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What M. De Guise Came to Do at the Louvre.
Behind M. de Guise there entered a great number of officers, courtiers, and gentlemen, and behind them a concourse of the people; an escort less brilliant, but more formidable, and it was their cries that had resounded as the duke entered the Louvre.
“Ah! it is you, my cousin,” said the king; “what a noise you bring with you! Did I not hear the trumpets sound?”
“Sire, the trumpets sound in Paris only for the king, and in campaigns for the general. Here the trumpets would make too much noise for a subject; there they do not make enough for a prince.”
Henri bit his lips. “Have you arrived from the siege of La Charité only today?”
“Only today, sire,” replied the duke, with a heightened color.
“Ma foi! your visit is a great honor to us.”
“Your majesty jests, no doubt. How can my visit honor him from whom all honor comes?”
“I mean, M. de Guise,” replied Henri, “that every good Catholic is in the habit, on returning from a campaign, to visit God first in one of his temple’s — the king only comes second. ‘Honor God, serve the king,’ you know, my cousin.”
The heightened color of the duke became now still more distinct; and the king, happening to turn towards his brother, saw with astonishment, that he was as pale as the duke was red. He was struck by this emotion in each, but he said:
“At all events, duke, nothing equals my joy to see that you have escaped all the dangers of war, although you sought them, I was told in the rashest manner; but danger knows you and flies you.”
The duke bowed.
“But I must beg you, my cousin, not to be so ambitious of mortal perils, for you put to shame sluggards like us, who sleep, eat, and invent new prayers.”
“Yes, sire,” replied the duke, “we know you to be a pious prince, and that no pleasure can make you forget the glory of God and the interests of the Church. That is why we have come with so much confidence to your majesty.”
“With confidence! Do you not always come to me with confidence, my cousin?”
“Sire, the confidence of which I speak refers to the proposition I am about to make to you.”
“You have a proposition to make to me! Well, speak, as you say, with confidence. What have you to propose?”
“The execution of one of the most beautiful ideas which has been originated since the Crusades.”
“Continue, duke.”
“Sire, the title of most Christian king is not a vain one; it makes an ardent zeal for religion incumbent on its possessor.”
“Is the Church menaced by the Saracens once more?”
“Sire, the great concourse of people who followed me, blessing my name, honored me with this reception only because of my zeal to defend the Church. I have already had the honor of speaking to your majesty of an alliance between all true Catholics.”
“Yes, yes,” said Chicot, “the League; ventre de biche, Henri, the League. By St. Bartholomew! how can you forget so splendid an idea, my son?”
The duke cast a disdainful glance on Chicot, while d’Anjou, who stood by, as pale as death, tried by signs, to make the duke stop.
“Look at your brother, Henri,” whispered Chicot.
“Sire,” continued the Duc de Guise, “the Catholics have indeed called this association the Holy League, and its aim is to fortify the throne against the Huguenots, its mortal enemies; but to form an association is not enough, and in a kingdom like France, several millions of men cannot assemble without the consent of the king.”
“Several millions!” cried Henri, almost with terror.
“Several millions!” repeated Chicot; “a small number of malcontents, which may bring forth pretty results.”
“Sire,” cried the duke, “I am astonished that your majesty allows me to be interrupted so often, when I am speaking on serious matters.”
“Quite right,” said Chicot; “silence there.”
“Several millions!” repeated the king; “and against these millions, how many Huguenots are there in my kingdom?”
“Four,” said Chicot.
This new sally made the king and his friends laugh, but the duke frowned, and his gentlemen murmured loudly.
Henri, becoming once more serious, said, “Well, duke, what do you wish? To the point.”
“I wish, sire — for your popularity is dearer to me than my own — that your majesty should be superior to us in your zeal for religion — I wish you to choose a chief for the League.”
“Well!” said the king, to those who surrounded him, “what do you think of it, my friends?”
Chicot, without saying a word, drew out a lion’s skin from a corner, and threw himself on it.
“What are you doing, Chicot?” asked the king.
“Sire, they say that night brings good counsel; that must be because of sleep; therefore I am going to sleep, and tomorrow I will reply to my cousin Guise.”
The duke cast a furious glance on Chicot, who replied by a loud snore.
“Well, sire!” said the duke, “what does your majesty say?”
“I think that, as usual, you are in the right, my cousin; convoke, then, your principal leaguers, come at their head, and I will choose the chief.”
“When, sire?”
“To-morrow.”
The Duc de Guise then took leave, and the Duc d’Anjou was about to do the same, when the king said —
“Stay, my brother, I wish to speak to you.”
Castor and Pollux.
The king dismissed all his favorites, and remained with his brother. The duke, who had managed to preserve a tolerably composed countenance throughout, believed himself unsuspected, and remained without fear.
“My brother,” said Henri, after assuring himself that, with the exception of Chicot, no one remained in the room, “do you know that I am a very happy prince?”
“Sire, if your majesty be really happy, it is a recompense from Heaven for your merits.”
“Yes, happy,” continued the king, “for if great ideas do not come to me, they do to my subjects. It is a great idea which has occurred to my cousin Guise.”
The duke make a sign of assent, and Chicot opened his eyes to watch the king’s face.
“Indeed,” continued Henri, “to unite under one banner all the Catholics, to arm all France on this pretext from Calais to Languedoc, from Bretagne to Burgundy, so that I shall always have an army ready to march against England, Holland, or Spain, without alarming any of them — do you know, Fran?ois, it is a magnificent idea?”
“Is it not, sire?” said the duke, delighted.
“Yes, I confess I feel tempted to reward largely the author of this fine project.”
Chicot opened his eyes, but he shut them again, for he had seen on the face of the king one of his almost imperceptible smiles, and he was satisfied.
“Yes,” continued Henri, “I repeat such a project merits recompense, and I will do what I can for the author of this good work, for the work is begun — is it not, my brother?”
The duke confessed that it was.
“Better and better; my subjects not only conceive these good ideas, but, in their anxiety to be of use to me, hasten to put them in execution. But I ask you, my dear Fran?ois, if it be really to the Duc de Guise that I am indebted for this royal thought?”
“No, sire, it occurred to the Cardinal de Lorraine twenty years ago, only the St. Bartholomew rendered it needless for the time.”
“Ah! what a pity he is dead; but,” continued Henri, with that air of frankness which made him the first comedian of the day, “his nephew has inherited it, and brought it to bear. What can I do for him?”
“Sire,” said Fran?ois, completely duped by his brother, “you exaggerate his merits. He has, as I say, but inherited the idea, and another man has given him great help in developing it.”
“His brother the cardinal?”
“Doubtless he has been occupied with it, but I do not mean him.”
“Mayenne, then?”
“Oh! sire, you do him too much honor.”
“True, how could any good ideas come to such a butcher? But to whom, then, am I to be grateful for aid to my cousin Guise?”
“To me, sire.”
“To you!” cried Henri, as if in astonishment. “How! when I saw all the world unchained against me, the preachers against my vices, the poets against my weaknesses, while my friends laughed at my powerlessness, and my situation was so harassing, that it gave me gray hairs every day: such an idea came to you, Fran?ois — to you, whom I confess, for man is feeble and kings are blind, I did not always believe to be my friend! Ah! Fran?ois, how guilty I have been.” And Henri, moved even to tears, held out his hand to his brother.
Chicot opened his eyes again.
“Oh!” continued Henri, “the idea is triumphant. Not being able to raise troops without raising an outcry, scarcely to walk, sleep, or love, without exciting ridicule, this idea gives me at once an army, money, friends, and repose. But my cousin spake of a chief?”
“Yes, doubtless.”
“This chief, you understand, Fran?ois, cannot be one of my favorites; none of them has at once the head and the heart necessary for so important a post. Quelus is brave, but is occupied only by his amours. Maugiron is also brave, but he thinks only of his toilette. Schomberg also, but he is not clever. D’Epernon is a valiant man, but he is a hypocrite, whom I could not trust, although I am friendly to him. But you know, Fran?ois, that one of the heaviest taxes on a king is the necessity of dissimulation; therefore, when I can speak freely from my heart, as I do now, I breathe. Well, then, if my cousin Guise originated this idea, to the development of which you have assisted, the execution of it belongs to him.”
“What do you say, sire?” said Fran?ois, uneasily.
“I say, that to direct such a movement we must have a prince of high rank.”
“Sire, take care.”
“A good captain and a skilful negotiator.”
“The last particularly.”
“Well, is not M. de Guise all this?”
“My brother, he is very powerful already.”
“Yes, doubtless; but his power makes my strength.”
“He holds already the army and the bourgeois; the cardinal holds the Church, and Mayenne is their instrument; it is a great deal of power to be concentrated in one family.”
“It is true, Fran?ois; I had thought of that.”
“If the Guises were French princes, their interest would be to aggrandize France.”
“Yes, but they are Lorraines.”
“Of a house always rival to yours.”
“Yes, Fran?ois; you have touched the sore. I did not think you so good a politician. Yes, there does not pass a day but one or other of these Guises, either by address or by force, carries away from me some particle of my power. Ah! Fran?ois, if we had but had this explanation sooner, if I had been able to read your heart as I do now, certain of support in you, I might have resisted better, but now it is too late.”
“Why so?”
“Because all combats fatigue me; therefore I must make him chief of the League.”
“You will be wrong, brother.”
“But who could I name, Fran?ois? who would accept this perilous post? Yes, perilous; for do you not see that he intended me to appoint him chief, and that, should I name any one else to the post, he would treat him as an enemy?”
“Name some one so powerful that, supported by you, he need not fear all the three Lorraine princes together.”
“Ah, my good brother, I know no such person.”
“Look round you, brother.”
“I know no one but you and Chicot who are really my friends.”
“Well, brother.”
Henri looked at the duke as if a veil had fallen from his eyes. “Surely you would never consent, brother! It is not you who could teach all these bourgeois their exercise, who could look over the discourses of the preachers, who, in case of battle, would play the butcher in the streets of Paris; for all this, one must be triple, like the duke, and have a right arm called Charles and a left called Louis. What! you would like all this? You, the first gentleman of our court! Mort de ma vie! how people change with the age!”
“Perhaps I would not do it for myself, brother, but I would do it for you.”
“Excellent brother!” said Henri, wiping away a tear which never existed.
“Then,” said the duke, “it would not displease you for me to assume this post?”
“Displease me! On the contrary, it would charm me.”
Fran?ois trembled with joy. “Oh! if your majesty thinks me worthy of this confidence.”
“Confidence! When you are the chief, what have I to fear? The League itself? That cannot be dangerous can it, Fran?ois?”
“Oh, sire?”
“No, for then you would not be chief, or at least, when you are chief, there will be no danger. But, Fran?ois, the duke is doubtless certain of this appointment, and he will not lightly give way.”
“Sire, you grant me the command?”
“Certainly.”
“And you wish me to have it?”
“Particularly; but I dare not too much displease M. de Guise.”
“Oh, make yourself easy, sire; if that be the only obstacle, I pledge myself to arrange it.”
“When?”
“At once.”
“Are you going to him? That will be doing him too much honor.”
“No, sire; he is waiting for me.”
“Where?”
“In my room.”
“Your room! I heard the cries of the people as he left the Louvre.”
“Yes; but after going out at the great door he came back by the postern. The king had the right to the first visit, but I to the second.”
“Ah, brother, I thank you for keeping up our prerogative, which I had the weakness so often to abandon. Go, then, Fran?ois, and do your best.”
Fran?ois bent down to kiss the king’s hand, but he, opening his arms, gave him a warm embrace, and then the duke left the room to go to his interview with the Duc de Guise. The king, seeing his brother gone, gave an angry growl, and rapidly made his way through the secret corridor, until he reached a hiding-place whence he could distinctly hear the conversation between the two dukes.
“Ventre de biche!” cried Chicot, starting up, “how touching these family scenes are! For an instant I believed myself in Olympus, assisting at the reunion of Castor and Pollux after six months’ separation.”
In which it is Proved that Listening is the Best Way to Hear.
The Duc d’Anjou was well aware that there were few rooms in the Louvre which were not built so that what was said in them could be heard from the outside; but, completely seduced by his brother’s manner, he forgot to take any precautions.
“Why, monseigneur,” said the Duc de Guise. “how pale you are!”
“Visibly?”
“Yes, to me.”
“The king saw nothing?”
“I think not; but he retained you?”
“Yes.”
“And what did he say, monseigneur?”
“He approves the idea, but the more gigantic it appears, the more he hesitates to place a man like you at the head.”
“Then we are likely to fail.”
“I fear so, my dear duke; the League seems likely to fail.”
“Before it begins.”
At this moment Henri, hearing a noise, turned and saw Chicot by his side, listening also. “You followed me, Knave!” said he.
“Hush, my son,” said Chicot; “you prevent me from hearing.”
“Monseigneur,” said the Duc de Guise, “it seems to me that in this case the king would have refused at once. Does he wish to dispossess me?”
“I believe so.”
“Then he would ruin the enterprise?”
“Yes; but I aided you with all my power.”
“How, monseigneur?”
“In this — the king has left me almost master, to kill or reanimate the League.”
“How so?” cried the duke, with sparkling eyes.
“Why, if, instead of dissolving the League, he named me chief ——”
“Ah!” cried the duke, while the blood mounted to his face.
“Ah! the dogs are going to fight over their bones,” said Chicot; but to his surprise, and the king’s, the Duc de Guise suddenly became calm, and exclaimed, in an almost joyful tone:
“You are an adroit politician, monseigneur, if you did this.”
“Yes, I did; but I would not conclude anything without speaking to you.”
“Why so, monseigneur?”
“Because I did not know what it would lead us to.”
“Well, I will tell you, monseigneur, not to what it will lead us — that God alone knows — but how it will serve us. The League is a second army, and as I hold the first, and my brother the Church, nothing can resist us as long as we are united.”
“Without counting,” said the Duc d’Anjou, “that I am heir presumptive to the throne.”
“True, but still calculate your bad chances.”
“I have done so a hundred times.”
“There is, first, the King of Navarre.”
“Oh! I do not mind him; he is entirely occupied by his amours with La Fosseuse.”
“He, monseigneur, will dispute every inch with you; he watches you and your brother; he hungers for the throne. If any accident should happen to your brother, see if he will not be here with a bound from Pau to Paris.”
“An accident to my brother,” repeated Fran?ois.
“Listen, Henri,” said Chicot.
“Yes, monseigneur,” said the Duc de Guise, “an accident. Accidents are not rare in your family; you know that, as well as I do. One prince is in good health, and all at once he falls ill of a lingering malady; another is counting on long years, when, perhaps, he has but a few hours to live.”
“Do you hear, Henri?” said Chicot, taking the hand of the king, who shuddered at what he heard.
“Yes, it is true,” said the Duc d’Anjou, “the princes of my house are born under fatal influences; but my brother Henri is, thank God, strong and well; he supported formerly the fatigues of war, and now that his life is nothing but recreation —”
“Yes; but, monseigneur, remember one thing; these recreations are not always without danger. How did your father, Henri II., die, for example? He, who also had happily escaped the dangers of war. The wound by M. de Montgomery’s lance was an accident. Then your poor brother, Fran?ois, one would hardly call a pain in the ears an accident, and yet it was one; at least, I have often heard it said that this mortal malady was poured into his ear by some one well known.”
“Duke!” murmured Fran?ois, reddening.
“Yes, monseigneur; the name of king has long brought misfortune with it. Look at Antoine de Bourbon, who died from a spot in the shoulder. Then there was Jeanne d’Albret, the mother of the Béarnais, who died from smelling a pair of perfumed gloves, an accident very unexpected although there were people who had great interest in this death. Then Charles IX., who died neither by the eye, the ear, nor the shoulder, but by the mouth ——”
“What do you say?” cried Fran?ois, starting back.
“Yes, monseigneur, by the mouth. Those hunting books are very dangerous, of which the pages stick together, and can only be opened by wetting the finger constantly.”
“Duke! duke! I believe you invent crimes.”
“Crimes! who speaks of crimes? I speak of accidents. Was it not also an accident that happened to Charles IX. at the chase? You know what chase I mean; that of the boar, where, intending to kill the wild boar, which had turned on your brother, you, who never before had missed your aim, did so then, and the king would have been killed, as he had fallen from his horse, had not Henri of Navarre slain the animal which you had missed.”
“But,” said the Duc d’Anjou, trying to recover himself, “what interest could I have had in the death of Charles IX., when the next king would be Henri III.?”
“Oh! monseigneur, there was already one throne vacant, that of Poland. The death of Charles IX. would have left another, that of France; and even the kingdom of Poland might not have been despised. Besides, the death of Charles would have brought you a degree nearer the throne, and the next accident would have benefited you.”
“What do you conclude from all this, duke?” said the Duc d’Anjou.
“Monseigneur, I conclude that each king has his accident, and that you are the inevitable accident of Henri III., particularly if you are chief of the League.”
“Then I am to accept?”
“Oh! I beg you to do so.”
“And you?”
“Oh! be easy; my men are ready, and to-night Paris will be curious.”
“What are they going to do in Paris to-night?” asked Henri.
“Oh! how foolish you are, my friend; to-night they sign the League publicly.”
“It is well,” said the Duc d’Anjou, “till this evening then.”
“Yes, till this evening,” said Henri.
“How!” said Chicot, “you will not risk going into the streets to-night?”
“Yes, I shall.”
“You are wrong, Henri; remember the accidents.”
“Oh! I shall be well accompanied; will you come with me?”
“What! do you take me for a Huguenot? I shall go and sign the League ten times. However, Henri, you have a great advantage over your predecessors, in being warned, for you know your brother, do you not?”
“Yes, and, mordieu! before long he shall find it out.”
The Evening of the League.
Paris presented a fine sight, as through its then narrow streets thousands of people pressed towards the same point, for at eight o’clock in the evening, M. le Duc de Guise was to receive the signatures of the bourgeois to the League. A crowd of citizens, dressed in their best clothes, as for a fête, but fully armed, directed their steps towards the churches. What added to the noise and confusion was that large numbers of women, disdaining to stay at home on such a great day, had followed their husbands, and many had brought with them a whole batch of children. It was in the Rue de l’Arbre Sec that the crowd was the thickest. The streets were literally choked, and the crowd pressed tumultuously towards a bright light suspended below the sign of the Belle Etoile. On the threshold a man, with a cotton cap on his head and a naked sword in one hand and a register in the other, was crying out, “Come come, brave Catholics, enter the hotel of the Belle Etoile, where you will find good wine; come, to-night the good will be separated from the bad, and tomorrow morning the wheat will be known from the tares; come, gentlemen, you who can write, come and sign — you who cannot write, come and tell your names to me, La Hurière; vive la messe!” A tall man elbowed his way through the crowd, and in letters half an inch high, wrote his name, ‘Chicot.’ Then, turning to La Hurière, he asked if he had not another register to sign. La Hurière did not understand raillery, and answered angrily. Chicot retorted, and a quarrel seemed approaching, when Chicot, feeling some one touch his arm, turned, and saw the king disguised as a simple bourgeois, and accompanied by Quelus and Maugiron, also disguised, and carrying an arquebuse on their shoulders.
“What!” cried the king, “good Catholics disputing among themselves; par la mordieu, it is a bad example.”
“Do not mix yourself with what does not concern you,” replied Chicot, without seeming to recognize him. But a new influx of the crowd distracted the attention of La Hurière, and separated the king and his companions from the hotel.
“Why are you here, sire?” said Chicot.
“Do you think I have anything to fear?”
“Eh! mon Dieu! in a crowd like this it is so easy for one man to put a knife into his neighbor, and who just utters an oath and gives up the ghost.”
“Have I been seen?”
“I think not; but you will be if you stay longer. Go back to the Louvre, sire.”
“Oh! oh! what is this new outcry, and what are the people running for?”
Chicot looked, but could at first see nothing but a mass of people crying, howling, and pushing. At last the mass opened, and a monk, mounted on a donkey, appeared. The monk spoke and gesticulated, and the ass brayed.
“Ventre de biche!” cried Chicot, “listen to the preacher.”
“A preacher on a donkey!” cried Quelus.
“Why not?”
“He is Silenus,” said Maugiron.
“Which is the preacher?” said the king, “for they speak both at once.”
“The underneath one is the most eloquent,” said Chicot, “but the one at the top speaks the best French; listen, Henri.”
“My brethren,” said the monk, “Paris is a superb city; Paris is the pride of France, and the Parisians a fine people.” Then he began to sing, but the ass mingled his accompaniment so loudly that he was obliged to stop. The crowd burst out laughing.
“Hold your tongue, Panurge, hold your tongue,” cried the monk, “you shall speak after, but let me speak first.”
The ass was quiet.
“My brothers,” continued the preacher, “the earth is a valley of grief, where man often pan quench his thirst only with his tears.”
“He is drunk,” said the king.
“I should think so.”
“I, who speak to you,” continued the monk, “I am returning from exile like the Hebrews of old, and for eight days Panurge and I have been living on alms and privations.”
“Who is Panurge?” asked the king.
“The superior of his convent, probably but let me listen.”
“Who made me endure this? It was Herod; you know what Herod I speak of. I and Panurge have come from Villeneuve-le-Roi, in three days, to assist at this great solemnity; now we see, but we do not understand. What is passing, my brothers? Is it today that they depose Herod? Is it today that they put brother Henri in a convent? — Gentlemen,” continued he, “I left Paris with two friends; Panurge, who is my ass, and Chicot, who is his majesty’s jester. Can you tell me what has become of my friend Chicot?”
Chicot made a grimace.
“Oh,” said the king, “he is your friend.” Quelus and Maugiron burst out laughing. “He is handsome and respectable,” continued the king.
“It is Gorenflot, of whom M. de Morvilliers spoke to you.”
“The incendiary of St. Geneviève?”
“Himself!”
“Then I will have him hanged!”
“Impossible!”
“Why?”
“He has no neck.”
“My brothers,” continued Gorenflot: “I am a true martyr, and it is my cause that they defend at this moment or, rather, that of all good Catholics. You do not know what is passing in the provinces, we have been obliged at Lyons to kill a Huguenot who preached revolt. While one of them remains in France, there will be no tranquillity for us. Let us exterminate them. To arms! to arms!”
Several voices repeated, “To arms!”
“Par la mordieu!” said the king, “make this fellow hold his tongue, or he will make a second St. Bartholomew!”
“Wait,” said Chicot, and with his stick he struck Gorenflot with all his force on the shoulders.
“Murder!” cried the monk.
“It is you!” cried Chicot.
“Help me, M. Chicot, help me! The enemies of the faith wish to assassinate me, but I will not die without making my voice heard. Death to the Huguenots!”
“Will you hold your tongue?” cried Chicot. But at this moment a second blow fell on the shoulders of the monk with such force that he cried out with real pain. Chicot, astonished, looked round him, but saw nothing but the stick. The blow had been given by a man who had immediately disappeared in the crowd after administering this punishment.
“Who the devil could it have been?” thought Chicot, and he began to run after the man, who was gliding away, followed by only one companion.
The Rue De La Ferronnerie.
Chicot had good legs, and he would have made the best use of them to join the man who had beaten Gorenflot if he had not imagined that there might be danger in trying to recognize a man who so evidently wished to avoid it. He thought the best way not to seem to watch them was to pass them; so he ran on, and passed them at the corner of the Rue Tirechappe, and then hid himself at the end of the Rue des Bourdonnais. The two men went on, their hats slouched over their eyes, and their cloaks drawn up over their faces, with a quick and military step, until they reached the Rue de la Ferronnerie. There they stopped and looked round them. Chicot, who was still ahead, saw in the middle of the street, before a house so old that it looked falling to pieces, a litter, attached to which were two horses. The driver had fallen asleep, while a woman, apparently unquiet, was looking anxiously through the blind. Chicot hid himself behind a large atone wall, which served as stalls for the vegetable sellers on the days when the market was held in this street, and watched. Scarcely was he hidden, when he saw the two men approach the litter, one of whom, on seeing the driver asleep, uttered an impatient exclamation, while the other pushed him to awaken him. “Oh, they are compatriots!” thought Chicot. The lady now leaned out of the window, and Chicot saw that she was young, very pale, but very beautiful. The two men approached the litter, and the taller of the two took in both of his the little white hand which was stretched out to him.
“Well, ma mie,” asked he, “how are you?”
“I have been very anxious,” replied she.
“Why the devil did you bring madame to Paris?” said the other man rudely.
“Ma foi! it is a malediction that you must always have a petticoat tacked to your doublet!”
“Ah, dear Agrippa,” replied the man who had spoken first, “it is so great a grief to part from one you love.”
“On my soul, you make me swear to hear you talk! Did you come to Paris to make love? It seems to me that Béarn is large enough for your sentimental promenades, without continuing them in this Babylon, where you have nearly got us killed twenty times today. Go home, if you wish to make love, but, here, keep to your political intrigues, my master.”
“Let him scold, ma mie, and never mind him; I think he would be ill if he did not.”
“But, at least, ventre St. Gris, as you say, get into the litter, and say your sweet things to madame; you will run less risk of being recognized there than in the open street.”
“You are right, Agrippa. Give me a place, ma mie, if you permit me to sit by your side.”
“Permit, sire; I desire it ardently,” replied the lady.
“Sire!” murmured Chicot, who, carried away by an impulse, tried to raise his head, and knocked it against the stone wall. Meanwhile the happy lover profited by the permission given, and seated himself in the litter.
“Oh! how happy I am,” he cried, without attending in the least to the impatience of his friend —“ventre St. Gris, this is a good day. Here are my good Parisians, who execrate me with all their souls, and would kill me if they could, working to smooth my way to the throne, and I have in my arms the woman I love. Where are we, D’Aubigné? when I am king, I will erect here a statue to the genius of the Béarnais.”
“The Béarn ——” began Chicot, but he stopped, for he had given his head a second bump.
“We are in the Rue de la Ferronnerie, sire,” said D’Aubigné, “and it does not smell nice.”
“Get in then, Agrippa, and we will go on.”
“Ma foi, no, I will follow behind; I should annoy you, and, what is worse, you would annoy me.”
“Shut the door then, bear of Béarn, and do as you like.” Then to the coachman he said, “Lavarrenne, you know where.”
The litter went slowly away, followed by D’Aubigné.
“Let me see,” said Chicot, “must I tell Henri what I have seen? Why should I? two men and a woman, who hide themselves; it would be cowardly. I will not tell; that I know it myself is the important point, for is it not I who reign? His love was very pretty, but he loves too often, this dear Henri of Navarre. A year ago it was Madame de Sauve, and I suppose this was La Fosseuse. However, I love the Béarnais, for I believe some day he will do an ill turn to those dear Guises. Well! I have seen everyone today but the Duc d’Anjou; he alone is wanting to my list of princes. Where can my Fran?ois III. be? Ventre de biche, I must look for the worthy monarch.”
Chicot was not the only person who was seeking for the Duc d’Anjou, and unquiet at his absence. The Guises had also sought for him on all sides, but they were not more lucky than Chicot. M. d’Anjou was not the man to risk himself imprudently, and we shall see afterwards what precautions had kept him from his friends. Once Chicot thought he had found him in the Rue Bethisy; a numerous group was standing at the door of a wine-merchant; and in this group Chicot recognized M. de Monsoreau and M. de Guise, and fancied that the Duc d’Anjou could not be far off. But he was wrong. MM. de Monsoreau and Guise were occupied in exciting still more an orator in his stammering eloquence. This orator was Gorenflot, recounting his journey to Lyons, and his duel in an inn with a dreadful Huguenot. M. de Guise was listening intently, for he began to fancy it had something to do with the silence of Nicolas David. Chicot was terrified; he felt sure that in another moment Gorenflot would pronounce his name, which would throw a fatal light on the mystery. Chicot in an instant cut the bridles of some of the horses that were fastened up, and giving them each a violent blow, sent them galloping among the crowd, which opened, and began to disperse in different directions. Chicot passed quickly through the groups, and approaching Gorenflot, took Panurge by the bridle and turned him round. The Duc de Guise was already separated from them by the rush of the people, and Chicot led off Gorenflot to a kind of cul-desac by the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois.
“Ah! drunkard!” said he to him, “ah! traitor! you will then always prefer a bottle of wine to your friend.’
“Ah! M. Chicot,” stammered the monk.
“What! I feed you, wretch, I give you drink, I fill your pockets and your stomach, and you betray me.”
“Ah! M. Chicot!”
“You tell my secrets, wretch.”
“Dear friend.”
“Hold your tongue; you are but a sycophant, and deserve punishment.”
And the monk, vigorous and strong, powerful as a bull, but overcome by wine and repentance, remained without defending himself in the hands of Chicot, who shook him like a balloon full of air.
“A punishment to me, to your friend, dear M. Chicot!”
“Yes, to you,” said Chicot, striking him over the shoulders with his stick.
“Ah! if I were but fasting.”
“You would beat me, I suppose; I, your friend.”
“My friend! and you treat me thus!”
“He who loves well chastises well,” said Chicot, redoubling his proofs of friendship. “Now,” said he, “go and sleep at the Corne d’Abondance.”
“I can no longer see my way,” cried the monk, from whose eyes tears were falling.
“Ah!” said Chicot, “if you wept for the wine you have drunk! However, I will guide you.”
And taking the ass by the bridle, he led him to the hotel, where two men assisted Gorenflot to dismount, and led him up to the room which our readers already know.
“It is done,” said the host, returning.
“He is in bed?”
“Yes, and snoring.”
“Very well. But as he will awake some day or other, remember that I do not wish that he should know how he came here; indeed, it will be better that he should not know that he has been out since the famous night when he made such a noise in the convent, and that he should believe that all that has passed since is a dream.”
“Very well, M. Chicot; but what has happened to the poor monk?”
“A great misfortune. It appears that at Lyons he quarreled with an agent of M. de Mayenne’s and killed him.”
“Oh! mon Dieu!”
“So that M. de Mayenne has sworn that he will have him broken on the wheel.”
“Make yourself easy, monsieur; he shall not go out from here on any pretext.”
“Good. And now,” said Chicot, as he went away, “I must find the Duc d’Anjou.”
The Prince and the Friend.
We may remember that the Duc de Guise had invited the Duc d’Anjou to meet him in the streets of Paris that evening. However, he determined not to go out of his palace unless he was well accompanied; therefore the duke went to seek his sword, which was Bussy d’Amboise. For the duke to make up his mind to this step he must have been very much afraid; for since his deception with regard to M. de Monsoreau he had not seen Bussy, and stood in great dread of him. Bussy, like all fine natures, felt sorrow more vividly than pleasure; for it is rare that a man intrepid in danger, cold and calm in the face of fire and sword, does not give way to grief more easily than a coward. Those from whom a woman can draw tears most easily are those most to be feared by other men. Bussy had seen Diana received at court as Comtesse de Monsoreau, and as such admitted by the queen into the circle of her maids of honor; he had seen a thousand curious eyes fixed on her unrivaled beauty. During the whole evening he had fastened his ardent gaze on her, who never raised her eyes to him, and he, unjust, like every man in love, never thought how she must have been suffering from not daring to meet his sympathizing glance.
“Oh,” said he to himself, seeing that he waited uselessly for a look, “women have skill and audacity only when they want to deceive a guardian, a husband, or a mother; they are awkward and cowardly when they have simply a debt of gratitude to pay, they fear so much to seem to love — they attach so exaggerated a value to their least favor, that they do not mind breaking their lover’s heart, if such be their humor. Diana might have said to me frankly, ‘I thank you for what you have done for me, but I do not love you.’ The blow would have killed or cured me. But no; she prefers letting me love her hopelessly; but she has gained nothing by it, for I no longer love her, I despise her.”
And he went away with rage in his heart.
“I am mad,” thought he, “to torment myself about a person who disdains me. But why does she disdain me, or for whom? Not, surely, for that long, livid-looking skeleton, who, always by her side, covers her incessantly with his jealous glances. If I wished it, in a quarter of an hour I could hold him mute and cold under my knee with ten inches of steel in his heart, and if I cannot be loved, I could at least be terrible and hated. Oh, her hatred! Rather than her indifference. Yes, but to act thus would be to do what a Quelus or a Maugiron would do if they knew how to love. Better to resemble that hero of Plutarch whom I so much admired, the young Antiochus, dying of love and never avowing it, nor uttering a complaint. Am I not called the brave Bussy?”
He went home, and threw himself on a chair. How long he remained there he did not know when a man approached him.
“M. le Comte,” said he, “you are in a fever.”
“Ah, is it you, Rémy?”
“Yes, count. Go to bed,”
Bussy obeyed, and all the next day Rémy watched by him, with refreshing drinks for his body and kind words for his mind. But on the day after Bussy missed him. “Poor lad!” thought he, “he was tired and wanted air; and then doubtless Gertrude expected him; she is but a femme de chambre, but she loves, and a femme de chambre who loves is better than a queen who does not.”
The day passed, and Rémy did not return. Bussy was angry and impatient. “Oh!” cried he, “I, who still believed in gratitude and friendship, will henceforth believe in nothing.” Towards evening he heard voices in his ante-chamber, and a servant entered, saying, “It is Monseigneur the Duc d’Anjou.”
“Let him enter,” said Bussy, frowning.
The duke, on entering the room, which was without lights, said, “It is too dark here, Bussy.”
Bussy did not answer; disgust closed his mouth. “Are you really ill,” said the duke, “that you do not answer?”
“I am very ill.”
“Then that is why I have not seen you for two days?”
“Yes, monseigneur.”
The prince, piqued at these short answers, began to examine the room.
“You seem to me well lodged, Bussy,” said he.
Bussy did not reply.
“Bussy must be very ill,” said the duke to an attendant who stood by, “why was not Miron called? The king’s doctor is not too good for Bussy.” When the servant was gone, “Are you in grief, Bussy?” said the duke.
“I do not know.”
The duke approached, becoming more and more gracious as he was rebuffed. “Come, speak frankly, Bussy,” said he.
“What am I to say, monseigneur?”
“You are angry with me?”
“I! for what? besides, it is no use to be angry with princes.” The duke was silent.
“But,” said Bussy, “we are losing time in preambles; to the point, monseigneur. You have need of me, I suppose?”
“Ah, M. de Bussy!”
“Yes, doubtless; do you think I believe that you come here through friendship; you, who love no one?”
“Oh, Bussy, to say such things to me!”
“Well, be quick, monseigneur, what do you want? When one serves a prince, and he dissimulates to the extent of calling you his friend, one must pay for the dissimulation by being ready to sacrifice everything, even life, if necessary.”
The duke colored, but it was too dark to see it. “I wanted nothing of you, Bussy, and you deceive yourself in thinking my visit interested. I desire only, seeing the fine evening, and that all Paris is out to sign the League, that you should accompany me a little about the streets.”
Bussy looked at him. “Have you not Aurilly to go with you?”
“A lute-player!”
“Ah, monseigneur, you do not mention all his qualities; I believed that he fulfilled other functions for you. Besides, you have a dozen other gentlemen; I hear them in the ante-chamber.”
At this moment the door opened. “Who is there?” said the duke, haughtily. “Who enters unannounced where I am?”
“I, Rémy,” replied the young man, without any embarrassment.
“Who is Rémy?”
“The doctor, monseigneur,” said the young man.
“And my friend,” said Bussy. “You heard what monseigneur asks?” continued he, turning to Rémy.
“Yes, that you should accompany him; but ——”
“But what?” said the duke.
“But you cannot do it!”
“And why so?” cried the duke.
“Because it is too cold out of doors.”
“Too cold!” cried the duke, surprised that any one should oppose him.
“Yes, too cold. Therefore I, who answer for M. Bussy’s life to himself and to his friends, must forbid him to go out.” And he pressed Bussy’s hand in a significant manner.
“Very well,” said the duke, “if the risk be so great, he must stay.” And he turned angrily to the door; but returning to the bed, he said, “Then you have decided not to come?”
“Monseigneur, you hear that the doctor forbids me.”
“You ought to see Miron, he is a great doctor.”
“I prefer my friend.”
“Then adieu.”
“Adieu, monseigneur.”
No sooner was the duke gone than Rémy said, “Now, monsieur, get up at once, if you please.”
“What for?”
“To come out with me. This room is too warm.”
“You said just now to the duke that it was too cold outside.”
“The temperature has changed since.”
“So that ——” said Bussy, with curiosity.
“So that now I am convinced that the air will do you good.”
“I do not understand.”
“Do you understand the medicines I give you? Yet you take them. Come, get up; a walk with M. d’Anjou is dangerous, with me it is healthy. Have you lost confidence in me? If so, send me away.”
“Well, as you wish it.” Ana he rose, pale and trembling.
“An interesting paleness,” said Rémy.
“But where are we going?”
“To a place where I have analyzed the air today.”
“And this air?”
“Is sovereign for your complaint, monseigneur.”
Bussy dressed, and they went out.
Etymology of the Rue De La Jussienne.
Rémy took his patient by the arm, and led him by the Rue Coquillière down to the rampart.
“It is strange,” said Bussy, “you take me near the marsh of the Grange-Batelier, and call it healthy.”
“Oh, monsieur, a little patience; we are going to turn round the Rue Pagavin, and get into the Rue Montmartre — you will see what a fine street that is.”
“As if I do not know it.”
“Well, so much the better; I need not lose time in showing you its beauties, and I will lead you at once into a pretty little street.”
Indeed, after going a few steps down the Rue Montmartre, they turned to the right.
“This,” said Rémy, “is the Rue de la Gypecienne, or Egyptienne, which you like; often called by the people the Rue de la Gyssienne, or Jussienne.”
“Very likely; but where are we going?”
“Do you see that little church?” said Rémy. “How nicely it is situated; I dare say you never remarked it before.”
“No, I did not know it.”
“Well, now that you have seen the exterior, enter and look at the windows — they are very curious.”
There was such a pleased smile on the young man’s face, that Bussy felt sure there must have been some other reason for making him enter than to look at the windows which it was too dark to see. The chapel was lighted, however, for service, and Rémy began examining a fresco of the Virgin Mary, which was a continual source of complaint to the women who frequented the church, as they said that it attracted the attention of the young shopkeepers away from them.
“You had some other object in bringing me here than that I should admire the St. Marie, had you not?”
“Ma foi! no.”
“Then let us go.”
“Wait a moment; the service is finishing.”
“Now let us go,” said Bussy; “they are moving;” and he walked to the door.
“At least take some holy water.”
Bussy obeyed, and Rémy making a sign to a woman who stood near, she advanced, and Bussy grew suddenly pale, for he recognized Gertrude. She saluted him and passed on, but behind her came a figure which, although closely veiled, made his heart beat fast. Rémy looked at him, and Bussy knew now why he had brought him to this church. Bussy followed the lady, and Rémy followed him. Gertrude had walked on before, until she came to an alley closed by a door. She opened it, and let her mistress pass. Bussy followed, and the two others disappeared.
It was half-past seven in the evening, and near the beginning of May; the air began to have the feeling of spring, and the leaves were beginning to unfold themselves. Bussy looked round him, and found himself in a little garden fifty feet square, surrounded by high walls covered with vines and moss. The first lilacs which had begun to open in the morning sun sent out their sweet emanations, and the young man felt tempted to think that so much perfume and warmth and life came to him only from the presence of the woman he loved so tenderly.
On a little wooden bench sat Diana, twisting in her fingers a sprig of wall-flower, which she had picked, without knowing what she did. As Bussy approached her, she raised her head, and said timidly, “M. le Comte, all deception would be unworthy of us; if you found me at the church of St. Marie l’Egyptienne, it was not chance that brought you there.”
“No, madame; Rémy took me out without my knowing where I was going, and I swear to you that I was ignorant ——”
“You do not understand me, monsieur, I know well that M. Rémy brought you there, by force, perhaps.”
“No, madame, not by force; I did not know that he was going to take me to see any one.”
“That is a harsh speech,” said Diana, sadly, and with tears in her eyes. “Do you mean that had you known, you would not have come?”
“Oh, madame!”
“It would have been but just, monsieur; you did me a great service, and I have not thanked you. Pardon me, and receive all my thanks.”
“Madame ——” Bussy stopped; he felt so overcome, that he had neither words nor ideas.
“But I wished to prove to you,” continued Diana, “that I am not ungrateful, nor forgetful. It was I who begged M. Rémy to procure for me the honor of this interview; it was I who sought for it, forgive me if I have displeased you.”
“Oh, madame! you cannot think that.”
“I know,” continued Diana, who was the strongest, because she had prepared herself for this interview, “how much trouble you had in fulfilling my commission; I know all your delicacy; I know it and appreciate it, believe me. Judge, then, what I must have suffered from the idea that you would misunderstand the sentiments of my heart.”
“Madame, I have been ill for three days.”
“Oh! I know,” cried Diana, with a rising color, “and I suffered more than you, for M. Rémy, he deceived me, no doubt; for he made me believe ——”
“That your forgetfulness caused it. Oh! it is true.”
“Then I have been right to do as I have done; to see you, to thank you for your kindness, and to swear to you an eternal gratitude. Do you believe that I speak from the bottom of my heart?”
Bussy shook his head sadly, and did not reply.
“Do you doubt my words?” said Diana.
“Madame, those who feel a kindness for you, show it when they can. You knew I was at the palace the night of your presentation, you knew I was close to you, you must have felt my looks fixed on you, and you never raised your eyes to me, you never let me know by a word, a sign, or a gesture, that you were aware of my presence; but perhaps you did not recognize me, madame, you have only seen me twice.” Diana replied with so sad a glance of reproach, that Bussy was moved by it.
“Pardon, madame,” said he; “you are not an ordinary woman, and yet you act like them. This marriage ——”
“I was forced to conclude it.”
“Yes, but it was easy to break.”
“Impossible, on the contrary.”
“Did you not know that near you watched a devoted friend?”
“Even that made me fear.”
“And you did not think of what my life would be, when you belonged to another. But perhaps you kept the name of Monsoreau from choice?”
“Do you think so?” murmured Diana; “so much the better.” And her eyes filled with tears. Bussy walked up and down in great agitation.
“I am to become once more a stranger to you,” said he.
“Alas!”
“Your silence says enough.”
“I can only speak by my silence.”
“At the Louvre you would not see me, and now you will not speak to me.”
“At the Louvre I was watched by M. de Monsoreau, and he is jealous.”
“Jealous! What does he want then? mon Dieu! whose happiness can he envy, when all the world is envying his?”
“I tell you he is jealous; for the last two or three days he has seen some one wandering round our new abode.”
“Then you have quitted the Rue St. Antoine?”
“How!” cried Diana thoughtlessly, “then it was not you?”
“Madame, since your marriage was publicly announced, since that evening at the Louvre, where you did not deign to look at me, I have been in bed, devoured by fever, so you see that your husband could not be jealous of me, at least.”
“Well! M. le Comte, if it be true that you had any desire to see me, you must thank this unknown man; for knowing M. de Monsoreau as I know him, this man made me tremble for you, and I wished to see you and say to you, ‘Do not expose yourself so, M. le Comte; do not make me more unhappy than I am.’”
“Reassure yourself, madame; it was not I.”
“Now, let me finish what I have to say. In the fear of this man — whom I do not know, but whom M. de Monsoreau does perhaps — he exacts that I should leave Paris, so that,” said Diana, holding out her hand to Bussy, “you may look upon this as our last meeting, M. le Comte. To-morrow we start for Méridor.”
“You are going, madame?”
“There is no other way to reassure M. de Monsoreau; no other way for me to be at peace. Besides, I myself detest Paris, the world, the court, and the Louvre. I wish to be alone with my souvenirs of my happy past; perhaps a little of my former happiness will return to me there. My father will accompany me, and I shall find there M. and Madame de St. Luc, who expect me. Adieu, M. de Bussy.”
Bussy hid his face in his hands. “All is over for me,” he murmured.
“What do you say?” said Diana.
“I say, madame, that this man exiles you, that he takes from me the only hope left to me, that of breathing the same air as yourself, of seeing you sometimes, of touching your dress as you pass. Oh! this man is my mortal enemy, and if I perish for it, I will destroy him with my own hands.”
“Oh! M. le Comte!”
“The wretch; it is not enough for him that you are his wife: you, the most beautiful and most charming of creatures, but he is still jealous. Jealous! The devouring monster would absorb the whole world!”
“Oh! calm yourself, comte; mon Dieu; he is excusable, perhaps.”
“He is excusable! you defend him, madame?”
“Oh! if you knew!” cried Diana, covering her face with her hands.
“If I knew! Oh! madame, I know one thing; he who is your husband is wrong to think of the rest of the world.”
“But!” cried Diana, in a broken voice, “if you were wrong, M. le Comte, and if he were not.”
And the young woman, touching with her cold hand the burning ones of Bussy, rose and fled among the somber alleys of the garden, seized Gertrude’s arm and dragged her away, before Bussy, astonished and overwhelmed with delight, had time to stretch out his arms to retain her. He uttered a cry and tottered; Rémy arrived in time to catch him in his arms and make him sit down on the bench that Diana had just quitted.