CHICOT, LATINIST.
After the departure of the young men, Chicot went on quietly; but as
soon as they had disappeared in the valley, he stopped at the top of a
hill and looked all round him; then, seeing no one, he seated himself,
and commenced an examination. He had now two purses, for he perceived
that the packet he had received contained money, besides the letter. It
was quite a royal purse, embroidered with an "H" at each end.
"It is pretty," said Chicot, "no one could be more generous or more
stupid. Decidedly I shall never make anything of the king. All that
astonishes me is that he did not have the letter embroidered outside
also. Now let me see how much money he has sent. One hundred crowns;
just the sum I borrowed from Gorenflot. Ah! pardon, Henri, this is good.
But the purse annoys me; if I were to keep it I should feel as if the
very birds, as they flew over my head, would denounce me as a royal
messenger."
So saying, he drew from his pocket Gorenflot's bag, emptied the king's
money into it, then placed a stone in the purse, and threw it into the
Orge, which flowed under the bridge at his feet.
"So much for myself--now for Henri," said Chicot; and he took up the
letter, broke the seal with the utmost tranquillity, and sent the
envelope into the river after the purse. "Now," said he, "let us read.
"'Dear brother, the deep love which you felt for our late dear
brother and king, Charles IX., still clings to the Louvre and to my
heart; it grieves me, therefore, to have to write to you about
vexatious things. You are strong, however, against ill fortune, so
that I do not hesitate to communicate these things to you--things
which can only be told to a tried friend. Besides, I have an
interest in warning you--the honor of my name and of your own, my
brother. We resemble each other in one thing, that we are each
surrounded with enemies. Chicot will explain to you.
"'M. de Turenne, your servant, causes daily scandal at your court;
God forbid that I should interfere in your affairs, except where
your honor is concerned; but your wife, whom to my regret I call my
sister, should be more careful than she is of your honor. I advise
you, therefore, to watch the communications of Margot with Turenne,
that she does not bring shame on the house of Bourbon. Act as soon
as you shall be sure of the fact, into which I pray you to inquire
as soon as Chicot shall have explained to you my letter.
"'Those whom as brother and king I denounce to you, generally meet
at a little chateau called Loignac, the pretext being generally the
chase. This chateau is, besides, the focus for intrigues to which
the Guises are not strangers, and you know the strange love with
which my sister pursued Henri de Guise. I embrace you, and am ever
ready to aid you in all, and for all; meanwhile aid yourself by
the advice of Chicot, whom I send to you. Your affectionate,' etc.
"_Age auctore Chicot_," said Chicot, "here am I, installed counselor of
the king of Navarre! This seems to me a bad commission, and in flying
one ill, I have fallen into a worse one. Really, I should almost prefer
Mayenne. But the letter is clever, and if Henriot be like other
husbands, it will embroil him at once with his wife, Turenne, the
Guises, and even with Spain. But if Henri de Valois is so well informed
of all that passes in Navarre, he must have some spy there.
"Then, again," continued he, "this letter will lead me into mischief if
I meet a Spaniard, a Lorraine, a Béarnais, or a Fleming curious enough
to wish to know what brings me here, and I should be very foolish not to
remember that there is a chance of that. M. Borromée, above all, I
suspect may play me some trick. Besides, what did I seek in asking the
king for this mission? Tranquillity. And now I am going to embroil the
king of Navarre with his wife. However, that is not my affair, except
that I shall make mortal enemies, who will prevent me from ever reaching
the happy age of eighty.
"Ma foi! but that is not much, for it is only worth living when you are
young. But then I might as well have waited for the knife of M. de
Mayenne. However, I will take precautions, and will translate this fine
letter into Latin, and engrave it on my memory; then I will buy a horse,
because from Juvisy to Pau I should have too often to put the right foot
before the left if I walked--but first I will destroy this letter."
This he proceeded to do; tearing it into an infinite number of little
pieces, sending some into the river, others into the air, and burying
the rest in holes in the ground.
"Now let me think of my Latin theme," said he; and this study occupied
him until he arrived at Corbeil, where he bestowed a glance at the
cathedral, but fixed an earnest look at a traiteur's, whence came an
appetizing smell of dinner. We will not describe either the dinner he
made or the horse he bought; suffice it to say that the dinner was long
and the horse was bad.