A human shambles with blood-reeking floor.
MISS SWANWICK, Esch. Agamemnon
The door was opened at last, but not till full daylight. It found
Eustacie as ready to rush forth, past all resistance, as she had been
the night before, and she was already in the doorway when her maid
Veronique, her face swollen with weeping, caught her by the hands and
implored her to turn back and listen.
And words about a rising of the Huguenots, a general destruction,
corpses lying in the court, were already passing between the other
maidens and the CONCIERGE. Eustacie turned upon her servant: ‘Veronique,
what means it? Where is he?’
‘Alas! alas! Ah! Mademoiselle, do but lie down! Woe is me! I saw it all!
Lie down, and I will tell you.’
‘Tell! I will not move till you have told me where my husband is,’ said
Eustacie, gazing with eyes that seemed to Veronique turned to stone.
‘Ah! my lady--my dear lady! I was on the turn of the stairs, and saw
all. The traitor--the Chevalier Narcisse--came on him, cloaked like
you--and--shot him dead--with, oh, such cruel words of mockery! Oh! woe
the day! Stay, stay, dear lady, the place is all blood--they
are slaying them all--all the Huguenots! Will no one stop
her?--Mademoiselle--ma’m’selle!--’
For Eustacie no sooner gathered the sense of Veronique’s words than she
darted suddenly forwards, and was in a few seconds more at the foot of
the stairs. There, indeed, lay a pool of dark gore, and almost in it
Berenger’s black velvet cap, with the heron plume. Eustacie, with a low
cry, snatched it up, continued her headlong course along the corridor,
swiftly as a bird, Veronique following, and vainly shrieking to her to
stop. Diane, appearing at the other end of the gallery, saw but for a
moment the little figure, with the cloak gathered round her neck, and
floating behind her, understood Veronique’s cry and joined in the chase
across hall and gallery, where more stains were to be seen, even down to
the marble stairs, every step slippery with blood. Others there were who
saw and stood aghast, not understanding the apparition that flitted
on so swiftly, never pausing till at the great door at the foot of the
stairs she encountered a gigantic Scottish archer, armed to the teeth.
She touched his arm, and standing with folder arms, looked up and said,
‘Good soldier, kill me! I am a Huguenots!’
‘Stop her! bring her back!’ cried Diane from behind. ‘It is Mdlle. De
Nil-de-Merle!’
‘No, no! My husband is Huguenot! I am a Huguenot! Let them kill me,
I say!’--struggling with Diane, who had now come up with her, and was
trying to draw her back.
‘Puir lassie!’ muttered the stout Scotsman to himself, ‘this fearsome
night has driven her demented.’
But, like a true sentinel, he moved neither hand nor foot to interfere,
as shaking herself loose from Diane, she was springing down the steps
into the court, when at that moment the young Abbe de Mericour was seen
advancing, pale, breathless, horrorstruck, and to him Diane shrieked to
arrest the headlong course. He obeyed, seeing the wild distraction of
the white face and widely glaring eyes, took her by both hands, and held
her in a firm grasp, saying, ‘Alas, lady, you cannot go out. It is no
sight for any one.’
‘They are killing the Protestants,’ she said; ‘I am one! Let me find
them and die.’
A strong effort to free herself ensued, but it was so suddenly succeeded
by a swoon that the Abbe could scarcely save her from dropping on the
steps. Diane begged him to carry her in, since they were in full view of
men-at-arms in the court, and, frightful to say, of some of the ladies
of the palace, who, in the frenzy of that dreadful time, had actually
come down to examine the half-stripped corpses of the men with whom they
had jested not twelve hours before.
‘Ah! it is no wonder,’ said the youthful Abbe, as he tenderly lifted
the inanimate figure. ‘This has been a night of horrors. I was coming
in haste to know whether the King knows of this frightful plot of M. de
Guise, and the bloody work that is passing in Paris.’
‘The King!’ exclaimed Diane. ‘M. l’Abbe, do you know where he is now?
In the balcony overlooking the river, taking aim at the fugitives! Take
care! Even your _soutane_ would not save you if M. d’O and his crew
heard you. But I must pray you to aid me with this poor child! I dread
that her wild cries should be heard.’
The Abbe, struck dumb with horror, silently obeyed Mdlle. De Ribaumont,
and brought the still insensible Eustacie to the chamber, now deserted
by all the young ladies. He laid her on her bed, and finding he could do
no more, left her to her cousin and her maid.
The poor child had been unwell and feverish ever since the masque, and
the suspense of these few days with the tension of that horrible night
had prostrated her. She only awoke from her swoon to turn her head from
the light and refuse to be spoken to.
‘But, Eustacie, child, listen; this is all in vain--he lives,’ said
Diane.
‘Weary me not with falsehoods,’ faintly said Eustacie.
‘No! no! no! They meant to hinder your flight, but---’
‘They knew of it?’ cried Eustacie, sitting up suddenly. ‘Then you told
them. Go--go; let me never see you more! You have been his death!’
‘Listen! I am sure he lives! What! would they injure one whom my father
loved? I heard my father say he would not have him hurt. Depend upon it,
he is safe on his way to England.’
Eustacie gave a short but frightful hysterical laugh, and pointed to
Veronique. ‘She saw it,’ she said; ‘ask her.’
‘Saw what?’ said Diane, turning fiercely on Veronique. ‘What vile deceit
have you half killed your lady with?’
‘Alas! Mademoiselle, I did but tell her what I had seen,’ sighed
Veronique, trembling.
‘Tell me!’ said Diane, passionately.
‘Yes, everything,’ said Eustacie, sitting up.
‘Ah! Mademoiselle, it will make you ill again.’
‘I WILL be ill--I WILL die! Heaven’s slaying is better than man’s. Tell
her how you saw Narcisse.’
‘False girl!’ burst out Diane.
‘No, no,’ cried Veronique. ‘Oh, pardon me, Mademoiselle, I could not
help it.’
In spite of her reluctance, she was forced to tell that she had found
herself locked out of her mistress’s room, and after losing much time
in searching for the CONCIERGE, learnt that the ladies were locked up
by order of the Queen-mother, and was strongly advised not to be running
about the passages. After a time, however, while sitting with the
CONCIERGE’S wife, she heard such frightful whispers from men with white
badges, who were admitted one by one by the porter, and all led silently
to a small lower room, that she resolved on seeking out the Baron’s
servant, and sending him to warn his master, while she would take up her
station at her lady’s door. She found Osbert, and with him was ascending
a narrow spiral leading from the offices--she, unfortunately, the
foremost. As she came to the top, a scuffle was going on--four men
had thrown themselves upon one, and a torch distinctly showed her the
younger Chevalier holding a pistol to the cheek of the fallen man, and
she heard the worlds, _‘Le baiser d’Eustacie! Jet e barbouillerai ce
chien de visage,’_ and at the same moment the pistol was discharged. She
sprang back, oversetting, as she believed, Osbert, and fled shrieking to
the room of the CONCIERGE, who shut her in till morning.
‘And how--how,’ stammered Diane, ‘should you know it was the Baron?’
Eustacie, with a death-like look, showed for a moment what even in her
swoon she had held clenched to her bosom, the velvet cap soaked with
blood.
‘Besides,’ added Veronique, resolved to defend her assertion, ‘whom else
would the words suit? Besides, are not all the heretic gentlemen dead?
Why, as I sat there in the porter’s room, I heard M. d’O call each one
of them by name, one after the other, into the court, and there the
white-sleeves cut them down or pistolled them like sheep for the
slaughter. They lie all out there on the terrace like so many carcases
at market ready for winter salting.’
‘All slain?’ said Eustacie, dreamily.
‘All, except those that the King called into his own _garde robe_.’
‘Then, I slew him!’ Eustacie sank back.
‘I tell you, child,’ said Diane, almost angrily, ‘he lives. Not a hair
of his head was to be hurt! The girl deceives you.’
But Eustacie had again become insensible, and awoke delirious,
entreating to have the door opened, and fancying herself still on the
revolving elysium, ‘Oh, demons, have pity!’ was her cry.
Diane’s soothings were like speaking to the winds; and at last she saw
the necessity of calling in further aid; but afraid of the scandal that
the poor girl’s raving accusations might create, she would not send
for the Huguenots surgeon, Ambroise Pare, whom the King had carefully
secured in his own apartments, but employed one of the barber valets of
the Queen-mother’s household. Poor Eustacie was well pleased to see
her blood flowing, and sank back on her pillow murmuring that she had
confessed her husband’s faith, and would soon be one with him, and Diane
feared for a moment lest the swoon should indeed be death.
The bleeding was so far effectual that it diminished the fever, and
Eustacie became rational again when she had dozed and wakened, but she
was little able or willing to speak, and would not so much as listen
to Diane’s asseverations that Veronique had made a frightful error,
and that the Baron would prove to be alive. Whether it were that
the admission that Diane had known of the project for preventing the
elopement that invalidated her words, or whether the sufferer’s
instinct made her believe Veronique’s testimony rather than her cousin’s
assurances, it was all ‘cramming words into her ear against the stomach
of her sense,’ and she turned away from them with a piteous, petulant
hopelessness: ‘Could they not even let her alone to die in peace!’
Diane was almost angered at this little silly child being in such an
agony of sorrow--she, who could never have known how to love him. And
after all this persistent grief was willfully thrown away. For Diane
spoke in perfect sincerity when she taxed Veronique with an injurious,
barbarous mistake. She knew her father’s strong aversion to violence,
and the real predilection that Berenger’s good mien, respectful manners,
and liberal usage had won from him, and she believed he had much rather
the youth lived, provided he were inoffensive. No doubt a little force
had been necessary to kidnap one so tall, active, and determined,
and Veronique had made up her horrible tale after the usual custom of
waiting-maids.
Nothing else SHOULD be true. Did she think otherwise, she should be
even more frantic than Eustacie! Why, it would be her own doing! She had
betrayed the day of the escape--she had held aloof from warning. There
was pleasure in securing Nid-de-Merle for her brother, pleasure in
balking the foolish child who had won the heart that disregarded her.
Nay, there might have been even pleasure in the destruction of the
scorner of her charms--the foe of her house--there might have been pride
in receiving Queen Catherine’s dexterous hint that she had been an apt
pupil, if the young Baron had only been something different--something
less fair, gracious, bright, and pure. One bright angel seemed to have
flitted across her path, and nothing should induce her to believe she
had destroyed him.
The stripped corpses of the murdered Huguenots of the palace had been
laid in a line on the terrace, and the ladies who had laughed with them
the night before went to inspect them in death. A few remnants of Soeur
Monique’s influence would have withheld Diane, but that a frenzy of
suspense was growing on her. She must see for herself. If it were so,
she must secure a fragment of the shining flaxen hair, if only as a
token that anything so pure and bright had walked the earth.
She went on the horrible quest, shrinking where others stared. For it
was a pitiless time, and the squadron of the Queen-mother were as lost
to womanhood as the fishwomen of two centuries later. But Diane saw no
corpse at once so tall, so young, and so fair, though blond Normans and
blue-blooded Franks, lads scarce sixteen and stalwart warriors, lay
in one melancholy rank. She at least bore away the certainly that the
English Ribaumont was not there; and if not, he MUST be safe! She could
obtain no further certainty, for she knew that she must not expect to
see either her father or brother. There was a panic throughout the city.
All Paris imagined that the Huguenots were on the point of rising and
slaying all the Catholics, and, with the savagery of alarmed cowardice,
the citizens and the mob were assisting the armed bands of the Dukes of
Anjou and Guise to complete the slaughter, dragging their lodgers
from their hiding-places, and denouncing all whom they suspected of
reluctance to mass and confession. But on the Monday, Diane was able
to send an urgent message to her father that he must come to speak with
her, for Mdlle. De Nid-de-Merle was extremely ill. She would meet him in
the garden after morning mass.
There accordingly, when she stepped forth pale, rigid, but stately, with
her large fan in her hand to serve as a parasol, she met both him and
her brother. She was for a moment sorry, for she had much power over her
father, while she was afraid of her brother’s sarcastic tongue and eye;
she knew he never scrupled to sting her wherever she was most sensitive,
and she would have been able to extract much more from her father in
his absence. France has never been without a tendency to produce the
tiger-monkey, or ferocious fop; and the GENUS was in its full ascendancy
under the sons of Catherine de Medicis, when the dregs of Francois the
First’s PSEUDO-chivalry were not extinct--when horrible, retaliating
civil wars of extermination had made life cheap; nefarious persecutions
had hardened the heart and steeled the eye, and the licentiousness
promoted by the shifty Queen as one of her instruments of government had
darkened the whole understanding. The most hateful heights of perfidy,
effeminacy, and hypocrisy were not reached till poor Charles IX., who
only committed crimes on compulsion, was in his grave, and Henry III. on
the throne; but Narcisse de Ribaumont was one of the choice companions
of the latter, and after the night and day of murder now stood before
his sister with scented hair and handkerchief--the last, laced,
delicately held by a hand in an embroidered glove--emerald pendants in
his ears, a moustache twisted into sharp points and turned up like
an eternal sardonic smile, and he led a little white poodle by a
rose-coloured ribbon.
‘Well, sister,’ he said, as he went, through the motions of kissing her
hand, and she embraced her father; ‘so you don’t know how to deal with
megrims and transports?’
‘Father,’ said Diane, not vouchsafing any attention, ‘unless you
can send her some assurance of his life, I will not answer for the
consequences.’
Narcisse laughed: ‘Take her this dog, with my compliments. That is the
way to deal with such a child as that.’
‘You do not know what you say, brother,’ answered Diane with dignity.
‘It goes deeper than that.’
‘The deeper it goes, child,’ said the elder Chevalier, ‘the better it is
that she should be undeceived as soon as possible. She will recover, and
be amenable the sooner.’
‘Then he lives, father?’ exclaimed Diane. ‘He lives, though she is not
to hear it--say----’
‘What know I?’ said the old man, evasively. ‘On a night of confusion
many mischances are sure to occur! Lurking in the palace at the very
moment when there was a search for the conspirators, it would have been
a miracle had the poor young man escaped.’
Diane turned still whiter. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘that was why you made
Monsieur put Eustacie into the ballet, that they might not go on
Wednesday!’
‘It was well hinted by you, daughter. We could not have effectually
stopped them on Wednesday without making a scandal.’
‘Once more,’ said Diane, gasping, though still resolute; ‘is not the
story told by Eustacie’s woman false--that she saw him--pistolled--by
you, brother?’
‘_Peste_!’ cried Narcisse. ‘Was the prying wench there? I thought the
little one might be satisfied that he had neighbour’s fare. No matter;
what is done for one’s _beaux yeux_ is easily pardoned--and if not, why,
I have her all the same!’
‘Nevertheless, daughter,’ said the Chevalier, gravely, ‘the woman must
be silenced. Either she must be sent home, or taught so to swear to
having been mistaken, that _la petite_ may acquit your brother! But what
now, my daughter?’
‘She is livid!’ exclaimed Narcisse, with his sneer. ‘What, sir, did not
you know she was smitten with the peach on the top of a pole?’
‘Enough, brother,’ said Diane, recovering herself enough to speak
hoarsely, but with hard dignity. ‘You have slain--you need not insult,
one whom you have lost the power of understanding!’
‘Shallow schoolboys certainly form no part of my study, save to kick
them down-stairs when they grow impudent,’ said Narcisse, coolly. ‘It is
only women who think what is long must be grand.’
‘Come, children, no disputes,’ said the Chevalier. ‘Of course we regret
that so fine a youth mixed himself up with the enemies of the kingdom,
like the stork among the sparrows. Both Diane and I are sorry for the
necessity; but remember, child, that when he was interfering between
your brother and his just right of inheritance and destined wife,
he could not but draw such a fate on himself. Now all is smooth, the
estates will be united in their true head, and you--you too, my child,
will be provided for as suits your name. All that is needed is to soothe
the little one, so as to hinder her from making an outcry--and silence
the maid; my child will do her best for her father’s sake, and that of
her family.’
Diane was less demonstrative than most of her countrywomen. She had
had time to recollect the uselessness of giving vent to her indignant
anguish, and her brother’s derisive look held her back. The family
tactics, from force of habit, recurred to her; she made no further
objection to her father’s commands; but when her father and brother
parted with her, she tottered into the now empty chapel, threw herself
down, with her burning forehead on the stone step, and so lay for hours.
It was not in prayer. It was because it was the only place where she
could be alone. To her, heaven above and earth below seemed alike full
of despair, darkness, and cruel habitations, and she lay like one
sick with misery and repugnance to the life and world that lay before
her--the hard world that had quenched that one fair light and mocked
her pity. It was a misery of solitude, and yet no thought crossed her
of going to weep and sympathize with the other sufferer. No; rivalry
and jealousy came in there! Eustacie viewed herself as his wife, and the
very thought that she had been deliberately preferred and had enjoyed
her triumph hardened Diane’s heart against her. Nay, the open violence
and abandonment of her grief seemed to the more restrained and
concentrated nature of her elder a sign of shallowness and want of
durability; and in a certain contemptuous envy at her professing a right
to mourn, Diane never even reconsidered her own resolution to play out
her father’s game, consign Eustacie to her husband’s murdered, and leave
her to console herself with bridal splendours and a choice of admirers
from all the court.
However, for the present Diane would rather stay away as much as
possible from the sick-bed of the poor girl; and when an approaching
step forced her to rouse herself and hurry away by the other door of
the chapel, she did indeed mount to the ladies’ bed-chamber, but only to
beckon Veronique out of hearing and ask for her mistress.
Just the same still, only sleeping to have feverish dreams of the
revolving wheel or the demons grappling her husband, refusing all food
but a little drink, and lying silent except for a few moans, heedless
who spoke or looked at her.
Diane explained that in that case it was needless to come to her, but
added, with the _vraisemblance_ of falsehood in which she had graduated
in Catherine’s school, ‘Veronique, as I told you, you were mistaken.’
‘Ah, Mademoiselle, if M. le Baron lives, she will be cured at once.’
‘Silly girl,’ said Diane, giving relief to her pent-up feeling by
asperity of manner, ‘how could he live when you and your intrigues got
him into the palace on such a night? Dead he is, OF COURSE; but it was
your own treacherous, mischievous fancy that laid it on my brother. He
was far away with M. de Guise at the attack on the Admiral. It was some
of Monsieur’s grooms you saw. You remember she had brought him into a
scrape with Monsieur, and it was sure to be remembered. And look you, if
you repeat the other tale, and do not drive it out of her head, you need
not look to be long with her--no, nor at home. My father will have no
one there to cause a scandal by an evil tongue.’
That threat convinced Veronique that she had been right; but she, too,
had learnt lessons at the Louvre, and she was too diplomatic not to ask
pardon for her blunder, promise to contradict it when her mistress
could listen, and express her satisfaction that it was not the Chevalier
Narcisse--for such things were not pleasant, as she justly observed, in
families.
About noon on the Tuesday the Louvre was unusually tranquil. All the
world had gone forth to a procession to Notre Dame, headed by the King
and all the royal family, to offer thanksgiving for the deliverance of
the country from the atrocious conspiracy of the Huguenots. Eustacie’s
chamber was freed from the bustle of all the maids of honour arraying
themselves, and adjusting curls, feathers, ruffs and jewels; and such
relief as she was capable of experiencing she felt in the quiet.
Veronique hoped she would sleep, and watched like a dragon to guard
against any disturbance, springing out with upraised finger when a soft
gliding step and rustling of brocade was heard. ‘Does she sleep?’ said
a low voice; and Veronique, in the pale thin face with tear-swollen eyes
and light yellow hair, recognized the young Queen. ‘My good girl,’ said
Elisabeth, with almost a beseeching gesture, ‘let me see her. I do not
know when again I may be able.’
Veronique stood aside, with the lowest possible of curtseys, just as
her mistress with a feeble, weary voice murmured, ‘Oh, make them let me
alone!’
‘My poor, poor child,’ said the Queen, bending over Eustacie, while her
brimming eyes let the tears fall fast, ‘I will not disturb you long, but
I could not help it.’
‘Her Majesty!’ exclaimed Eustacie, opening wide her eyes in amazement.
‘My dear, suffer me here a little moment,’ said the meek Elisabeth,
seating herself so as to bring her face near to Eustacie’s; ‘I could not
rest till I had seen how it was with you and wept with you.’
‘Ah, Madame, you can weep,’ said Eustacie slowly, looking at the Queen’s
heavy tearful eyes almost with wonder; ‘but I do not weep because I am
dying, and that is better.’
‘My dear, my dear, do not so speak!’ exclaimed the gentle but rather
dull Queen.
‘Is it wrong? Nay, so much the better--then I shall be with HIM,’ said
Eustacie in the same feeble dreamy manner, as if she did not understand
herself, but a little roused by seeing she had shocked her visitor. ‘I
would not be wicked. He was all bright goodness and truth: but his does
not seem to be goodness that brings to heaven, and I do not want to be
in the heaven of these cruel false men--I think it would go round and
round.’ She shut her eyes as if to steady herself, and that moment
seemed to give her more self-recollection, for looking at the weeping,
troubled visitor, she exclaimed, with more energy, ‘Oh! Madame, it must
be a dreadful fancy! Good men like him cannot be shut into those fiery
gates with the torturing devils.’
‘Heaven forbid!’ exclaimed the Queen. ‘My poor, poor child, grieve not
yourself thus. At my home, my Austrian home, we do not speak in this
dreadful way. My father loves and honours his loyal Protestants, and he
trusts that the good God accepts their holy lives in His unseen Church,
even though outwardly they are separate from us. My German confessor
ever said so. Oh! Child, it would be too frightful if we deemed that all
those souls as well as bodies perished in these frightful days. Myself,
I believe that they have their reward for their truth and constancy.’
Eustacie caught the Queen’s hand, and fondled it with delight, as though
those words had veritably opened the gates of heaven to her husband.
The Queen went on in her slow gentle manner, the very tone of which
was inexpressibly soothing and sympathetic: ‘Yes, and all will be clear
there. No more violence. At home our good men think so, and the King
will think the same when these cruel counselors will leave him to
himself; and I pray, I pray day and night, that God will not lay this
sin to his account, but open his eyes to repent. Forgive him, Eustacie,
and pray for him too.’
‘The King would have saved my husband, Madame,’ returned Eustacie. ‘He
bade him to his room. It was I, unhappy I, who detained him, lest our
flight should have been hindered.’
The Queen in her turn kissed Eustacie’s forehead with eager gratitude.
‘Oh, little one, you have brought a drop of comfort to a heavy heart.
Alas! I could sometimes feel you to be a happier wife than I, with your
perfect trust in the brave pure-spirited youth, unwarped by these wicked
cruel advisers. I loved to look at his open brow; it was so like our
bravest German Junkers. And, child, we thought, both of us, to have
brought about your happiness; but, ah! it has but caused all this
misery.’
‘No, no, dearest Queen,’ said Eustacie, ‘this month with all its woe has
been joy--life! Oh! I had rather lie here and die for his loss than be
as I was before he came. And NOW--now, you have given him to me for all
eternity--if but I am fit to be with him!’
Eustacie had revived so much during the interview that the Queen could
not believe her to be in a dying state; but she continued very ill,
the low fever still hanging about her, and the faintness continual. The
close room, the turmoil of its many inhabitants, and the impossibility
of quiet also harassed her greatly, and Elisabeth had little or no power
of making any other arrangements for her in the palace. Ladies when ill
were taken home, and this poor child had no home. The other maids of
honour were a gentler, simpler set than Catherine’s squadron, and were
far from unkind; but between them and her, who had so lately been the
brightest child of them all, there now lay that great gulf. _‘Ich habe
gelebt und geliebet.’_ That the little blackbird, as they used to call
her, should have been on the verge of running away with her own husband
was a half understood, amusing mystery discussed in exaggerating
prattle. This was hushed, indeed, in the presence of that crushed,
prostrate, silent sorrow; but there was still an utter incapacity of
true sympathy, that made the very presence of so many oppressive,
even when they were not in murmurs discussing the ghastly tidings of
massacres in other cities, and the fate of acquaintances.
On that same day, the Queen sent for Diane to consult her about the
sufferer. Elisabeth longed to place her in her own cabinet and attend on
her herself; but she was afraid to do this, as the unhappy King was
in such a frenzied mood, and so constantly excited by his brother and
Guise, that it was possible that some half-delirious complaint from poor
Eustacie might lead to serious consequences. Indeed, Elisabeth, though
in no state to bear agitation, was absorbed in her endeavour to prevent
him from adding blood to blood, and a few days later actually saved the
lives of the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde, by throwing herself
before him half-dressed, and tearing his weapon from his hand. Her only
hope was that if she should give him a son, her influence for mercy
would revive with his joy. Meantime she was powerless, and she could
only devise the sending the poor little sufferer to a convent, where the
nuns might tend her till she was restored to health and composure. Diane
acquiesced, but proposed sending for her father, and he was accordingly
summoned. Diane saw him first alone, and both agreed that he had better
take Eustacie to Bellaise, where her aunt would take good care of her,
and in a few months she would no doubt be weary enough of the country to
be in raptures to return to Paris on any terms.
Yet even as Diane said this, a sort of longing for the solitude of the
woods of Nid-de-Merle came over her, a recollection of the good Sister
Monique, at whose knee she had breathed somewhat of the free pure air
that her murdered cousin had brought with him; a sense that there she
could pour forth her sorrow. She offered herself at once to go with
Eustacie.
‘No, no, my daughter,’ said the Chevalier, ‘that is unnecessary. There
is pleasanter employment for you. I told you that your position was
secured. Here is a brilliant offer--M. de Selinville,’
_‘Le bonhomme de Selinville!’_ exclaimed Diane, feeling rather as if the
compensation were like the little dog offered to Eustacie.
‘Know ye not that his two heretic nephews perished the other night.
He is now the head of his name, the Marquis, the only one left of his
house.’
‘He begins early,’ said Diane.
‘An old soldier, my daughter, scarce stays to count the fallen. He has
no time to lose. He is sixty, with a damaged constitution. It will be
but the affair of a few years, and then will my beautiful Marquise be
free to choose for herself. I shall go from the young Queen to obtain
permission from the Queen-mother.’
No question was asked. Diane never even thought objection possible. It
was a close to that present life which she had begun to loathe; it gave
comparative liberty. It would dull and confuse her heart-sick pain,
and give her a certain superiority to her brother. Moreover, it would
satisfy the old father, whom she really loved. Marriage with a worn-out
old man was a simple step to full display for young ladies without
fortune.
The Chevalier told Queen Elisabeth his purpose of placing his niece
in the family convent, under the care of her aunt, the Abbess, in a
foundation endowed by her own family on the borders of her own estate.
Elisabeth would have liked to keep her nearer, but could not but own
that the change to the scenes of her childhood might be more beneficial
than a residence in a nunnery at Paris, and the Chevalier spoke of
his niece with a tender solicitude that gained the Queen’s heart.
She consented, only stipulating that Eustacie’s real wishes should be
ascertained, and herself again made the exertion of visiting the patient
for the purpose.
Eustacie had been partly dressed, and was lying as near as she could to
the narrow window. The Queen would not let her move, but took her damp
languid hand, and detailed her uncle’s proposal. It was plain that it
was not utterly distasteful. ‘Soeur Monique,’ she said, ‘Soeur Monique
would sing hymns to me, and then I should not see the imps at night.’
‘Poor child! And you would like to go? You could bear the journey?’
‘It would be in the air! And then I should not smell blood--blood!’ And
her cheeks became whiter again, if possible.
‘Then you would not rather be at the Carmelites, or Maubuisson, near
me?’
‘Ah! Madame, there would not be Soeur Monique. If the journey would only
make me die, as soon as I came, with Soeur Monique to hush me, and keep
off dreadful images!’
‘Dear child, you should put away the thought of dying. Maybe you are to
live, that your prayers may win salvation for the soul of him you love.’
‘Oh, then! I should like to go into a convent so strict--so strict,
cried Eustacie, with renewed vigour. ‘Bellaise is nothing like strict
enough. Does your Majesty indeed think that my prayers will aid him?’
‘Alas! what hope could we have but in praying?’ said Elisabeth, with
tears in her eyes. ‘Little one, we will be joined at least in our
prayers and intercessions: thou wilt not forget in thine one who yet
lives, unhappier than all!’
‘And, oh, my good, my holy Queen, will you indeed pray for him--my
husband? He was so good, his faith can surely not long be reckoned
against him. He did not believe in Purgatory! Perhaps----’ Then frowning
with a difficulty far beyond a fever-clouded brain, she concluded--‘At
least, orisons may aid him! It is doing something for him! Oh, where are
my beads?--I can begin at once.’
The Queen put her arm round her, and together they said the _De
profundis_,--the Queen understood every word far more for the living
than the dead. Again Elisabeth had given new life to Eustacie. The
intercession for her husband was something to live for, and the severest
convent was coveted, until she was assured that she would not be allowed
to enter on any rule till she had time to recover her health, and show
the constancy of her purpose by a residence at Bellaise.
Ere parting, however, the Queen bent over her, and colouring, as if much
ashamed of what she said, whispered--‘Child, not a word of the ceremony
at Montpipeau!--you understand? The King was always averse; it would
bring him and me into dreadful trouble with THOSE OTHERS, and alas! It
makes no difference now. You will be silent?’
And Eustacie signed her acquiescence, as indeed no difficulty was made
in her being regarded as the widow of the Baron de Ribaumont, when she
further insisted on procuring a widow’s dress before she quitted her
room, and declared, with much dignity, that she should esteem no person
her friend who called her Mademoiselle de Nid-de-Merle. To this the
Chevalier de Ribaumont was willing to give way; he did not care whether
Narcisse married her as Berenger’s widow or as the separated maiden
wife, and he thought her vehement opposition and dislike would die away
the faster the fewer impediments were placed in her way. Both he and
Diane strongly discouraged any attempt on Narcisse’s widow part at a
farewell interview; and thus unmolested, and under the constant soothing
influence of reciting her prayers, in the trust that they were availing
her husband, Eustacie rallied so much that about ten day after the
dreadful St. Batholomew, in the early morning, she was half-led
half-carried down the stairs between her uncle and Veronique. Her face
was close muffled in her thick black veil, but when she came to the
foot of the first stairs where she had found Berenger’s cap, a terrible
shuddering came on her; she again murmured something about the smell of
blood, and fell into a swoon.
‘Carry her on at once,’ said Diane, who was following,--‘there will be
not end to it if you do not remove her immediately.’
And thus shielded from the sight of Marcisse’s intended passionate
gesture of farewell at the palace-door, Eustecie was laid at full length
on the seat of the great ponderous family coach, where Veronique hardly
wished to revive her till the eight horses should have dragged her
beyond the streets of Paris, with their terrible associations, and the
gibbets still hung with the limbs of the murdered.