_M. le Duc is well guarded._
I stepped out briskly from the inn, pausing now and again to inquire my
way to the Hôtel St. Quentin, which stood, I knew, in the Quartier
Marais, where all the grand folk lived. Once I had found the broad,
straight Rue St. Denis, all I need do was to follow it over the hill
down to the river-bank; my eyes were free, therefore, to stare at all
the strange sights of the great city--markets and shops and churches and
prisons. But most of all did I gape at the crowds in the streets. I had
scarce realized there were so many people in the world as passed me that
summer morning in the Town of Paris. Bewilderingly busy and gay the
place appeared to my country eyes, though in truth at that time Paris
was at its very worst, the spirit being well-nigh crushed out of it by
the sieges and the iron rule of the Sixteen.
I knew little enough of politics, and yet I was not so dull as not to
see that great events must happen soon. A crisis had come. I looked at
the people I passed who were going about their business so tranquilly.
Every one of them must be either Mayenne's man, or Navarre's. Before a
week was out these peaceable citizens might be using pikes for tools and
exchanging bullets for good mornings. Whatever happened, here was I in
Paris in the thick of it! My feet fairly danced under me; I could not
reach the hôtel soon enough. Half was I glad of Monsieur's danger, for
it gave me chance to show what stuff I was made of. Live for him, die
for him--whatever fate could offer I was ready for.
The hôtel, when at length I arrived before it, was no disappointment.
Here one did not wait till midday to see the sun; the street was of
decent width, and the houses held themselves back with reserve, like the
proud gentlemen who inhabited them. Nor did one here regret his
possession of a nose, as he was forced to do in the Rue Coupejarrets.
Of all the mansions in the place, the Hôtel St. Quentin was, in my
opinion, the most imposing; carved and ornamented and stately, with
gardens at the side. But there was about it none of that stir and
liveliness one expects to see about the houses of the great. No visitors
passed in or out, and the big iron gates were shut, as if none were
looked for. Of a truth, the persons who visited Monsieur these days
preferred to slip in by the postern after nightfall, as if there had
never been a time when they were proud to be seen in his hall.
Beyond the grilles a sentry, in the green and scarlet of Monsieur's
men-at-arms, stood on guard, and I called out to him boldly.
He turned at once; then looked as if the sight of me scarce repaid him.
"I wish to enter, if you please," I said. "I am come to see M. le Duc."
"You?" he ejaculated, his eye wandering over my attire, which, none of
the newest, showed signs of my journey.
"Yes, I," I answered in some resentment. "I am one of his men."
He looked me up and down with a grin.
"Oh, one of his men! Well, my man, you must know M. le Duc is not
receiving to-day."
"I am Félix Broux," I told him.
"You may be Félix anybody for all it avails; you cannot see Monsieur."
"Then I will see Vigo." Vigo was Monsieur's Master of Horse, the
staunchest man in France. This sentry was nobody, just a common fellow
picked up since Monsieur left St. Quentin, but Vigo had been at his side
these twenty years.
"Vigo, say you! Vigo does not see street boys."
"I am no street boy," I cried angrily. "I know Vigo well. You shall
smart for flouting me, when I have Monsieur's ear."
"Aye, when you have! Be off with you, rascal. I have no time to bother
with you."
"Imbecile!" I sputtered. But he had turned his back on me and resumed
his pacing up and down the court.
"Oh, very well for you, monsieur," I cried out loudly, hoping he could
hear me. "But you will laugh t'other side of your mouth by and by. I'll
pay you off."
It was maddening to be halted like this at the door of my goal; it made
a fool of me. But while I debated whether to set up an outcry that
would bring forward some officer with more sense than the surly sentry,
or whether to seek some other entrance, I became aware of a sudden
bustle in the courtyard, a narrow slice of which I could see through the
gateway. A page dashed across; then a pair of flunkeys passed. There was
some noise of voices and, finally, of hoofs and wheels. Half a dozen
men-at-arms ran to the gates and swung them open, taking their stand on
each side. Clearly, M. le Duc was about to drive out.
A little knot of people had quickly collected--sprung from between the
stones of the pavement, it would seem--to see Monsieur emerge.
"He is a bold man," I heard one say, and a woman answer, "Aye, and a
handsome," ere the heavy coach rolled out of the arch.
I pushed myself in close to the guardsmen, my heart thumping in my
throat now that the moment had come when I should see my Monsieur. At
the sight of his face I sprang bodily up on the coach-step, crying, all
my soul in my voice, "Oh, Monsieur! M. le Duc!"
Monsieur looked at me coldly, blankly, without a hint of recognition.
The next instant the young gentleman beside him sprang up-and struck me
a blow that hurled me off the step. I fell where the ponderous wheels
would have ended me had not a guardsman, quick and kind, pulled me out
of the way. Some one shouted, "Assassin!"
"I am no assassin," I cried; "I only sought to speak with Monsieur."
"He deserves a hiding, the young cur," growled my foe, the sentry.
"He's been pestering me this half-hour to let him in. He was one of
Monsieur's men, he said. Monsieur would see him. Well, we have seen how
Monsieur treats him!"
"Faith, no," said another. "We have only seen how our young gentleman
treats him. Of course he is too proud and dainty to let a common man so
much as look at him."
They all laughed; the young gentleman seemed no favourite.
"Parbleu! that was why I drew him from the wheels, because _he_ knocked
him there," said my preserver. "I don't believe there's harm in the boy.
What meant you, lad?"
"I meant no harm," I said, and turned sullenly off up the street. This,
then, was what I had come to Paris for--to be denied entrance to the
house, thrown under the coach-wheels, and threatened with a drubbing
from the lackeys!
For three years my only thought had been to serve Monsieur. From waking
in the morning to sleep at night, my whole life was Monsieur's. Never
was duty more cheerfully paid. Never did acolyte more throw his soul
into his service than I into mine. Never did lover hate to be parted
from his mistress more than I from Monsieur. The journey to Paris had
been a journey to Paradise. And now, this!
Monsieur had looked me in the face and not smiled; had heard me beseech
him and not answered--not lifted a finger to save me from being mangled
under his very eyes. St. Quentin and Paris were two very different
places, it appeared. At St. Quentin Monsieur had been pleased to take
me into the château and treat me to more intimacy than he accorded to
the high-born lads, his other pages. So much the easier, then, to cast
me off when he had tired of me. My heart seethed with rage and
bitterness against Monsieur, against the sentry, and, more than all,
against the young Comte de Mar, who had flung me under the wheels.
I had never before seen the Comte de Mar, that spoiled only son of M. le
Duc's, who was too fine for the country, too gay to share his father's
exile. Maybe I was jealous of the love his father bore him, which he so
little repaid. I had never thought to like him, St. Quentin though he
were; and now that I saw him I hated him. His handsome face looked ugly
enough to me as he struck me that blow.
I went along the Paris streets blindly, the din of my own thoughts
louder than all the noises of the city. But I could not remain in this
trance forever, and at length I woke to two unpleasant facts: first, I
had no idea where I was, and, second, I should be no better off if I
knew.
Never, while there remained in me the spirit of a man, would I go back
to Monsieur; never would I serve the Comte de Mar. And it was equally
obvious that never, so long as my father retained the spirit that was
his, could I return to St. Quentin with the account of my morning's
achievements. It was just here that, looking at the business with my
father's eyes, I began to have a suspicion that I had behaved like an
insolent young fool. But I was still too angry to acknowledge it.
Remained, then, but one course--to stay in Paris, and keep from
starvation as best I might.
My thrifty father had not seen fit to furnish me any money to throw away
in the follies of the town. He had calculated closely what I should need
to take me to Monsieur, with a little margin for accidents; so that,
after paying Maître Jacques, I had hardly two pieces to jingle together.
For three years I had browsed my fill in the duke's library; I could
write a decent letter both in my own tongue and in Italian, thanks to
Father Francesco, Monsieur's Florentine confessor, and handle a sword
none so badly, thanks to Monsieur; and I felt that it should not be hard
to pick up a livelihood. But how to start about it I had no notion, and
finally I made up my mind to go and consult him whom I now called my one
friend in Paris, Jacques the innkeeper.
'Twas easier said than done. I had strayed out of the friendly Rue St.
Denis into a network of dark and narrow ways that might have been laid
out by a wily old stag with the dogs hot on him, so did they twist and
turn and double on themselves. I could make my way only at a snail's
pace, asking new guidance at every corner. Noon was long past when at
length I came on laggard feet around the corner by the Amour de Dieu.
Yet was it not fatigue that weighted my feet, but pride. Though I had
resolved to seek out Maître Jacques, still 'twas a hateful thing to
enter as suppliant where I had been the patron. I had paid for my
breakfast like a lord, but I should have to beg for my dinner. I had
bragged of Monsieur's fondness, and I should have to tell how I had been
flung under the coach-wheels. My pace slackened to a stop. I could not
bring myself to enter the door. I tried to think how to better my story,
so to tell it that it should redound to my credit. But my invention
stuck in my pate.
As I stood striving to summon up a jaunty demeanour, I found myself
gazing straight at the shuttered house, and of a sudden my thoughts
shifted back to my vision.
Those murdered Huguenots, dead and gone ere I was born, had appeared to
me as plain as the men I passed in the street. Though I had beheld them
but the space of a lightning-flash, I could call up their faces like
those of my comrades. One, the nearest me, was small, pale, with
pinched, sharp face, somewhat rat-like. The second man was conspicuously
big and burly, black-haired and-bearded. The third and youngest--all
three were young--stood with his hand on Blackbeard's shoulder. He, too,
was tall, but slenderly built, with clear-cut visage and fair hair
gleaming in the glare. One moment I saw them, every feature plain; the
next they had vanished like a dream.
It was an unholy thing, no doubt, yet it held me with a shuddery
fascination. Was it indeed a portent, this rising of heretics from their
unblessed graves? And why had it been shown to me, true son of the
Church? Had any one else ever seen what I had seen? Maître Jacques had
hinted at further terrors, and said no one dared enter the place. Well,
grant me but the opportunity, and I would dare.
Thus was hatched in my brain the notion of forcing an entrance into that
banned house. I was an idle boy, foot-loose and free to do whatever mad
mischief presented itself. Here was the house just across the street.
Neglected as it was, it remained the most pretentious edifice in the
row, being large and flaunting a half-defaced coat of arms over the
door. Such a house might well boast two entrances. I hoped it did, for
there was no use in trying to batter down this door with the eye of the
Rue Coupejarrets upon me. I turned along the side street, and after
exploring several muck-heaped alleys found one that led me into a small
square court bounded on three sides by a tall house with shuttered
windows.
Fortune was favouring me. But how to gain entrance? The two doors were
both firmly fastened. The windows on the ground floor were small, high,
and iron-shuttered. Above, one or two shutters swung half open, but I
could not climb the smooth wall. Yet I did not despair; I was not
without experience of shutters. I selected one closed not quite tight,
leaving a crack for my knife-blade. I found the hook inside, got my
dagger under it, and at length drove it up. The shutter creaked shrilly
open.
A few good blows knocked in the casement. I followed.
I found myself in a small room bare of everything but dust. From this,
once a porter's room, I fancied, I passed out into a hallway dimly
lighted from the open window behind me. The hall was large, paved with
black and white marbles; at the end a stately stairway mounted into
mysterious gloom.
My heart jumped into my mouth and I cringed back in terror, a choked cry
rasping my throat. For, as I crossed the hall, peering into the dimness,
I descried, stationed on the lowest stair with upraised bludgeon, a man.
For a second I stood in helpless startlement, voiceless, motionless,
waiting for him to brain me. Then my half-uttered scream changed to a
quavering laugh, as my eyes, becoming used to the gloom, discovered my
bogy to be but a figure carved in wood, holding aloft a long since
quenched flambeau.
I blushed with shame, yet I cannot say that now I felt no fear. I
thought of the panic-stricken women, the doomed men, who had fled at the
sword's point up these very stairs. The silence seemed to shriek at me,
and I half thought I saw fear-maddened eyes peering out from the
shadowed corners. Yet for all that--nay, because of that--I would not
give up the adventure. I went back into the little room and carefully
closed the shutter, lest some other meddler should spy my misdeed. Then
I set my feet on the stair.
If the half-light before had been full of eery terror, it was naught to
the blackness now. My hand on the rail was damp. Yet I mounted steadily.
Up one flight I climbed, groped in the hot dark for the foot of the next
flight, and went on. Suddenly, above, I heard a noise. I came to an
instant halt. All was as still as the tomb. I listened; not a breath
broke the silence. It never occurred to me to imagine a rat in this
house of the dead, and the noise shook me. With a sick feeling about my
heart I went on again.
On the next floor it was lighter. Faint outlines of doors and passages
were visible. I could not stand the gloom a moment longer; I strode into
the nearest doorway and across the room to where a gleam of brightness
outlined the window. My shaking fingers found the hook of the shutter
and flung it wide, letting in a burst of honest sunshine. I leaned out
into the free air, and saw below me the Rue Coupejarrets and the sign of
the Amour de Dieu.
The next instant a cloth fell over my face and was twisted tight; strong
arms pulled me back, and a deep voice commanded:
"Close the shutter."
Some one pushed past me and shut it with a clang.
"Devil take you! You'll rouse the quarter," cried my captor, fiercely,
yet not loud. "Go join monsieur." With that he picked me up in his arms
and walked across the room.
The capture had been so quick I had no time for outcry. I fought my best
with him, half strangled as I was by the cloth. I might as well have
struggled against the grip of the Maiden. The man carried me the length
of the house, it seemed; flung me down upon the floor, and banged a door
on me.