The Chevalier de St. Real, according to the ideas of hospitality
entertained in those days, pressed the King of Navarre to his food,
and urged the wine upon him; but scarcely had Henry's glass been
filled twice, ere the sound of steps hurrying hither and thither was
heard in the hall, and the young noble cast many an anxious look
towards the door. It opened at length, and an old servant entered,
who, approaching the chair of his young lord, whispered a few words in
his ear.
"Indeed!" said St. Real; "I had hoped his sleep would have lasted
longer. How seems he now, Duverdier?--is he refreshed by this short
repose?"
"I cannot say I think it, sir," replied the servant; "but he asks
anxiously for you, and we could not find you in the hall."
"I come," answered St. Real; and then turning to the King, he added,
"My father's short rest is at an end, and I will now tell him of your
visit, sir. Doubtless he will gladly see you, as there is none he
respects more deeply."
"Go! go! my young lord," cried Henry; "I will wait you here, with
these good gentlemen. Let me be no restraint upon you. Yet tell your
father, my good lord, that my business is such as presses a man's
visits on his friends even at hours unseasonable, else would I not ask
to see him when he is ill and suffering."
The young lord of St. Real bowed his head and quitted the apartment;
while Henry remained with the other guests, whose curiosity was not a
little increased in regard to who this Maitre Jacques could be, by the
great reverence which seemed paid to him. They had soon an opportunity
of expressing their curiosity to each other, in the absence of the
object thereof; for in a very few minutes the Chevalier of St. Real
returned, and besought Henry to "_honour_ his father's chamber with
his presence." The King followed with a smile; and when the door of
the little hall was closed behind them, laid his hand upon St. Real's
arm, saying, "You are no good actor, my young friend."
"I am afraid not," replied St. Real, in a tone from which he could not
banish the sadness occasioned by his father's illness; "yet I trust
what I said may in no degree betray your Majesty."
"No, no," answered Henry, "I dare say not; and should you see any
suspicions, St. Real, you must either--in penance for having shown too
much reverence for a king, in an age when kings are out of all
respect--you must either keep these gentry close prisoners here till I
have reached Tours, and thence made a two-days' journey Paris-ward, or
you must give me a guard of fifty men to push my way through as far as
Chartres."
"It shall be which your Majesty pleases," replied St. Real; "but here
is my father's chamber."
The spot where they stood was situated half way up a long passage
traversing the central part of the chateau of St. Real, narrow, low,
and unlighted during the day by anything but two small windows, one at
each extreme. At present two or three lamps served to show the way to
the apartments of the sick man, at the small low-framed doorway of
which stood an attendant, as if stationed for the purpose of giving or
refusing admittance to those who came to visit the suffering noble.
The servant instantly threw back the plain oaken boards, clasped
together by bands of iron, which served as a door, and the next moment
Henry found himself in the ante-chamber of the sick man's room. The
interior of the apartment into which he was now admitted was much
superior in point of comfort to that which one might have expected
from the sight of such an entrance. The ante-chamber was spacious,
hung with rich though gloomy arras, and carpeted with mats of fine
rushes. One or two beds were laid upon the ground for the old lord's
attendants; and on many a peg, thrust through the arras, hung trophies
of war or of the chase, together with several lamps and sconces which
cast a considerable light into the room. The chamber beyond was kept
in a greater degree of obscurity, though the light was still
sufficient to show the King, as he passed through the intermediate
doorway, the faded form of the old Marquis of St. Real, lying in a
large antique bed of green velvet, with one thin and feeble hand
stretched out upon the bed-clothes. At the bolster was placed one of
those old-fashioned double-seated chairs which are now so seldom seen,
even as objects of antiquarian research; and, from one of the two
places which it afforded, an attendant of the sick rose up as Henry
entered, and glided away into the ante-room. St. Real paused and
closed the door between the two chambers; and Henry, advancing, took
the vacant seat, and kindly laid his hand upon that of his sick
friend.
"Why how now, lord Marquis?" he said, in a feeling but cheerful tone;
"how now? this is not the state in which I hoped to find you. But,
faith, I must have you better soon, for I would fain see you once more
at the head of your followers."
The Marquis of St. Real shook his head, with a look which had neither
melancholy nor fear in its expression, but which plainly conveyed his
conviction that he was never destined to lead followers to the field
again, or rise from the bed on which he was then stretched. Nor,
indeed, although the young monarch spoke cheerful hopes--did he
entertain any expectations equal to his words. The Marquis of St. Real
was more than eighty years of age; and though his frame had been one
of great power, and in his eyes there was still beaming the light of a
fine heart and active mind, yet time had bowed him long before, and
many a past labour and former hardship in the Italian wars had broken
the staff of his strength, and left him to fall before the first
stroke of illness. Sickness had come at length, and now all the powers
of life were evidently failing fast. The features of his face had
grown thin and sharp; his temples seemed to have fallen in; and over
his whole countenance--which in his green old age had been covered
with the ruddy hue of health--was now spreading fast the grey ashy
colour of the grave.
"Your Majesty is welcome!" he said, in a low, faint voice, which
obliged Henry to bend his head in order to catch the sounds; "but I
must not hope, either for your Majesty or any one else, to set lance
in the rest again. I doubt not," he continued, after a momentary
pause--"I doubt not that you have thought me somewhat cold-hearted and
ungrateful, after many favours received at your hands, and at those of
your late noble mother, that I have not long before this espoused the
cause of those whom I think unjustly persecuted. But I trust that you
have not come to reproach me with what I have not done, but rather to
show me now how I can serve you in my dying hour; without, however,
even then forgetting the allegiance I owe to the crown of France, and
my duty to her monarch."
"To reproach you I certainly have not come, my noble friend," answered
Henry; "for I have ever respected your scruples, though I may have
thought them unfounded. Nevertheless, what I have now to tell you will
put those scruples to an end at once and for ever. The cause of Henry
of Navarre and of Henry III. of France are now about to be united. My
good brother-in-law, the King, has written to me for aid----"
"To you!--to you!" exclaimed the Marquis, raising his head feebly, and
speaking with a tone of much surprise.
"Ay, even to me," answered Henry. "He found that he had misused a
friend too long, that too long he had courted enemies; and, wise at
length, he is determined to call around him those who really wish well
to him and to our country, and to use against his foes that sword they
have so long mocked in safety. I am now on my way to join him with all
speed, while my friends and the army follow more slowly. As I
advanced, I could not resist the hope that enticed me hither--the hope
that, when justice, and friendship, and loyalty are all united upon
our side, the Marquis of St. Real, to whom justice, and friendship,
and loyalty were always dear, will no longer hesitate to give us that
great support which his fortune, his rank, his renown, and his
retainers enable him so well to afford."
"When Henry of Navarre lends his sword to Henry of France, how should
I dream of refusing my poor aid to both?" answered the Marquis. "When
_you_ refuse not to serve an enemy, sir, how should _I_ refuse to
serve a friend? But my own services are over. This world and I, like
two old friends at the end of a long journey, are just shaking hands
before we part; but I leave behind me one that may well supply my
place. Huon, my dear son, are you there?"
"I am here, sir," said the young lord, advancing: "what is your will,
my father?"
"My son, I am leaving you," replied the Marquis. "I shall never quit
this bed; another sun will never rise and set for me. I leave you in
troublous times, Huon, in times of difficulty and of sorrow; but that
which now smoothes my pillow at my dying hour, and makes the last
moments of life happy, is the fearless certainty that, come what may,
my son will live and die worthy of the name that he inherits; and will
find difficulty and danger but steps to honour and renown. So long as
injustice stained the royal cause, and cruelty and tyranny drove many
a noble heart to revolt, I would take no part in the dissensions that
have torn our unhappy land; though God knows I have often longed to
draw the sword in behalf of the oppressed; but now that the crown
calls to its aid those it once persecuted, in order to put an end to
faction and strife, my scruples are gone, and, were not life gone too,
none would sooner put his foot in the stirrup than I. But those days
are past; and on you, my son, must devolve the task. A few hours now,
and I shall be no more; yet I will not seek to command you how to act
when I am gone. Your own heart has ever been a good and faithful
monitor. Let me, however, counsel you to seek the Duke of Mayenne ere
you draw the sword against him. Show him your purposes and your
motives; and tell him that he may be sure those who have been neutral
will now become his enemies--those who have been his friends will
daily fall from him, unless he follow the dictates of loyalty and
honour."
The old man paused, and a slight smile curled the lip of Henry of
Navarre. His nature, however, was too frank to let anything which
might pass for a sneer remain unexplained; and he said, "You know not
these factious Guises well enough, my friend. They strike for
dominion; and that game must be a hopeless one indeed, which they
would not play to gratify their ambition. But let your son seek
Mayenne! More! If he will, let him not decide whose cause he will
espouse till he have heard all the arguments which faction can bring
to colour treason. I fear not. Strong in the frank uprightness of a
good cause, and confident both of his honesty and clear good sense, I
will trust to his own judgment, when he has heard all with his own
ears. Let him call together what followers he can; let him march them
upon Paris; and, under a safe conduct from the Duke and from the King,
visit both camps alike. True, that with Henry of Valois he will find
much to raise disgust and contempt; but there, too, he will find the
only King of France, and with him all that is loyal in the land. With
Mayenne, and his demagogues of the Sixteen, he will find faction,
ambition, injustice, and fanaticism and I well know which a St. Real
must choose."
"Frank, noble, and confiding, ever, sire!" said the Marquis, "nor with
us will your reliance prove vain. Oh, that we had a King like you! How
few hearts then could, by any arts, be estranged from the throne!"
"Nay, nay," said Henry, smiling, "you forget that I am a heretic, my
good lord--a Huguenot--a _maheutre!_ They would soon find means to
corrupt the base, and to persuade the weak against me, were I King of
France to-morrow--which God forfend!--and, by my faith, were I a great
valuer of that strange thing, life, I should look for poison in my
cup, or a dagger in my bosom at every hour."
"And yet, my lord, you are going to trust yourself where daggers have
lately been somewhat too rife," said the Chevalier de St. Real; "and
that, too--if I understood you rightly--with but a small escort."
"As small as may be," answered the King, "consisting, indeed, of but
this one faithful friend, who has never yet proved untrue;" and he
laid his finger on the hilt of his sword, adding, gaily, "but no fear,
no fear: my cousin brother-in-law could have no earthly motive in
killing me but to make Mayenne King of France, which, by my faith, he
seeks not to do. He knows me too well, also, to think that I would
injure him, even if I could; and, perhaps, finds now, that by making
head against the Guises, and their accursed League, I have been
serving him ever, though against his will."
"Would it not be better, my lord," asked the old man, in a feeble
voice--"would it not be better to wait till you are accompanied by
your own troops?"
"No, no," replied Henry; "Mayenne presses him hard. He is himself
dispirited, his troops are more so. Still more of the _Spanish
catholicon_--I mean Spanish mercenaries--are likely to be added to the
forces of the League; and I fear that, if some means be not taken to
keep up his courage, more speedily than could be accomplished by the
march of my forces, he may cast himself upon the mercy of the enemy,
and France be lost for ever."
"The Duke of Guise went as confidently to Blois as your Majesty to
Tours," said the Chevalier; "and the Duke of Guise was called a
friend: you have been looked on as an enemy."
"But Guise was a traitor," answered Henry, "and met with treachery, as
a traitor may well expect. He went confiding alone in his own courage,
but knowing that his own designs were evil. I go, confiding both in
myself and in my honesty; and well knowing, that in all France there
is not one man who has just cause to wish that Henry of Navarre were
dead."
"He has violated his safe conduct more than once," said the Marquis,
"and may violate it again."
"It will not be in my person, then," answered the King; "for safe
conduct have I none, but his own letter, calling for my aid in time of
need. Two drops of my blood, I do believe, spilled on that letter,
would raise a flame therewith in every noble bosom that would set half
the land a-fire. But I fear not: kings have no right to fear. My
honesty is my breastplate, my good friend; and the steel must be sharp
indeed that will not turn its edge on that."
"And the hand must be backward indeed," said the Marquis, "that would
refuse its aid to such a heart. However, my lord, I give you my
promise, and I am sure that my son will give you his, that the
followers of St. Real shall be in the field within a month from this
very night. Willingly, too, would we promise that they should join the
royal cause; but, it is better, perhaps, as you have offered, that he
who leads them should go free, till he shall have spoken his feelings
freely to the leaders of the League."
"So be it! so be it, then!" answered Henry. "I apprehend no change of
feeling towards me. My cause is that of justice, of loyalty, and of
France. So long as I opposed your king in arms, I could hardly hope
that a St. Real would join me, however great the private friendship
might be between us; but, now that his cause is mine, and that the
sword once drawn to withstand his injustice is drawn to uphold his
throne, I know I shall meet no refusal. But I weary you, lord
Marquis," he continued, rising; "and, good faith, I owe you no small
apology for troubling you with such matters at such a time. Yet, I
will trust," he added, laying his hand once more on that of the sick
man--"yet I will trust that this is not our last meeting by very many,
and that I shall soon hear of you in better health."
The Marquis shook his head. "My lord," he said, "I am a dying man; and
though, perhaps, were the choice left to us, I would rather have died
on the battle-field, serving with the last drops of my old blood some
noble cause: yet, I fear not death, even here in my bed; where, to
most men, he is more terrible. I have lived, I trust, well enough not
to dread death; and I have, certainly, lived long enough to be weary
of life. For the last ten years--though they have certainly been years
of such health and strength as few old men ever know--yet, I have
daily found some fine faculty of this wonderful machine in which we
live, yielding to the force of time. The ear has grown heavy and the
eye grown dim, my lord; the sinews are weak and the joints are stiff.
Thank Heaven! the great destroyer has left the mind untouched: but it
is time that it should be separated from the earth to which it is
joined, and go back to God, who sent it forth. Fare you well, sir; and
Heaven protect you! The times are evil in which your lot is cast; but
if ever I saw a man who was fitted to bring evil times to good, it is
yourself."
"Fare you well! fare you well, my good old friend!" answered Henry,
grasping his hand; "and though I be a Huguenot, doubt not, St. Real,
that we shall meet again."
"I doubt it not, my lord," replied the old man, "I doubt it not; and,
till then, God protect your Majesty!"
Henry echoed the prayer, and quitted the sick man's chamber, followed
by the young lord of St. Real. He suffered not his attendance long,
however; but, retiring at once to rest, drank the sleeping cup with
his young friend, and sent him back to the chamber of his father. He
had judged, and had judged rightly, that the end of the old Marquis of
St. Real was nearer than his son anticipated. After the King had left
his chamber, he was visited by the surgeon and the priest, and then
again slept for several hours. When he awoke there was no one but his
son by his bed-side, and he gazed upon him with a smile, which made
the young lord believe that he felt better.
"Are you more at ease, my father?" asked the young man, with reviving
hopes.
"I am quite at ease, my dear Huon," replied his father. "I had hoped
that in that sleep I should have passed away; but, by my faith, I will
turn round and try again, for I am drowsy still." Thus saying, he
turned, and once more closing his eyes, remained about an hour in
sweet and tranquil slumber. At the end of that time, his son, who
watched him anxiously, heard a slight rustle of the bedclothes. He
looked nearer, but all was quiet, and his father seemed still asleep.
There was no change either in feature or in hue; but still there was
an indescribable something in the aspect of his parent that made the
young man's heart beat painfully. He gazed upon the quiet form before
him--he listened for the light whisper of the breath; but all was
still--the throbbing of the heart was over, the light of life had gone
out! St. Real was glad that he was alone; for, had any other eye than
that of Heaven been upon him, he might not have given way to those
feelings which would have been painful to restrain. As it was, he wept
for some time in solitude and silence; and then, calling the
attendants, proceeded to fulfil all those painful offices towards the
deceased which in those days were sadly multiplied. When these were
finished, the morning light was shining into the dull chamber of the
dead; and St. Real, retiring to his own apartments, sent to announce
his loss to his cousin and to the King of Navarre. The first instantly
joined him, and offered such consolation as he thought most likely to
soothe his cousin's mind. Henry of Navarre, however, was not in his
chamber; and, on further inquiry, it was found that he had taken his
departure with the first ray of the morning light.