XVIII. THE GHOSTS…

XVIII. THE GHOSTS

For some time each of the young men kept his secret confined to his own heart. At last their reserve burst its barriers, and the thought which had so long occupied them escaped their lips, and both cemented their friendship by this final proof, without which there is no friendship,--namely, perfect confidence.

They were both madly in love--one with a princess and the other with a queen.

For these two poor suitors there was something frightful in the almost insuperable distance separating them from the objects of their desires.

And yet hope is a sentiment so deeply rooted in man's heart that in spite of the madness of their love they hoped!

They both, as they recovered from their illness, took great pains with their personal appearance. Every man, even the most indifferent to physical appearance, has, at certain times, mute interviews with his looking-glass, signs of intelligence, after which he generally leaves his confidant, quite satisfied with the interview. Now our two young men were not persons whose mirrors were compelled to give them harsh advice. La Mole, delicate, pale, and elegant, had the beauty of distinction; Coconnas, powerful, large-framed, and fresh-colored, had the beauty of strength. He had more, for his recent illness had been of advantage to him. He had become thinner, grown paler, and the famous scar which had formerly caused him so much anxiety from its prismatic relationship to the rainbow had disappeared, giving promise, probably like the post-diluvian phenomenon, of a long series of lovely days and calm nights.

Moreover, the most delicate attentions continued to be lavished on the two wounded men, and each of them on the day when he was well enough to rise found a robe-de-chambre on the easy-chair nearest his bed; on the day when he was able to dress himself, a complete suit of clothes; moreover, in the pocket of each doublet was a well-filled purse, which they each kept, intending, of course, to return, in the proper time and place, to the unknown protector who watched over them.

This unknown protector could not be the prince in whose quarters the two young men resided, for the prince had not only never once paid them a visit, but he had not even sent to make any inquiry after them.

A vague hope whispered to each heart that this unknown protector was the woman he loved.

So the two wounded men awaited with intense impatience the moment when they could go out. La Mole, stronger and sooner cured than Coconnas, might have done so long before, but a kind of tacit convention bound him to his friend. It was agreed between them that the first time they went out they should make three calls:

The first should be upon the unknown doctor whose suave medicine had brought such a remarkable improvement in the inflammation of Coconnas's lungs.

The second to the dwelling of the defunct Maître La Hurière, where each of them had left his portmanteau and horse.

The third to the Florentine Réné, who, uniting to his title of perfumer that of magician, not only sold cosmetics and poisons, but also concocted philters and delivered oracles.

At length, after two months passed in convalescence and confinement, the long-looked-for day arrived.

We used the word "confinement;" the use of it is accurate because several times in their impatience they had tried to hasten that day; but each time a sentinel posted at the door had stopped their passage and they had learned that they could not step out unless Maître Ambroise Paré gave them their exeat.

Now, one day that clever surgeon, having come to the conclusion that the two invalids were, if not completely cured, at least on the road to complete recovery, gave them this exeat, and about two o'clock in the afternoon on a fine day in autumn, such as Paris sometimes offers to her astonished population, who have already laid up a store of resignation for the winter, the two friends, arm in arm, set foot outside the Louvre.

La Mole, finding to his great satisfaction, on an armchair, the famous cherry-colored mantle which he had folded so carefully before the duel, undertook to be Coconnas's guide, and Coconnas allowed himself to be guided without resistance or reflection. He knew that his friend was taking him to the unknown doctor's whose potion (not patented) had cured him in a single night, when all of Master Ambroise Paré's drugs were slowly killing him. He had divided the money in his purse into two parts, and intended a hundred rose-nobles for the anonymous Esculapius to whom his recovery was due. Coconnas was not afraid of death, but Coconnas was not the less satisfied to be alive and well, and so, as we see, he was intending to recompense his deliverer generously.

La Mole proceeded along the Rue de l'Astruce, the wide Rue Saint Honoré, the Rue des Prouvelles, and soon found himself on the Place des Halles. Near the ancient fountain, at the place which is at the present time called the Carreau des Halles, was an octagon stone building, surmounted by a vast wooden lantern, which was again surmounted by a pointed roof, on the top of which was a weathercock. This wooden lantern had eight openings, traversed, as that heraldic piece which they call the fascis traverses the field of blazonry, by a kind of wooden wheel, which was divided in the middle, in order to admit in the holes cut in it for that purpose the head and hands of such sentenced person or persons as were exposed at one or more of these eight openings.

This singular arrangement, which had nothing like it in the surrounding buildings, was called the pillory.

An ill-constructed, irregular, crooked, one-eyed, limping house, the roof spotted with moss like a leper's skin, had, like a toadstool, sprung up at the foot of this species of tower.

This house was the executioner's.

A man was exposed, and was thrusting out his tongue at the passers-by; he was one of the robbers who had been following his profession near the gibbet of Montfaucon, and had by ill luck been arrested in the exercise of his functions.

Coconnas believed that his friend had brought him to see this singular spectacle, and he joined the crowd of sightseers who were replying to the patient's grimaces by vociferations and gibes.

Coconnas was naturally cruel, and the sight very much amused him, only he would have preferred that instead of gibes and vociferations they had thrown stones at a convict so insolent as to thrust out his tongue at the noble lords that condescended to visit him.

So when the moving lantern was turned on its base, in order to show the culprit to another portion of the square, and the crowd followed, Coconnas would have accompanied them, had not La Mole checked him, saying, in a low tone:

"We did not come here for this."

"Well, what did we come for, then?" asked Coconnas.

"You will see," replied La Mole.

The two friends had got into the habit of addressing each other with the familiar "thee" and "thou" ever since the morning of that famous night when Coconnas had tried to thrust his poniard into La Mole's vitals. And he led Coconnas directly to a small window in the house which abutted on the tower; a man was leaning on the window-sill.

"Aha! here you are, gentlemen," said the man, raising his blood-red cap, and showing his thick black hair, which came down to his eyebrows. "You are welcome."

"Who is this man?" inquired Coconnas, endeavoring to recollect, for it seemed to him he had seen that face during one of the crises of his fever.

"Your preserver, my dear friend," replied La Mole; "he who brought to you at the Louvre that refreshing drink which did you so much good."

"Oho!" said Coconnas; "in that case, my friend"--

And he held out his hand to him.

But the man, instead of returning the gesture, drew himself up and withdrew from the two friends just the distance occupied by the curve of his body.

"Sir!" he said to Coconnas, "thanks for the honor you wish to confer on me, but it is probable that if you knew me you would not do so."

"Faith!" said Coconnas, "I declare that, even if you were the devil himself, I am very greatly obliged to you, for if it had not been for you I should be dead at this time."

"I am not exactly the devil," replied the man in the red cap; "but yet persons are frequently found who would rather see the devil than me."

"Who are you, pray?" asked Coconnas.

"Sir," replied the man, "I am Maître Caboche, the executioner of the provostry of Paris"--

"Ah"--said Coconnas, withdrawing his hand.

"You see!" said Maître Caboche.

"No, no; I will touch your hand, or may the devil fetch me! Hold it out"--

"Really?"

"Wide as you can."

"Here it is."

"Open it--wider--wider!"

And Coconnas took from his pocket the handful of gold he had prepared for his anonymous physician and placed it in the executioner's hand.

"I would rather have had your hand entirely and solely," said Maître Caboche, shaking his head, "for I do not lack money, but I am in need of hands to touch mine. Never mind. God bless you, my dear gentleman."

"So then, my friend," said Coconnas, looking at the executioner with curiosity, "it is you who put men to the rack, who break them on the wheel, quarter them, cut off heads, and break bones. Aha! I am very glad to have made your acquaintance."

"Sir," said Maître Caboche, "I do not do all myself; just as you noble gentlemen have your lackeys to do what you do not choose to do yourself, so have I my assistants, who do the coarser work and despatch clownish fellows. Only when, by chance, I have to do with folks of quality, like you and your companion, for instance, ah! then it is another thing, and I take a pride in doing everything myself, from first to last,--that is to say, from the first putting of the question, to the decapitation."

In spite of himself, Coconnas felt a shudder pervade his veins, as if the brutal wedge was pressing his leg--as if the edge of the axe was against his neck.

La Mole, without being able to account for it, felt the same sensation.

But Coconnas overcame the emotion, of which he was ashamed, and desirous of taking leave of Maître Caboche with a jest on his lips, said to him:

"Well, master, I hold you to your word, and when it is my turn to mount Enguerrand de Marigny's gallows or Monsieur de Nemours's scaffold you alone shall lay hands on me."

"I promise you."

"Then, this time here is my hand, as a pledge that I accept your promise," said Coconnas.

And he offered the executioner his hand, which the latter touched timidly with his own, although it was evident that he had a great desire to grasp it warmly.

At this light touch Coconnas turned rather pale; but the same smile lingered on his lips, while La Mole, ill at ease, and seeing the crowd turn as the lantern did and come toward them, touched his cloak.

Coconnas, who in reality had as great a desire as La Mole to put an end to this scene, which by the natural bent of his character he had delayed longer than he would have wished, nodded to the executioner and went his way.

"Faith!" said La Mole, when he and his companion had reached the Croix du Trahoir, "I must confess we breathe more freely here than in the Place des Halles."

"Decidedly," replied Coconnas; "but I am none the less glad at having made Maître Caboche's acquaintance. It is well to have friends everywhere."

"Even at the sign of the Belle Étoile," said La Mole, laughing.

"Oh! as for poor Maître La Hurière," said Coconnas, "he is dead and dead again. I saw the arquebuse spitting flame, I heard the thump of the bullet, which sounded as if it had struck against the great bell of Notre-Dame, and I left him stretched out in the gutter with streams of blood flowing from his nose and mouth. Taking it for granted that he is a friend, he is a friend we shall have in the next world."

Thus chatting, the two young men entered the Rue de l'Arbre Sec and proceeded toward the sign of the Belle Étoile, which was still creaking in the same place, still presenting to the traveller its astronomic hearth and its appetizing inscription. Coconnas and La Mole expected to find the house in a desperate state, the widow in mourning, and the little ones wearing crêpe on their arms; but to their great astonishment they found the house in full swing of activity, Madame La Hurière mightily resplendent, and the children gayer than ever.

"Oh, the faithless creature!" cried La Mole; "she must have married again."

Then addressing the new Artémise:

"Madame," said he, "we are two gentlemen, acquaintances of poor Monsieur La Hurière. We left here two horses and two portmanteaus which we have come to claim."

"Gentlemen," replied the mistress of the house, after she had tried to bring them to her recollection, "as I have not the honor of knowing you, with your permission I will go and call my husband. Grégoire, ask your master to come."

Grégoire stepped from the first kitchen, which was the general pandemonium, into the second, which was the laboratory where Maître La Hurière in his life-time had been in the habit of concocting the dishes which he felt deserved to be prepared by his clever hands.

"The devil take me," muttered Coconnas, "if it does not make me feel badly to see this house so gay when it ought to be so melancholy. Poor La Hurière!"

"He tried to kill me," said La Mole, "but I pardon him with all my heart."

La Mole had hardly uttered these words when a man appeared holding in his hand a stew-pan, in the bottom of which he was browning some onions, stirring them with a wooden spoon.

La Mole and Coconnas gave vent to a cry of amazement.

As they did so the man lifted his head and, replying by a similar cry, dropped his stew-pan, retaining in his hand only his wooden spoon.

In nomine Patris," said the man, waving his spoon as he would have done with a holy-water sprinkler, "et Filii, et Spiritus sancti"--

"Maître La Hurière!" exclaimed the two young men.

"Messieurs de Coconnas and de la Mole!" cried La Hurière.

"So you are not dead?" asked Coconnas.

"Why! can it be that you are alive?" asked the landlord.

"Nevertheless, I saw you fall," said Coconnas, "I heard the crash of the bullet, which broke something in you, I don't know what. I left you lying in the gutter, with blood streaming out of your nose, out of your mouth, and even out of your eyes."

"All that is as true as the gospel, Monsieur de Coconnas. But the noise you heard was the bullet striking against my sallat, on which fortunately it flattened itself; but the blow was none the less severe, and the proof of it," added La Hurière, lifting his cap and displaying a pate as bald as a man's knee, "is that as you see I have not a spear of hair left."

The two young men burst out laughing when they saw his grotesque appearance.

"Aha! you laugh, do you?" said La Hurière, somewhat reassured, "you do not come, then, with any evil intentions."

"Now tell us, Maître La Hurière, are you entirely cured of your bellicose inclinations?"

"Faith, that I am, gentlemen; and now"--

"Well, and now"--

"Now I have vowed not to meddle with any other fire than that in my kitchen."

"Bravo!" cried Coconnas, "see how prudent he is! Now," added the Piedmontese, "we left in your stables two horses, and in your rooms two portmanteaus."

"Oh, the devil!" replied the landlord, scratching his ear.

"Well?"

"Two horses, you say?"

"Yes, in your stable."

"And two portmanteaus?"

"Yes, in the rooms we had."

"The truth is, don't you see--you thought I was dead, didn't you?"

"Certainly we did."

"You will agree that as you were mistaken, I also might be."

"What? In believing that we also were dead? You were perfectly free."

"Now that's it. You see, as you died intestate," continued Maître La Hurière.

"Go on"--

"I believed something, I was mistaken, I see it now"--

"Tell us, what was it you believed?"

"I believed that I might consider myself your heir."

"Oho!" exclaimed the two young men.

"Nevertheless, I could not be more grateful to find that you are alive, gentlemen."

"So you sold our horses, did you?" asked Coconnas.

"Alas!" cried La Hurière.

"And our portmanteaus?" insisted La Mole.

"Oh! your portmanteaus? Oh, no," cried La Hurière, "only what was in them."

"Now look here, La Mole," persisted Coconnas, "it seems to me that this is a bold rascal; suppose we disembowel him!"

This threat seemed to have great effect on Maître La Hurière, who stammered out these words:

"Well, gentlemen, I rather think the affair can be arranged."

"Listen!" said La Mole, "I am the one who has the greatest cause of complaint against you."

"Certainly, Monsieur le Comte, for I recollect that in a moment of madness I had the audacity to threaten you."

"Yes, with a bullet which flew only a couple of inches above my head."

"Do you think so?"

"I am certain of it."

"If you are certain of it, Monsieur de la Mole," said La Hurière, picking up his stew-pan with an innocent air, "I am too thoroughly at your service to give you the lie."

"Well," said La Mole, "as far as I am concerned I make no demand upon you."

"What, my dear gentleman"--

"Except"--

"Aïe! aïe!" groaned La Hurière.

"Except a dinner for myself and my friends every time I find myself in your neighborhood."

"How is this?" exclaimed La Hurière in an ecstasy. "I am at your service, my dear gentleman; I am at your service."

"So it is a bargain, is it?"

"With all my heart--and you, Monsieur de Coconnas," continued the landlord, "do you agree to the bargain?"

"Yes; but, like my friend, I must add one small condition."

"What is that?"

"That you restore to Monsieur de la Mole the fifty crowns which I owe him, and which I put into your keeping."

"To me, sir? When was that?"

"A quarter of an hour before you sold my horse and my portmanteau."

La Hurière showed that he understood.

"Ah! I remember," said he; and he stepped toward a cupboard and took out from it, one after the other, fifty crowns, which he brought to La Mole.

"Very well, sir," said that gentleman; "very well. Serve me an omelet. The fifty crowns are for Grégoire."

"Oh!" cried La Hurière; "in truth, my dear gentlemen, you are genuine princes, and you may count on me for life and for death."

"If that is so," said Coconnas, "make us the omelet we want, and spare neither butter nor lard."

Then looking at the clock,

"Faith, you are right, La Mole," said he, "we still have three hours to wait, and we may as well be here as anywhere else. All the more because, if I am not mistaken, we are already half way to the Pont Saint Michel."

And the two young men went and sat down at table in the very same room and at the very same place which they had occupied during that memorable evening of the twenty-sixth of August, 1572, when Coconnas had proposed to La Mole to play each against the other the first mistress which they should have!

Let us grant for the honor of the morality of our two young men that neither of them this evening had the least idea of making such a proposition to his companion.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIX. THE ABODE OF MAÎTRE RÉNÉ, PERFUMER TO THE QUEEN MOTHER

At the period of this history there existed in Paris, for passing from one part of the city to another, but five bridges, some of stone and the others of wood, and they all led to the Cité; there were le Pont des Meuniers, le Pont au Change, le Pont Notre-Dame, le Petit Pont, and le Pont Saint Michel.

In other places when there was need of crossing the river there were ferries.

These five bridges were loaded with houses like the Pont Vecchio at Florence at the present time. Of these five bridges, each of which has its history, we shall now speak more particularly of the Pont Saint Michel.

The Pont Saint Michel had been built of stone in 1373; in spite of its apparent solidity, a freshet in the Seine undermined a part of it on the thirty-first of January, 1408; in 1416 it had been rebuilt of wood; but during the night of December 16, 1547, it was again carried away; about 1550, in other words twenty-two years anterior to the epoch which we have reached, it was again built of wood, and though it needed repairs it was regarded as solid enough.

In the midst of the houses which bordered the line of the bridge, facing the small islet on which the Templers had been burnt, and where at the present time the platform of the Pont Neuf rests, stood a wooden panelled house over which a large roof impended like the lid of an immense eye. At the only window, which opened on the first story, over the window and door of the ground floor, hermetically sealed, shone a reddish light, which attracted the attention of the passers-by to the low, wide façade, painted blue, with rich gold mouldings. A kind of frieze separating the ground floor from the first floor represented groups of devils in the most grotesque postures imaginable; and a wide scroll painted blue like the façade ran between the frieze and the window, with this inscription: "RÉNÉ, FLORENTIN, PERFUMER DE SA MAJESTÉ LA REINE MÈRE."

The door of this shop was, as we have said, well bolted; but it was defended from nocturnal attacks better than by bolts by its occupant's reputation, so redoubtable that the passengers over the bridge usually described a curve which took them to the opposite row of houses, as if they feared the very smell of the perfumes that might exhale through the walls.

More than this, the right and left hand neighbors, doubtless fearing that they might be compromised by the proximity, had, since Maître Réné's occupancy of the house, taken their departure one after the other so that the two houses next to Réné's were left empty and closed. Yet, in spite of this solitude and desertedness, belated passers-by had frequently seen, glittering through the crevices of the shutters of these empty habitations, strange rays of light, and had felt certain they heard strange noises like groans, which proved that some beings frequented these abodes, although they did not know if they belonged to this world or the other.

The result was that the tenants of the two buildings contiguous to the two empty houses from time to time queried whether it would not be wise in them to do as their neighbors had done.

It was, doubtless, owing to the privilege which the dread of him, widely circulated, had procured for him, that Maître Réné had ventured to keep up a light after the prescribed hour. No round or guard, moreover, would have dared to molest him, a man doubly dear to her majesty as her fellow-countryman and perfumer.

As we suppose that the reader, panoplied by the philosophical wisdom of this century, no longer believes in magic or magicians, we will invite him to accompany us into this dwelling which, at that epoch of superstitious faith, shed around it such a profound terror.

The shop on the ground floor is dark and deserted after eight o'clock in the evening--the hour at which it closes, not to open again until next morning; there it is that the daily sale of perfumery, unguents, and cosmetics of all kinds, such as a skilful chemist makes, takes place. Two apprentices aid him in the retail business, but do not sleep in the house; they lodge in the Rue de la Colandre.

In the evening they take their departure an instant before the shop closes; in the morning they wait at the door until it opens.

This ground-floor shop is therefore dark and deserted, as we have said.

In this shop, which is large and deep, there are two doors, each leading to a staircase. One of these staircases is in the wall itself and is lateral, and the other is exterior and visible from the quay now called the Quai des Augustins, and from the riverbank, now called the Quai des Orfévres.

Both lead to the principal room on the first floor. This room is of the same size as the ground floor, except that it is divided into two compartments by tapestry suspended in the centre and parallel to the bridge. At the end of the first compartment opens the door leading to the exterior staircase. On the side face of the second opens the door of the secret staircase. This door is invisible, being concealed by a large carved cupboard fastened to it by iron cramps, and moving with it when pushed open. Catharine alone, besides Réné, knows the secret of this door, and by it she comes and departs; and with eye or ear placed against the cupboard, in which are several small holes, she sees and hears all that occurs in the chamber.

Two other doors, visible to all eyes, present themselves at the sides of the second compartment. One opens into a small chamber lighted from the roof, and having nothing in it but a large stove, some alembecs, retorts, and crucibles: it is the alchemist's laboratory; the other opens into a cell more singular than the rest of the apartment, for it is not lighted at all--has neither carpet nor furniture, but only a kind of stone altar.

The floor slopes from the centre to the ends, and from the ends to the base of the wall is a kind of gutter ending in a funnel, through whose orifice may be seen the dark waters of the Seine. On nails driven into the walls are hung singular-shaped instruments, all keen or pointed with points as fine as a needle and edges as sharp as a razor; some shine like mirrors; others, on the contrary, are of a dull gray or murky blue.

In a corner are two black fowls struggling with each other and tied together by the claws. This is the soothsayer's sanctuary.

Let us return to the middle chamber, that with two compartments.

Here the common herd of clients are introduced; here ibises from Egypt; mummies, with gilded bands; the crocodile, yawning from the ceiling; death's-heads, with eyeless sockets and loose teeth; and old musty volumes, torn and rat-eaten, are presented to the visitor's eye in pellmell confusion. Behind the curtain are phials, singularly shaped boxes, and weird-looking vases; all this is lighted up by two small silver lamps exactly alike, perhaps stolen from some altar of Santa Maria Novella or the Church Dei Lervi of Florence; these, supplied with perfumed oil, cast their yellow flames around the sombre vault from which each hangs by three blackened chains.

Réné, alone, his arms crossed, is pacing up and down the second compartment with long strides, and shaking his head. After a lengthened and painful musing he pauses before an hour-glass:

"Ah! ah!" says he, "I forget to turn it; and perhaps the sand has all run through a long time ago."

Then, looking at the moon as it struggled through a heavy black cloud which seemed to hang over Notre-Dame, he said: "It is nine o'clock. If she comes, she will come, as usual, in an hour or an hour and a half; then there will be time for all."

At this moment a noise was heard on the bridge. Réné applied his ear to the orifice of a long tube, the other end of which reached down the street, terminating in a heraldic viper-head.

"No," he said, "it is neither she nor they; it is men's footsteps, and they stop at my door--they are coming here."

And three sharp knocks were heard at the door.

Réné hurried downstairs and put his ear against the door, without opening it.

The three sharp blows were repeated.

"Who's there?" asked Maître Réné.

"Must we mention our names?" inquired a voice.

"It is indispensable," replied Réné.

"Well, then, I am the Comte Annibal de Coconnas," said the same voice.

"And I am the Comte Lerac de la Mole," said another voice, which had not as yet been heard.

"Wait, wait, gentlemen, I am at your service."

And at the same moment Réné drew the bolts and, lifting the bars, opened the door to the two young men locking it after him. Then, conducting them by the exterior staircase, he introduced them into the second compartment.

La Mole, as he entered, made the sign of the cross under his cloak. He was pale, and his hand trembled without his being able to repress this symptom of weakness.

Coconnas looked at everything, one after the other; and seeing the door of the cell, was about to open it.

"Allow me to observe, my dear young gentleman," said Réné, in his deep voice, and placing his hand on Coconnas's, "those that do me the honor of a visit have access only to this part of the room."

"Oh, very well," replied Coconnas; "besides, I feel like sitting down." And he took a seat.

There was unbroken silence for a moment--Maître Réné was waiting for one or the other of the young men to open the conversation.

"Maître Réné," at length said Coconnas, "you are a skilful man, and I pray you tell me if I shall always remain a sufferer from my wound--that is, always experience this shortness of breath, which prevents me from riding on horseback, using my sword, and eating larded omelettes?"

Réné put his ear to Coconnas's chest and listened attentively to the play of the lungs.

"No, Monsieur le Comte," he replied, "you will get well."

"Really?"

"Yes, I assure you."

"Well, you fill me with delight."

There was silence once more.

"Is there nothing else you would desire to know, M. le Comte?"

"I wish to know," said Coconnas, "if I am really in love?"

"You are," replied Réné.

"How do you know?"

"Because you asked the question."

"By Heaven! you are right. But with whom?"

"With her who now, on every occasion, uses the oath you have just uttered."

"Ah!" said Coconnas, amazed; "Maître Réné, you are a clever man! Now, La Mole, it is your turn."

La Mole reddened, and seemed embarrassed.

"I, Monsieur Réné," he stammered, and speaking more firmly as he proceeded, "do not care to ask you if I am in love, for I know that I am, and I do not hide it from myself; but tell me, shall I be beloved in return? for, in truth, all that at first seemed propitious now turns against me."

"Perchance you have not done all you should do."

"What is there to do, sir, but to testify, by one's respect and devotion to the lady of one's thoughts, that she is really and profoundly beloved?"

"You know," replied Réné, "that these demonstrations are frequently very meaningless."

"Then must I despair?"

"By no means; we must have recourse to science. In human nature there are antipathies to be overcome--sympathies which may be forced. Iron is not the lodestone; but by rubbing it with a lodestone we make it, in its turn, attract iron."

"Yes, yes," muttered La Mole; "but I have an objection to all these sorceries."

"Ah, then, if you have any such objections, you should not come here," answered Réné.

"Come, come, this is child's play!" interposed Coconnas. "Maître Réné, can you show me the devil?"

"No, Monsieur le Comte."

"I'm sorry for that; for I had a word or two to say to him, and it might have encouraged La Mole."

"Well, then, let it be so," said La Mole, "let us go to the point at once. I have been told of figures modelled in wax to look like the beloved object. Is that one way?"

"An infallible one."

"And there is nothing in the experiment likely to affect the life or health of the person beloved?"

"Nothing."

"Let us try, then."

"Shall I make first trial?" said Coconnas.

"No," said La Mole, "since I have begun, I will go through to the end."

"Is your desire mighty, ardent, imperious to know what the obstacle is, Monsieur de la Mole?"

"Oh," exclaimed La Mole, "I am dying with anxiety."

At this moment some one rapped lightly at the street door--so lightly that no one but Maître Réné heard the noise, doubtless because he had been expecting it.

Without any hesitation he went to the speaking-tube and put his ear to the mouthpiece, at the same time asking La Mole several idle questions. Then he added, suddenly:

"Now put all your energy into your wish, and call the person whom you love."

La Mole knelt, as if about to address a divinity; and Réné, going into the other compartment, went out noiselessly by the exterior staircase, and an instant afterward light steps trod the floor of his shop.

When La Mole rose he beheld before him Maître Réné. The Florentine held in his hand a small wax figure, very indifferently modelled; it wore a crown and mantle.

"Do you desire to be always beloved by your royal mistress?" demanded the perfumer.

"Yes, even if it cost me my life--even if my soul should be the sacrifice!" replied La Mole.

"Very good," said the Florentine, taking with the ends of his fingers some drops of water from a ewer and sprinkling them over the figure, at the same time muttering certain Latin words.

La Mole shuddered, believing that some sacrilege was committed.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I am christening this figure with the name of Marguerite."

"What for?"

"To establish a sympathy."

La Mole opened his mouth to prevent his going any further, but a mocking look from Coconnas stopped him.

Réné, who had noticed the impulse, waited. "Your absolute and undivided will is necessary," he said.

"Go on," said La Mole.

Réné wrote on a small strip of red paper some cabalistic characters, put it into the eye of a steel needle, and with the needle pierced the small wax model in the heart.

Strange to say, at the orifice of the wound appeared a small drop of blood; then he set fire to the paper.

The heat of the needle melted the wax around it and dried up the spot of blood.

"Thus," said Réné, "by the power of sympathy, your love shall pierce and burn the heart of the woman whom you love."

Coconnas, true to his repute as a bold thinker, laughed in his mustache, and in a low tone jested; but La Mole, desperately in love and full of superstition, felt a cold perspiration start from the roots of his hair.

"And now," continued Réné, "press your lips to the lips of the figure, and say: 'Marguerite, I love thee! Come, Marguerite!'"

La Mole obeyed.

At this moment the door of the second chamber was heard to open, and light steps approached. Coconnas, curious and incredulous, drew his poniard, and fearing that if he raised the tapestry Réné would repeat what he said about the door, he cut a hole in the thick curtain, and applying his eye to the hole, uttered a cry of astonishment, to which two women's voices responded.

"What is it?" exclaimed La Mole, nearly dropping the waxen figure, which Réné caught from his hands.

"Why," replied Coconnas, "the Duchesse de Nevers and Madame Marguerite are there!"

"There, now, you unbelievers!" replied Réné, with an austere smile; "do you still doubt the force of sympathy?"

La Mole was petrified on seeing the queen; Coconnas was amazed at beholding Madame de Nevers. One believed that Réné's sorceries had evoked the phantom Marguerite; the other, seeing the door half open, by which the lovely phantoms had entered, gave at once a worldly and substantial explanation to the mystery.

While La Mole was crossing himself and sighing enough to split a rock, Coconnas, who had taken time to indulge in philosophical questionings and to drive away the foul fiend with the aid of that holy water sprinkler called scepticism, having observed, through the hole in the curtain, the astonishment shown by Madame de Nevers and Marguerite's somewhat caustic smile, judged the moment to be decisive, and understanding that a man may say in behalf of a friend what he cannot say for himself, instead of going to Madame de Nevers, went straight to Marguerite, and bending his knee, after the fashion of the great Artaxerxes as represented in the farces of the day, cried, in a voice to which the whistling of his wound added a peculiar accent not without some power:

"Madame, this very moment, at the demand of my friend the Comte de la Mole, Maître Réné was evoking your spirit; and to my great astonishment, your spirit is accompanied with a body most dear to me, and which I recommend to my friend. Shade of her majesty the Queen of Navarre, will you desire the body of your companion to come to the other side of the curtain?"

Marguerite began to laugh, and made a sign to Henriette, who passed to the other side of the curtain.

"La Mole, my friend," continued Coconnas, "be as eloquent as Demosthenes, as Cicero, as the Chancellor de l'Hôpital! and be assured that my life will be imperilled if you do not persuade the body of Madame de Nevers that I am her most devoted, most obedient, and most faithful servant."

"But"--stammered La Mole.

"Do as I say! And you, Maître Réné, watch that we are not interrupted."

Réné did as Coconnas asked.

"By Heaven, monsieur," said Marguerite, "you are a clever man. I am listening to you. What have you to say?"

"I have to say to you, madame, that the shadow of my friend--for he is a shadow, and he proves it by not uttering a single little word--I say, that this shadow begs me to use the faculty which material bodies possess of speaking so as to be understood, and to say to you: Lovely shadow, the gentleman thus disembodied has lost his whole body and all his breath by the cruelty of your eyes. If this were really you, I should ask Maître Réné to plunge me in some sulphurous pit rather than use such language to the daughter of King Henry II., to the sister of King Charles IX., to the wife of the King of Navarre. But shades are freed from all earthly pride and they are never angry when men love them. Therefore, pray your body, madame, to love the soul of this poor La Mole a little--a soul in trouble, if ever there was one; a soul first persecuted by friendship, which three times thrust into him several inches of cold steel; a soul burnt by the fire of your eyes--fire a thousand times more consuming than all the flames of hell. So have pity on this poor soul! Love a little what was the handsome La Mole; and if you no longer possess speech, ah! bestow a gesture, bestow a smile upon him. My friend's soul is a very intelligent soul, and will comprehend everything. Be kind to him, then; or, by Heaven! I will run my sword through Réné's body in order that, by virtue of the power which he possesses over spirits, he may force yours, which he has already so opportunely evoked, to do all a shade so amiably disposed as yours appears to be should do."

At this burst of eloquence delivered by Coconnas as he stood in front of the queen like Æneas descending into Hades, Marguerite could not refrain from a hearty burst of laughter, yet, preserving the silence which on such an occasion may be the supposed characteristic of a royal shade, she presented her hand to Coconnas. He took it daintily in his, and, calling to La Mole, said:

"Shade of my friend, come hither instantly!"

La Mole, amazed, overcome, silently obeyed.

"'T is well," said Coconnas, taking him by the back of the head; "and now bring the shadow of your handsome brown countenance into contact with the white and vaporous hand before you."

And Coconnas, suiting the action to the word, raised the delicate hand to La Mole's lips, and kept them for a moment respectfully united, without the hand seeking to withdraw itself from the gentle pressure.

Marguerite had not ceased to smile, but Madame de Nevers did not smile at all; she was still trembling at the unexpected appearance of the two gentlemen. She was conscious that her awkwardness was increased by all the fever of a growing jealousy, for it seemed to her that Coconnas ought not thus to forget her affairs for those of others.

La Mole saw her eyebrows contracted, detected the flashing threat of her eyes, and in spite of the intoxicating fever to which his delight was insensibly urging him to succumb he realized the danger which his friend was running and perceived what he should try to do to rescue him.

So rising and leaving Marguerite's hand in Coconnas's, he grasped the Duchesse de Nevers's, and bending his knee he said:

"O loveliest--O most adorable of women--I speak of living women, and not of shades!" and he turned a look and a smile to Marguerite; "allow a soul released from its mortal envelope to repair the absence of a body fully absorbed by material friendship. Monsieur de Coconnas, whom you see, is only a man--a man of bold and hardy frame, of flesh handsome to gaze upon perchance, but perishable, like all flesh. Omnis caro fenum. Although this gentleman keeps on from morning to night pouring into my ears the most touching litanies about you, though you have seen him distribute as heavy blows as were ever seen in wide France--this champion, so full of eloquence in presence of a spirit, dares not address a woman. That is why he has addressed the shade of the queen, charging me to speak to your lovely body, and to tell you that he lays at your feet his soul and heart; that he entreats from your divine eyes a look in pity, from your rosy fingers a beckoning sign, and from your musical and heavenly voice those words which men can never forget; if not, he has supplicated another thing, and that is, in case he should not soften you, you will run my sword--which is a real blade, for swords have no shadows except in the sunshine--run my sword right through his body for the second time, for he can live no longer if you do not authorize him to live exclusively for you." All the verve and comical exaggeration which Coconnas had put into his speech found their counterpart in the tenderness, the intoxicating vigor, and the mock humility which La Mole introduced into his supplication.

Henriette's eyes turned from La Mole, to whom she had listened till he ended, and rested on Coconnas, to see if the expression of that gentleman's countenance harmonized with his friend's ardent address. It seemed that she was satisfied, for blushing, breathless, conquered, she said to Coconnas, with a smile which disclosed a double row of pearls enclosed in coral:

"Is this true?"

"By Heaven!" exclaimed Coconnas, fascinated by her look, "it is true, indeed. Oh, yes, madame, it is true--true on your life--true on my death!"

"Come with me, then," said Henriette, extending to him her hand, while her eyes proclaimed the feelings of her heart.

Coconnas flung his velvet cap into the air and with one stride was at the young woman's side, while La Mole, recalled to Marguerite by a gesture, executed at the same time an amorous chassez with his friend.

Réné appeared at the door in the background.

"Silence!" he exclaimed, in a voice which at once damped all the ardor of the lovers; "silence!"

And they heard in the solid wall the sound of a key in a lock, and of a door grating on its hinges.

"But," said Marguerite, haughtily, "I should think that no one has the right to enter whilst we are here!"

"Not even the queen mother?" whispered Réné in her ear.

Marguerite instantly rushed out by the exterior staircase, leading La Mole after her; Henriette and Coconnas almost arm-in-arm followed them, all four taking flight, as fly at the first noise the birds seen engaged in loving parley on the boughs of a flowering shrub.

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XX. THE BLACK HENS

It was time the two couples disappeared! Catharine was putting the key in the lock of the second door just as Coconnas and Madame de Nevers stepped out of the house by the lower entrance, and Catharine as she entered could hear the steps of the fugitives on the stairs.

She cast a searching glance around, and then fixing her suspicious eyes on Réné, who stood motionless, bowing before her, said:

"Who was that?"

"Some lovers, who are satisfied with the assurance I gave them that they are really in love."

"Never mind them," said Catharine, shrugging her shoulders; "is there no one else here?"

"No one but your majesty and myself."

"Have you done what I ordered you?"

"About the two black hens?"

"Yes!"

"They are ready, madame."

"Ah," muttered Catharine, "if you were a Jew!"

"Why a Jew, madame?"

"Because you could then read the precious treatises which the Hebrews have written about sacrifices. I have had one of them translated, and I found that the Hebrews did not look for omens in the heart or liver as the Romans did, but in the configuration of the brain, and in the shape of the letters traced there by the all-powerful hand of destiny."

"Yes, madame; so I have heard from an old rabbi."

"There are," said Catharine, "characters thus marked that reveal all the future. Only the Chaldean seers recommend"--

"Recommend--what?" asked Réné, seeing the queen hesitate.

"That the experiment shall be tried on the human brain, as more developed and more nearly sympathizing with the wishes of the consulter."

"Alas!" said Réné, "your majesty knows it is impossible."

"Difficult, at least," said Catharine; "if we had known this at Saint Bartholomew's, what a rich harvest we might have had--The first convict--but I will think of it. Meantime, let us do what we can. Is the chamber of sacrifice prepared?"

"Yes, madame."

"Let us go there."

Réné lighted a taper made of strange substances, the odor of which, both insidious and penetrating as well as nauseating and stupefying, betokened the introduction of many elements; holding this taper up, he preceded Catharine into the cell.

Catharine selected from amongst the sacrificial instruments a knife of blue steel, while Réné took up one of the two fowls that were huddling in one corner, with anxious, golden eyes.

"How shall we proceed?"

"We will examine the liver of the one and the brain of the other. If these two experiments lead to the same result we must be convinced, especially if these results coincide with those we got before."

"Which shall we begin with?"

"With the liver."

"Very well," said Réné, and he fastened the bird down to two rings attached to the little altar, so that the creature, turned on its back, could only struggle, without stirring from the spot.

Catharine opened its breast with a single stroke of her knife; the fowl uttered three cries, and, after some convulsions, expired.

"Always three cries!" said Catharine; "three signs of death."

She then opened the body.

"And the liver inclining to the left, always to the left,--a triple death, followed by a downfall. 'T is terrible, Réné."

"We must see, madame, whether the presages from the second will correspond with those of the first."

Réné unfastened the body of the fowl from the altar and tossed it into a corner; then he went to the other, which, foreseeing what its fate would be by its companion's, tried to escape by running round the cell, and finding itself pent up in a corner flew over Réné's head, and in its flight extinguished the magic taper Catharine held.

"You see, Réné, thus shall our race be extinguished," said the queen; "death shall breathe upon it, and destroy it from the face of the earth! Yet three sons! three sons!" she murmured, sorrowfully.

Réné took from her the extinguished taper, and went into the adjoining room to relight it.

On his return he saw the hen hiding its head in the tunnel.

"This time," said Catharine, "I will prevent the cries, for I will cut off the head at once."

And accordingly, as soon as the hen was bound, Catharine, as she had said, severed the head at a single blow; but in the last agony the beak opened three times, and then closed forever.

"Do you see," said Catharine, terrified, "instead of three cries, three sighs? Always three!--they will all three die. All these spirits before they depart count and call three. Let us now see the prognostications in the head."

She severed the bloodless comb from the head, carefully opened the skull, and laying bare the lobes of the brain endeavored to trace a letter formed in the bloody sinuosities made by the division of the central pulp.

"Always so!" cried she, clasping her hands; "and this time clearer than ever; see here!"

Réné approached.

"What is the letter?" asked Catharine.

"An H," replied Réné.

"How many times repeated?"

Réné counted.

"Four," said he.

"Ay, ay! I see it! that is to say, HENRY IV. Oh," she cried, flinging the knife from her, "I am accursed in my posterity!"

She was terrible, that woman, pale as a corpse, lighted by the dismal taper, and clasping her bloody hands.

"He will reign!" she exclaimed with a sigh of despair; "he will reign!"

"He will reign!" repeated Réné, plunged in meditation.

Nevertheless, the gloomy expression of Catharine's face soon disappeared under the light of a thought which unfolded in the depths of her mind.

"Réné," said she, stretching out her hand toward the perfumer without lifting her head from her breast, "Réné, is there not a terrible history of a doctor at Perugia, who killed at once, by the aid of a pomade,[7] his daughter and his daughter's lover?"

"Yes, madame."

"And this lover was"--

"Was King Ladislas, madame."

"Ah, yes!" murmured she; "have you any of the details of this story?"

"I have an old book which mentions it," replied Réné.

"Well, let us go into the other room, and you can show it me."

They left the cell, the door of which Réné closed after him.

"Has your majesty any other orders to give me concerning the sacrifices?"

"No, Réné, I am for the present sufficiently convinced. We will wait till we can secure the head of some criminal, and on the day of the execution you must arrange with the hangman."

Réné bowed in token of obedience, then holding his candle up he let the light fall on the shelves where his books stood, climbed on a chair, took one down, and handed it to the queen.

Catharine opened it.

"What is this?" she asked; "'On the Method of Raising and Training Tercels, Falcons, and Gerfalcons to be Courageous, Valiant, and always ready for Flight.'"

"Ah! pardon me, madame, I made a mistake. That is a treatise on venery written by a scientific man of Lucca for the famous Castruccio Castracani. It stood next the other and was bound exactly like it. I took down the wrong one. However, it is a very precious volume; there are only three copies extant--one belongs to the library at Venice, the other was bought by your grandfather Lorenzo and was offered by Pietro de Médicis to King Charles VIII., when he visited Florence, and the third you have in your hands."

"I venerate it," said Catharine, "because of its rarity, but as I do not need it, I return it to you."

And she held out her right hand to Réné to receive the book which she wished, while with her left hand she returned to him the one which she had first taken.

This time Réné was not mistaken; it was the volume she wished. He stepped down, turned the leaves for a moment, and gave it to her open.

Catharine went and sat down at a table. Réné placed the magic taper near her and by the light of its bluish flame she read a few lines in an undertone:

"Good!" said she, shutting the book; "that is all I wanted to know."

She rose from her seat, leaving the book on the table, but bearing away the idea which had germinated in her mind and would ripen there.

Réné waited respectfully, taper in hand, until the queen, who seemed about to retire, should give him fresh orders or ask fresh questions.

Catharine, with her head bent and her finger on her mouth, walked up and down several times without speaking.

Then suddenly stopping before Réné, and fixing on him her eyes, round and piercing like a hawk's:

"Confess you have made for her some love-philter," said she.

"For whom?" asked Réné, starting.

"La Sauve."

"I, madame?" said Réné; "never!"

"Never?"

"I swear it on my soul."

"There must be some magic in it, however, for he is desperately in love with her, though he is not famous for his constancy."

"Who, madame?"

"He, Henry, the accursed,--he who is to succeed my three sons,--he who shall one day be called Henry IV., and is yet the son of Jeanne d'Albret."

And Catharine accompanied these words with a sigh which made Réné shudder, for he thought of the famous gloves he had prepared by Catharine's order for the Queen of Navarre.

"So he still runs after her, does he?" said Réné.

"He does," replied the queen.

"I thought that the King of Navarre was quite in love with his wife now."

"A farce, Réné, a farce! I know not why, but every one is seeking to deceive me. My daughter Marguerite is leagued against me; perhaps she, too, is looking forward to the death of her brothers; perhaps she, too, hopes to be Queen of France."

"Perhaps so," re-echoed Réné, falling back into his own reverie and echoing Catharine's terrible suspicion.

"Ha! we shall see," said Catharine, going to the main door, for she doubtless judged it useless to descend the secret stair, now that she was sure that they were alone.

Réné preceded her, and in a few minutes they stood in the perfumer's shop.

"You promised me some new kind of cosmetic for my hands and lips, Réné; the winter is at hand and you know how sensitive my skin is to the cold."

"I have already provided for this, madame; and I shall bring you some to-morrow."

"You would not find me in before nine o'clock to-morrow evening; I shall be occupied with my devotions during the day."

"I will be at the Louvre at nine o'clock, then, madame."

"Madame de Sauve has beautiful hands and beautiful lips," said Catharine in a careless tone. "What pomade does she use?"

"For her hands?"

"Yes, for her hands first."

"Heliotrope."

"What for her lips?"

"She is going to try a new opiate of my invention. I was going to bring your majesty a box of it at the same time."

Catharine mused an instant.

"She is certainly a very beautiful creature," said she, pursuing her secret thoughts; "and the passion of the Béarnais for her is not strange at all."

"And she is so devoted to your majesty," said Réné. "At least I should think so."

Catharine smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

"When a woman loves, is she faithful to any one but her lover? You must have given her some philter, Réné."

"I swear I have not, madame."

"Well, well; we'll say no more about it. Show me this new opiate you spoke of, that is to make her lips fresher and rosier than ever."

Réné approached a shelf and showed Catharine six small boxes of the same shape, i.e., round silver boxes ranged side by side.

"This is the only philter she ever asked me for," observed Réné; "it is true, as your majesty says, I composed it expressly for her, for her lips are so tender that the sun and wind affect them equally."

Catharine opened one of the boxes; it contained a most fascinating carmine paste.

"Give me some paste for my hands, Réné," said she; "I will take it away with me."

Réné took the taper, and went to seek, in a private compartment, what the queen asked for. As he turned, he fancied that he saw the queen quickly conceal a box under her mantle; he was, however, too familiar with these little thefts of the queen mother to have the rudeness to seem to perceive the movement; so wrapping the cosmetic she demanded in a paper bag, ornamented with fleurs-de-lis:

"Here it is, madame," he said.

"Thanks, Réné," returned the queen; then, after a moment's silence: "Do not give Madame de Sauve that paste for a week or ten days; I wish to make the first trial of it myself."

And she prepared to go.

"Your majesty, do you desire me to accompany you?" asked Réné.

"Only to the end of the bridge," replied Catharine; "my gentlemen and my litter wait for me there."

They left the house, and at the end of the Rue de la Barillerie four gentlemen on horseback and a plain litter were waiting.

On his return Réné's first care was to count his boxes of opiates. One was wanting.

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XXI. MADAME DE SAUVE'S APARTMENT

Catharine was not deceived in her suspicions. Henry had resumed his former habits and went every evening to Madame de Sauve's. At first he accomplished this with the greatest secrecy; but gradually he grew negligent and ceased to take any precautions, so that Catharine had no trouble in finding out that while Marguerite was still nominally Queen of Navarre, Madame de Sauve was the real queen.

At the beginning of this story we said a word or two about Madame de Sauve's apartment; but the door opened by Dariole to the King of Navarre closed hermetically behind him, so that these rooms, the scene of the Béarnais's mysterious amours, are totally unknown to us. The quarters, like those furnished by princes for their dependents in the palaces occupied by them in order to have them within reach, were smaller and less convenient than what she could have found in the city itself. As the reader already knows, they were situated on the second floor of the palace, almost immediately above those occupied by Henry himself. The door opened into a corridor, the end of which was lighted by an arched window with small leaded panes, so that even in the loveliest days of the year only a dubious light filtered through. During the winter, after three o'clock in the afternoon, it was necessary to light a lamp, but as this contained no more oil than in summer, it went out by ten o'clock, and thus, as soon as the winter days arrived, gave the two lovers the greatest security.

A small antechamber, carpeted with yellow flowered damask; a reception-room with hangings of blue velvet; a sleeping-room, the bed adorned with twisted columns and rose-satin curtains, enshrining a ruelle ornamented with a looking-glass set in silver, and two paintings representing the loves of Venus and Adonis,--such was the residence, or as one would say nowadays the nest, of the lovely lady-in-waiting to Queen Catharine de Médicis.

If one had looked sharply one would have found, opposite a toilet-table provided with every accessory, a small door in a dark corner of this room opening into a sort of oratory where, raised on two steps, stood a priedieu. In this little chapel on the wall hung three or four paintings, to the highest degree spiritual, as if to serve as a corrective to the two mythological pictures which we mentioned. Among these paintings were hung on gilded nails weapons such as women carried.

That evening, which was the one following the scenes which we have described as taking place at Maître Réné's, Madame de Sauve, seated in her bedroom on a couch, was telling Henry about her fears and her love, and was giving him as a proof of her love the devotion which she had shown on the famous night following Saint Bartholomew's, the night which, it will be remembered, Henry spent in his wife's quarters.

Henry on his side was expressing his gratitude to her. Madame de Sauve was charming that evening in her simple batiste wrapper; and Henry was very grateful.

At the same time, as Henry was really in love, he was dreamy. Madame de Sauve, who had come actually to love instead of pretending to love as Catharine had commanded, kept gazing at Henry to see if his eyes were in accord with his words.

"Come, now, Henry," she was saying, "be honest; that night which you spent in the boudoir of her majesty the Queen of Navarre, with Monsieur de la Mole at your feet, didn't you feel sorry that that worthy gentleman was between you and the queen's bedroom?"

"Certainly I did, sweetheart," said Henry, "for the only way that I could reach this room where I am so comfortable, where at this instant I am so happy, was for me to pass through the queen's room."

Madame de Sauve smiled.

"And you have not been there since?"

"Only as I have told you."

"You will never go to her without informing me?"

"Never."

"Would you swear to it?"

"Certainly I would, if I were still a Huguenot, but"--

"But what?"

"But the Catholic religion, the dogmas of which I am now learning, teach me that one must never take an oath."

"Gascon!" exclaimed Madame de Sauve, shaking her head.

"But now it is my turn, Charlotte," said Henry. "If I ask you some questions, will you answer?"

"Certainly I will," replied the young woman, "I have nothing to hide from you."

"Now look here, Charlotte," said the king, "explain to me just for once how it came about that after the desperate resistance which you made to me before my marriage, you became less cruel to me who am an awkward Béarnais, an absurd provincial, a prince too poverty-stricken, indeed, to keep the jewels of his crown polished."

"Henry," said Charlotte, "you are asking the explanation of the enigma which the philosophers of all countries have been trying to determine for the past three thousand years! Henry, never ask a woman why she loves you; be satisfied with asking, 'Do you love me?'"

"Do you love me, Charlotte?" asked Henry.

"I love you," replied Madame de Sauve, with a fascinating smile, dropping her pretty hand into her lover's.

Henry retained the hand.

"But," he went on to say, following out his thought, "supposing I have guessed the word which the philosophers have been vainly trying to find for three thousand years--at least as far as you are concerned, Charlotte?"

Madame de Sauve blushed.

"You love me," pursued Henry, "consequently I have nothing else to ask you and I consider myself the happiest man in the world. But you know happiness is always accompanied by some lack. Adam, in the midst of Eden, was not perfectly happy, and he bit into that miserable apple which imposed upon us all that love for novelty that makes every one spend his life in the search for something unknown. Tell me, my darling, in order to help me to find mine, didn't Queen Catharine at first bid you love me?"

"Henry," exclaimed Madame de Sauve, "speak lower when you speak of the queen mother!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Henry, with a spontaneity and boldness which deceived Madame de Sauve herself, "it was a good thing formerly to distrust her, kind mother that she is, but then we were not on good terms; but now that I am her daughter's husband"--

"Madame Marguerite's husband!" exclaimed Charlotte, flushing with jealousy.

"Speak low in your turn," said Henry; "now that I am her daughter's husband we are the best friends in the world. What was it they wanted? For me to become a Catholic, so it seems. Well, grace has touched me, and by the intercession of Saint Bartholomew I have become one. We live together like brethren in a happy family--like good Christians."

"And Queen Marguerite?"

"Queen Marguerite?" repeated Henry; "oh, well, she is the link uniting us."

"But, Henry, you said that the Queen of Navarre, as a reward for the devotion I showed her, had been generous to me. If what you say is true, if this generosity, for which I have cherished deep gratitude toward her, is genuine, she is a connecting link easy to break. So you cannot trust to this support, for you have not made your pretended intimacy impose on any one."

"Still I do rest on it, and for three months it has been the bolster on which I have slept."

"Then, Henry!" cried Madame de Sauve, "you have deceived me, and Madame Marguerite is really your wife."

Henry smiled.

"There, Henry," said Madame de Sauve, "you have given me one of those exasperating smiles which make me feel the cruel desire to scratch your eyes out, king though you are."

"Then," said Henry, "I seem to be imposing now by means of this pretended friendship, since there are moments when, king though I am, you desire to scratch out my eyes, because you believe that it exists!"

"Henry! Henry!" said Madame de Sauve, "I believe that God himself does not know what your thoughts are."

"My sweetheart," said Henry, "I think that Catharine first told you to love me, next, that your heart told you the same thing, and that when those two voices are speaking to you, you hear only your heart's. Now here I am. I love you and love you with my whole heart, and that is the very reason why if ever I should have secrets I should not confide them to you,--for fear of compromising you, of course,--for the queen's friendship is changeable, it is a mother-in-law's."

This was not what Charlotte expected; it seemed to her that the thickening veil between her and her lover every time she tried to sound the depths of his bottomless heart was assuming the consistency of a wall, and was separating them from each other. So she felt the tears springing to her eyes as he made this answer, and as it struck ten o'clock just at that moment:

"Sire," said Charlotte, "it is my bed-time; my duties call me very early to-morrow morning to the queen mother."

"So you drive me away to-night, do you, sweetheart?"

"Henry, I am sad. As I am sad, you would find me tedious and you would not like me any more. You see that it is better for you to withdraw."

"Very good," said Henry, "I will withdraw if you insist upon it, only, ventre saint gris! you must at least grant me the favor of staying for your toilet."

"But Queen Marguerite, sire! won't you keep her waiting if you remain?"

"Charlotte," replied Henry, gravely, "it was agreed between us that we should never mention the Queen of Navarre, but it seems to me that this evening we have talked about nothing but her."

Madame de Sauve sighed; then she went and sat down before her toilet-table. Henry took a chair, pulled it along toward the one that served as his mistress's seat, and setting one knee on it while he leaned on the back of the other, he said:

"Come, my good little Charlotte, let me see you make yourself beautiful, and beautiful for me whatever you said. Heavens! What things! What scent-bottles, what powders, what phials, what perfumery boxes!"

"It seems a good deal," said Charlotte, with a sigh, "and yet it is too little, since with it all I have not as yet found the means of reigning exclusively over your majesty's heart."

"There!" exclaimed Henry; "let us not fall back on politics! What is that little fine delicate brush? Should it not be for painting the eyebrows of my Olympian Jupiter?"

"Yes, sire," replied Madame de Sauve, "and you have guessed at the first shot!"

"And that pretty little ivory rake?"

"'Tis for parting the hair!"

"And that charming little silver box with a chased cover?"

"Oh, that is something Réné sent, sire; 'tis the famous opiate which he has been promising me so long--to make still sweeter the lips which your majesty has been good enough sometimes to find rather sweet."

And Henry, as if to test what the charming woman said, touched his lips to the ones which she was looking at so attentively in the mirror. Now that they were returning to the field of coquetry, the cloud began to lift from the baroness's brow. She took up the box which had thus been explained, and was just going to show Henry how the vermilion salve was used, when a sharp rap at the antechamber door startled the two lovers.

"Some one is knocking, madame," said Dariole, thrusting her head through the opening of the portière.

"Go and find out who it is, and come back," said Madame de Sauve. Henry and Charlotte looked at each other anxiously, and Henry was beginning to think of retiring to the oratory, in which he had already more than once taken refuge, when Dariole reappeared.

"Madame," said she, "it is Maître Réné, the perfumer."

At this name Henry frowned, and involuntarily bit his lips.

"Do you want me to refuse him admission?" asked Charlotte.

"No!" said Henry; "Maître Réné never does anything without having previously thought about it. If he comes to you, it is because he has a reason for coming."

"In that case, do you wish to hide?"

"I shall be careful not to," said Henry, "for Maître Réné knows everything; therefore Maître Réné knows that I am here."

"But has not your majesty some reason for thinking his presence painful to you?"

"I!" said Henry, making an effort, which in spite of his will-power he could not wholly dissimulate. "I! none at all! we are rather cool to each other, it is true; but since the night of Saint Bartholomew we have been reconciled."

"Let him enter!" said Madame de Sauve to Dariole.

A moment later Réné appeared, and took in the whole room at a glance.

Madame de Sauve was still before her toilet-table.

Henry had resumed his place on the couch.

Charlotte was in the light, and Henry in the shadow.

"Madame," said Réné, with respectful familiarity, "I have come to offer my apologies."

"For what, Réné?" asked Madame de Sauve, with that condescension which pretty women always use towards the world of tradespeople who surround them, and whose duty it is to make them more beautiful.

"Because long ago I promised to work for these pretty lips, and because"--

"Because you did not keep your promise until to-day; is that it?" asked Charlotte.

"Until to-day?" repeated Réné.

"Yes; it was only to-day, in fact, this evening, that I received the box you sent me."

"Ah! indeed!" said Réné, looking strangely at the small opiate box on Madame de Sauve's table, which was precisely like those he had in his shop. "I thought so!" he murmured. "And you have used it?"

"No, not yet. I was just about to try it as you entered." Réné's face assumed a dreamy expression which did not escape Henry. Indeed, very few things escaped him.

"Well, Réné, what are you going to do now?" asked the king.

"I? Nothing, sire," said the perfumer, "I am humbly waiting until your majesty speaks to me, before taking leave of Madame la Baronne."

"Come, now!" said Henry, smiling. "Do you need my word to know that it is a pleasure to me to see you?"

Réné glanced around him, made a tour of the room as if to sound the doors and the curtains with his eye and ear, then he stopped and standing so that he could embrace at a glance both Madame de Sauve and Henry:

"I do not know it," said he, thanks to that admirable instinct which like a sixth sense guided him during the first part of his life in the midst of impending dangers. Henry felt that at that moment something strangely resembling a struggle was passing through the mind of the perfumer, and turned towards him, still in the shadow, while the Florentine's face was in the light.

"You here at this hour, Réné?" said he.

"Am I unfortunate enough to be in your majesty's way?" asked the perfumer, stepping back.

"No, but I want to know one thing."

"What, sire?"

"Did you think you would find me here?"

"I was sure of it."

"You wanted me, then?"

"I am glad to have found you, at least."

"Have you something to say to me?" persisted Henry.

"Perhaps, sire!" replied Réné.

Charlotte blushed, for she feared that the revelation which the perfumer seemed anxious to make might have something to do with her conduct towards Henry. Therefore she acted as though, having been wholly engrossed with her toilet, she had heard nothing, and interrupted the conversation.

"Ah! really, Réné," said she, opening the opiate box, "you are a delightful man. This cake is a marvellous color, and since you are here I am going to honor you by experimenting with your new production."

She took the box in one hand, and with the other touched the tip of her finger to the rose paste, which she was about to raise to her lips.

Réné gave a start.

The baroness smilingly lifted the opiate to her mouth.

Réné turned pale.

Still in the shadow, but with fixed and glowing eyes, Henry lost neither the action of the one nor the shudder of the other.

Charlotte's hand had but a short distance to go before it would touch her lips when Réné seized her arm, just as Henry rose to do so.

Henry fell back noiselessly on the couch.

"One moment, madame," said Réné, with a constrained smile, "you must not use this opiate without special directions."

"Who will give me these directions?"

"I."

"When?"

"As soon as I have finished saying what I have to say to his Majesty the King of Navarre."

Charlotte opened her eyes wide, understanding nothing of the mysterious language about her, and sat with the opiate pot in one hand, gazing at the tip of her finger, red with the rouge.

Henry rose, and moved by a thought which, like all those of the young king, had two sides, one which seemed superficial, the other which was deep, he took Charlotte's hand and red as it was, made as though to raise it to his lips.

"One moment," said Réné, quickly, "one moment! Be kind enough, madame, to rinse your lovely hands with this soap from Naples which I neglected to send you at the same time as the rouge, and which I have the honor of bringing you now."

Drawing from its silver wrapping a cake of green soap, he put it in a vermilion basin, poured some water over it, and, with one knee on the floor, offered it to Madame de Sauve.

"Why, really, Maître Réné, I no longer recognize you," said Henry, "you are so gallant that you far outstrip every court fop."

"Oh, what a delicious perfume!" cried Charlotte, rubbing her beautiful hands with the pearly foam made by the scented cake.

Réné performed his office of courtier to the end. He offered a napkin of fine Frisian linen to Madame de Sauve, who dried her hands on it.

"Now," said the Florentine to Henry. "Let your mind be at rest, monseigneur."

Charlotte gave her hand to Henry, who kissed it, and while she half turned on her chair to listen to what Réné was about to say, the King of Navarre returned to his couch, more convinced than ever that something unusual was passing through the mind of the perfumer.

"Well?" asked Charlotte. The Florentine apparently made an effort to collect all his strength, and then turned towards Henry.

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Chapter XXII

"SIRE, YOU SHALL BE KING."

"Sire," said Réné to Henry, "I have come to speak of something which has been on my mind for some time."

"Perfumery?" said Henry, smiling.

"Well, yes, sire,--perfumery," replied Réné, with a singular nod of acquiescence.

"Speak, I am listening to you. This is a subject which has always interested me deeply."

Réné looked at Henry to try, in spite of his words, to read the impenetrable thought; but seeing that it was perfectly impossible, he continued:

"One of my friends, sire, has just arrived from Florence. This friend is greatly interested in astrology."

"Yes," interrupted Henry, "I know that it is a passion with Florentines."

"In company with the foremost students of the world he has read the horoscopes of the chief gentlemen of Europe."

"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Henry.

"And as the house of Bourbon is at the head of the highest, descended as it is from the Count of Clermont, the fifth son of Saint Louis, your majesty must know that your horoscope has not been overlooked."

Henry listened still more attentively.

"Do you remember this horoscope?" said the King of Navarre, with a smile which he strove to render indifferent.

"Oh!" replied Réné, shaking his head, "your horoscope is not one to be forgotten."

"Indeed!" said Henry, ironically.

"Yes, sire; according to this horoscope your majesty is to have a most brilliant destiny."

The young prince gave a lightning glance which was almost at once lost under cover of indifference.

"Every Italian oracle is apt to flatter," said Henry; "but he who flatters lies. Are there not those who have predicted that I would command armies? I!" He burst out laughing. But an observer less occupied with himself than Réné would have noticed and realized the effort of this laugh.

"Sire," said Réné, coldly, "the horoscope tells better than that."

"Does it foretell that at the head of one of these armies I shall win battles?"

"Better than that, sire."

"Well," said Henry; "you will see that I shall be conqueror!"

"Sire, you shall be king."

"Well! Ventre saint gris!" exclaimed Henry, repressing a violent beating of his heart; "am I not that already?"

"Sire, my friend knows what he promises; not only will you be king, but you will reign."

"In that case," said Henry, in the same mocking tone, "your friend must have ten crowns of gold, must he not, Réné? for such a prophecy is very ambitious, especially in times like these. Well, Réné, as I am not rich, I will give your friend five now and five more when the prophecy is fulfilled."

"Sire," said Madame de Sauve, "do not forget that you are already pledged to Dariole, and do not overburden yourself with promises."

"Madame," said Henry, "I hope when this time comes that I shall be treated as a king, and that they will be satisfied if I keep half of my promises."

"Sire," said Réné, "I will continue."

"Oh, that is not all, then?" said Henry. "Well, if I am emperor, I will give twice as much."

"Sire, my friend has returned from Florence with the horoscope, which he renewed in Paris, and which always gives the same result; and he told me a secret."

"A secret of interest to his majesty?" asked Charlotte, quickly.

"I think so," said the Florentine.

"He is searching for words," thought Henry, without in any way coming to Réné's rescue. "Apparently the thing is difficult to tell."

"Speak, then," went on the Baroness de Sauve; "what is it about?"

"It is about all the rumors of poisoning," said the Florentine, weighing each of his words separately, "it is about all the rumors of poisoning which for some time have been circulated around court." A slight movement of the nostrils of the King of Navarre was the only indication of his increased attention at the sudden turn in the conversation.

"And your friend the Florentine," said Henry, "knows something about this poisoning?"

"Yes, sire."

"How can you tell me a secret which is not yours, Réné, especially when the secret is such an important one?" said Henry, in the most natural tone he could assume.

"This friend has some advice to ask of your majesty."

"Of me?"

"What is there surprising in that, sire? Remember the old soldier of Actium who, having a law-suit on hand, asked advice of Augustus."

"Augustus was a lawyer, Réné, and I am not."

"Sire, when my friend confided this secret to me, your majesty still belonged to the Calvinist party, of which you were the chief head, and of which Monsieur de Condé was the second."

"Well?" said Henry.

"This friend hoped that you would use your all-powerful influence over Monsieur de Condé and beg him not to be hostile to him."

"Explain this to me, Réné, if you wish me to understand it," said Henry, without betraying the least change in his face or voice.

"Sire, your majesty will understand at the first word. This friend knows all the particulars of the attempt to poison Monseigneur de Condé."

"There has been an attempt to poison the Prince de Condé?" exclaimed Henry with a well-assumed astonishment. "Ah, indeed, and when was this?"

Réné looked fixedly at the king, and replied merely by these words:

"A week ago, your majesty."

"Some enemy?" asked the king.

"Yes," replied Réné, "an enemy whom your majesty knows and who knows your majesty."

"As a matter of fact," said Henry, "I think I have heard this mentioned, but I am ignorant of the details which your friend has to reveal. Tell them to me."

"Well, a perfumed apple was offered to the Prince of Condé. Fortunately, however, when it was brought to him his physician was with him. He took it from the hands of the messenger and smelled it to test its odor and soundness. Two days later a gangrene swelling of the face, an extravasation of the blood, a running sore which ate away his face, were the price of his devotion or the result of his imprudence."

"Unfortunately," replied Henry, "being half Catholic already, I have lost all influence over Monsieur de Condé. Your friend was wrong, therefore, in addressing himself to me."

"It was not only in regard to the Prince de Condé that your majesty could be of use to my friend, but in regard to the Prince de Porcian also, the brother of the one who was poisoned."

"Ah!" exclaimed Charlotte, "do you know, Réné, that your stories partake of the gruesome? You plead at a poor time. It is late, your conversation is death-like. Really, your perfumes are worth more." Charlotte again extended her hand towards the opiate box.

"Madame," said Réné, "before testing that, as you are about to do, hear what cruel results wicked men can draw from it."

"Really, Réné," said the baroness, "you are funereal this evening."

Henry frowned, but he understood that Réné wished to reach a goal which he did not yet see, and he resolved to push towards this end the conversation which awakened in him such painful memories.

"And," he continued, "you knew the details of the poisoning of the Prince de Porcian?"

"Yes," said he. "It is known that every night he left a lamp burning near his bed; the oil was poisoned and he was asphyxiated."

Henry clinched his fingers, which were damp with perspiration.

"So," he murmured, "he whom you call your friend knows not only the details of the poisoning, but the author of it?"

"Yes, and it is for this reason that he wished to ask you if you would use over the Prince of Porcian the remains of that influence and have the murderer pardoned for the death of his brother."

"Unfortunately," replied Henry, "still being half Huguenot, I have no influence over Monsieur le Prince de Porcian; your friend therefore would have done wrong in speaking to me."

"But what do you think of the intentions of Monsieur le Prince de Condé and of Monsieur de Porcian?"

"How should I know their intentions, Réné? God, whom I may know, has not given me the privilege of reading their hearts."

"Your majesty must ask yourself," said the Florentine calmly. "Is there not in the life of your majesty some event so gloomy that it can serve as a test of clemency, so painful that it is a touchstone for generosity?"

These words were uttered in a tone which made Charlotte herself tremble. It was an allusion so direct, so pointed, that the young woman turned aside to hide her blush, and to avoid meeting Henry's eyes. Henry made a supreme effort over himself; his forehead, which during the words of the Florentine wore threatening lines, unbent, and he changed the dignified, filial grief which tightened his heart into vague meditation.

"In my life," said he, "a gloomy circumstance--no, Réné, no; I remember in my youth only folly and carelessness mingled with more or less cruel necessity imposed on every one by the demands of nature and the proofs of God."

Réné in turn became constrained as he glanced from Henry to Charlotte, as though to rouse the one and hold back the other; for Charlotte had returned to her toilet to hide the anxiety caused by their conversation, and had again extended her hand towards the opiate box.

"But, sire, if you were the brother of the Prince of Porcian or the son of the Prince of Condé, and if they had poisoned your brother or assassinated your father"--Charlotte uttered a slight cry and raised the opiate to her lips. Réné saw the gesture, but this time he stopped her neither by word nor gesture; he merely exclaimed:

"In Heaven's name, sire, answer! Sire, if you were in their place what would you do?"

Henry recovered himself. With trembling hand he wiped his forehead, on which stood drops of cold perspiration, and rising to his full height, replied in the midst of the silence which until then had held Réné and Charlotte:

"If I were in their place, and if I were sure of being king, that is, sure of representing God on earth, I would act like God, I should pardon."

"Madame," cried Réné, snatching the opiate from the hands of Madame de Sauve, "madame, give me back this box; my messenger boy, I see, has made a mistake in it. To-morrow I will send you another."

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XXIII. A NEW CONVERT

The following day there was to be a hunt in the forest of Saint Germain.

Henry had ordered a small Béarnais horse to be made ready for him; that is, to be saddled and bridled at eight o'clock in the morning. He had intended giving this horse to Madame de Sauve, but he wanted to try it first. At a quarter before eight the horse was ready. On the stroke of eight Henry came down to the court-yard. The horse, proud and fiery in spite of its small size, pricked up its ears and pawed the ground. The weather was cold and a light frost covered the pavement. Henry started to cross the court-yard to the stables where the horse and the groom were waiting, when a Swiss soldier whom he passed standing sentinel at the gate presented arms and said:

"God keep his Majesty the King of Navarre."

At this wish and especially at the tone in which it was uttered the Béarnais started.

He turned and stepped back.

"De Mouy!" he murmured.

"Yes, sire, De Mouy."

"What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you."

"Why are you looking for me?"

"I must speak to your majesty."

"Unfortunately," said the king, approaching him, "do you not know you risk your head?"

"I know it."

"Well?"

"Well, I am here."

Henry turned slightly pale, for he knew that he shared the danger run by this rash young man. He looked anxiously about him, and stepped back a second time, no less quickly than he had done at first. He had seen the Duc d'Alençon at a window.

At once changing his manner Henry took the musket from the hands of De Mouy, standing, as we have said, sentinel, and while apparently measuring it:

"De Mouy," said he, "it is certainly not without some very strong motive that you have come to beard the lion in his den in this way?"

"No, sire, I have waited for you a week; only yesterday I heard that your majesty was to try a horse this morning, and I took my position at the gate of the Louvre."

"But how in this uniform?"

"The captain of the company is a Protestant and is one of my friends."

"Here is your musket; return to your duty of sentinel. We are watched. As I come back I will try to say a word to you, but if I do not speak, do not stop me. Adieu."

De Mouy resumed his measured walk, and Henry advanced towards the house.

"What is that pretty little animal?" asked the Duc d'Alençon from his window.

"A horse I am going to try this morning," replied Henry.

"But that is not a horse for a man."

"Therefore it is intended for a beautiful woman."

"Take care, Henry; you are going to be indiscreet, for we shall see this beautiful woman at the hunt; and if I do not know whose knight you are, I shall at least know whose equerry you are."

"No, my lord, you will not know," said Henry, with his feigned good-humor, "for this beautiful woman cannot go out this morning; she is indisposed."

He sprang into the saddle.

"Ah, bah!" cried d'Alençon, laughing; "poor Madame de Sauve."

"François! François! it is you who are indiscreet."

"What is the matter with the beautiful Charlotte?" went on the Duc d'Alençon.

"Why," replied Henry, spurring his horse to a gallop, and making him describe a graceful curve; "why, I have no idea,--a heaviness in the head, according to what Dariole tells me. A torpor of the whole body; in short, general debility."

"And will this prevent you from joining us?" asked the duke.

"I? Why should it?" asked Henry. "You know that I dote on a hunt, and that nothing could make me miss one."

"But you will miss this one, Henry," said the duke, after he had turned and spoken for an instant with some one unnoticed by Henry, who addressed François from the rear of the room, "for his Majesty tells me that the hunt cannot take place."

"Bah!" said Henry, in the most disappointed tone imaginable. "Why not?"

"Very important letters from Monsieur de Nevers, it seems. There is a council among the King, the queen mother, and my brother the Duc d'Anjou."

"Ah! ah!" said Henry to himself, "could any news have come from Poland?"

Then aloud:

"In that case," he continued, "it is useless for me to run any further risk on this frost. Good-by, brother!"

Pulling up his horse in front of De Mouy:

"My friend," said he, "call one of your comrades to finish your sentinel duty for you. Help the groom ungirth my horse. Put the saddle over your head and carry it to the saddler's; there is some embroidery to be done on it, which there was not time to finish for to-day. You will bring an answer to my apartments."

De Mouy hastened to obey, for the Duc d'Alençon had disappeared from his window, and it was evident that he suspected something.

In fact, scarcely had De Mouy disappeared through the gate before the Duc d'Alençon came in sight. A real Swiss was in De Mouy's place. D'Alençon looked carefully at the new sentinel; then turning to Henry:

"This is not the man you were talking with just now, is it, brother?"

"The other is a young man who belongs to my household and whom I had enter the Swiss guards. I have just given him a commission and he has gone to carry it out."

"Ah!" said the duke, as if this reply sufficed. "And how is Marguerite?"

"I am going to ask her, brother."

"Have you not seen her since yesterday?"

"No. I went to her about eleven o'clock last night, but Gillonne told me that she was tired and had gone to sleep."

"You will not find her in her room. She has gone out."

"Oh!" said Henry. "Very likely. She was to go to the Convent de l'Annonciade."

There was no way of carrying the conversation further, as Henry had seemingly made up his mind simply to answer. The two brothers-in-law therefore departed, the Duc d'Alençon to go for news, he said, the King of Navarre to return to his room.

Henry had been there scarcely five minutes when he heard a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Sire," replied a voice which Henry recognized as that of De Mouy, "it is the answer from the saddler."

Henry, visibly moved, bade the young man enter and closed the door behind him.

"Is it you, De Mouy?" said he; "I hoped that you would reflect."

"Sire," replied De Mouy, "I have reflected for three months; that is long enough. Now it is time to act." Henry made a gesture of impatience.

"Fear nothing, sire, we are alone, and I will make haste, for time is precious. Your majesty can tell in a word all that the events of the year have lost to the cause of religion. Let us be clear, brief, and frank."

"I am listening, my good De Mouy," replied Henry, seeing that it was impossible for him to elude the explanation.

"Is it true that your majesty has abjured the Protestant religion?"

"It is true," said Henry.

"Yes, but is it with your lips or at heart?"

"One is always grateful to God when he saves our life," replied Henry, turning the question as he had a habit of doing in such cases, "and God has evidently saved me from this cruel danger."

"Sire," resumed De Mouy, "let us admit one thing."

"What?"

"That your abjuring is not a matter of conviction, but of calculation. You have abjured so that the King would let you live, and not because God has saved your life."

"Whatever the cause of my conversion, De Mouy," replied Henry, "I am none the less a Catholic."

"Yes, but shall you always be one? The first chance you have for resuming your freedom of life and of conscience, will you not resume it? Well! this opportunity has presented itself. La Rochelle has revolted, Roussillon and Béarn are merely waiting for one word before acting. In Guyenne every one cries for war. Merely tell me if you were forced into taking this step, and I will answer for the future."

"A gentleman of my birth is not forced, my dear De Mouy. That which I have done, I have done voluntarily."

"But, sire," said the young man, his heart oppressed with this resistance which he had not expected, "you do not remember that in acting thus you abandon and betray us."

Henry was unmoved.

"Yes," went on De Mouy, "yes, you betray us, sire, for several of us, at the risk of our lives, have come to save your honor and your liberty; we are prepared to offer you a throne, sire; do you realize this? not only liberty, but power; a throne of your own choice, for in two months you could choose between Navarre and France."

"De Mouy," said Henry, covering his eyes, which in spite of himself had emitted a flash at the above suggestion, "De Mouy, I am safe, I am a Catholic, I am the husband of Marguerite, I am the brother of King Charles, I am the son-in-law of my good mother Catharine. De Mouy, in assuming these various positions, I have calculated their opportunities and also their obligations."

"But, sire," said De Mouy, "what must one believe? I am told that your marriage is not contracted, that at heart you are free, that the hatred of Catharine"--

"Lies, lies," interrupted the Béarnais hastily. "Yes, you have been shamefully deceived, my friend; this dear Marguerite is indeed my wife, Catharine is really my mother, and King Charles IX. is the lord and master of my life and of my heart."

De Mouy shuddered, and an almost scornful smile passed over his lips.

"In that case, sire," said he dropping his arms dejectedly, and trying to fathom that soul filled with shadows, "this is the answer I am to take back to my brothers,--I shall tell them that the King of Navarre extends his hand and opens his heart to those who have cut our throats; I shall tell them that he has become the flatterer of the queen mother and the friend of Maurevel."

"My dear De Mouy," said Henry, "the King is coming out of the council chamber, and I must go and find out from him the reasons for our having had to give up so important a thing as a hunt. Adieu; imitate me, my friend, give up politics, return to the King and attend mass."

Henry led or rather pushed into the antechamber the young man, whose amazement was beginning to change into fury.

Scarcely was the door closed before, unable any longer to resist the longing to avenge himself on something in defence of some one, De Mouy twisted his hat between his hands, threw it upon the floor, and stamping on it as a bull would stamp on the cloak of the matador:

"By Heaven!" he cried, "he is a wretched prince, and I have half a mind to kill myself here in order to stain him forever with my blood."

"Hush, Monsieur de Mouy!" said a voice through a half-open door; "hush! some one besides myself might hear you."

De Mouy turned quickly and perceived the Duc d'Alençon enveloped in a cloak, advancing into the corridor with pale face, to make sure that he and De Mouy were entirely alone.

"Monsieur le Duc d'Alençon," cried De Mouy, "I am lost!"

"On the contrary," murmured the prince, "perhaps you have found what you are looking for, and the proof of this is that I do not want you to kill yourself here as you had an idea of doing just now. Believe me, your blood can in all probability be put to better use than to redden the threshold of the King of Navarre."

At these words the duke threw back the door which he had been holding half open.

"This chamber belongs to two of my gentlemen," said the duke. "No one will interrupt us here. We can, therefore, talk freely. Come in, monsieur."

"I, here, monseigneur!" cried the conspirator in amazement. He entered the room, the door of which the Duc d'Alençon closed behind him no less quickly than the King of Navarre had done.

De Mouy entered, furious, exasperated, cursing. But by degrees the cold and steady glance of the young Duc François had the same effect on the Huguenot captain as does the enchanted lake which dissipates drunkenness.

"Monseigneur," said he, "if I understand correctly, your highness wishes to speak to me."

"Yes, Monsieur de Mouy," replied François. "In spite of your disguise I thought I recognized you, and when you presented arms to my brother Henry, I recognized you perfectly. Well, De Mouy, so you are not pleased with the King of Navarre?"

"Monseigneur!"

"Come, come! tell me frankly, unless you distrust me; perhaps I am one of your friends."

"You, monseigneur?"

"Yes, I; so speak."

"I do not know what to say to your highness, monseigneur. The matter I had to discuss with the King of Navarre concerned interests which your highness would not comprehend. Moreover," added De Mouy with a manner which he strove to render indifferent, "they were mere trifles."

"Trifles?" said the duke.

"Yes, monseigneur."

"Trifles, for which you felt you would risk your life by coming back to the Louvre, where you know your head is worth its weight in gold. We are not ignorant of the fact that you, as well as the King of Navarre and the Prince de Condé, are one of the leaders of the Huguenots."

"If you think that, monseigneur, act towards me as the brother of King Charles and the son of Queen Catharine should act."

"Why should you wish me to act in that way, when I have told you that I am a friend of yours? Tell me the truth."

"Monseigneur," said De Mouy, "I swear to you"--

"Do not swear, monseigneur; the reformed church forbids the taking of oaths, and especially of false oaths."

De Mouy frowned.

"I tell you I know all," continued the duke.

De Mouy was still silent.

"You doubt it?" said the prince with affected persistence. "Well, my dear De Mouy, we shall have to be convinced. Come, now, you shall judge if I am wrong. Did you or did you not propose to my brother-in-law Henry, in his room just now," the duke pointed to the chamber of the Béarnais, "your aid and that of your followers to reinstate him in his kingdom of Navarre?"

De Mouy looked at the duke with a startled gaze.

"A proposition which he refused with terror."

De Mouy was still amazed.

"Did you then invoke your old friendship, the remembrance of a common religion? Did you even hold out to the King of Navarre a very brilliant hope, a hope so brilliant that he was dazzled by it--the hope of winning the crown of France? Come, tell me; am I well informed? Is that what you came to propose to the Béarnais?"

"Monseigneur!" cried De Mouy, "this is so true, that I now wonder if I should not tell your royal highness that you have lied! to arouse in this chamber a combat without mercy, and thus to make sure of the extinction of this terrible secret by the death of both of us."

"Gently, my brave De Mouy, gently!" said the Duc d'Alençon without changing countenance, or without taking the slightest notice of this terrible threat.

"The secret will die better with us if we both live than if one of us were to die. Listen to me, and stop pulling at the handle of your sword. For the third time I say that you are with a friend. Now tell me, did not the King of Navarre refuse everything you offered him?"

"Yes, monseigneur, and I admit it, because my avowal can compromise only myself."

"On leaving his room did you not stamp on your hat, and cry out that he was a cowardly prince, and unworthy of being your leader?"

"That is true, monseigneur, I said that."

"Ah! you did? you admit it at last?"

"Yes."

"And this is still your opinion?"

"More than ever, monseigneur."

"Well, am I, Monsieur de Mouy, I, the third son of Henry II., I, a son of France, am I a good enough gentleman to command your soldiers? Come, now; do you think me loyal enough for you to trust my word?"

"You, monseigneur! you, the leader of the Huguenots!"

"Why not? This is an epoch of conversions, you know. Henry has turned Catholic; I can turn Protestant."

"Yes, no doubt, monseigneur; so I am waiting for you to explain to me"--

"Nothing is easier; and in two words I can tell you the policy of every one. My brother Charles kills the Huguenots in order to reign more freely. My brother of Anjou lets them be killed because he is to succeed my brother Charles, and because, as you know, my brother Charles is often ill. But with me it is entirely different. I shall never reign--at least in France--as long as I have two elder brothers. The hatred of my mother and of my two brothers more than the law of nature keeps me from the throne. I have no claim to any family affection, any glory, or any kingdom. Yet I have a heart as great as my elder brother's. Well, De Mouy, I want to look about and with my sword cut a kingdom out of this France they cover with blood. Now this is what I want, De Mouy, listen: I want to be King of Navarre, not by birth but by election. And note well that you have no objection to this system. I am not a usurper, since my brother refuses your offers, and buries himself in his torpor, and pretends aloud that this kingdom of Navarre is only a myth. With Henry of Béarn you have nothing. With me, you have a sword and a name, François d'Alençon, son of France, protector of all his companions or all his accomplices, as you are pleased to call them. Well, what do you say to this offer, Monsieur de Mouy?"

"I say that it dazzles me, monseigneur."

"De Mouy, De Mouy, we shall have many obstacles to overcome. Do not, therefore, from the first be so exacting and so obstinate towards the son of a king and the brother of a king who comes to you."

"Monseigneur, the matter would be already settled if my opinion were the only one to be considered, but we have a council, and brilliant as the offer may be, perhaps even on that very account the leaders of the party will not consent to the plan unconditionally."

"That is another thing, and your answer comes from an honest heart and a prudent mind. From the way I have just acted, De Mouy, you must have recognized my honesty. Treat me, therefore, on your part as a man who is esteemed, not as a man who is flattered. De Mouy, have I any chance?"

"On my word, monseigneur, since your highness wants me to give my opinion, your highness has every chance, since the King of Navarre has refused the offer I have just made him. But I tell you again, monseigneur, I shall have to confer with our leaders."

"Do so, monsieur," replied d'Alençon. "But when shall I have an answer?"

De Mouy looked at the prince in silence. Then apparently coming to a decision:

"Monseigneur," said he, "give me your hand. I must have the hand of a son of France touch mine to make sure that I shall not be betrayed."

The duke not only extended his hand towards De Mouy, but grasped De Mouy's and pressed it.

"Now, monseigneur, I am satisfied," said the young Huguenot. "If we were betrayed I should say that you had nothing to do with it; otherwise, monseigneur, however slightly you might be concerned in the treason, you would be dishonored."

"Why do you say that to me, De Mouy, before telling me that you will bring me the answer from your leaders?"

"Because, monseigneur, asking me when you would have your answer was the same as asking me where are the leaders, and because if I said to you, 'This evening,' you would know that the chiefs were hiding in Paris." As he uttered these words, with a gesture of mistrust, De Mouy fixed his piercing glance on the false vacillating eyes of the young man.

"Well, well," said the duke, "you still have doubts, Monsieur de Mouy. But I cannot expect entire confidence from you at first. You will understand me better later. We shall be bound by common interests which will rid you of all suspicion. You say this evening, then, Monsieur de Mouy?"

"Yes, monseigneur, for time presses. Until this evening. But where shall I see you, if you please?"

"At the Louvre, here in this room; does that suit you?"

"Is this occupied?" said De Mouy, glancing at the two beds opposite each other.

"By two of my gentlemen, yes."

"Monseigneur, it seems to me imprudent to return to the Louvre."

"Why so?"

"Because if you have recognized me, others also may have as good eyes as your highness, and may recognize me. However, I will return to the Louvre if you will grant me what I am about to ask of you."

"What is that?"

"A passport."

"A passport from me found on you would ruin me and would not save you. I can do nothing for you unless in the eyes of the world we are strangers to each other; the slightest relation between us, noticed by my mother or my brother, would cost me my life. You were therefore protected by my interest for myself from the moment I compromised myself with the others, as I am now compromising myself with you. Free in my sphere of action, strong if I am unknown, so long as I myself remain impenetrable, I will guarantee you everything. Do not forget this. Make a fresh appeal to your courage, therefore. Try on my word of honor what you tried without the word of honor of my brother. Come this evening to the Louvre."

"But how do you wish me to come? I can not venture in these rooms in my present uniform--it is for the vestibules and the courts. My own is still more dangerous, since everyone knows me here, and since it in no way disguises me."

"Therefore I will look--wait--I think that--yes, here it is."

The duke had looked around him, and his eyes stopped at La Mole's clothes, thrown temporarily on the bed; that is, on the magnificent cherry-colored cloak embroidered in gold, of which we have already spoken; on a cap ornamented with a white plume surrounded by a rope of gold and silver marguerites, and finally on a pearl-gray satin and gold doublet.

"Do you see this cloak, this plume, and this doublet?" said the duke; "they belong to Monsieur de la Mole, one of my gentlemen, a fop of the highest type. The cloak was the rage at court, and when he wore it, Monsieur de la Mole was recognized a hundred feet away. I will give you the address of the tailor who made it for him. By paying him double what it is worth, you will have one exactly like it by this evening. You will remember the name of Monsieur de la Mole, will you not?"

Scarcely had the Duc d'Alençon finished making the suggestion, when a step was heard approaching in the corridor, and a key was turned in the lock.

"Who is that?" cried the duke, rushing to the door and drawing the bolt.

"By Heaven!" replied a voice from outside; "I find that a strange question. Who are you yourself? This is pleasant! I return to my own room, and am asked who I am!"

"Is it you, Monsieur de la Mole?"

"Yes, it is I, without a doubt. But who are you?"

While La Mole was expressing his surprise at finding his room occupied, and while he was trying to discover its new occupant, the Duc d'Alençon turned quickly, one hand on the lock, the other on the key.

"Do you know Monsieur de la Mole?" he asked of De Mouy.

"No, monseigneur."

"Does he know you?"

"I think not."

"In that case it will be all right. Appear to be looking out of the window."

De Mouy obeyed in silence, for La Mole was beginning to grow impatient, and was knocking on the door with all his might.

The Duc d'Alençon threw a last glance towards De Mouy, and seeing that his back was turned, he opened the door.

"Monseigneur le Duc!" cried La Mole, stepping back in surprise. "Oh, pardon, pardon, monseigneur!"

"It is nothing, monsieur; I needed your room to receive a visitor."

"Certainly, monseigneur, certainly. But allow me, I beg you, to take my cloak and hat from the bed, for I lost both to-night on the quay of the Grève, where I was attacked by robbers."

"In fact, monsieur," said the prince, smiling, himself handing to La Mole the articles asked for, "you are very poorly accommodated here. You have had an encounter with some very obstinate fellows, apparently!"

The duke handed to La Mole the cloak and the hat. The young man bowed and withdrew to the antechamber to change his clothes, paying no attention to what the duke was doing in his room; for it was an ordinary occurrence at the Louvre for the rooms of the gentlemen to be used as reception-rooms by the prince to whom the latter were attached.

De Mouy then approached the duke, and both listened for La Mole to finish and go out; but when the latter had changed his clothes, he himself saved them all further trouble by drawing near to the door.

"Pardon me, monseigneur," said he, "but did your highness meet the Count de Coconnas on your way?"

"No, count, and yet he was at service this morning."

"In that case they will assassinate me," said La Mole to himself as he went away.

The duke heard the noise of his retreating steps; then opening the door and drawing De Mouy after him:

"Watch him going away," said he, "and try to copy his inimitable walk."

"I will do my best," replied De Mouy. "Unfortunately I am not a lady's man, but a soldier."

"At all events I shall expect you in this corridor before midnight. If the chamber of my gentlemen is free, I will receive you there; if not, we will find another."

"Yes, monseigneur."

"Until this evening then, before midnight."

"Until this evening, before midnight."

"Ah! by the way, De Mouy, swing your right arm a good deal as you walk. This is a peculiar trick of Monsieur de la Mole's."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXIV. THE RUE TIZON AND THE RUE CLOCHE PERCÉE

La Mole hurriedly left the Louvre, and set out to search Paris for poor Coconnas.

His first move was to repair to the Rue de l'Arbre Sec and to enter Maître La Hurière's, for La Mole remembered that he had often repeated to the Piedmontese a certain Latin motto which was meant to prove that Love, Bacchus, and Ceres are gods absolutely necessary to us, and he hoped that Coconnas, to follow up the Roman aphorism, had gone to the Belle Étoile after a night which must have been as full for his friend as it had been for himself.

La Mole found nothing at La Hurière's except the reminder of the assumed obligation. A breakfast which was offered with good grace was eagerly accepted by our gentleman, in spite of his anxiety. His stomach calmed in default of his mind, La Mole resumed his walk, ascending the bank of the Seine like a husband searching for his drowned wife. On reaching the quay of the Grève, he recognized the place where, as he had said to Monsieur d'Alençon, he had been stopped during his nocturnal tramp three or four hours before. This was no unusual thing in Paris, older by a hundred years than that in which Boileau was awakened at the sound of a ball piercing his window shutter. A bit of the plume from his hat remained on the battle-field. The sentiment of possession is innate in man. La Mole had ten plumes each more beautiful than the last, and yet he stopped to pick up that one, or, rather, the sole fragment of what remained of it, and was contemplating it with a pitiful air when he heard the sound of heavy steps approaching, and rough voices ordering him to stand aside. La Mole raised his head and perceived a litter preceded by two pages and accompanied by an outrider. La Mole thought he recognized the litter, and quickly stepped aside.

The young man was not mistaken.

"Monsieur de la Mole!" exclaimed a sweet voice from the litter, while a hand as white and as smooth as satin drew back the curtains.

"Yes, madame, in person," replied La Mole bowing.

"Monsieur de la Mole with a plume in his hand," continued the lady in the litter. "Are you in love, my dear monsieur, and are you recovering lost traces?"

"Yes, madame," replied La Mole, "I am in love, and very much so. But just now these are my own traces that I have found, although they are not those for which I am searching. But will your majesty permit me to inquire after your health?"

"It is excellent, monsieur; it seems to me that I have never been better. This probably comes from the fact of my having spent the night in retreat."

"Ah! in retreat!" said La Mole, looking at Marguerite strangely.

"Well, yes; what is there surprising in that?"

"May I, without indiscretion, ask you in what convent?"

"Certainly, monsieur, I make no mystery of it; in the convent of the Annonciade. But what are you doing here with this startled air?"

"Madame, I too passed the night in retreat, and in the vicinity of the same convent. This morning I am looking for my friend who has disappeared, and in seeking him I came upon this plume."

"Whom does it belong to? Really, you frighten me about him; the place is a bad one."

"Your majesty may be reassured; the plume belongs to me. I lost it here about half-past five, as I was escaping from the hands of four bandits who tried with all their might to murder me, or at least I think they did."

Marguerite repressed a quick gesture of terror.

"Oh! tell me about it!" said she.

"Nothing is easier, madame. It was, as I have had the honor to tell your majesty, about five o'clock in the morning."

"And you were already out at five o'clock in the morning?" interrupted Marguerite.

"Your majesty will excuse me," said La Mole, "I had not yet returned."

"Ah! Monsieur de la Mole! you returned at five o'clock in the morning!" said Marguerite with a smile which was fatal for every one, and which La Mole was unfortunate enough to find adorable; "you returned so late, you merited this punishment!"

"Therefore I do not complain, madame," said La Mole, bowing respectfully, "and I should have been cut to pieces had I not considered myself a hundred times more fortunate than I deserve to be. But I was returning late, or early, as your majesty pleases, from that fortunate house in which I had spent the night in retreat, when four cut-throats rushed from the Rue de la Mortellerie and pursued me with indescribably long knives. It is grotesque, is it not, madame? but it is true--I had to run away, for I had forgotten my sword."

"Oh! I understand," said Marguerite, with an admirably naïve manner, "and you have come back to find your sword?"

La Mole looked at Marguerite as though a suspicion flashed through his mind.

"Madame, I would return to some place and very willingly too, since my sword is an excellent blade, but I do not know where the house is."

"What, monsieur?" exclaimed Marguerite. "You do not know where the house is in which you passed the night?"

"No, madame, and may Satan exterminate me if I have any idea!"

"Well this is strange! your story, then, is a romance?"

"A true romance, as you say, madame."

"Tell it to me."

"It is somewhat long."

"Never mind, I have time."

"And, above all, it is improbable."

"Never mind, no one could be more credulous than I."

"Does your majesty command me?"

"Why, yes; if necessary."

"In that case I obey. Last evening, having left two adorable women with whom we had spent the evening on the Saint Michel bridge, we took supper at Maître La Hurière's."

"In the first place," said Marguerite, perfectly naturally, "who is Maître La Hurière?"

"Maître La Hurière, madame," said La Mole, again glancing at Marguerite with the suspicion he had already felt, "Maître La Hurière is the host of the inn of the Belle Étoile in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec."

"Yes, I can see it from here. You were supping, then, at Maître La Hurière's with your friend Coconnas, no doubt?"

"Yes, madame, with my friend Coconnas, when a man entered and handed us each a note."

"Were they alike?" asked Marguerite.

"Exactly alike. They contained only a single line:

"'You are awaited in the Rue Saint Antoine, opposite the Rue Saint Jouy.'"

"And had the note no signature?" asked Marguerite.

"No; only three words--three charming words which three times promised the same thing, that is to say, a three-fold happiness."

"And what were these three words?"

"Eros, Cupido, Amor."

"In short, three sweet words; and did they fulfil what they promised?"

"Oh! more, madame, a hundred times more!" cried La Mole with enthusiasm.

"Continue. I am curious to know who was waiting for you in the Rue Saint Antoine, opposite the Rue de Jouy."

"Two duennas, each with a handkerchief in her hand. They said we must let them bandage our eyes. Your majesty may imagine that it was not a difficult thing to have done. We bravely extended our necks. My guide turned me to the left, my friend's guide turned him to the right, and we were separated."

"And then?" continued Marguerite, who seemed determined to carry out the investigation to the end.

"I do not know," said La Mole, "where his guide led my friend. To hell, perhaps. As to myself, all I know is that mine led me to a place I consider paradise."

"And whence, no doubt, your too great curiosity drove you?"

"Exactly, madame; you have the gift of divination. I waited, impatiently, for daylight, that I might see where I was, when at half-past four the same duenna returned, again bandaged my eyes, made me promise not to try to raise my bandage, led me outside, accompanied me for a hundred feet, made me again swear not to remove my bandage until I had counted fifty more. I counted fifty, and found myself in the Rue Saint Antoine, opposite the Rue de Jouy."

"And then"--

"Then, madame, I returned so happy that I paid no attention to the four wretches, from whose clutches I had such difficulty in escaping. Now, madame," continued La Mole, "in finding a piece of my plume here, my heart trembled with joy, and I picked it up, promising myself to keep it as a souvenir of this glad night. But in the midst of my happiness, one thing troubles me; that is, what may have become of my companion."

"Has he not returned to the Louvre?"

"Alas! no, madame! I have searched everywhere, in the Étoile d'Or, on the tennis courts, and in many other respectable places; but no Annibal, and no Coconnas"--

As La Mole uttered these words he accompanied them with a gesture of hopelessness, extended his arms and opened his cloak, underneath which at various points his doublet was seen, the lining of which showed through the rents like so many elegant slashes.

"Why, you were riddled through and through!" exclaimed Marguerite.

"Riddled is the word!" said La Mole, who was not sorry to turn to his account the danger he had run. "See, madame, see!"

"Why did you not change your doublet at the Louvre, since you returned there?" asked the queen.

"Ah!" said La Mole, "because some one was in my room."

"Some one in your room?" said Marguerite, whose eyes expressed the greatest astonishment; "who was in your room?"

"His highness."

"Hush!" interrupted Marguerite.

The young man obeyed.

"Qui ad lecticam meam stant?" she asked La Mole.

"Duo pueri et unus eques."

"Optime, barbari!" said she. "Dic, Moles, quem inveneris in biculo tuo?"

"Franciscum ducem."

"Agentem?"

"Nescio quid."

"Quocum?"

"Cum ignoto."[8]

"That is strange," said Marguerite. "So you were unable to find Coconnas?" she continued, without evidently thinking of what she was saying.

"So, madame, as I have had the honor of telling you, I am really dying of anxiety."

"Well," said Marguerite, sighing, "I do not wish to detain you longer in your search for him; I do not know why I think so, but he will find himself! Never mind, however, go, in spite of this."

The queen laid a finger on her lips. But as beautiful Marguerite had confided no secret, had made no avowal to La Mole, the young man understood that this charming gesture, meaning only to impose silence on him, must have another significance.

The procession resumed its march, and La Mole, intent on following out his investigation, continued to ascend the quay as far as the Rue Long Pont which led him to the Rue Saint Antoine.

Opposite the Rue Jouy he stopped. It was there that the previous evening the two duennas had bandaged his eyes and those of Coconnas. He had turned to the left, then he had counted twenty steps. He repeated this and found himself opposite a house, or rather a wall, behind which rose a house; in this wall was a door with a shed over it ornamented with large nails and loop-holes.

The house was in the Rue Cloche Percée, a small narrow street beginning in the Rue Saint Antoine and ending in the Rue Roi de Sicile.

"By Heaven!" cried La Mole, "it was here--I would swear to it--in extending my hand, as I came out, I felt the nails in the door, then I descended two steps. The man who ran by crying 'Help!' who was killed in the Rue Roi de Sicile, passed just as I reached the first. Let us see, now."

La Mole went to the door and knocked. The door opened and a mustached janitor appeared.

"Was ist das?" (Who is that?) asked the janitor.

"Ah! ah!" said La Mole, "we are Swiss, apparently." "My friend," he continued, assuming the most charming manner, "I want my sword which I left in this house in which I spent the night."

"Ich verstehe nicht," (I do not understand,) replied the janitor.

"My sword," went on La Mole.

"Ich verstehe nicht," repeated the janitor.

"--which I left--my sword which I left"--

"Ich verstehe nicht."

"--in this house, in which I spent the night."

"Gehe zum Teufel!" (Go to the devil!) And he slammed the door in La Mole's face.

"By Heaven!" cried La Mole, "if I had this sword I have just asked for, I would gladly put it through that fellow's body. But I have not, and this must wait for another day."

Thereupon La Mole continued his way to the Rue Roi de Sicile, took about fifty steps to the right, then to the left again, and came to the Rue Tizon, a little street running parallel with the Rue Cloche Percée, and like it in every way. More than this, scarcely had he gone thirty steps before he came upon the door with the large nails, with its shed and loop-holes, the two steps and the wall. One would have said that the Rue Cloche Percée had returned to see him pass by.

La Mole then reflected that he might have mistaken his right for his left, and he knocked at this door, to make the same demand he had made at the other. But this time he knocked in vain. The door was not opened.

Two or three times La Mole made the same trip, which naturally led him to the idea that the house had two entrances, one on the Rue Cloche Percée, the other on the Rue Tizon.

But this conclusion, logical as it was, did not bring him back his sword, and did not tell him where his friend was. For an instant he conceived the idea of buying another sword and cutting to pieces the wretched janitor who so persistently refused to speak anything but German, but he thought this porter belonged to Marguerite, and that if Marguerite had chosen thus, it was because she had her reasons, and that it might be disagreeable for her to be deprived of him.

Now La Mole would not have done anything disagreeable to Marguerite for anything in the world.

Fearing to yield to this temptation he returned about two o'clock in the afternoon to the Louvre.

As his room was not occupied this time he could enter it. The matter was urgent enough as far as his doublet was concerned, which, as the queen had already remarked to him, was considerably torn.

He therefore at once approached his bed to substitute the beautiful pearl-gray doublet for the one he wore, when to his great surprise the first thing he perceived near the pearl-gray doublet was the famous sword which he had left in the Rue Cloche Percée.

La Mole took it and turned it over and over.

It was really his.

"Ah! ah!" said he, "is there some magic under all this?" Then with a sigh, "Ah! if poor Coconnas could be found like my sword!"

Two or three hours after La Mole had ceased his circular tramp around the small double house, the door on the Rue Tizon had opened. It was about five o'clock in the evening, consequently night had closed in.

A woman wrapped in a long cloak trimmed with fur, accompanied by an attendant, came out of the door which was held open by a duenna of forty, and hurrying rapidly along to the Rue Roi de Sicile, knocked at a small door of the Hôtel Argenson, which opened for her; she then left by the main entrance of the same hôtel which opened on to the Vieille Rue du Temple, went toward a small postern in the Hôtel de Guise, unlocked it with a key which she carried in her pocket, and disappeared.

Half an hour later a young man with bandaged eyes left by the same door of the small house, guided by a woman who led him to the corner of the Rue Geoffroy Lasnier and La Mortellerie. There she asked him to count fifty steps and then remove his bandage.

The young man carefully obeyed the order, and when he had counted fifty, removed the handkerchief from his eyes.

"By Heaven!" cried he, looking around. "I'll be hanged if I know where I am! Six o'clock!" he cried, as the clock of Notre-Dame struck, "and poor La Mole, what can have become of him? Let us run to the Louvre, perhaps they may have news of him there."

Coconnas hurriedly descended the Rue La Mortellerie, and reached the gates of the Louvre in less time than it would have taken an ordinary horse. As he went he jostled and knocked down the moving hedge of brave bourgeois who were walking peacefully about the shops of the Place de Baudoyer, and entered the palace.

There he questioned the Swiss and the sentinel. The former thought they had seen Monsieur de la Mole enter that morning, but had not seen him go out.

The sentinel had been there only an hour and a half and had seen nothing.

He ran to his room and hastily threw open the door; but he found only the torn doublet of La Mole on the bed, which increased his fears still more.

Then he thought of La Hurière and hastened to the worthy inn of the Belle Étoile. La Hurière had seen La Mole; La Mole had breakfasted there. Coconnas was thus wholly reassured, and as he was very hungry he ordered supper.

Coconnas was in the two moods necessary for a good supper--his mind was relieved and his stomach was empty; therefore he supped so well that the meal lasted till eight o'clock. Then strengthened by two bottles of light wine from Anjou, of which he was very fond and which he tossed off with a sensual enjoyment shown by winks of his eyes and repeated smacking of his lips, he set out again in his search for La Mole, accompanying it through the crowd by kicks and knocks of his feet in proportion to the increasing friendship inspired in him by the comfort which always follows a good meal.

That lasted one hour, during which time Coconnas searched every street in the vicinity of the Quay of the Grève, the Port au Charbon, the Rue Saint Antoine, and the Rues Tizon and Cloche Percée, to which he thought his friend might have returned. Finally he bethought himself that there was a place through which he had to pass, the gate of the Louvre, and he resolved to wait at this gate until his return.

He was not more than a hundred steps from the Louvre, and had just put on her feet a woman whose husband he had already overturned on the Place Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, when in the distance he perceived before him in the doubtful light of a great lantern near the drawbridge of the Louvre the cherry-colored velvet cloak and the white plume of his friend, who like a shadow was disappearing under the gate and returning the sentinel's greeting.

The famous cherry-colored cloak was so well known to every one that he could not be mistaken in it.

"Well! by Heaven!" cried Coconnas; "it is really he this time, and he is returning. Well! well! La Mole, my friend! Plague it! Yet I have a good voice. How does it happen that he does not hear me? Fortunately I have as good legs as I have voice, so I will join him."

In this hope Coconnas set out as fast as he could, and reached the Louvre in an instant, but, fast as he was, just as he stepped into the court the red cloak, which seemed in haste also, disappeared in the vestibule.

"Hi there! La Mole!" cried Coconnas, still hastening. "Wait for me. It is I, Coconnas. What in the devil are you hurrying so for? Are you running away?"

In fact the red cloak, as though it had wings, scaled the stairs rather than mounted them.

"Ah! you will not hear me!" cried Coconnas. "I am angry with you! Are you sorry? Well, the devil! I can run no further." It was from the foot of the staircase that Coconnas hurled this final apostrophe to the fugitive whom he gave up following with his feet, but whom he still followed with his eyes through the screw of the stairway, and who had reached Marguerite's chamber. Suddenly a woman came out of this room and took the arm of the man Coconnas was following.

"Oh! oh!" said Coconnas, "that looked very much like Queen Marguerite. He was expected. In that case it is different. I understand why he did not answer me."

Crouching down by the banister he looked through the opening of the stairway. Then after a few words in a low voice he saw the red cloak follow the queen to her apartments.

"Good! good!" said Coconnas, "that is it. I was not mistaken. There are moments when the presence of our best friend is necessary to us, and dear La Mole has one of those moments."

And Coconnas ascending the stairs softly sat down on a velvet bench which ornamented the landing place, and said to himself:

"Very well, instead of joining him I will wait--yes; but," he added, "I think as he is with the Queen of Navarre I may have to wait long--it is cold, by Heaven! Well! well! I can wait just as well in my room. He will have to come there sometime."

Scarcely had he finished speaking, and started to carry out his resolution, when a quick light step sounded above him, accompanied by a snatch of song so familiar that Coconnas at once turned his head in the direction of the step and the song. It was La Mole descending from the upper story, where his room was. When he perceived Coconnas, he began to descend the stairs four steps at a time, and this done he threw himself into his arms.

"Oh, Heavens! is it you?" said Coconnas. "How the devil did you get out?"

"By the Rue Cloche Percée, by Heavens!"

"No, I do not mean that house."

"What then?"

"The queen's apartment."

"The queen's apartment?"

"The Queen of Navarre."

"I have not been there."

"Come now!"

"My dear Annibal," said La Mole, "you are out of your head. I have come from my room where I have been waiting for you for two hours."

"You have come from your room?"

"Yes."

"Was it not you I followed from the Place du Louvre?"

"When?"

"Just now."

"No."

"It was not you who disappeared under the gate ten minutes ago?"

"No."

"It was not you who just ascended the stairs as if you were pursued by a legion of devils?"

"No."

"By Heaven!" cried Coconnas, "the wine of the Belle Étoile is not poor enough to have so completely turned my head. I tell you that I have just seen your cherry-colored cloak and your white plume under the gate of the Louvre, that I followed both to the foot of the stairway, and that your cloak, your plume, everything, to your swinging arm, was expected here by a lady whom I greatly suspect to be the Queen of Navarre, and who led you through that door, which, unless I am mistaken, is that of the beautiful Marguerite."

"By Heaven!" cried La Mole, growing pale, "could there be treason?"

"Very good!" said Coconnas, "swear as much as you please, but do not tell me I am mistaken."

La Mole hesitated an instant, pressing his head between his hands, deterred by respect and jealousy. His jealousy conquered him, however, and he hastened to the door, at which he knocked with all his might. This caused a somewhat unusual hubbub considering the dignity of the place in which it occurred.

"We shall be arrested," said Coconnas, "but no matter, it is very funny. Tell me, La Mole, are there ghosts in the Louvre?"

"I know nothing about it," said the young man as pale as the plume which shaded his brow; "but I have always wanted to see one, and as the opportunity presents itself I shall do my best to come face to face with this one."

"I shall not prevent you," said Coconnas, "only knock a little less fiercely if you do not wish to frighten it away."

La Mole, exasperated as he was, felt the justice of the remark, and began to knock more gently.

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XXV. THE CHERRY-COLORED CLOAK

Coconnas was not mistaken. The lady who had stopped the cavalier of the cherry-colored cloak was indeed the Queen of Navarre. As to the cavalier, our reader has already guessed, I presume, that he was no other than brave De Mouy. Upon recognizing the Queen of Navarre the young Huguenot realized that there was some mistake; but he dared not speak, fearing a cry from Marguerite would betray him. He preferred to let himself be led to her apartments, and when once there to say to his beautiful guide:

"Silence for silence, madame."

Marguerite had gently pressed the arm of him whom in the semi-darkness she had mistaken for La Mole, and leaning toward him whispered in Latin:

"Sola sum; introito, carissime."[9]

De Mouy without answering let her lead him along; but scarcely was the door closed behind him and he found himself in the antechamber, which was better lighted than the stairway, before Marguerite saw that he was not La Mole.

Thereupon the cry which the cautious Huguenot had feared escaped Marguerite; but fortunately there was no further danger from it.

"Monsieur de Mouy!" cried she, stepping back.

"In person, madame, and I beg your majesty to leave me free to continue my way without mentioning my presence in the Louvre to any one."

"Oh! Monsieur de Mouy!" reiterated Marguerite, "I was mistaken, then!"

"Yes," said De Mouy, "I understand. Your majesty mistook me for the King of Navarre. I am the same height, I wear the same white plume, and many, no doubt in order to flatter me, say I have the same gait."

Marguerite looked closely at De Mouy.

"Do you understand Latin, Monsieur de Mouy?" she asked.

"I used to know it," replied the young man, "but I have forgotten it."

Marguerite smiled.

"Monsieur de Mouy," said she, "you may rely on my discretion. But as I think I know the name of the one you are seeking in the Louvre, I will offer my services to guide you directly to him."

"Excuse me, madame," said De Mouy, "I think you are mistaken, and that you are completely ignorant of"--

"What!" exclaimed Marguerite, "are you not looking for the King of Navarre?"

"Alas, madame," said De Mouy, "I regret to have to beg you especially to conceal my presence in the Louvre from your husband, his majesty the king."

"Listen, Monsieur de Mouy," said Marguerite in surprise, "I have considered you until now one of the strongest leaders of the Huguenot party, and one of the most faithful partisans of the king my husband. Am I mistaken?"

"No, madame, for this very morning I was all that you say."

"And what has changed you since this morning?"

"Madame," said De Mouy, bowing, "kindly excuse me from answering, and do me the favor to accept my homage."

De Mouy, respectful but firm, started towards the door.

Marguerite stopped him.

"But, monsieur," said she, "if I were to ask you for a word of explanation, my word is good, it seems to me?"

"Madame," replied De Mouy, "I am obliged to keep silent, and this duty must be very imperative for me not to have answered your majesty."

"But, monsieur"--

"Your majesty may ruin me, madame, but you cannot ask me to betray my new friends."

"But the old ones, monsieur, have they too not some rights?"

"Those who have remained true, yes; those who not only have abandoned us, but themselves as well, no."

Marguerite, thoughtful and anxious, would no doubt have answered by a new question, had not Gillonne suddenly entered the apartment.

"The King of Navarre!" she cried.

"How is he coming?"

"By the secret corridor."

"Take monsieur out by the other."

"Impossible, madame. Listen."

"Some one is knocking?"

"Yes, at the door to which you wish me to take monsieur."

"Who is knocking?"

"I do not know."

"Go and see, and come back and tell me."

"Madame," said De Mouy, "might I venture to remark to your majesty that if the King of Navarre sees me at this hour and in this costume in the Louvre, I am lost?"

Marguerite seized De Mouy and pushed him towards the famous cabinet.

"Step in here, monsieur," said she; "you will be as safe and as well protected as if you were in your own house; I give you my word of honor."

De Mouy entered hastily. Scarcely was the door closed when Henry appeared.

This time Marguerite had no anxiety to hide--she was merely gloomy, and love was far from her thoughts.

As to Henry, he entered with that mistrust which in the most dangerous moments caused him to notice the smallest details; whatever the circumstances, Henry was an acute observer. Therefore he at once saw the cloud on Marguerite's brow.

"You are busy, madame?" said he.

"I? Why, yes, sire, I was dreaming."

"You do well, madame. Dreaming is becoming to you. I too was dreaming; but contrary to you who seek solitude, I have come on purpose to share my dreams, with you." Marguerite gave the king a gesture of welcome, and indicating an armchair to him, seated herself on a chair of sculptured ebony, as delicate and as strong as steel. There was an instant's silence; then Henry broke it.

"I remembered, madame," said he, "that my dreams as to the future corresponded with yours in so far as although separated as husband and wife, nevertheless we both desire to unite our fortune."

"That is true, sire."

"I think I understood you to say also that in all the plans I might make toward our mutual rising, I would find in you not only a faithful but an active ally."

"Yes, sire, and I ask only one thing, that in beginning the work as soon as possible, you will give me the opportunity to begin also."

"I am glad to find you of this mind, madame, and I trust that you have not for one instant doubted that I would lose sight of the plan I resolved to carry out the very day when, thanks to your brave intervention, I was almost sure of being safe."

"Monsieur, I think that your carelessness is nothing but a mask, and I have faith not only in the predictions by the astrologers, but in your good genius as well."

"What should you say, madame, if someone were to upset our plans and threaten to reduce us to an ordinary position?"

"I should say that I was ready to fight with you, either openly or in secret, against this someone, whoever he might be."

"Madame," continued Henry, "it is possible for you, is it not, to gain immediate admission into the room of your brother, Monsieur d'Alençon? You are in his confidence and he is very friendly to you; might I venture to beg you to find out if he is at present holding a secret conference with someone?"

Marguerite gave a start.

"With whom, monsieur?" she asked.

"With De Mouy."

"Why?" asked Marguerite, repressing her emotion.

"Because if such is the case, madame, farewell to all our projects, or to all mine, at least."

"Sire, speak softly," said Marguerite, making a sign with her eyes and lips, and pointing to the cabinet.

"Oh! oh!" said Henry, "still someone? Indeed, that cabinet is so often occupied that it makes your room uninhabitable."

Marguerite smiled.

"Is it still Monsieur de la Mole?" asked Henry.

"No, sire, it is Monsieur de Mouy."

"He?" cried Henry with surprise mingled with joy. "He is not with the Duc d'Alençon, then? Oh! have him come in, that I may talk to him."

Marguerite stepped to the cabinet, opened it, and taking De Mouy by the hand led him without preamble to the King of Navarre.

"Ah! madame," said the young Huguenot, in a tone of reproach more sad than bitter, "you have betrayed me in spite of your promise; that is wrong. What should you do if I were to avenge myself by saying"--

"You will not avenge yourself, De Mouy," interrupted Henry, pressing the young man's hand, "or at least you will listen to me first. Madame," continued Henry, turning to the queen, "be kind enough, I beg you, to see that no one overhears us."

Scarcely had Henry uttered these words when Gillonne entered, frightened, and whispered a few words to Marguerite, which caused the latter to spring from her seat. While she hastened to the antechamber with Gillonne, Henry, without troubling himself as to why she had left the room, examined the bed, the side of it, as well as the draperies, and sounded the wall with his fingers. As to Monsieur de Mouy, frightened at all these preparations, he first of all made sure that his sword was out of its sheath.

Leaving her sleeping-room, Marguerite hastened to the antechamber and came face to face with La Mole, who in spite of all the protests of Gillonne had forced his way into Marguerite's room.

Coconnas was behind him, ready to urge him forward or sustain a retreat.

"Ah! it is you, Monsieur la Mole!" cried the queen; "but what is the matter, and why are you so pale and trembling?"

"Madame," said Gillonne, "Monsieur de la Mole knocked at the door so that, in spite of your majesty's orders, I was forced to open it."

"What is the meaning of this?" said the queen, severely; "is this true, Monsieur de la Mole?"

"Madame, I wanted to warn your majesty that a stranger, a robber perhaps, had gained admittance to your rooms with my cloak and my hat."

"You are mad, monsieur," said Marguerite, "for I see your cloak on your shoulders, and, God forgive me, I think I see your hat on your head, even though you are speaking to a queen."

"Oh! pardon me, madame, pardon me!" cried La Mole, quickly uncovering; "but God is my witness, it is not my respect which is lacking."

"No, it is your trust, is it not?" said the queen.

"What can you expect?" cried La Mole, "when a man is in your majesty's rooms; when he gains admittance by assuming my clothes, and perhaps my name, who knows"--

"A man!" cried Marguerite, softly pressing her poor lover's arm; "a man! You are modest, Monsieur de la Mole. Look through the opening of the portière and you will see two men."

Marguerite drew back the velvet portière embroidered in gold, and La Mole saw Henry talking with the man in the cherry-colored cloak. Coconnas, as though he himself were concerned, looked also, saw, and recognized De Mouy. Both men stood amazed.

"Now that you are reassured, or at least now that I hope you are," said Marguerite, "take your stand outside my door, and for your life, my dear La Mole, let no one enter. If any one even approaches the stairs, warn me." La Mole, weak and obedient as a child, withdrew, glancing at Coconnas, who looked at him. Both found themselves outside without having thoroughly recovered from their astonishment.

"De Mouy!" cried Coconnas.

"Henry!" murmured La Mole.

"De Mouy with your cherry-colored cloak, your white plume, and your swinging arm."

"Ah!" went on La Mole, "the moment it is not a question of love, it is a question of plot."

"By Heaven! here we are in the midst of politics," said Coconnas grumbling. "Fortunately I do not see Madame de Nevers mixed up in it."

Marguerite returned and sat down by the two speakers. She had been gone only a moment, but had made the most of her time. Gillonne, on guard in the secret passage, and the two gentlemen on duty at the main entrance, assured perfect safety for her.

"Madame," said Henry, "do you think it would be possible for us to be overheard in any way?"

"Monsieur," said Marguerite, "the walls of this room are wadded, and a double wainscoting deadens all sound."

"I depend on you," replied Henry smiling. Then turning to De Mouy:

"Now," said the king, in a low tone, as if in spite of the assurance of Marguerite his fears were not wholly overcome, "what are you here for?"

"Here?" said De Mouy.

"Yes, here, in this room," repeated Henry.

"He had nothing to do here," said Marguerite; "I induced him to come."

"You?"

"I guessed everything."

"You see, De Mouy, we can discover what is going on."

"This morning," continued Marguerite, "Monsieur de Mouy was with Duc François in the apartment of two of his gentlemen."

"You see, De Mouy," repeated Henry, "we know everything."

"That is true," said De Mouy.

"I was sure," said Henry, "that Monsieur d'Alençon had taken possession of you."

"That is your fault, sire. Why did you so persistently refuse what I offered you?"

"You refused!" exclaimed Marguerite. "The refusal I feared, then, was real?"

"Madame," said Henry, shaking his head, "and you, my brave De Mouy, really, you make me laugh with your exclamations. What! a man enters my chamber, speaks to me of a throne, of a revolt, of a revolution, to me, Henry, a prince tolerated provided that I eat humble pie, a Huguenot spared on condition that I play the Catholic; and I am expected to accept, when these propositions are made in a room without padding or double wainscoting! Ventre saint gris! You are either children or fools!"

"But, sire, could not your majesty have left me some hope, if not by word, at least by a gesture or sign?"

"What did my brother-in-law say to you, De Mouy?" asked Henry.

"Oh, sire, that is not my secret."

"Well, my God!" continued Henry, with a certain impatience at having to deal with a man who so poorly understood his words. "I do not ask what you proposed to him, I ask you merely if he listened to you, if he heard you."

"He listened, sire, and he heard."

"He listened and he heard! You admit it yourself, De Mouy, tactless conspirator that you are! Had I said one word you would have been lost, for I did not know, I merely suspected that he was there, or if not he, someone else, the Duc d'Anjou, Charles IX., or the queen mother, for instance. You do not know the walls of the Louvre, De Mouy; it was for them that the proverb was made which says that walls have ears; and knowing these walls you expected me to speak! Well, well, De Mouy, you pay a small compliment to the common sense of the King of Navarre, and I am surprised that not esteeming him more highly you should have offered him a crown."

"But, sire," said De Mouy, "could you not even while refusing this crown have given me some sign? In that case I should not have considered everything hopeless and lost."

"Well! Ventre saint gris!" exclaimed Henry, "if one can hear cannot one see also? and is not one lost by a sign as much as by a word? See, De Mouy," continued the king, looking around him, "at the present moment, so near to you that my words do not reach beyond the circle of our three chairs, I still fear I may be overheard when I say: De Mouy, repeat your proposal to me."

"But, sire," cried De Mouy in despair, "I am now engaged with Monsieur d'Alençon."

Marguerite angrily clasped and unclasped her beautiful hands.

"Then it is too late?" said she.

"On the contrary," murmured Henry, "know that even in this, God's hand is visible. Continue your arrangement, De Mouy, for in Duc François lies our safety. Do you suppose that the King of Navarre would guarantee your heads? On the contrary, wretched man, I should have you all killed to the last one, and on the least suspicion. But with a son of France it is different. Secure proofs, De Mouy, ask for guarantees; but, stupid that you are, you will be deeply involved, and one word will suffice for you."

"Oh, sire, it was my despair at your having left us, believe me, which threw me into the arms of the duke; it was also the fear of being betrayed, for he kept our secret."

"Keep his, now, De Mouy; it rests with you. What does he wish? To leave court? Furnish him with means to escape. Work for him, De Mouy, as if you were working for me, turn the shield so that he may parry every blow they aim at us. When it is time to flee, we will both flee. When it is time to fight and reign, I will reign alone."

"Do not trust the duke," said Marguerite, "he is gloomy and acute, without hatred as without love; ever ready to treat his friends like enemies and his enemies like friends."

"And he is expecting you now, De Mouy?" said Henry.

"Yes, sire."

"Where?"

"In the apartment belonging to his two gentlemen."

"At what time?"

"Before midnight."

"It is not yet eleven o'clock," said Henry, "so you have lost no time; now you may go, De Mouy."

"We have your word, monsieur?" said Marguerite.

"Come now, madame!" said Henry, with the confidence he knew so well how to use with certain people and on certain occasions, "with Monsieur de Mouy, such things are not even asked for."

"You are right, sire," replied the young man; "but I need your word, for I shall have to tell the leaders that I have it. You are not a Catholic, are you?"

Henry shrugged his shoulders.

"You do not renounce the kingdom of Navarre?"

"I renounce no kingdom, De Mouy, I merely reserve for myself the choice of the best; that is, the one which shall best suit me and you."

"And if in the meantime your majesty should be arrested, you would promise to reveal nothing even should they torture your royal majesty?"

"De Mouy, I swear that, before God."

"One further word, sire. How am I to see you in future?"

"After to-morrow you shall have a key to my room. You will come there, De Mouy, as often as it may be necessary and when you please. It is for the Duc d'Alençon to answer for your presence in the Louvre. In the meantime, use the small stairway. I will show you the way. The queen will have the cherry-colored cloak like yours come here--the one who was in the antechamber just now. No one must notice any difference between you, or know that there are two of you, De Mouy. Do you not agree with me? And you, madame?" Henry looked at Marguerite and uttered the last words with a smile.

"Yes," said she, without moving a feature; "for this Monsieur de la Mole belongs to my brother, the duke."

"Well, madame, try to win him over to our side," said Henry, in perfect seriousness. "Spare neither gold nor promises; I will put all my treasures at his disposal."

"In that case," said Marguerite, with one of the smiles which belong only to the women of Boccaccio, "since this is your wish, I will do my best to second it."

"Very good, madame; and you, De Mouy, return to the duke, and make sure of him."

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XXVI. MARGARITA

During the conversation which we have just related, La Mole and Coconnas mounted guard. La Mole somewhat chagrined, Coconnas somewhat anxious. La Mole had had time to reflect, and in this he had been greatly aided by Coconnas.

"What do you think of all this, my friend?" La Mole had asked of Coconnas.

"I think," the Piedmontese had replied, "that there is some court intrigue connected with it."

"And such being the case, are you disposed to play a part in it?"

"My dear fellow," replied Coconnas, "listen well to what I am going to say to you and try and profit by it. In all these princely dealings, in all royal affairs, we can and should be nothing but shadows. Where the King of Navarre leaves a bit of his plume and the Duc d'Alençon a piece of his cloak, we leave our lives. The queen has a fancy for you, and you for her. Nothing is better. Lose your head in love, my dear fellow, but not in politics."

That was wise council. Therefore it was heard by La Mole with the melancholy of a man who feels that, placed between reason and madness, it is madness he will follow.

"I have not a fancy for the queen, Annibal, I love her; and fortunately or unfortunately I love her with all my heart. This is madness, you will say. Well, I admit that I am mad. But you are wise, Coconnas, you ought not to suffer for my foolishness and my misfortune. Go back to our master and do not compromise yourself."

Coconnas pondered an instant. Then raising his head:

"My dear fellow," he replied, "all that you tell me is perfectly reasonable; you are in love--act, therefore, like a lover. I am ambitious, and being so, I think life is worth more to me than a woman's kiss. When I risk my life, I make my own conditions. Try, so far as you are concerned, my poor Medor, to make yours."

Whereupon Coconnas extended his hand to La Mole and withdrew, having exchanged a final glance and a final smile with his friend.

About ten minutes after he left his post, the door opened, and Marguerite, peering out cautiously, took La Mole by the hand and, without uttering a word, drew him from the corridor into the furthest corner of her room. She closed the door behind her with a care which indicated the importance of the conversation she was about to have.

Once in her room she stopped, seated herself on her ebony chair, and drawing La Mole to her, she clasped her hands over both of his.

"Now that we are alone," said she, "let us talk seriously, my very dear friend."

"Seriously, madame," said La Mole.

"Or lovingly. Does that please you better? But there can be serious things in love, and especially in the love of a queen."

"Then--let us talk of serious things; but on condition that your majesty will not be vexed at the lighter things I have to say to you."

"I shall be vexed only at one thing, La Mole, and that is if you address me as 'madame' or 'your majesty.' For you, my beloved, I am just Marguerite."

"Yes, Marguerite! Yes, Margarita! Yes, my pearl!" cried the young man, devouring the queen with his eyes.

"Yes, that is right," said Marguerite. "So you are jealous, my fine gentleman?"

"Oh! unreasonably."

"Still?"

"Madly, Marguerite."

"Jealous of whom? Come!"

"Of everyone."

"But really?"

"Of the king first."

"I should think after what you had seen and heard you might be easy on that point."

"Of this Monsieur de Mouy, whom I saw this morning for the first time, and whom this evening I find so far advanced in his intimacy with you."

"Monsieur de Mouy?"

"Yes."

"Who gave you such ideas about Monsieur de Mouy?"

"Listen! I recognized him from his figure, from the color of his hair, from a natural feeling of hatred. He is the one who was with Monsieur d'Alençon this morning."

"Well, what connection has that with me?"

"Monsieur d'Alençon is your brother. It is said that you are very fond of him. You may have confided to him a vague feeling of your heart, and, according to the custom at court, he has aided your wish by admitting Monsieur de Mouy to your apartment. Now, what I do not understand is how I was fortunate enough to find the king here at the same time. But in any case, madame, be frank with me. In default of other sentiment, a love like mine has the right to demand frankness in return. See, I prostrate myself at your feet. If what you have felt for me is but a passing fancy, I will give you back your trust, your promise, your love; I will give back to Monsieur d'Alençon his kind favors and my post of gentleman, and I will go and seek death at the siege of La Rochelle, if love does not kill me before I have gone as far as that."

Marguerite listened smilingly to these charming words, watching La Mole's graceful gestures, then leaning her beautiful dreamy head on her feverish hand:

"You love me?" she asked.

"Oh, madame! more than life, more than safety, more than all; but you, you--you do not love me."

"Poor fool!" she murmured.

"Ah, yes, madame," cried La Mole, still at her feet, "I have told you I was that."

"The chief thought of your life, then, is your love, dear La Mole!"

"It is the only thought, madame, the sole thought."

"Well, be it so; I will make of all the rest only an accessory to this love. You love me; do you wish to remain near me?"

"My one prayer is that God will never take me from you."

"Well, you shall not leave me. I need you, La Mole."

"You need me? Does the sun need the glow-worm?"

"If I will tell you that I love you, would you be wholly devoted to me?"

"Ah! am I not that already, madame, and more than wholly?"

"Yes, but, God forgive me, you still doubt!"

"Oh! I am wrong, I am ungrateful, or, rather, as I have told you and repeated to you, I am a fool. But why was Monsieur de Mouy with you this evening? why did I see him this morning with Monsieur le Duc d'Alençon? Why that cherry-colored cloak, that white plume, that affected imitation of my gait? Ah! madame, it is not you whom I suspect, but your brother."

"Wretched man!" said Marguerite, "wretched man to suppose that Duc François would push complacency so far as to introduce a wooer to his sister's room! Mad enough to be jealous, and yet not to have guessed! Do you know, La Mole, that the Duc d'Alençon would run you through with his own sword if he knew that you were here, this evening, at my feet, and that instead of sending you away I were saying to you: 'Stay here where you are, La Mole; for I love you, my fine gentleman, do you hear? I love you!' Ah, yes! he would certainly kill you."

"Great God!" cried La Mole, starting back and looking at Marguerite in terror, "is it possible?"

"Everything is possible, my friend, in these times and at this court. Now, one word; it was not for me that Monsieur de Mouy, in your cloak, his face hidden under your hat, came to the Louvre. It was for Monsieur d'Alençon. But I, thinking it was you, brought him here. He knows our secret, La Mole, and must be carefully managed."

"I should prefer to kill him," said La Mole; "that is shorter and surer."

"And I, my brave gentleman," said the queen, "I prefer him to live, and for you to know everything, for not only is his life useful to us, but it is necessary. Listen and weigh your words well before you answer. Do you love me enough, La Mole, to be glad if I were really to become a queen; that is, queen of a real kingdom?"

"Alas, madame, I love you enough to wish what you wish, even should this desire ruin my whole life!"

"Well, do you want to aid me to realize this desire, which would make you still happier?"

"Oh! I should lose you, madame," cried La Mole hiding his head in his hands.

"No, on the contrary. Instead of being the first of my servants, you would become the first of my subjects, that is all."

"Oh! no interest--no ambition, madame--do not sully the feeling I have for you--the devotion, nothing but devotion!"

"Noble nature!" said Marguerite; "well, yes, I accept your devotion, and I shall find out how to reward it."

She extended both her hands, and La Mole covered them with kisses.

"Well!" said she.

"Well, yes!" replied La Mole, "yes, Marguerite, I am beginning to comprehend this vague project already talked of by us Huguenots before the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the scheme for the execution of which I, like many another worthier than myself, was sent to Paris. You covet this actual kingdom of Navarre which is to take the place of an imaginary kingdom. King Henry drives you to it; De Mouy conspires with you, does he not? But the Duc d'Alençon, what is he doing in it all? Where is there a throne for him? I do not see. Now, is the Duc d'Alençon sufficiently your--friend to aid you in all this without asking anything in exchange for the danger he runs?"

"The duke, my friend, is conspiring on his own account. Let us leave him to his illusions. His life answers for ours."

"But I, who belong to him, can I betray him?"

"Betray him! In what are you betraying him? What has he confided to you? Is it not he who has betrayed you by giving your cloak and hat to De Mouy as a means of gaining him admittance to his apartments? You belong to him, you say! Were you not mine, my gentleman, before you were his? Has he given you a greater proof of friendship than the proof of love you have from me?"

La Mole arose, pale and completely overcome.

"Oh!" he murmured, "Coconnas was right, intrigue is enveloping me in its folds. It will suffocate me."

"Well?" asked Marguerite.

"Well," said La Mole, "this is my answer: it is said, and I heard it at the other end of France, where your illustrious name and your universal reputation for beauty touched my heart like a vague desire for the unknown,--it is said that sometimes you love, but that your love is always fatal to those you love, so that death, jealous, no doubt, almost always removes your lovers."

"La Mole!"

"Do not interrupt me, oh, my well-loved Margarita, for they add that you preserve the hearts of these faithful friends in gold boxes[10], and that occasionally you bestow a melancholy thought, a pious glance on the sad remains. You sigh, my queen, your eyes droop; it is true. Well! make me the dearest and the happiest of your favorites. You have pierced the hearts of others, and you keep their hearts. You do more with me, you expose my head. Well, Marguerite, swear to me before the image of the God who has saved my life in this very place, swear to me, that if I die for you, as a sad presentiment tells me I shall do, swear to me that you will keep my head, which the hangman will separate from my body; and that you will sometimes press your lips to it. Swear, Marguerite, and the promise of such reward bestowed by my queen will make me silent, and, if necessary, a traitor and a coward; this is being wholly devoted, as your lover and your accomplice should be."

"Oh! what ghastly foolishness, dear heart!" said Marguerite. "Oh! fatal thought, sweet love."

"Swear"--

"Swear?"

"Yes, on this silver chest with its cross. Swear."

"Well!" said Marguerite, "if--and God forbid!--your gloomy presentiment is realized, my fine gentleman, on this cross I swear to you that you shall be near me, living or dead, so long as I live; and if I am unable to rescue you from the peril which comes to you through me, through me alone, I will at least give to your poor soul the consolation for which you ask, and which you will so well have deserved."

"One word more, Marguerite. I can die now. I shall not mind death; but I can live, too, for we may succeed. The King of Navarre, king, you may be queen, in which case he will take you away. This vow of separation between you will some day be broken, and will do away with ours. Now, Marguerite, my well-beloved Marguerite, with a word you have taken away my every fear of death; now with a word keep up my courage concerning life."

"Oh, fear nothing, I am yours, body and soul!" cried Marguerite, again raising her hand to the cross on the little chest. "If I leave, you follow, and if the king refuses to take you, then I shall not go."

"But you dare not resist!"

"My well-beloved Hyacinthe," said Marguerite, "you do not know Henry. At present he is thinking of only one thing, that is, of being king. For this he would sacrifice everything he owns, and, still more, what he does not own. Now, adieu!"

"Madame," said La Mole, smiling, "are you going to send me away?"

"It is late," said Marguerite.

"No doubt; but where would you have me go? Monsieur de Mouy is in my room with Monsieur le Duc d'Alençon."

"Ah! yes," said Marguerite, with a beautiful smile. "Besides, I have still some things to tell you about this conspiracy."

From that night La Mole was no longer an ordinary favorite. He well might carry his head high, for which, living or dead, so sweet a future was in store.

And yet at times his weary brow was bent, his cheek grew pale, and deep thoughts ploughed their furrows on the forehead of the young man, once so light-hearted, now so happy!

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XXVII. THE HAND OF GOD

On leaving Madame de Sauve Henry had said to her:

"Go to bed, Charlotte. Pretend that you are very ill, and on no account see any one all day to-morrow."

Charlotte obeyed without questioning the reason for this suggestion from the king. She was beginning to be accustomed to his eccentricities, as we should call them to-day, or to his whims as they were then called. Moreover, she knew that deep in his heart Henry hid secrets which he told to no one, in his mind plans which he feared to reveal even in his dreams; so that she carried out all his wishes, knowing that his most peculiar ideas had an object.

Whereupon that evening she complained to Dariole of great heaviness in her head, accompanied by dizziness. These were the symptoms which Henry had suggested to her to feign.

The following day she pretended that she wanted to rise, but scarcely had she put her foot on the floor when she said she felt a general debility, and went back to bed.

This indisposition, which Henry had already announced to the Duc d'Alençon, was the first news brought to Catharine when she calmly asked why La Sauve was not present as usual at her levee.

"She is ill!" replied Madame de Lorraine, who was there.

"Ill!" repeated Catharine, without a muscle of her face betraying the interest she took in the answer. "Some idle fatigue, perhaps."

"No, madame," replied the princess. "She complains of a severe headache and of weakness which prevents her from walking." Catharine did not answer. But, to hide her joy, she turned to the window, and perceiving Henry, who was crossing the court after his conversation with De Mouy, she rose the better to see him. Driven by that conscience which, although invisible, always throbs in the deepest recesses of hearts most hardened to crime:

"Does not my son Henry seem paler than usual this morning?" she asked her captain of the guards.

There was nothing in the question. Henry was greatly troubled mentally; but physically he was very strong.

By degrees those usually present at the queen's levee withdrew. Three or four intimate ones remained longer than the others, but Catharine impatiently dismissed them, saying that she wished to be alone. When the last courtier had gone Catharine closed the door and going to a secret closet hidden in one of the panels of her room she slid back a door in a groove of wood and took out a book, the worn leaves of which showed frequent use. Placing the volume on a table, she opened it to a book-mark, then resting her elbow on the table and her head on one hand:

"That is it," murmured she, reading, "'headache, general weakness, pain in the eyes, swelling of the palate.' As yet they have mentioned only the pains in the head and weakness. But the other symptoms will not be slow in forthcoming."

She continued:

"'Then the inflammation reaches the throat, extends to the stomach, surrounds the heart like a circle of fire, and causes the brain to burst like a thunderclap,'" she read on to herself. Then in a low voice:

"For the fever, six hours; for the general inflammation, twelve hours; for the gangrene, twelve hours; for the suffering, six hours; in all thirty-six hours. Now, suppose that the absorption is slow, and that instead of thirty-six hours we have forty, even forty-eight, yes, forty-eight hours should suffice. But Henry, how is it that he is still up? Because he is a man, because he has a strong constitution, because perhaps he drank after he kissed her, and wiped his lips after drinking."

Catharine awaited the dinner hour with impatience.

Henry dined every day at the king's table. He came, he in turn complained of pain in his head; he ate nothing, and withdrew immediately after the meal, saying that having been awake a part of the previous night, he felt a pressing need of sleep.

Catharine listened as his uncertain steps died away. Then she had him followed. She was told that the King of Navarre had gone to Madame de Sauve's apartments.

"Henry," said she to herself, "will this evening complete the work of death which some unfortunate chance has left half finished."

The King of Navarre had indeed gone to Madame de Sauve's room, but it was to tell her to continue playing her rôle.

The whole of the following morning Henry did not leave his chamber; nor did he appear at dinner. Madame de Sauve, they said, was growing worse and worse, and the report of Henry's illness, spread abroad by Catharine herself, sped like one of those presentiments which hover in the air, but which no one can explain.

Catharine was delighted. The previous morning she had sent Ambroise Paré to help one of her favorite servants, who was ill at Saint Germain, so it had to be one of her own men who was called in to see Madame de Sauve and Henry. This man would say only what she wished him to say. If, contrary to all expectation, some other doctor had been summoned, and if some whisper concerning poison had frightened the court, in which so many such reports had already been circulated, she counted greatly on the rumor to arouse the jealousy of Marguerite regarding the various loves of her husband. We remember she had spoken strongly of this jealousy which had been apparent on various occasions; among others, on the hawthorn walk, where, in the presence of several persons, she had said to her daughter:

"So you are very jealous, Marguerite?" Therefore, with unruffled features she waited for the door to open, when some pale, startled servant would enter, crying:

"Your majesty, the King of Navarre has been hurt, and Madame de Sauve is dead!" Four o'clock in the afternoon struck. Catharine finished her luncheon in the aviary, where she was crumbling some bread for her rare birds which she herself had raised. Although her face was calm and even gloomy, as usual, her heart throbbed violently at the slightest sound. Suddenly the door opened.

"Madame," said the captain of the guards, "the King of Navarre is"--

"Ill?" hastily interrupted Catharine.

"No, madame, thank God! His majesty seems to be wonderfully well."

"What is it, then?"

"The King of Navarre is here."

"What does he want?"

"He is bringing your majesty a rare kind of monkey."

Just then Henry entered holding in his hand a basket, in which was a little monkey he was petting.

He entered smiling and seemed wholly absorbed in the dear little animal he brought; but occupied as he appeared to be, he did not fail to give his usual first glance around. This was sufficient for him under trying circumstances. As to Catharine, she was very pale, of a pallor which deepened as she saw that the cheeks of the young man were flushed with the glow of health.

The queen mother was amazed at this turn of affairs. She accepted Henry's gift mechanically, appeared agitated, complimented him on looking so well, and added:

"I am all the more pleased to see you looking so, because I heard that you were ill, and because, if I remember rightly, you yourself complained of not feeling well, in my presence. But I understand now," she added, trying to smile, "it was an excuse so that you might be free."

"No, I have really been very ill, madame," said Henry, "but a specific used in our mountains, and which comes from my mother, has cured my indisposition."

"Ah! you will give me the recipe, will you not, Henry?" said Catharine, really smiling this time, but with an irony she could not disguise.

"Some counter-poison," she murmured. "We must look into this; but no, seeing Madame de Sauve ill, it will be suspected. Indeed, I believe that the hand of God is over this man."

Catharine waited impatiently for the night. Madame de Sauve did not appear. At play she inquired for her, but was told that she was suffering more and more.

All the evening she was restless, and everyone anxiously wondered what were the thoughts which could move this face usually so calm.

At length everyone retired. Catharine had herself undressed and put to bed by her ladies-in-waiting. Then when everyone had gone to sleep in the Louvre, she rose, slipped on a long black dressing-gown, took a lamp, chose from her keys the one which unlocked the door of Madame de Sauve's apartments, and ascended the stairs to see her maid-of-honor.

Had Henry foreseen this visit? Was he busy in his own rooms? Was he hiding somewhere? However this may have been, the young woman was alone. Catharine opened the door cautiously, crossed the antechamber, entered the reception-room, set her lamp on a table, for a night lamp was burning near the sick woman, and glided like a shadow into the sleeping-room. Dariole in a deep armchair was sleeping near the bed of her mistress.

This bed was entirely shut in by curtains.

The respiration of the young woman was so light that for an instant Catharine thought she was not breathing at all.

At length she heard a slight sigh, and with an evil joy she raised the curtain in order to see for herself the effect of the terrible poison. She trembled in advance at the sight of the livid pallor or the devouring purple of the mortal fever she hoped for. But instead of this, calm, with eyes hidden under their white lids, her mouth rosy and half open, her moist cheek pressed gently against one of her gracefully rounded arms, while the other arm, fresh and pearly, was thrown across the crimson damask which served as counterpane, the beautiful young woman lay sleeping with a smile still on her lips. No doubt some sweet dream brought the smile to her lips, and to her cheek the flush of health which nothing could disturb. Catharine could not refrain from uttering a cry of surprise which roused Dariole for a moment. The queen mother hastily stepped behind the curtains of the bed.

Dariole opened her eyes, but overcome with sleep, without even wondering in her drowsy mind why she had wakened, the young girl dropped her heavy lids and slept again.

Then Catharine came from behind the curtain, and glancing at the other objects in the room, saw on a table a bottle of Spanish wine, some fruit, pastry, and two glasses. Henry must have had supper with the baroness, who apparently was as well as himself. Walking on tiptoe, Catharine took up the small silver box that was partly empty. It was the same or very similar to the one she had sent to Charlotte. She removed from it a piece as large as a pearl on the point of a gold needle, returned to her room, and gave it to the little ape which Henry had brought her that evening. Attracted by the aromatic odor the animal devoured it eagerly, and turning around in his basket, went to sleep. Catharine waited a quarter of an hour.

"With half of what he has just eaten," said she, "my dog Brutus died, swelling up instantly. Some one has played me a trick. Is it Réné? Impossible. Then it is Henry. O fatality! It is very evident that since he is to reign he cannot die. But perhaps the poison was not strong enough. We shall see by trying steel."

And Catharine went to bed revolving in her mind a fresh idea which no doubt was perfected the following day; for she called her captain of the guards to her, gave him a letter, ordered him to take it to its address and to deliver it only into the hands of the one for whom it was intended. It was addressed to the Sire de Louvièrs de Maurevel, Captain of the King's Petard Makers, Rue de la Cerisaie, near the Arsenal.

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XXVIII. THE LETTER FROM ROME

Several days elapsed after the events we have just described, when one morning a litter escorted by several gentlemen wearing the colors of Monsieur de Guise entered the Louvre, and word was brought to the Queen of Navarre that Madame la Duchesse de Nevers begged the honor of an audience. Marguerite was receiving a call from Madame de Sauve. It was the first time the beautiful baroness had been out since her pretended illness. She knew that the queen had expressed to her husband great anxiety on account of her indisposition, which for almost a week had been court gossip, and she had come to thank her.

Marguerite congratulated her on her convalescence and on her good fortune at having recovered so quickly from the strange malady, the seriousness of which as a daughter of France she could not fail to appreciate.

"I trust you will attend the hunt, already once postponed," said Marguerite. "It is planned positively for to-morrow. For winter, the weather is very mild. The sun has softened the earth, and the hunters all say that the day will be fine."

"But, madame," said the baroness, "I do not know if I shall be strong enough."

"Bah!" exclaimed Marguerite, "make an effort; moreover, since I am one of the hunters, I have told the King to reserve a small Béarnese horse which I was to ride, but which will carry you perfectly. Have you not already heard of it?"

"Yes, madame, but I did not know that it was meant for your majesty. Had I known that I should not have accepted it."

"From a feeling of pride, baroness?"

"No, madame, from a feeling of humility, on the contrary."

"Then you will come?"

"Your majesty overwhelms me with honor. I will come, since you command me."

At that moment Madame la Duchesse de Nevers was announced. At this name Marguerite gave a cry of such delight that the baroness understood that the two women wanted to talk together. She rose to leave.

"Until to-morrow, then," said Marguerite.

"Until to-morrow, madame."

"By the way," continued Marguerite holding the baroness by the hand, "you know that in public I hate you, for I am horribly jealous of you."

"But in private?" asked Madame de Sauve.

"Oh! in private, not only do I forgive you, but more than that, I thank you."

"Then your majesty will permit me"--

Marguerite held out her hand, the baroness kissed it respectfully, made a low courtesy and went out.

While Madame de Sauve ascended her stairway, bounding like a deer whose tether has been broken, Madame de Nevers was exchanging a few formal words with the queen, which gave time to the gentlemen who had accompanied her to retire.

"Gillonne," cried Marguerite when the door was closed behind the last, "Gillonne, see that no one interrupts us."

"Yes," said the duchess, "for we have matters of grave importance to discuss."

Taking a chair she seated herself without ceremony in the best place near the fire and in the sunlight, sure that no one would interrupt the pleasant intimacy between herself and the Queen of Navarre.

"Well," said Marguerite, with a smile, "what about our famous slaughterer?"

"My dear queen," said the duchess, "he is a mythological creature, upon my word. He is incomparable, so far as his mind is concerned, and never dries up. He makes witty remarks that would make a saint in her shrine die of laughing. In other respects he is the maddest heathen who ever walked in the skin of a Catholic! I dote on him! And you, what are you doing with your Apollo?"

"Alas!" said Marguerite with a sigh.

"Oh, how that 'alas!' frightens me, dear queen! Is the gentle La Mole too respectful or too sentimental? In that, I am forced to admit he would be exactly the opposite of his friend Coconnas."

"Oh, no, he has his moments," said Marguerite, "but this 'alas!' concerned only myself."

"What does it mean, then?"

"It means, dear duchess, that I am terribly afraid I am actually in love."

"Really?"

"On my honor!"

"Oh! so much the better! What a merry life we can lead!" cried Henriette. "To love a little is my dream; to love much, is yours. It is so sweet, dear and learned queen, to rest the mind by the heart, is it not? and to have the smile after the delirium. Ah, Marguerite, I have a feeling that we are going to have a glorious year!"

"Do you think so?" said the queen. "I, on the contrary, do not know how that may be; I see things through a veil. All these politics occupy me so much. By the way, do you know if your Annibal is as devoted to my brother as he seems to be? Find out for me. I must know."

"He, devoted to anybody or anything! It is easy to see that you do not know him as I do. If he ever is devoted to anything it will be his ambition, and that is all. If your brother is a man to make great promises to him, well, he will be devoted to your brother; but let your brother, son of France that he is, be careful not to break the promises he makes him. If he does, my faith, look out for your brother!"

"Really?"

"It is just as I say. Truly, Marguerite, there are times when this tiger whom I have tamed frightens me. The other day I said to him, 'Annibal, be careful, do not deceive me, for if you do!'--I said it, however, with my emerald eyes which prompted Ronsard's lines:

"'La Duchesse de Nevers,[11] Aux yeux verts, Qui, sous leur paupière blonde Lancent sur nous plus d'éclairs Que ne font vingt Jupiters Dans les airs Lorsque la tempête gronde.'"

"Well?"

"Well, I supposed he would answer me: 'I deceive you! I! never! etc., etc.' But do you know what he did answer?"

"No."

"Well, judge of the man! 'And you,' he replied, 'if you deceive me, you take care too, for, princess that you are'--and as he said this he threatened me not only with his eyes, but with his slender pointed finger, with its nail cut like a steel lance, which he held before my nose. At that moment, my poor queen, I confess he looked so fierce that I trembled, and yet you know I am no coward."

"He threatened you, Henriette, he dared?"

"Well, I had threatened him! For that matter he was right. So you see he is devoted up to a certain point, or rather to a very uncertain point."

"In that case we shall see," said Marguerite thoughtfully; "I will speak to La Mole. Have you nothing else to tell me?"

"Yes; something most interesting for which I came. But, the idea, you have told me more interesting things still. I have received news."

"From Rome?"

"Yes, through a courier from my husband."

"Ah! the Poland affair?"

"It is progressing beautifully, and probably in a day or two you will be rid of your brother of Anjou."

"So the pope has ratified his election?"

"Yes, my dear."

"And you never told me!" cried Marguerite. "Well, quick, quick, the details."

"Oh, mercy, I have none except those I have given you. But wait, I will give you the letter from Monsieur de Nevers. Here it is. Oh, no, those are some verses from Annibal, atrocious ones too, my poor Marguerite. He can not write any other kind. But wait, here it is. No, it isn't, that is a note of my own which I brought for you to have La Mole give him. Ah! at last, here it is." And Madame de Nevers handed the letter to the queen.

Marguerite opened it hastily and read it; but it told nothing more than she had already learned from her friend.

"How did you receive this?" continued the queen.

"From a courier of my husband, who had orders to stop at the Hôtel de Guise before going to the Louvre, and to deliver this letter to me before delivering that of the King. I knew the importance my queen would attach to this news, and I had written to Monsieur de Nevers to act thus. He obeyed, you see; he is not like that monster of a Coconnas. Now there is no one in the whole of Paris, except the King, you, and I, who knows this news; except the man who followed our courier"--

"What man?"

"Oh! the horrid business! Imagine how tired, worn out, and dusty the wretched messenger was when he arrived! He rode seven days, day and night, without stopping an instant."

"But the man you spoke of just now?"

"Wait a minute. Constantly followed by a wild-looking fellow who had relays like himself and who rode as far as he did for the four hundred leagues, the poor courier constantly expected to be shot in his back. Both reached the Saint Marcel gate at the same time, both galloped down the Rue Mouffetard, both crossed the city. But at the end of the bridge of Notre-Dame our courier turned to the right, while the other took the road to the left by the Place du Châtelet, and sped along the quays by the side of the Louvre, like an arrow from a bow."

"Thanks, my good Henriette, thanks!" cried Marguerite. "You are right; that is very interesting news. By whom was the other courier sent? I must know. So leave me until this evening. Rue Tizon, is it not? and the hunt to-morrow. Do take a frisky horse, so that he will run away, and we can be by ourselves. I will tell you this evening what is necessary for you to try and find out from your Coconnas."

"You will not forget my letter?" said the duchess of Nevers smiling.

"No, no, do not worry; he shall have it, and at once."

Madame de Nevers left, and Marguerite immediately sent for Henry, who came to her quickly. She gave him the letter from the Duc de Nevers.

"Oh! oh!" he exclaimed.

Then Marguerite told him about the second courier.

"Yes," said Henry; "I saw him enter the Louvre."

"Perhaps he was for the queen mother."

"No, I am sure of that, for I ventured to take my stand in the corridor, and I saw no one pass."

"Then," said Marguerite, looking at her husband, "he must be"--

"For your brother D'Alençon, must he not?" said Henry.

"Yes; but how can we be sure?"

"Could not one of his two gentlemen be sent for?" said Henry, carelessly, "and through him"--

"You are right," said Marguerite, put at her ease at her husband's suggestion. "I will send for Monsieur de la Mole. Gillonne! Gillonne!"

The young girl appeared.

"I must speak at once with Monsieur de la Mole," said the queen. "Try to find him and bring him here."

Gillonne disappeared. Henry seated himself before a table on which was a German book containing engravings by Albert Durer, which he began to examine with such close attention that when La Mole entered he did not seem to hear him, and did not even raise his head.

On his side, the young man, seeing the king with Marguerite, stopped on the threshold, silent from surprise and pale from anxiety.

Marguerite went to him.

"Monsieur de la Mole," said she, "can you tell me who is on guard to-day at Monsieur d'Alençon's?"

"Coconnas, madame," said La Mole.

"Try to find out for me from him if he admitted to his master's room a man covered with mud, who apparently had a long or hasty ride."

"Ah, madame, I fear he will not tell me; for several days he has been very taciturn."

"Indeed! But by giving him this note, it seems to me that he will owe you something in exchange."

"From the duchess! Oh, with this note I will try."

"Add," said Marguerite, lowering her voice, "that this note will serve him as a means of gaining entrance this evening to the house you know about."

"And I, madame," said La Mole, in a low tone, "what shall be mine?"

"Give your name. That will be enough."

"Give me the note, madame," said La Mole, with throbbing heart, "I will bring back the answer."

He withdrew.

"We shall know to-morrow if the duke has been informed of the Poland affair," said Marguerite calmly, turning to her husband.

"That Monsieur de la Mole is really a fine servant," said the Béarnais, with his peculiar smile, "and, by Heaven! I will make his fortune!"

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XXIX. THE DEPARTURE

When on the following day a beautiful sun, red but rayless, as is apt to be the case on privileged days of winter, rose behind the hills of Paris, everything had already been awake for two hours in the court of the Louvre. A magnificent Barbary horse, nervous and spirited, with limbs like those of a stag, on which the veins crossed one another like network, pawed the ground, pricked up his ears and snorted, while waiting for Charles IX. He was less impatient, however, than his master who, detained by Catharine, had been stopped by her in the hall. She had said she wished to speak to him on a matter of importance. Both were in the corridor with the glass windows. Catharine was cold, pale, and quiet as usual. Charles IX. fretted, bit his nails, and whipped his two favorite dogs. The latter were covered with cuirasses of mail, so that the snout of the wild boar should not harm them, and that they might be able to encounter the terrible animal with impunity. A small scutcheon with the arms of France had been stitched on their breasts similar to those on the breasts of the pages, who, more than once, had envied the privileges of these happy favorites.

"Pay attention, Charles," said Catharine, "no one but you and I knows as yet of the expected arrival of these Polonais. But, God forgive me, the King of Navarre acts as if he knew. In spite of his abjuration, which I always mistrust, he is in communication with the Huguenots. Have you noticed how often he has gone out the past few days? He has money, too, he who has never had any. He buys horses, arms, and on rainy days he practises fencing from morning until night."

"Well, my God, mother!" exclaimed Charles IX., impatiently, "do you think he intends to kill me, or my brother D'Anjou? In that case he will need a few more lessons, for yesterday I counted eleven buttonholes with my foil on his doublet, which, however, had only six. And as to my brother D'Anjou, you know that he fences as well if not better than I do; at least so people say."

"Listen, Charles," continued Catharine, "and do not treat lightly what your mother tells you. The ambassadors will arrive; well, you will see! As soon as they are in Paris, Henry will do all he can to gain their attention. He is insinuating, he is crafty; without mentioning his wife who seconds him, I know not why, and will chat with them, and talk Latin, Greek, Hungarian, and I know not what, to them! Oh, I tell you, Charles,--and you know that I am not mistaken,--I tell you that there is something on foot."

Just then the clock struck and Charles IX. stopped listening to his mother to count the strokes.

"Good heavens! seven o'clock!" he exclaimed, "one hour before we get off, that will make it eight; one hour to reach the meeting-place, and to start again--we shall not be able to begin hunting before nine o'clock. Really, mother, you make me lose a great deal of time! Down, Risquetout! great Heavens! down, I say, you brigand!"

And a vigorous blow of the bloody whip on the mastiff's back brought a howl of real pain from the poor beast, thoroughly astonished at receiving punishment in exchange for a caress.

"Charles!" said Catharine, "listen to me, in God's name, and do not leave to chance your fortune and that of France! The hunt, the hunt, the hunt, you cry; why, you will have time enough to hunt when your work of king is settled."

"Come now, mother!" exclaimed Charles, pale with impatience, "explain quickly, for you bother me to death. Really, there are days when I cannot comprehend you."

He stopped beating his whip against his boot.

Catharine thought that the time had come and that it should not be passed by.

"My son," said she, "we have proof that De Mouy has returned to Paris. Monsieur de Maurevel, whom you are well acquainted with, has seen him. This can be only for the King of Navarre. That is enough, I trust, for us to suspect him more than ever."

"Come, there you go again after my poor Henriot! You want me to have him killed; do you not?"

"Oh, no."

"Exiled? But why can you not see that if he were exiled he would be much more dangerous than he will ever be here, in the Louvre, under our eyes, where he can do nothing without our knowing it at once?"

"Therefore I do not wish him exiled."

"What do you want, then? Tell me quickly!"

"I want him to be held in safe keeping while these Polonais are here; in the Bastille, for instance."

"Ah! my faith, no!" cried Charles IX. "We are going to hunt the boar this morning and Henry is one of my best men. Without him the fun would be spoiled. By Heaven, mother! really, you do nothing but vex me."

"Why, my dear son, I did not say this morning. The ambassadors do not arrive until to-morrow or the day after. Arrest him after your hunt, this evening--to-night"--

"That is a different matter. Well, we will talk about it later and see. After the hunt I will not refuse. Adieu! Come here, Risquetout! Is it your turn to sulk now?"

"Charles," said Catharine, laying a detaining hand on his arm at the risk of a fresh explosion which might result from this new delay, "I think that the best thing to do is to sign the order for arrest at once, even though it is not to be carried out until this evening or to-night."

"Sign, write an order, look up a seal for the parchment when they are waiting for me to go hunting, I, who never keep anyone waiting! The devil take the thought!"

"Why, no, I love you too dearly to delay you. I arranged everything beforehand; step in here and see!"

And Catharine, as agile as if she were only twenty years old, pushed open a door of her cabinet, and pointed to an ink-stand, pen, parchment, the seal, and a lighted candle.

The king took the parchment and read it through hastily.

"Order, etc., etc., to arrest and conduct to the Bastille our brother Henry of Navarre."

"Good, that is done!" he exclaimed, signing hurriedly. "Adieu, mother."

He hastened from the room, followed by his dogs, greatly pleased to have gotten rid of Catharine so easily.

Charles IX. had been waited for with impatience, and as his promptness in hunting matters was well known, every one wondered at the delay. So when he finally appeared, the hunters welcomed him by shouts of "Long live the King!" the outriders by a flourish of trumpets, the horses by neighing, the dogs by barking. All this noise and hubbub brought a flush to his pale cheeks, his heart swelled, and for a moment Charles was young and happy.

The King scarcely took the time to salute the brilliant company gathered in the court-yard. He nodded to the Duc d'Alençon, waved his hand to his sister Marguerite, passed Henry without apparently seeing him, and sprang upon the fiery Barbary horse, which started off at once. But after curvetting around three or four times, he realized what sort of a rider he had to deal with and quieted down. The trumpets again sounded, and the King left the Louvre followed by the Duc d'Alençon, the King of Navarre, Marguerite, Madame de Nevers, Madame de Sauve, Tavannes, and the principal courtiers.

It goes without saying that La Mole and Coconnas were of the number.

As to the Duc d'Anjou, he had been at the siege of La Rochelle for three months.

While waiting for the King, Henry had spoken to his wife, who in returning his greeting had whispered,

"The courier from Rome was admitted by Monsieur de Coconnas himself to the chamber of the Duc d'Alençon a quarter of an hour before the messenger from the Duc de Nevers saw the King."

"Then he knows all," said Henry.

"He must know all," replied Marguerite; "but keep your eyes on him and see how, in spite of his usual dissimulation, his eyes shine."

"Ventre saint gris!" murmured the Béarnais. "I should think they would; he hunts triple game to-day: France, Poland, and Navarre, without counting the wild boar."

He bowed to his wife, returned to his place, and calling one of his servants whose ancestors had been in the service of his father for more than a century, and whom he employed as ordinary messenger in his love affairs:

"Orthon," said he, "take this key to the cousin of Madame de Sauve, who you know lives with his mistress at the corner of the Rue des Quatre Fils. Say to him that his cousin desires to speak to him this evening; that he is to enter my room, and, in case I am not there, to wait for me. If I am late, he is to lie down on my bed."

"Is there an answer, sire?"

"No, except to tell me if you find him. The key is for him alone, you understand?"

"Yes, sire."

"Wait; do not start now, plague you! Before leaving Paris I will call you to tighten my saddle-girths; in that way you will naturally have to lag behind, and you can carry out your commission and join us at Bondy."

The servant made a sign of obedience and rode away.

They set out by the Rue Saint Honoré, through the Rue Saint Denis, and the Faubourg. At the Rue Saint Laurent the saddle-girths of the King of Navarre became loose. Orthon rode up to him, and everything happened as had been agreed on between him and his master, who followed the royal procession along the Rue des Récollets, where his faithful servant sought the Rue du Temple.

When Henry overtook the King, Charles was engaged in such an interesting conversation with the Duc d'Alençon, on the subject of the weather, the age of the wild boar which was a recluse, and as to where he had made his lair, that he did not notice, or pretended he did not notice, that Henry had lagged behind a moment.

In the meantime Marguerite had watched each countenance from afar and thought she perceived a certain embarrassment in the eyes of her brother every time she looked at him. Madame de Nevers was abandoning herself to mad gayety, for Coconnas, supremely happy that day, was making numberless jokes near her to make the ladies laugh.

As to La Mole he had already twice found an opportunity to kiss Marguerite's white scarf with gold fringe, without the act, which was carried out with the skill usual to lovers, having been seen by more than three or four.

About a quarter-past eight they reached Bondy. The first thought of Charles IX. was to find out if the wild boar had held out.

The boar was in his lair, and the outrider who had turned him aside answered for him. A breakfast was ready. The King drank a glass of Hungarian wine. Charles IX. invited the ladies to take seats at table, and in his impatience to pass away the time set out to visit the kennels and the roosts, giving orders not to unsaddle his horse, as he said he had never had a better or a stronger mount.

While the King was taking this stroll, the Duc de Guise arrived. He was armed for war rather than for hunting, and was accompanied by twenty or thirty gentlemen equipped in like manner. He asked at once for the King, joined him, and returned talking with him.

At exactly nine o'clock the King himself gave the signal to start, and each one mounted and set out to the meet. During the ride Henry found another opportunity to be near his wife.

"Well," said he, "do you know anything new?"

"No," replied Marguerite, "unless it is that my brother Charles looks at you strangely."

"I have noticed it," said Henry.

"Have you taken precautions?"

"I have on a coat of mail, and at my side a good Spanish hunting knife, as sharp as a razor, and as pointed as a needle. I could pierce pistols with it."

"In that case," said Marguerite, "God protect you!"

The outrider in charge of the hunt made a sign. They had reached the lair.

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XXX. MAUREVEL

While all this careless, light-hearted youth, apparently so at least, was scattering like a gilded whirlwind along the road to Bondy, Catharine, still rolling up the precious parchment to which King Charles had just affixed his signature, admitted into her room a man to whom, a few days before, her captain of the guards had carried a letter, addressed to Rue de la Cerisaie, near the Arsenal.

A broad silk band like a badge of mourning hid one of the man's eyes, showing only the other eye, two prominent cheek-bones, and the curve of a vulture's nose, while a grayish beard covered the lower part of his face. He wore a long thick cloak, beneath which one might have imagined a whole arsenal. Besides this, although it was not the custom of those called to court, he wore at his side a long campaign sword, broad, and with a double blade. One of his hands was hidden beneath his cloak, and never left the handle of a long dagger.

"Ah! you here, monsieur?" said the queen seating herself; "you know that I promised you after Saint Bartholomew, when you rendered us such signal service, not to let you be idle. The opportunity has arisen, or rather I have made it. Thank me, therefore."

"Madame, I humbly thank your majesty," replied the man with the black bandage, in a reserved voice at once low and insolent.

"A fine opportunity; you will not find another such in your whole life. Make the most of it, therefore."

"I am waiting, madame, only after the preamble, I fear"--

"That the commission may not be much? Are not those who wish to advance fond of such commissions? The one of which I speak would be envied by the Tavannes and even by the De Guises."

"Ah! madame," said the man, "believe me, I am at your majesty's orders, whatever they may be."

"In that case, read," said Catharine.

She handed him the parchment. The man read it and grew pale.

"What!" he exclaimed, "an order to arrest the King of Navarre!"

"Well! what is there strange in that?"

"But a king, madame! Really, I think--I fear I am not of sufficiently high rank."

"My confidence makes you the first gentleman of my court, Monsieur de Maurevel," said Catharine.

"I thank your majesty," said the assassin so moved that he seemed to hesitate.

"You will obey, then?"

"If your majesty orders it, is it not my duty?"

"Yes, I order it."

"Then I will obey."

"How shall you go to work?"

"Why, madame, I do not know, I should greatly like to be guided by your majesty."

"You fear noise?"

"I admit it."

"Take a dozen sure men, if necessary."

"I understand, of course, that your majesty will permit me to do the best I can for myself, and I am grateful to you for this; but where shall I arrest the King of Navarre?"

"Where would it best please you to arrest him?"

"In some place in which I should be warranted in doing so, if possible, even by his Majesty."

"Yes, I understand, in some royal palace; what do you say to the Louvre, for instance?"

"Oh, if your majesty would permit it, that would be a great favor."

"You will arrest him, then, in the Louvre."

"In what part?"

"In his own room."

Maurevel bowed.

"When, madame?"

"This evening, or rather to-night."

"Very well, madame. Now, will your majesty deign to inform me on one point?"

"On what point?"

"About the respect due to his position."

"Respect! position!" said Catharine, "why, then, you do not know, monsieur, that the King of France owes respect to no one in his kingdom, whoever he may be, recognizing no position as equal to his own?"

Maurevel bowed a second time.

"I insist on this point, however, madame, if your majesty will allow me."

"I will, monsieur."

"If the king contests the authenticity of the order, which is not probable, but"--

"On the contrary, monsieur, he is sure to do so."

"He will contest it?"

"Without a doubt."

"And consequently he will refuse to obey it?"

"I fear so."

"And he will resist?"

"Probably."

"Ah! the devil!" said Maurevel; "and in that case"--

"In what case?" said Catharine, not moving her eyes from him.

"Why, in case he resists, what is to be done?"

"What do you do when you are given an order from the King, that is, when you represent the King, and when there is any resistance, Monsieur de Maurevel?"

"Why, madame," said the sbirro, "when I am honored with such an order, and when this order refers to a simple gentleman, I kill him."

"I told you, monsieur," said Catharine, "and I scarcely think that sufficient time has elapsed for you to have forgotten it, that the King of France recognizes no position in his kingdom, and that after him the greatest are simple gentlemen."

Maurevel grew pale, for he was beginning to comprehend.

"Oh! oh!" he cried, "kill the King of Navarre?"

"Why, who is speaking of killing him? Where is the order to kill him? The King wishes him taken to the Bastille, and the order contains nothing more. If he lets himself be arrested, very good; but as he will not let himself be arrested, as he will resist, as he will endeavor to kill you"--

Maurevel grew paler.

"You will defend yourself," continued Catharine. "One cannot ask a brave man like you to let himself be killed without defending himself; and in defending yourself, what can you expect? You must let come what may. You understand me, do you not?"

"Yes, madame; and yet"--

"Come, do you want me to write dead or alive after the words order to arrest?"

"I confess, madame, that that would do away with my scruples."

"Well, it must be done, of course, since you do not think the order can be carried out without it."

And Catharine shrugged her shoulders, unrolled the parchment with one hand, and wrote with the other: "dead or alive."

"Now," said she, "do you consider the order all right?"

"Yes, madame," replied Maurevel; "but I beg your majesty to leave the carrying out of the entire affair to me."

"What have I said that will interfere with it?"

"Your majesty told me to take a dozen men."

"Yes, to make sure"--

"Well, I ask permission to take only six."

"Why so?"

"Because, madame, if anything happens to the prince, as it probably will, it would be easy to excuse six men for having been afraid of losing the prisoner, but no one would excuse a dozen guards for not having let half of their number be killed before laying hands on royalty."

"Fine royalty, in truth, which has no kingdom."

"Madame," said Maurevel, "it is not the kingdom which makes the king: it is birth."

"Very well," said Catharine; "do as you please. Only I must warn you that I do not wish you to leave the Louvre."

"But, madame, to get my men together?"

"Have you not a sort of sergeant whom you can charge with this duty?"

"I have my lackey, who not only is a faithful fellow, but who has even occasionally aided me in this sort of thing."

"Send for him, and confer with him. You know the chamber hung with the King's arms, do you not? Well, your breakfast shall be served there; and from there you shall give your orders. The place will aid you to collect your wits in case they are scattered. Then when my son returns from the hunt, you are to go into my oratory, and wait until the time comes."

"But how are we to get into the room? Probably the king suspects something, and he will shut himself up in it."

"I have a duplicate key to every door," said Catharine, "and the bolts have been removed from Henry's room. Adieu, Monsieur de Maurevel, for a while. I will have you taken to the King's armory. Ah! by the way! remember that the order of a King must be carried out before anything else. No excuse is admissible; a defeat, even a failure, would compromise the honor of the King. It is a serious matter."

And Catharine, without giving Maurevel time to answer, called Monsieur de Nancey, the captain of the guards, and ordered him to conduct Maurevel to the king's armory.

"My God!" exclaimed Maurevel as he followed his guide, "I have risen to the hierarchy of assassination; from a simple gentleman to a captain, from a captain to an admiral, from an admiral to a king without a crown. Who knows if I shall not some day be a king with a crown!"

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