away from us as the saints in heaven. But the year after King Henry III
was murdered, Monsieur came to live on his estate, to make high and low
love him for himself.
In that bloody time, when the King of Navarre and the two Leagues were
tearing our poor France asunder, M. le Duc found himself between the
devil and the deep sea. He was no friend to the League; for years he had
stood between the king, his master, and the machinations of the Guises.
On the other hand, he was no friend to the Huguenots. "To seat a heretic
on the throne of France were to deny God," he said. Therefore he came
home to St. Quentin, where he abode in quiet for some three years, to
the great wonderment of all the world.
Had he been a cautious man, a man who looked a long way ahead, his
compeers would have understood readily enough that he was waiting to see
how the cat would jump, taking no part in the quarrel lest he should
mix with the losing side. But this theory jibed so ill with Monsieur's
character that not even his worst detractor could accept it. For he was
known to all as a hotspur--a man who acted quickly and seldom counted
the cost. Therefore his present conduct was a riddle, nor could any of
the emissaries from King or League, who came from time to time to enlist
his aid and went away without it, read the answer. The puzzle was too
deep for them. Yet it was only this: to Monsieur, honour was more than a
pretty word. If he could not find his cause honest, he would not draw
his sword, though all the curs in the land called him coward.
Thus he stayed alone in the château for a long, irksome three years.
Monsieur was not of a reflective mind, content to stand aside and watch
while other men fought out great issues. It was a weary procession of
days to him. His only son, a lad a few years older than I, shared none
of his father's scruples and refused point-blank to follow him into
exile. He remained in Paris, where they knew how to be gay in spite of
sieges. Therefore I, the Forester's son, whom Monsieur took for a page,
had a chance to come closer to my lord and be more to him than a mere
servant, and I loved him as the dogs did. Aye, and admired him for a
fortitude almost more than human, in that he could hold himself passive
here in farthest Picardie, whilst in Normandie and Île de France battles
raged and towns fell and captains won glory.
At length, in the opening of the year 1593, M. le Duc began to have a
frequent visitor, a gentleman in no wise remarkable save for that he was
accorded long interviews with Monsieur. After these visits my lord was
always in great spirits, putting on frisky airs, like a stallion when he
is led out of the stable. I looked for something to happen, and it was
no surprise to me when M. le Duc announced one day, quite without
warning, that he was done with St. Quentin and would be off in the
morning for Mantes. I was in the seventh heaven of joy when he added
that he should take me with him. I knew the King of Navarre was at
Mantes--at last we were going to make history! There was no bound to my
golden dreams, no limit to my future.
But my house of cards suffered a rude tumble, and by no hand but my
father's. He came to Monsieur, and, presuming on an old servitor's
privilege, begged him to leave me at home.
"I have lost two sons in Monsieur's service," he said: "Jean, hunting in
this forest, and Blaise, in the fray at Blois. I have never grudged them
to Monsieur. But Félix is all I have left."
Thus it came about that I was left behind, hidden in the hay-loft, when
my duke rode away. I could not watch his going.
Though the days passed drearily, yet they passed. Time does pass, at
length, even when one is young. It was July. The King of Navarre had
moved up to St. Denis, in his siege of Paris, but most folk thought he
would never win the city, the hotbed of the League. Of M. le Duc we
heard no word till, one night, a chance traveller, putting up at the inn
in the village, told a startling tale. The Duke of St. Quentin, though
known to have been at Mantes and strongly suspected of espousing
Navarre's cause, had ridden calmly into Paris and opened his hôtel! It
was madness--madness sheer and stark. Thus far his religion had saved
him, yet any day he might fall under the swords of the Leaguers.
My father came, after hearing this tale, to where I was lying on the
grass, the warm summer night, thinking hard thoughts of him for keeping
me at home and spoiling my chances in life. He gave me straightway the
whole of the story. Long before it was over I had sprung to my feet.
"Do you still wish to join M. le Duc?" he said.
"Father!" was all I could gasp.
"Then you shall go," he answered. That was not bad for an old man who
had lost two sons for Monsieur!
I set out in the morning, light of baggage, purse, and heart. I can tell
naught of the journey, for I heeded only that at the end of it lay
Paris. I reached the city one day at sundown, and entered without a
passport at the St. Denis gate, the warders being hardly so strict as
Mayenne supposed. I was dusty, foot-sore, and hungry, in no guise to
present myself before Monsieur; wherefore I went no farther that night
than the inn of the Amour de Dieu, in the Rue des Coupejarrets.
Far below my garret window lay the street--a trench between the high
houses. Scarce eight feet off loomed the dark wall of the house
opposite. To me, fresh from the wide woods of St. Quentin, it seemed the
desire of Paris folk to outhuddle in closeness the rabbits in a warren.
So ingenious were they at contriving to waste no inch of open space
that the houses, standing at the base but a scant street's width apart,
ever jutted out farther at each story till they looked to be fairly
toppling together. I could see into the windows up and down the way; see
the people move about within; hear opposite neighbours call to each
other. But across from my aery were no lights and no people, for that
house was shuttered tight from attic to cellar, its dark front as
expressionless as a blind face. I marvelled how it came to stand empty
in that teeming quarter.
Too tired, however, to wonder long, I blew out the candle, and was
asleep before I could shut my eyes.
* * * * *
Crash! Crash! Crash!
I sprang out of bed in a panic, thinking Henry of Navarre was bombarding
Paris. Then, being fully roused, I perceived that the noise was thunder.
From the window I peered into floods of rain. The peals died away.
Suddenly came a terrific lightning-flash, and I cried out in
astonishment. For the shutter opposite was open, and I had a vivid
vision of three men in the window.
Then all was dark again, and the thunder shook the roof.
I stood straining my eyes into the night, waiting for the next flash.
When it came it showed me the window barred as before. Flash followed
flash; I winked the rain from my eyes and peered in vain. The shutter
remained closed as if it had never been opened. Sleep rolled over me in
a great wave as I groped my way back to bed.