THE WORKS OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS
THE FORTY-FIVE GUARDSMEN
A SEQUEL TO "CHICOT, THE JESTER"
_Copiously Illustrated with elegant Pen and Ink and Wood Engravings,
specially drawn for this edition by eminent French and American Artists_
NEW YORK
PETER FENELON COLLIER, PUBLISHER
1893
[Illustration: Briquet at the window.]
CONTENTS
THE FORTY-FIVE GUARDSMEN
CHAPTER
1. The Porte St. Antoine
2. What passed outside the Porte St. Antoine
3. The Examination
4. His Majesty Henri the Third
5. The Execution
6. The Brothers
7. "The Sword of the Brave Chevalier"
8. The Gascon
9. M. de Loignac
10. The Purchase of Cuirasses
11. Still the League
12. The Chamber of his Majesty Henri III.
13. The Dormitory
14. The Shade of Chicot
15. The Difficulty of finding a good Ambassador
16. The Serenade
17. Chicot's Purse
18. The Priory of the Jacobins
19. The two Friends
20. The Breakfast
21. Brother Borromée
22. The Lesson
23. The Penitent
24. The Ambush
25. The Guises
26. The Louvre
27. The Revelation
28. Two Friends
29. St. Maline
30. De Loignac's Interview with the Forty-Five
31. The Bourgeois of Paris
32. Brother Borromée
33. Chicot, Latinist
34. The four Winds
35. How Chicot continued his Journey, and what happened to him
36. The third Day of the Journey
37. Ernanton de Carmainges
38. The Stable-Yard
39. The Seven Sins of Magdalen
40. Bel-Esbat
41. The Letter of M. de Mayenne
42. How Dom Gorenflot blessed the King as he passed before the Priory of
the Jacobins
43. How Chicot blessed King Louis II. for having invented Posting, and
resolved to profit by it
44. How the King of Navarre guesses that "Turennius" means Turenne, and
"Margota" Margot
45. The Avenue three thousand Feet long
46. Marguerite's Room
47. The Explanation
48. The Spanish Ambassador
49. The Poor of Henri of Navarre
50. The true Mistress of the King of Navarre
51. Chicot's Astonishment at finding himself so popular in Nerac
52. How they hunted the Wolf in Navarre
53. How Henri of Navarre behaved in Battle
54. What was passing at the Louvre about the Time Chicot entered Nerac
55. Red Plume and White Plume
56. The Door opens
57. How a great Lady loved in the Year 1586
58. How St. Maline entered into the Turret and what followed
59. What was passing in the mysterious House
60. The Laboratory
61. What Monsieur Francois, Duc d'Anjou, Duc de Brabant and Comte de
Flanders, was doing in Flanders
62. Preparations for Battle
63. Monseigneur
64. Monseigneur
65. French and Flemings
66. The Travelers
67. Explanation
68. The Water
69. Flight
70. Transfiguration
71. The two Brothers
72. The Expedition
73. Paul-Emile
74. One of the Souvenirs of the Duc d'Anjou
75. How Aurilly executed the Commission of the Duc d'Anjou
76. The Journey
77. How King Henri III. did not invite Grillon to Breakfast, and how
Chicot invited himself
78. How, after receiving News from the South, Henri received News from
the North
79. The two Companions
80. The Corne d'Abondance
81. What happened in the little Room
82. The Husband and the Lover
83. Showing how Chicot began to understand the Purport of Monsieur de
Guise's Letter
84. Le Cardinal de Joyeuse
85. News from Aurilly
86. Doubt
87. Certainty
88. Fatality
89. Les Hospitalières
90. His Highness Monseigneur le Duc de Guise
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
1.--_Frontispiece_.--Briquet at the window.
2.--"His face pleases me, and he has white hands and a well-kept beard."
3.--Chicot, on rising, found himself face to face with a soldier.
4.--"An ax!" cried Henri, and with a vigorous arm he struck down wood
and iron.
5.--"I said you were a traitor, and as a traitor you shall die."
6.--The prince was cold, stiff, and perfectly inanimate.
THE FORTY-FIVE GUARDSMEN
CHAPTER I.
THE PORTE ST. ANTOINE.
On the 26th of October, 1585, the barriers of the Porte St. Antoine
were, contrary to custom, still closed at half-past ten in the morning.
A quarter of an hour after, a guard of twenty Swiss, the favorite troops
of Henri III., then king, passed through these barriers, which were
again closed behind them. Once through, they arranged themselves along
the hedges, which, outside the barrier, bordered each side of the road.
There was a great crowd collected there, for numbers of peasants and
other people had been stopped at the gates on their way into Paris. They
were arriving by three different roads--from Montreuil, from Vincennes,
and from St. Maur; and the crowd was growing more dense every moment.
Monks from the convent in the neighborhood, women seated on
pack-saddles, and peasants in their carts, and all, by their questions
more or less pressing, formed a continual murmur, while some voices were
raised above the others in shriller tones of anger or complaint.
There were, besides this mass of arrivals, some groups who seemed to
have come from the city. These, instead of looking at the gate, fastened
their gaze on the horizon, bounded by the Convent of the Jacobins, the
Priory of Vincennes, and the Croix Faubin, as though they were expecting
to see some one arrive. These groups consisted chiefly of bourgeois,
warmly wrapped up, for the weather was cold, and the piercing northeast
wind seemed trying to tear from the trees all the few remaining leaves
which clung sadly to them.
Three of these bourgeois were talking together--that is to say, two
talked and one listened, or rather seemed to listen, so occupied was he
in looking toward Vincennes. Let us turn our attention to this last. He
was a man who must be tall when he stood upright, but at this moment his
long legs were bent under him, and his arms, not less long in
proportion, were crossed over his breast. He was leaning against the
hedge, which almost hid his face, before which he also held up his hand
as if for further concealment. By his side a little man, mounted on a
hillock, was talking to another tall man who was constantly slipping off
the summit of the same hillock, and at each slip catching at the button
of his neighbor's doublet.
"Yes, Maitre Miton," said the little man to the tall one, "yes, I tell
you that there will be 100,000 people around the scaffold of
Salcede--100,000 at least. See, without counting those already on the
Place de Greve, or who came there from different parts of Paris, the
number of people here; and this is but one gate out of sixteen."
"One hundred thousand! that is much, Friard," replied M. Miton. "Be sure
many people will follow my example, and not go to see this unlucky man
quartered, for fear of an uproar."
"M. Miton, there will be none, I answer for it. Do you not think so,
monsieur?" continued he, turning to the long-armed man.--"What?" said
the other, as though he had not heard.
"They say there will be nothing on the Place de Greve to-day."
"I think you are wrong, and that there will be the execution of
Salcede."
"Yes, doubtless: but I mean that there will be no noise about it."
"There will be the noise of the blows of the whip, which they will give
to the horses."
"You do not understand: by noise I mean tumult. If there were likely to
be any, the king would not have had a stand prepared for him and the two
queens at the Hotel de Ville."
"Do kings ever know when a tumult will take place?" replied the other,
shrugging his shoulders with an air of pity.
"Oh, oh!" said M. Miton; "this man talks in a singular way. Do you know
who he is, compere?"
"No."
"Then why do you speak to him? You are wrong. I do not think he likes to
talk."
"And yet it seems to me," replied Friard, loud enough to be heard by the
stranger, "that one of the greatest pleasures in life is to exchange
thoughts."
"Yes, with those whom we know well," answered M. Miton.
"Are not all men brothers, as the priests say?"
"They were primitively; but in times like ours the relationship is
singularly loosened. Talk low, if you must talk, and leave the stranger
alone."
"But I know you so well, I know what you will reply, while the stranger
may have something new to tell me."
"Hush! he is listening."
"So much the better; perhaps he will answer. Then you think, monsieur,"
continued he, turning again toward him, "that there will be a tumult?"
"I did not say so."
"No; but I believe you think so."
"And on what do you found your surmise, M. Friard?"
"Why, he knows me!"
"Have I not named you two or three times?" said Miton.
"Ah! true. Well, since he knows me, perhaps he will answer. Now,
monsieur, I believe you agree with me, or else would be there, while,
on the contrary, you are here."
"But you, M. Friard, since you think the contrary of what you think I
think, why are you not at the Place de Greve? I thought the spectacle
would have been a joyful one to all friends of the king. Perhaps you
will reply that you are not friends of the king; but of MM. de Guise,
and that you are waiting here for the Lorraines, who they say are about
to enter Paris in order to deliver M. de Salcede."
"No, monsieur," replied the little man, visibly frightened at this
suggestion; "I wait for my wife, Nicole Friard, who has gone to take
twenty-four tablecloths to the priory of the Jacobins, having the honor
to be washerwoman to Dom. Modeste Gorenflot, the abbe."
"Look, compere," cried Miton, "at what is passing."
M. Friard, following the direction of his friend's finger, saw them
closing yet another door, while a party of Swiss placed themselves
before it. "How! more barriers!" cried he.
"What did I tell you?" said Miton.
At the sight of this new precaution, a long murmur of astonishment and
some cries of discontent proceeded from the crowd.
"Clear the road! Back!" cried an officer.
This maneuver was not executed without difficulty; the people in carts
and on horseback tried to go back, and nearly crushed the crowd behind
them. Women cried and men swore, while those who could escape, did,
overturning the others.
"The Lorraines! the Lorraines!" cried a voice in the midst of this
tumult.
"Oh!" cried Miton, trembling, "let us fly."
"Fly! and where?" said Friard.
"Into this inclosure," answered Miton tearing his hands by seizing the
thorns of the hedge.
"Into that inclosure, it is not so easy. I see no opening, and you
cannot climb a hedge that is higher than I am."
"I will try," returned Miton, making new efforts.
"Oh! take care, my good woman," cried Friard, in a tone of distress;
"your ass is on my feet. Oh, monsieur, take care, your horse is going to
kick."
While M. Miton was vainly trying to climb the hedge, and M. Friard to
find an opening through which to push himself, their neighbor quietly
opened his long legs and strode over the hedge with as much ease as one
might have leaped it on horseback. M. Miton imitated him at last after
much detriment to his hands and clothes; but poor Friard could not
succeed, in spite of all his efforts, till the stranger, stretching out
his long arms, and seizing him by the collar of his doublet, lifted him
over.
"Ah! monsieur," said he, when he felt himself on the ground, "on the
word of Jean Friard, you are a real Hercules; your name, monsieur? the
name of my deliverer?"
"I am called Briquet--Robert Briquet, monsieur."
"You have saved me, M. Briquet--my wife will bless you. But apropos; mon
Dieu! she will be stifled in this crowd. Ah! cursed Swiss, only good to
crush people!"
As he spoke, he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and, looking round
and seeing that it was a Swiss, he took to flight, followed by Miton.
The other man laughed quietly, then turning to the Swiss, said:
"Are the Lorraines coming?"
"No."
"Then why do they close the door. I do not understand it."
"There is no need that you should," replied the Swiss, laughing at his
own wit.