The following day De Beaurepaire rode into the great courtyard of
Versailles, while, as he did so, the sentries of the Garde de Corps du
Roi saluted him, the guard turned out, and the drummers sitting
outside in the morning sun sprang to their drums and hastily beat them
in honour of him who commanded all the various regiments of the King's
Guards. He wore now the superb _justaucorps_ of gold cloth and lace to
which, by virtue of his charge and office, he was entitled; across it,
under his scarlet coat, ran his white satin sash stamped with golden
suns: his three-cornered hat was laced with galloon, his sword was
ivory-hilted, with, surmounting its handle, a gold sun.
For a moment the man who, as he had said to Emérance had set his life
upon a cast, who had murmured half-bitterly, half-sadly, after knowing
that the die of Fate had gone against him, "_les battus payent
l'amende_," looked round on those receiving him with homage and
deference, and, as before, his thoughts were terribly poignant while
tinged also with self-contempt.
"And I had all this," he murmured as, mechanically he acknowledged the
salutes; "and have thrown it away for a shadow; a chimera. Never more
will drums roll to salute me nor shall I hold high command. Instead,
there is nought for me but a strange land where all who dwell therein
will know why I am an exile, a fugitive; and I shall know that I am a
traitor. A man false to his King, false to the master who was his
friend in childhood, false to the oath of fidelity he has sworn. Fool,
doubly-accursed fool and knave that I am!"
Dismounting from his horse and throwing the reins to a soldier who
advanced to take them, he bade another man summon De Brissac, who
commanded the Garde du Corps, to his presence, when, entering the
Lodge, he sat down to await the coming of that person.
A moment later De Brissac had entered the room, and, after greetings
had been exchanged, that of De Beaurepaire being cordially
condescending while De Brissac's was coldly respectful, the former
said:--
"De Brissac, I have ridden here specially to see you and speak with
you----"
"Your Highness," De Brissac repeated, giving the other the most
superior title by which he had the right to be addressed, "has ridden
here specially to see and speak with me!" while, as he said this,
there came a little nest of wrinkles outside each of his eyes that
gave to his face a look of bewilderment. "To see me! Particularly me?"
"Particularly you? Yes. Why!" exclaimed De Beaurepaire, with an
attempt at mirth, "is it so strange that I, who am Chief of all the
Guards as you are Chief of the Garde du Corps, should have some matter
on which I desire to speak with you?"
"No, no. Without doubt not strange. Yet--I am only De Brissac--le
Sieur de Brissac--and you are Prince and Chevalier de Beaurepaire."
"Nay! We--are--both--soldiers."
"Yes, we are both soldiers," the other said, yet his tone was so
strange that his Chief should have observed--perhaps did observe--it.
If, however, the latter was the case he made no sign of doing so.
Instead, he continued:--
"You spoke to me not long ago of one who was eager to buy some great
charge under the King."
"Yes. I so spoke. Is, then, such a charge vacant now?" De Brissac's
tone being still cold and distant as he spoke.
"There is, and if he who would purchase such a charge is sufficiently
high in rank, if the King will permit him to buy it, he may buy mine.
My charge of the guards. That of Grand Veneur cannot be sold."
"Yours!" De Brissac said, and now he took a step back from where he
stood as a man steps back when utterly astonished at what he hears.
"Yours!"
"Yes, mine. I--I am not well in health. And--I have other calls on
me."
For a moment De Brissac said nothing but stood looking at his superior
strangely. Then he said:--
"The person of whom I spoke holds so high a position that the King
would not oppose him in his desires. Only----"
"Only!"
"He will not buy your charge."
"What!" De Beaurepaire exclaimed, while, with a sneer, he added, "is
he so high that even it is too low for him. _Cadédis!_ he must be high
indeed." Then, rapping the table irritably, he said, "Come, Monsieur
de Brissac, explain yourself. Who is this man, and why should my
charge be the one he will not buy?"
Still with a strange look in his eyes and with that little nest of
wrinkles on either side of his face very apparent, De Brissac glanced
out through the window and saw that his men were all engaged at their
various occupations; some fetching water from the spring for their
horses, some attending to their animals and rubbing them down, and
some cleaning and polishing their accoutrements. After having done
which he came nearer to De Beaurepaire than he had been before, and
said:--
"I will explain myself. The man of whom I spoke will not purchase your
charge because--it is no longer saleable."
"What!" exclaimed the other, rising to his feet, while his hand
instinctively sought his sword-hilt. "What? Is this insolence?
Explain, I say."
"I will. Yet take your hand from off your sword or I may be forced to
draw mine. Likewise, look through that window. Those men are under my
command for the time being, not yours----"
"Explain," the Prince repeated, stamping his foot angrily. "If they
are not under my immediate command, you are."
"No, I am not. A general warrant for your arrest is out this morning.
You are no longer in command of the King's Guards nor any portion of
his army. In coming here to-day you have walked into the lion's den.
Prince Louis de Beaurepaire, give me your sword. I arrest you on the
charge of high treason against your King."
For a moment the Prince stood gazing at the man before him with so
strange a look that the other--brave soldier as he was, and one who
had given his proofs in many a campaign--scarce knew what might happen
next. The handsome face usually so bronzed by the open-air life De
Beaurepaire had always led was bloodless now, so, too, were the lips,
while the veins upon his forehead looked as though they were about to
burst. Yet this transformation was not due to any of those sudden
gusts of passion to which he was known to be so often subject when
thwarted, or contradicted, or addressed familiarly and on terms of
equality by those whom he considered beneath him--as, in truth, he
considered most men to be.
Instead, his pallor proceeded from far different emotions that had now
taken possession of him. It proceeded from the thought, the
recollection which sprang swift as lightning to his mind that, with
his arrest, all hope, all chance was gone of warning Emérance, of
putting her on her guard and giving her time to escape. This
first--above all things--was what almost stilled the beating of his
heart; this and his fears for the safety of the bold, daring, reckless
woman who loved him so, and who, herself, had thought only of _his_
safety. This--to which was added in a slighter degree the thought that
La Truaumont, who had served him well and faithfully while serving his
own ends and those of his Norman friends, could no more be warned than
she.
"You arrest me!" he said now to De Brissac who stood quietly before
him, his eyes upon his face; "you arrest me, you tell me I am removed
from any command. Also, you ask me for my sword and hope to obtain
it--a thing never asked or hoped for by an enemy. So be it. But,
first, I must see your warrant for your demand. If not, you will
have----"
"My warrant! Prince Louis, do you think that I should act thus to one
who was last night my superior, my commander, if I did not possess a
warrant. It is here," and he went to a table covered with papers and
took up one of them. After which he added, "The same thing will be in
the hands of every officer commanding a garrison or fortress in France
as soon as the couriers can reach them."
"I left Louis at six on the night before last," De Beaurepaire said
aloud, "and--and--we parted as we have ever parted, as friends." But
to himself he added, "An hour later that man might have seen Louis and
told him all. An hour after that the couriers might have set out. Had
I not tarried at my Lodge, had I but mounted Emérance on another horse
at once, we should have been safe, or almost safe, by now."
Then he put out his hand and took the warrant from De Brissac and read
it. It was brief and ran thus, after being addressed to various
commanding officers, as the latter had said:--
"It is our will and pleasure that Prince Louis de Beaurepaire be
removed from his charge of Colonel of our Guards, and that, wherever
he may be seen, appear, or be signalised, he be arrested and detained
until our further pleasure is known. The which we charge you not to
fail in and to use all proper caution and expedition, subject to our
displeasure if you do so. On which we pray God to have you in His holy
keeping. Written at Fontainebleau this tenth day of September in the
year of our Lord 1674.
"Signé. Louis R. F. et N.
"Sousigné. Louvois
(_Ministre de Guerre_)."
"Your highness observes?" De Brissac said; "it is the King's orders."
"I observe," De Beaurepaire answered in a low tone.
"Yet take heart," the other said. "This may be no serious thing.
Louvois makes many charges now and pushes the King to many things he
would not do without him at his side."
"It may be so. Ah! well. My sword! My sword! You would have that?"
"I must," De Brissac said, not without a tremor in his voice. For he
remembered De Beaurepaire (then a young man of twenty and the
handsomest of all the flower of the _haute noblesse_) at Arras and the
Siege of Laudrécies, and recalled his bravery and reckless daring. And
now it had come to this!
"Take it," his prisoner said, drawing the blade from its sheath,
kissing it, and then handing it to him, "take it. I pray God that ere
long I may receive it back again."
"Amen," De Brissac said solemnly.
"Now, what next?" De Beaurepaire asked.
"The next is--the Bastille."
"And after?"
"I know not."
"Ere I set out, tell me one thing. And before you answer listen, De
Brissac; listen as a soldier to a soldier, a friend to a friend. There
is a woman whom I have learnt to love----"
"Ah!" exclaimed the other, recalling how often this handsome
patrician's name had been mixed up with the names of women and
knowing, as all in Paris knew, how the hearts of those women had gone
out to him.
"A woman whom I love," De Beaurepaire went on, his voice sounding
broken to the other's ear. "A woman who loves me and has long loved me
fondly, tenderly, as I now love her. Not a woman who is one of those
giddy, heartless butterflies who circle round Louis' Court, who change
their lovers as they change their robes; who love one man to-day and
another to-morrow; no! not one of these. But, instead, one who is
poor, unknown to our world, and of, I think, for in truth I do not
know, humble origin--yet whose love and devotion pass aught I have
ever met. One who would rather die with me, for me, than live with
others."
"_Die!_" De Brissac said, turning away his head as he spoke, since,
rude soldier as he might be, and acquainted only with camps and
battlefields and sieges, there was a heart in his bosom. "Nay, surely
there is no thought of dying for you or--for--her!"
"Alas! if, as I suspect, this sudden resolve of the King to
dismiss me, to arrest me, points to one thing, the end will not
be far remote from death. For myself I care not, but--ah! not death
for her!" he cried. "She is, as I have said, nought in the world's
eyes--nought--nought! but she is a tender, loving woman, too good to
be hacked to death or mangled on the wheel."
"What would you have me do?"
"Cause a letter, permit a letter, to be conveyed to her. Either where
I left her this morning in my Lodge in the Bois de Vincennes, at Saint
Mandé, or where'er she may be in Paris."
"It is impossible. Not even if your letter was untied, unsealed, so
that all the world might read, could that be done. D'Hautefeuille is
in supreme command at Versailles now; it would have to pass through
his hands but it would pass no farther. It is impossible."
"Impossible," De Beaurepaire muttered. "Oh! Emérance! Emérance!"
De Brissac had spoken with his eyes turned to the floor, since he
would not be witness of what, he knew, must be the other's misery when
he learnt that no letter would be permitted to pass between him and
this woman of whom he had spoken so fondly. But now, as the unhappy
man uttered that woman's name, he looked up suddenly and stared
fixedly at him.
"Who is this woman? What is she?" he asked.
"As I have told you, the woman I love."
"And her name is Emérance?" De Brissac said, endeavouring to speak as
lightly as possible and as easily as the present circumstances might
permit. "It is a pretty name. Of the North of France, I think. I have
heard it before."
If he had not heard it before he had at least read it before. He had
read it only that very morning when the _courrier du Roi_, after
calling on La Reynie, had continued his journey to Versailles and,
besides bringing one of the warrants for the arrest of De Beaurepaire
if he should appear there, also brought with him the copies of the
warrants issued by La Reynie for the arrest of four other persons.
Four other persons, one of whom was described as Louise de Belleau de
Cortonne, styling herself Emérance, Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville,
another who was known as Affinius Van den Enden, which was believed to
be his proper name, and another who passed under the sobriquet of
Fleur de Mai, but whose right name was La Preaux, and who termed
himself Le Chevalier de la Preaux, though unregistered in any order of
knighthood. The fourth was the Sieur Georges du Hamel of La Truaumont,
styled the Captain la Truaumont.
De Brissac's astonishment, perhaps, also, his emotion, was not
therefore singular, as not only had he seen the warrant with the
woman's name in it, but the task had been deputed to him of proceeding
to Rouen there to arrest the Captain la Truaumont, the Lieutenant of
Police, La Reynie, having received undoubted evidence that the
conspirator was now in the city preparing to levy war against both the
King's throne and his person.