The Styx had fast bound her
Nine times around her.
--POPE, ODE ON ST.CECILIA’S DAY
Early on Monday morning came a message to Mademoiselle Nid de Merle that
she was to prepare to act the part of a nymph of Paradise in the King’s
masque on Wednesday night, and must dress at once to rehearse her part
in the ballet specially designed by Monsieur.
Her first impulse was to hurry to her own Queen, whom she entreated to
find some mode of exempting her. But Elisabeth, who was still in bed,
looked distressed and frightened, made signs of caution, and when the
weeping girl was on the point of telling her of the project that would
thus be ruined, silenced her by saying, ‘Hush! my poor child, I have but
meddled too much already. Our Lady grant that I have not done you more
harm than good! Tell me no more.’
‘Ah! Madame, I will be discreet, I will tell you nothing; but if you
would only interfere to spare me from this ballet! It is Monsieur’s
contrivance! Ah! Madame, could you but speak to the King!’
‘Impossible, child,’ said the Queen. ‘Things are not her as they were at
happy Montpipeau.’
And the poor young Queen turned her face in to her pillow, and wept.
Every one who was not in a dream of bliss like poor little Eustacie knew
that the King had been in so savage a mood ever since his return that no
one durst ask anything from him a little while since, he had laughed at
his gentle wife for letting herself, and Emperor’s daughter, be trampled
on where his brother Francis’s Queen, from her trumpery, beggarly
realm, had held up her head, and put down _la belle Mere_; he had amused
himself with Elisabeth’s pretty little patronage of the young Ribaumonts
as a promising commencement in intriguing like other people; but now
he was absolutely violent at any endeavour to make him withstand
his mother, and had driven his wife back into that cold, listless,
indifferent shell of apathy from which affection and hope had begun to
rouse her. She knew it would only make it the worse for her little Nid
de Merle for her to interpose when Monsieur had made the choice.
And Eustacie was more afraid of Monsieur than even of Narcisse, and
her Berenger could not be there to protect her. However, there was
protection in numbers. With twelve nymphs, and cavaliers to match,
even the Duke of Anjou could not accomplish the being very insulting.
Eustacie--light, agile, and fairy-like--gained considerable credit for
ready comprehension and graceful evolutions. She had never been so
much complimented before, and was much cheered by praise. Diane showed
herself highly pleased with her little cousin’s success, embraced her,
and told her she was finding her true level at court. She would be the
prettiest of all the nymphs, who were all small, since fairies rather
than Amazons were wanted in their position. ‘And, Eustacie,’ she added,
‘you should wear the pearls.’
‘The pearls!’ said Eustacie. ‘Ah! but HE always wears them. I like to
see them on his bonnet--they are hardly whiter than his forehead.’
‘Foolish little thing!’ said Diane, ‘I shall think little of his love if
he cares to see himself in them more than you.’
The shaft seemed carelessly shot, but Diane knew that it would work, and
so it did. Eustacie wanted to prove her husband’s love, not to herself,
but to her cousin.
He made his way to her in the gardens of the Louvre that evening,
greatly dismayed at the report that had reached him that she was to
figure as a nymph of Elysium. She would thus be in sight as a prominent
figure the whole evening, even till an hour so late that the market
boat which Osbert had arranged for their escape could not wait for them
without exciting suspicion, and besides, his delicate English feelings
were revolted at the notion of her forming a part of such a spectacle.
She could not understand his displeasure. If they could not go on
Wednesday, they could go on Saturday; and as to her acting, half the
noblest ladies in the court would be in piece, and if English husbands
did not like it, they must be the tyrants she had always heard of.
‘To be a gazing-stock---’ began Berenger.
‘Hush! Monsieur, I will hear no more, or I shall take care how I put
myself in your power.’
‘That has been done for you, sweetheart,’ he said, smiling with perhaps
a shade too much superiority; ‘you are mine entirely now.’
‘That is not kind,’ she pouted, almost crying--for between flattery,
excitement, and disappointment she was not like herself that day, and
she was too proud to like to be reminded that she was in any one’s
power.
‘I thought,’ said Berenger, with the gentleness that always made him
manly in dealing with her, ‘I thought you like to own yourself mine.’
‘Yes, sir, when you are good, and do not try to hector me for what I
cannot avoid.’
Berenger was candid enough to recollect that royal commands did not
brook disobedience, and, being thoroughly enamoured besides of his
little wife, he hastened to make his peace by saying, ‘True, _ma mie_,
this cannot be helped. I was a wretch to find fault. Think of it no
more.’
‘You forgive me?’ she said, softened instantly.
‘Forgive you? What for, pretty one? For my forgetting that you are still
a slave to a hateful Court?’
‘Ah! then, if you forgive me, let me wear the pearls.’
‘The poor pearls,’ said Berenger, taken aback for a moment, ‘the meed
of our forefather’s valour, to form part of the pageant and mummery? But
never mind, sweetheart,’ for he could not bear to vex her again: ‘you
shall have them to-night: only take care of them. My mother would look
back on me if she knew I had let them out of my care, but you and I are
one after all.’
Berenger could not bear to leave his wife near the Duke of Anjou and
Narcisse, and he offered himself to the King as an actor in the masque,
much as he detested all he heard of its subject. The King nodded
comprehension, and told him it was open to him either to be a demon in
a tight suit of black cloth, with cloven-hoof shoes, a long tail, and a
trident; or one of the Huguenots who were to be repulsed from Paradise
for the edification of the spectators. As these last were to wear suits
of knightly armour, Berenger much preferred making one of them in spite
of their doom.
The masque was given at the hall of the Hotel de Bourbon, where a noble
gallery accommodated the audience, and left full space beneath for the
actors. Down the centre of the stage flowed a stream, broad enough to
contain a boat, which was plied by the Abbe de Mericour--transformed by
a gray beard and hair and dismal mask into Charon.
But so unused to navigation was he, so crazy and ill-trimmed his craft,
that his first performance would have been his submersion in the Styx
had not Berenger, better accustomed to boats than any of the _dramatis
personoe_, caught him by the arms as he was about to step in, pointed
out the perils, weighted the frail vessel, and given him a lesson in
paddling it to and fro, with such a masterly hand, that, had there
been time for a change of dress, the part of Charon would have been
unanimously transferred to him; but the delay could not be suffered,
and poor Mericour, in fear of a ducking, or worse, of ridicule, balanced
himself, pole in hand, in the midst of the river. To the right of the
river was Elysium--a circular island revolving on a wheel which was an
absolute orrery, representing in concentric circles the skies, with the
sun, moon, the seven planets, twelve signs, and the fixed stars,
all illuminated with small lamps. The island itself was covered with
verdure, in which, among bowers woven of gay flowers, reposed twelve
nymphs of Paradise, of whom Eustacie was one.
On the other side of the stream was another wheel, whose grisly emblems
were reminders of Dante’s infernal circles, and were lighted by lurid
flames, while little bells were hung round so as to make a harsh
jangling sound, and all of the court who had any turn for buffoonery
were leaping and dancing about as demons beneath it, and uttering wild
shouts.
King Charles and his two brothers stood on the margin of the Elysian
lake. King Henry, the Prince of Conde, and a selection of the younger
and gayer Huguenots, were the assailants,--storming Paradise to gain
possession of the nymphs. It was a very illusive armour that they wore,
thin scales of gold or silver as cuirasses over their satin doublets,
and the swords and lances of festive combat in that court had been
of the bluntest foil ever since the father of these princes had died
beneath Montgomery’s spear. And when the King and his brothers, one of
them a puny crooked boy, were the champions, the battle must needs be
the merest show, though there were lookers-on who thought that, judging
by appearances, the assailants ought to have the best chance of victory,
both literal and allegorical.
However, these three guardian angels had choice allies in the shape of
the infernal company, who, as fast as the Huguenots crossed swords or
shivered lances with their royal opponents, encircled them with their
long black arms, and dragged them struggling away to Tartarus. Henry of
Navarre yielded himself with a good-will to the horse-play with which
this was performed, resisting just enough to give his demoniacal captors
a good deal of trouble, while yielding all the time, and taking them
by surprise by agile efforts, that showed that if he were excluded from
Paradise it was only by his own consent, and that he heartily enjoyed
the merriment. Most of his comrades, in especial the young Count de
Rochefoucauld, entered into the sport with the same heartiness, but
the Prince of Conde submitted to his fate with a gloomy, disgusted
countenance, that added much to the general mirth; and Berenger, with
Eustacie before his eyes, looking pale, distressed, and ill at ease, was
a great deal too much in earnest. He had so veritable an impulse to leap
forward and snatch her from that giddy revolving prison, that he struck
against the sword of Monsieur with a hearty good-will. His silvered lath
snapped in his hand, and at that moment he was seized round the waist,
and, when his furious struggle was felt to be in earnest, he was pulled
over on his back, while yells and shouts of discordant laughter rang
round him, as demons pinioned him hand and foot.
He thought he heard a faint cry from Eustacie, and, with a sudden,
unexpected struggle, started into a sitting posture; but a derisive
voice, that well he knew, cried, ‘Ha, the deadly sin of pride! Monsieur
thinks his painted face pleases the ladies. To the depths with him--’
and therewith one imp pulled him backwards again, while others danced
a war-dance round him, pointing their forks at him; and the prime
tormentor, whom he perfectly recognized, not only leapt over him, but
spurned at his face with a cloven foot, giving a blow, not of gay French
malice, but of malignity. It was too much for the boy’s forbearance.
He struggled free, dashing his adversaries aside fiercely, and as they
again gathered about him, with the leader shouting, ‘Rage, too, rage! To
the prey, imps--’ he clenched his fist, and dealt the foremost foe such
a blow in the chest as to level him at once with the ground.
‘Monsieur forgets,’ said a voice, friendly yet reproachful, ‘that this
is but sport.
It was Henry of Navarre himself who spoke, and bent to give a hand to
the fallen imp. A flush of shame rushed over Berenger’s face, already
red with passion. He felt that he had done wrong to use his strength at
such a moment, and that, though there had been spite in is assailant,
he had not been therefore justified. He was glad to see Narcisse rise
lightly to his feet, evidently unhurt, and, with the frankness with
which he had often made it up with Philip Thistlewood or his other
English comrades after a sharp tussle, he held out his hand, saying,
‘Good demon, your pardon. You roused my spirit, and I forgot myself.’
‘Demons forget not,’ was the reply. ‘At him, imps!’ And a whole circle
of hobgoblins closed upon with their tridents, forks, and other horrible
implements, to drive him back within two tall barred gates, which,
illuminated by red flames, were to form the ghastly prison of the
vanquished. Perhaps fresh indignities would have been attempted, had
not the King of Navarre thrown himself on his side, shared with him the
brunt of all the grotesque weapons, and battled them off with infinite
spirit and address, shielding him as it were from their rude insults by
his own dexterity and inviolability, though retreating all the time till
the infernal gates were closed on both.
Then Henry of Navarre, who never forgot a face, held out his hand,
saying, ‘Tartarus is no region of good omen for friendships, M. de
Ribaumont, but, for lack of yonder devil’s claw, here is mine. I like to
meet a comrade who can strike a hearty blow, and ask a hearty pardon.’
‘I was too hot, Sire,’ confessed Berenger, with one of his ingenuous
blushes, ‘but he enraged me.’
‘He means mischief.’ said Henry. ‘Remember, if you are molested
respecting this matter, that you have here a witness that you did the
part of a gentleman.’
Berenger bowed his thanks, and began something about the honour, but his
eye anxiously followed the circuit on which Eustacie was carried and the
glance was quickly remarked.
‘How? Your heart is spinning in that Mahometan paradise, and that is
what put such force into your fists. Which of the houris is it? The
little one with the wistful eyes, who looked so deadly white, and
shrieked out when the devilry overturned you? Eh! Monsieur, you are a
happy man.’
‘I should be, Sire;’ and Berenger was on the point of confiding the
situation of his affairs to this most engaging of princes, when a fresh
supply of prisoners, chased with wild antics and fiendish yells by the
devils, came headlong in on them; and immediately, completing, as Henry
said, the galimatias of mythology, a pasteboard cloud was propelled
on the stage, and disclosed the deities Mercury and Cupid, who made a
complimentary address to the three princely brothers, inciting them to
claim the nymphs whom their valour had defended, and lead them through
the mazes of a choric celestial dance.
This dance had been the special device of Monsieur and the
ballet-master, and during the last three days the houris had been almost
danced off their legs with rehearsing it morning, noon, and night, but
one at least of them was scarcely in a condition for its performance.
Eustacie, dizzied at the first minute by the whirl of her Elysian
merry-go-round, had immediately after become conscious of that which she
had been too childish to estimate merely in prospect, the exposure to
universal gaze. Strange staring eyes, glaring lights, frightful imps
seemed to wheel round her in an intolerable delirious succession. Her
only refuge was in closing her eyes, but even this could not long be
persevered in, so necessary a part of the pageant was she; and besides,
she had Berenger to look for, Berenger, whom she had foolishly laughed
at for knowing how dreadful it would be. But of course the endeavour to
seek for one object with her eyes made the dizziness even more dreadful;
and when, at length, she beheld him dragged down by the demoniacal
creatures, whose horrors were magnified by her confused senses, and the
next moment she was twirled out of sight, her cry of distracted alarm
was irrepressible. Carried round again and again, on a wheel that to her
was far more like Ixion’s than that of the spheres, she never cleared
her perceptions as to where he was, and only was half-maddened by
the fantastic whirl of incongruous imagery, while she barely sat out
Mercury’s lengthy harangue; and when her wheel stood still, and she was
released, she could not stand, and was indebted to Charon and one of her
fellow-nymphs for supporting her to a chair in the back of the scene.
Kind Charon hurried to bring her wine, the lady revived her with
essences, and the ballet-master clamoured for his performers.
Ill or well, royal ballets must be danced. One long sob, one gaze round
at the refreshing sight of a room no longer in motion, one wistful look
at the gates of Tartarus, and the misery of the throbbing, aching head
must be disregarded. The ballet-master touched the white cheeks with
rouge, and she stepped forward just in time, for Monsieur himself was
coming angrily forward to learn the cause of the delay.
Spectators said the windings of that dance were exquisitely graceful.
It was well that Eustacie’s drilling had been so complete, for she
moved through it blindly, senselessly, and when it was over was led back
between the two Demoiselles de Limeuil to the apartment that served as
a green-room, drooping and almost fainting. They seated her in a chair,
and consulted round her, and her cousin Narcisse was among the first to
approach; but no sooner had she caught sight of his devilish trim than
with a little shriek she shut her eyes, and flung herself to the other
side of the chair.
‘My fair cousin,’ he said, opening his black vizard, ‘do you not see me?
I am no demon, remember! I am your cousin.’
‘That makes it no better,’ said Eustacie, too much disordered and
confused to be on her guard, and hiding her face with her hands. ‘Go,
go, I entreat.’
In fact he had already done this, and the ladies added their counsel;
for indeed the poor child could scarcely hold up her head, but she said,
‘I should like to stay, if I could: a little, a little longer. Will they
not open those dreadful bars?’ she added, presently.
‘They are even now opening them,’ said Mdlle. de Limeuil. ‘Hark! they
are going to fight _en melle_. Mdlle. de Nid de Merle is better now?’
‘Oh yes; let not detain you.’
Eustacie would have risen, but the two sisters had fluttered back,
impatient to lose nothing of the sports; and her cousin in his grim
disguise stood full before her. ‘No haste, cousin,’ he said; ‘you are
not fit to move.’
‘Oh, then go,’ said Eustacie, suffering too much not to be petulant.
‘You make me worse.’
‘And why? It was not always thus,’ began Narcisse, so eager to seize an
opportunity as to have little consideration for her condition; but
she was unable to bear any more, and broke out: ‘Yes, it was; I always
detested you more than ever, since you deceived me so cruelly. Oh, do
but leave me!’
‘You scorn me, then! You prefer to me--who have loved you so long--that
childish new-comer, who was ready enough to cast you off.’
‘Prefer! He is my husband! It is an insult for any one else to speak to
me thus!’ said Eustacie, drawing herself up, and rising to her feet;
but she was forced to hold by the back of her chair, and Diane and her
father appearing at that moment, she tottered towards the former, and
becoming quite passive under the influence of violent dizziness and
headache, made no objection to being half led, half carried, through
galleries that connected the Hotel de Bourbon with the Louvre.
And thus it was that when Berenger had fought out his part in the
_melle_ of the prisoners released, and had maintained the honours of the
rose-coloured token in his helmet, he found that his lady-love had been
obliged by indisposition to return home; and while he stood, folding his
arms to restrain their strong inclination to take Narcisse by the throat
and demand whether this were another of his deceptions, a train of
fireworks suddenly exploded in the middle of the Styx--a last surprise,
especially contrived by King Charles, and so effectual that half the
ladies were shrieking, and imagining that they and the whole hall had
blown up together.
A long supper, full of revelry, succeeded, and at length Sidney ad
Ribaumont walked home together in the midst of their armed servants
bearing torches. All the way home Berenger was bitter in vituperation of
the hateful pageant and all its details.
‘Yea, truly,’ replied Sidney; ‘methought that it betokens disease in the
mind of a nation when their festive revelry is thus ghastly, rendering
the most awful secrets made known by our God in order to warm man from
sin into a mere antic laughing-stock. Laughter should be moved by what
is fair and laughter-worthy--even like such sports as our own “Midsummer
Night’s Dream.” I have read that the bloody temper of Rome fed itself in
gladiator shows, and verily, what we beheld to-night betokens something
at once grisly and light-minded in the mood of this country.’
Sidney thought so the more when on the second ensuing morning the
Admiral de Coligny was shot through both hands by an assassin generally
known to have been posted by the Duke of Guise, yet often called by the
sinister sobriquet of _Le Tueur de Roi_.