LIV. THE FOREST OF VINCENNES
According to the order given by Charles IX., Henry was conducted that same evening to Vincennes. Such was the name given at that time to the famous castle of which to-day only a fragment remains, colossal enough, however, to give an idea of its past grandeur.
The trip was made in a litter, on either side of which walked four guards.
Monsieur de Nancey, bearing the order which was to open to Henry the door of the protecting abode, walked first.
At the postern of the prison they stopped. Monsieur de Nancey dismounted from his horse, opened the gate, which was closed with a padlock, and respectfully asked the king to follow.
Henry obeyed without uttering a word. Any dwelling seemed to him safer than the Louvre, and ten doors closed on him were at the same time ten doors shut between him and Catharine de Médicis.
The royal prisoner crossed the drawbridge between two soldiers, passed through the three doors on the ground floor and the three at the foot of the staircase; then, still preceded by Monsieur de Nancey, he ascended one flight. Arrived there, the captain of the guards, seeing that the king was about to mount another flight, said to him:
"My lord, you are to stop here."
"Ah!" said Henry, pausing, "it seems that I am given the honors of the first floor."
"Sire," replied Monsieur de Nancey, "you are treated like a crowned head."
"The devil! the devil!" said Henry to himself, "two or three floors more would in no way have humiliated me. I shall be too comfortable here; I suspect something."
"Will your majesty follow me?" asked Monsieur de Nancey.
"Ventre saint gris!" said the King of Navarre, "you know very well, monsieur, that it is not a question of what I will or will not do, but of what my brother Charles orders. Did he command that I should follow you?"
"Yes, sire."
"Then I will do so, monsieur."
They reached a sort of corridor at the end of which they came to a good-sized room, with dark and gloomy looking walls. Henry gazed around him with a glance not wholly free from anxiety.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"In the chamber of torture, my lord."
"Ah!" replied the king, looking at it more closely.
There was something of everything in this chamber--pitchers and wooden horses for the torture by water; wedges and mallets for the torture of the boot; besides stone benches nearly all around the room for the wretches who awaited the torture. Above these benches, at the seats themselves, and at their feet, were iron rings fastened into the walls, without other symmetry than that of the torturing art. But their proximity to the seats sufficiently indicated that they were there in order to await the limbs of those who were to occupy them.
Henry walked on without a word, but not a single detail of all the hideous apparatus which, so to speak, had stamped the history of suffering on the walls escaped him.
The king was so taken up with the objects about him that he forgot to look where he was going, and came to a sudden standstill.
"Ah!" said he, "what is that?"
And he pointed to a kind of ditch dug in the damp pavement which formed the floor.
"That is the gutter, sire."
"Does it rain here, then?"
"Yes, sire, blood."
"Ah!" said Henry, "very good. Shall we not soon reach my apartment?"
"Yes, my lord, here it is," said a figure in the dark, which, as it drew nearer, became clearer and more distinguishable.
Henry thought he recognized the voice, and advanced towards the figure.
"So it is you, Beaulieu," said he. "What the devil are you doing here?"
"Sire, I have just received my appointment as governor of the fortress of Vincennes."
"Well, my dear friend, your initiation does you honor. A king for a prisoner is not bad."
"Pardon me, sire," said Beaulieu, "but I have already had two gentlemen."
"Who are they? But, pardon me, perhaps I am indiscreet. If so, assume that I have said nothing."
"My lord, I have not been ordered to keep it secret. They are Monsieur de la Mole and Monsieur de Coconnas."
"Ah! that is true. I saw them arrested. Poor gentlemen, and how do they bear this misfortune?"
"Differently. One is gay, the other sad; one sings, the other groans."
"Which one groans?"
"Monsieur de la Mole, sire."
"Faith," said Henry, "I can understand more easily the one who groans than the one who sings. After what I have seen the prison is not a very lively place. On what floor are they?"
"High up; on the fourth."
Henry heaved a sigh. It was there that he wished to be.
"Come, Monsieur de Beaulieu," said he, "be good enough to show me my room. I am in haste to see it, as I am greatly fatigued from the journey we have just made."
"This is it, my lord," said Beaulieu, pointing to an open door.
"Number two," said Henry; "why not number one?"
"Because that is reserved, my lord."
"Ah! it seems, then, that you expect a prisoner of higher rank than I."
"I did not say, my lord, that it was a prisoner."
"Who is it, then?"
"I beg my lord not to insist, for by refusing to answer I should fail in the obedience due him."
"Ah! that is another thing," said Henry.
And he became more pensive than before. Number one perplexed him, apparently. The governor was assiduous in his attentions. With a thousand apologies he installed Henry in his apartment, made every excuse for the comforts he might lack, stationed two soldiers at the door, and withdrew.
"Now," said the governor, addressing the turnkey, "let us go to the others."
The turnkey walked ahead. They took the same road by which they had come, passed through the chamber of torture, crossed the corridor, and reached the stairway. Then, still following his guide, Monsieur de Beaulieu ascended three flights. On reaching the fourth floor the turnkey opened successively three doors, each ornamented with two locks and three enormous bolts. He had scarcely touched the third door before they heard a joyous voice exclaiming:
"By Heaven! open; if only to give us some air. Your stove is so warm that I am stifled here."
And Coconnas, whom the reader has no doubt already recognized from his favorite exclamation, bounded from where he stood to the door.
"One instant, my gentleman," said the turnkey, "I have not come to let you out, but to let myself in, and the governor is with me."
"The governor!" said Coconnas, "what does he want?"
"To pay you a visit."
"He does me great honor," said Coconnas; "and he is welcome."
Monsieur de Beaulieu entered and at once dispelled the cordial smile of Coconnas by one of those icy looks which belong to governors of fortresses, to jailers, and to hangmen.
"Have you any money, monsieur?" he asked of the prisoner.
"I?" said Coconnas; "not a crown."
"Jewels?"
"I have a ring."
"Will you allow me to search you?"
"By Heaven!" cried Coconnas, reddening with anger, "you take much on yourself, being in prison, and having me there also."
"We must suffer everything for the service of the King."
"So," said the Piedmontese, "those good fellows who rob on the Pont Neuf are like you, then, in the service of the King. By Heavens! I was very unjust, monsieur, for until now I have taken them for thieves."
"Good evening, monsieur," said Beaulieu. "Jailer, lock the door."
The governor went away, taking with him the ring, which was a beautiful sapphire, given him by Madame de Nevers to remind him of the color of her eyes.
"Now for the other," he said as he went out.
They crossed an empty chamber, and the game of three doors, six locks, and nine bolts began anew.
The last door open, a sigh was the first sound that greeted the visitors.
The apartment was more gloomy looking than the one Monsieur de Beaulieu had just left. Four long narrow windows admitted a feeble light into this mournful abode. Before these, iron bars were crossed in such a way that the eye of the prisoner was arrested by a dark line and prevented from catching even a glimpse of the sky. From each corner of the room pointed arches met in the middle of the ceiling, where they spread out in Gothic fashion.
La Mole was seated in a corner, and, in spite of the entrance of the visitors, appeared to have heard nothing.
The governor paused on the threshold and looked for an instant at the prisoner, who sat motionless, his head in his hands.
"Good evening, Monsieur de la Mole," said Beaulieu.
The young man slowly raised his head.
"Good evening, monsieur," said he.
"Monsieur," continued the governor, "I have come to search you."
"That is useless," said La Mole. "I will give you all I have."
"What have you?"
"About three hundred crowns, these jewels, and rings."
"Give them to me, monsieur," said the governor.
"Here they are."
La Mole turned out his pockets, took the rings from his finger, and the clasp from his hat.
"Have you nothing more?"
"Not that I know of."
"And that silk cord around your neck, what may that be?" asked the governor.
"Monsieur, that is not a jewel, but a relic."
"Give it to me."
"What! you demand it?"
"I am ordered to leave you only your clothes, and a relic is not an article of clothing."
La Mole made a gesture of anger, which, in the midst of the dignified and pained calm which distinguished him, seemed to impress the men accustomed to stormy emotions.
But he immediately recovered his self-possession.
"Very well, monsieur," said he, "you shall see what you ask for."
Then, turning as if to approach the light, he unfastened the pretended relic, which was none other than a medallion containing a portrait, which he drew out and raised to his lips. Having kissed it several times, he suddenly pretended to drop it as by accident, and placing the heel of his boot on it he crushed it into a thousand pieces.
"Monsieur!" said the governor.
And he stooped down to see if he could not save the unknown object which La Mole wished to hide from him; but the miniature was literally ground to powder.
"The King wished for this jewel," said La Mole, "but he had no right to the portrait it contained. Now, here is the medallion; you may take it."
"Monsieur," said Beaulieu, "I shall complain of you to the King."
And without taking leave of his prisoner by a single word he went out, so angry that without waiting to preside over the task, he left to the turnkey the care of closing the doors.
The jailer turned to leave, but seeing that Monsieur de Beaulieu had already started down the stairs:
"Faith! monsieur," said he, turning back, "I did well to ask you to give me the hundred crowns at once for which I am to allow you to speak to your companion; for had you not done so the governor would have taken them from you with the three hundred others, and my conscience would not have allowed me to do anything for you; but as I was paid in advance, I promised that you should see your friend. So come. An honest man keeps his word. Only, if it is possible, for your sake as much as for mine, do not talk politics."
La Mole left his apartment and found himself face to face with Coconnas, who was walking up and down the flags of the intermediate room.
The two friends rushed into each other's arms.
The jailer pretended to wipe the corner of his eye, and then withdrew to watch that the prisoners were not surprised, or rather that he himself was not caught.
"Ah! here you are!" said Coconnas. "Well, has that dreadful governor paid his visit to you?"
"Yes, as he did to you, I presume?"
"Did he remove everything?"
"And from you, too?"
"Ah! I had not much; only a ring from Henrietta, that was all."
"And money?"
"I gave all I had to the good jailer, so that he would arrange this interview for us."
"Ah!" said La Mole, "it seems that he had something from both of us."
"Did you pay him too?"
"I gave him a hundred crowns."
"So much the better."
"One can do everything with money, and I trust that we shall not lack for it."
"Do you know what has happened to us?"
"Perfectly; we have been betrayed."
"By that scoundrelly Duc d'Alençon. I should have been right to twist his neck."
"Do you think our position serious?"
"I fear so."
"Then there is likelihood of the torture?"
"I will not hide from you the fact that I have already thought of it."
"What should you do in that case?"
"And you?"
"I should be silent," replied La Mole, with a feverish flush.
"Silent?" cried Coconnas.
"Yes, if I had the strength."
"Well," said Coconnas, "if they insult me in any such way I promise you I will tell them a few things."
"What things?" asked La Mole, quickly.
"Oh, be easy--things which will prevent Monsieur d'Alençon from sleeping for some time."
La Mole was about to reply when the jailer, who no doubt had heard some noise, appeared, and pushing each prisoner into his respective cell, locked the doors again.
LV. THE FIGURE OF WAX
For a week Charles was confined to his bed by a slow fever, interrupted by violent attacks which resembled epileptic fits. During these attacks he uttered shrieks which the guards, watching in his chamber, heard with terror, and the echoes of which reached to the farthest corner of the old Louvre, aroused so often by many a dreadful sound. Then, when these attacks passed, Charles, completely exhausted, sank back with closed eyes into the arms of his nurse.
To say that, each in his way, without communicating the feeling to the other, for mother and son sought to avoid rather than to see each other, to say that Catharine de Médicis and the Duc d'Alençon revolved sinister thoughts in the depths of their hearts would be to say that in that nest of vipers moved a hideous swarm.
Henry was shut up in his chamber in the prison; and at his own request no one had been allowed to see him, not even Marguerite. In the eyes of every one his imprisonment was an open disgrace. Catharine and D'Alençon, thinking him lost, breathed once more, and Henry ate and drank more calmly, hoping that he was forgotten.
At court no one suspected the cause of the King's illness. Maître Ambroise Paré and Mazille, his colleague, thought it was inflammation of the bowels, and had prescribed a regimen which aided the special drink given by Réné. Charles received this, his only nourishment, three times a day from the hands of his nurse.
La Mole and Coconnas were at Vincennes in closest confinement. Marguerite and Madame de Nevers had made a dozen attempts to reach them, or at least to send them a note, but without success. One morning Charles felt somewhat better, and wished the court to assemble. This was the usual custom in the morning, although for some time no levee had taken place. The doors were accordingly thrown open, and it was easy to see, from his pale cheeks, yellow forehead, and the feverish light in his deep-sunken eyes, which were surrounded by dark circles, what frightful ravages the unknown disease had made on the young monarch.
The royal chamber was soon filled with curious and interested courtiers. Catharine, D'Alençon, and Marguerite had been informed that the King was to hold an audience. Therefore all three entered, at short intervals, one by one; Catharine calm, D'Alençon smiling, Marguerite dejected. Catharine seated herself by the side of the bed without noticing the look that Charles gave her as he saw her approach.
Monsieur d'Alençon stood at the foot.
Marguerite leaned against a table, and seeing the pale brow, the worn features, and deep-sunken eyes of her brother, could not repress a sigh and a tear.
Charles, whom nothing escaped, saw the tear and heard the sigh, and with his head made a slight motion to Marguerite.
This sign, slight as it was, lighted the face of the poor Queen of Navarre, to whom Henry had not had time or perhaps had not wished to say anything.
She feared for her husband, she trembled for her lover. For herself she had no fear; she knew La Mole well, and felt she could rely on him.
"Well, my dear son," said Catharine, "how do you feel?"
"Better, mother, better."
"What do your physicians say?"
"My physicians? They are clever doctors, mother," said Charles, bursting into a laugh. "I take great pleasure, I admit, in hearing them discuss my malady. Nurse, give me something to drink."
The nurse brought Charles a cup of his usual beverage.
"What do they order you to take, my son?"
"Oh! madame, who knows anything about their preparations?" said the King, hastily swallowing the drink.
"What my brother needs," said François, "is to rise and get out into the open air; hunting, of which he is so fond, would do him a great deal of good."
"Yes," said Charles, with a smile, the meaning of which it was impossible for the duke to understand, "and yet the last hunt did me great harm."
Charles uttered these words in such a strange way that the conversation, in which the others present had not taken part, stopped. Then the King gave a slight nod of his head. The courtiers understood that the audience was over, and withdrew one after another.
D'Alençon started to approach his brother, but some secret feeling stopped him. He bowed and went out.
Marguerite seized the wasted hand her brother held out to her, pressed it, and kissed it. Then she, in turn, withdrew.
"Dear Margot!" murmured Charles.
Catharine alone remained, keeping her place at the side of the bed. Finding himself alone with her, Charles recoiled as if from a serpent.
Instructed by the words of Réné, perhaps still better by silence and meditation, Charles no longer had even the happiness of doubt.
He knew perfectly to whom and to what to attribute his approaching death.
So, when Catharine drew near to the bed and extended to him a hand as cold as his glance, the King shuddered in fear.
"You have remained, madame?" said he.
"Yes, my son," replied Catharine, "I must speak to you on important matters."
"Speak, madame," said Charles, again recoiling.
"Sire!" said the queen, "you said just now that your physicians were great doctors!"
"And I say so again, madame."
"Yet what have they done during your illness?"
"Nothing, it is true--but if you had heard what they said--really, madame, one might afford to be ill if only to listen to their learned discussions."
"Well, my son, do you want me to tell you something?"
"What is it, mother?"
"I suspect that all these clever doctors know nothing whatever about your malady."
"Indeed, madame!"
"They may, perhaps, see a result, but they are ignorant of the cause."
"That is possible," said Charles, not understanding what his mother was aiming at.
"So that they treat the symptoms and not the ill itself."
"On my soul!" said Charles, astonished, "I believe you are right, mother."
"Well, my son," said Catharine, "as it is good neither for my happiness nor the welfare of the kingdom for you to be ill so long, and as your mind might end by becoming affected, I assembled the most skilful doctors."
"In the science of medicine, madame?"
"No, in a more profound science: that which helps not only the body but the mind as well."
"Ah! a beautiful science, madame," said Charles, "and one which the doctors are right in not teaching to crowned heads! Have your researches had any result?" he continued.
"Yes."
"What was it?"
"That which I hoped for; I bring to your Majesty that which will cure not only your body but your mind."
Charles shuddered. He thought that finding that he was still living his mother had resolved to finish knowingly that which she had begun unconsciously.
"Where is this remedy?" said he, rising on his elbow and looking at his mother.
"In the disease itself," replied Catharine.
"Then where is that?"
"Listen to me, my son," said Catharine, "have you not sometimes heard it said that there are secret enemies who in their revenge assassinate their victim from a distance?"
"By steel or poison?" asked Charles, without once turning his eyes from the impassible face of his mother.
"No, by a surer and much more terrible means," said Catharine.
"Explain yourself."
"My son," asked the Florentine, "do you believe in charms and magic?"
Charles repressed a smile of scorn and incredulity.
"Fully," said he.
"Well," said Catharine, quickly, "from magic comes all your suffering. An enemy of your Majesty who would not have dared to attack you openly has conspired in secret. He has directed against your Majesty a conspiracy much more terrible in that he has no accomplices, and the mysterious threads of which cannot be traced."
"Faith, no!" said Charles, aghast at such cunning.
"Think well, my son," said Catharine, "and recall to mind certain plans for flight which would have assured impunity to the murderer."
"To the murderer!" cried Charles. "To the murderer, you say? Has there been an attempt to kill me, mother?"
Catharine's changing eye rolled hypocritically under its wrinkled lid.
"Yes, my son; you doubt it, perhaps, but I know it for a certainty."
"I never doubt what you tell me, mother," replied the King, bitterly. "How was the attempt made? I am anxious to know."
"By magic."
"Explain yourself, madame," said Charles, recalled by his loathing to his rôle of observer.
"If the conspirator I mean, and one whom at heart your Majesty already suspects, had succeeded in his plans, no one would have fathomed the cause of your Majesty's sufferings. Fortunately, however, sire, your brother watched over you."
"Which brother?"
"D'Alençon."
"Ah! yes, that is true; I always forget that I have a brother," murmured Charles, laughing bitterly; "so you say, madame"--
"That fortunately he revealed the conspiracy. But while he, inexperienced child that he is, sought only the traces of an ordinary plot, the proofs of a young man's escapade, I sought for proofs of a much more important deed; for I understand the reach of the guilty one's mind."
"Ah! mother, one would say you were speaking of the King of Navarre," said Charles, anxious to see how far this Florentine dissimulation would go.
Catharine hypocritically dropped her eyes.
"I have had him arrested and taken to Vincennes for his escapade," continued the King; "is he more guilty than I suspected, then?"
"Do you feel the fever that consumes you?" asked Catharine.
"Yes, certainly, madame," said Charles, frowning.
"Do you feel the fire that burns you internally?"
"Yes, madame," replied Charles, his brow darkening more and more.
"And the sharp pains in your head, which shoot from your eyes to your brain like so many arrows?"
"Yes, madame. I feel all that. You describe my trouble perfectly!"
"Well! the explanation is very simple," said the Florentine. "See."
And she drew from under her cloak an object which she gave to the King.
It was a figure of yellow wax, about six inches high, clothed in a robe covered with golden stars also of wax, like the figure; and over this a royal mantle of the same material.
"Well," asked Charles, "what is this little statue?"
"See what it has on its head," said Catharine.
"A crown," replied Charles.
"And in the heart?"
"A needle."
"Well, sire, do you recognize yourself?"
"Myself?"
"Yes, you, with your crown and mantle?"
"Who made this figure?" asked Charles, whom this farce was beginning to weary; "the King of Navarre, no doubt?"
"No, sire."
"No? then I do not understand you."
"I say no," replied Catharine, "because you asked the question literally. I should have said yes had you put it differently."
Charles made no answer. He was striving to penetrate all the thoughts of that shadowy mind, which constantly closed before him just as he thought himself ready to read it.
"Sire," continued Catharine, "this statue was found by the Attorney-General Laguesle, in the apartment of the man who on the day you last went hawking led a horse for the King of Navarre."
"Monsieur de la Mole?"
"Yes, and, if you please, look again at the needle in the heart, and see what letter is written on the label attached to it."
"I see an 'M,'" said Charles.
"That means mort, death; it is the magic formula, sire. The maker thus wrote his vow on the very wound he gave. Had he wished to make a pretence at killing, as did the Duc de Bretagne for King Charles VI., he would have driven the needle into the head and put an 'F' instead of an 'M.'"
"So," said Charles IX., "according to your idea, the person who seeks to end my days is Monsieur de la Mole?"
"Yes, he is the dagger; but behind the dagger is the hand that directs it."
"This then is the sole cause of my illness? the day the charm is destroyed the malady will cease? But how go to work?" asked Charles, "you must know, mother; but I, unlike you, who have spent your whole life studying them, know nothing about charms and spells."
"The death of the conspirator destroys the charm, that is all. The day the charm is destroyed your illness will cease," said Catharine.
"Indeed!" said Charles, with an air of surprise.
"Did you not know that?"
"Why! I am no sorcerer," said the King.
"Well, now," said Catharine, "your Majesty is convinced, are you not?"
"Certainly."
"Conviction has dispelled anxiety?"
"Completely."
"You do not say so out of complaisance?"
"No, mother! I say it from the bottom of my heart."
Catharine's face broke into smiles.
"Thank God!" she exclaimed, as if she believed in God.
"Yes, thank God!" repeated Charles, ironically; "I know now, as you do, to whom to attribute my present condition, and consequently whom to punish."
"And you will punish"--
"Monsieur de la Mole; did you not say that he was the guilty party?"
"I said that he was the instrument."
"Well," said Charles, "Monsieur de la Mole first; he is the most important. All these attacks on me might arouse dangerous suspicions. It is imperative that there be some light thrown on the matter and from this light the truth may be discovered."
"So Monsieur de la Mole"--
"Suits me admirably as the guilty one; therefore I accept him. We will begin with him; and if he has an accomplice, he shall speak."
"Yes," murmured Catharine, "and if he does not, we will make him. We have infallible means for that."
Then rising:
"Will you permit the trial to begin, sire?"
"I desire it, madame," replied Charles, "and the sooner the better."
Catharine pressed the hand of her son without comprehending the nervous grasp with which he returned it, and left the apartment without hearing the sardonic laugh of the King, or the terrible oath which followed the laugh.
Charles wondered if it were not dangerous to let this woman go thus, for in a few hours she would have done so much that there would be no way of stopping it.
As he watched the curtain fall after Catharine, he heard a light rustle behind him, and turning he perceived Marguerite, who raised the drapery before the corridor leading to his nurse's rooms.
Marguerite's pallor, her haggard eyes and oppressed breathing betrayed the most violent emotion.
"Oh, sire! sire!" she exclaimed, rushing to her brother's bedside; "you know that she lies."
"She? Who?" asked Charles.
"Listen, Charles, it is a terrible thing to accuse one's mother; but I suspected that she remained with you to persecute them again. But, on my life, on yours, on our souls, I tell you what she says is false!"
"To persecute them! Whom is she persecuting?"
Both had instinctively lowered their voices; it seemed as if they themselves feared even to hear them.
"Henry, in the first place; your Henriot, who loves you, who is more devoted to you than any one else."
"You think so, Margot?" said Charles.
"Oh! sire, I am sure of it."
"Well, so am I," said Charles.
"Then if you are sure of it, brother," said Marguerite, surprised, "why did you have him arrested and taken to Vincennes?"
"Because he asked me to do so."
"He asked you, sire?"
"Yes, Henriot has singular ideas. Perhaps he is wrong, perhaps right; at any rate, one of his ideas was that he would be safer in disgrace than in favor, away from me at Vincennes instead of near me in the Louvre."
"Ah! I see," said Marguerite, "and is he safe there?"
"As safe as a man can be whose head Beaulieu answers for with his own."
"Oh! thank you, brother! so much for Henry. But"--
"But what?"
"There is another, sire, in whom perhaps I am wrong to be interested, but"--
"Who is it?"
"Sire, spare me. I would scarcely dare name him to my brother, much less to my King."
"Monsieur de la Mole, is it not?" said Charles.
"Alas!" said Marguerite, "you tried to kill him once, sire, and he escaped from your royal vengeance only by a miracle."
"He was guilty of only one crime then, Marguerite; now he has committed two."
"Sire, he is not guilty of the second."
"But," said Charles, "did you not hear what our good mother said, my poor Margot?"
"Oh, I have already told you, Charles," said Marguerite, lowering her voice, "that what she said was false."
"You do not know perhaps that a waxen figure has been found in Monsieur de la Mole's rooms?"
"Yes, yes, brother, I know it."
"That this figure is pierced to the heart by a needle, and that it bears a tag with an 'M' on it?"
"I know that, too."
"And that over the shoulders of the figure is a royal mantle, and that on its head is a royal crown?"
"I know all that."
"Well! what have you to say to it?"
"This: that the figure with a royal cloak and a crown on its head is that of a woman, and not that of a man."
"Bah!" said Charles, "and the needle in its heart?"
"Was a charm to make himself beloved by this woman, and not a charm to kill a man."
"But the letter 'M'?"
"It does not mean mort, as the queen mother said."
"What does it mean, then?" asked Charles.
"It means--it means the name of the woman whom Monsieur de la Mole loves."
"And what is the name of this woman?"
"Marguerite, brother!" cried the Queen of Navarre, falling on her knees before the King's bed, taking his hand between both of hers, and pressing her face to it, bathed in tears.
"Hush, sister!" said Charles, casting a sharp glance about him beneath his frowning brow. "For just as you overheard a moment ago, we may now be overheard again."
"What does it matter?" exclaimed Marguerite, raising her head, "if the whole world were present to hear me, I would declare before it that it is infamous to abuse the love of a gentleman by staining his reputation with a suspicion of murder."
"Margot, suppose I were to tell you that I know as well as you do who it is and who it is not?"
"Brother!"
"Suppose I were to tell you that Monsieur de la Mole is innocent?"
"You know this?"
"If I were to tell you that I know the real author of the crime?"
"The real author!" cried Marguerite; "has there been a crime committed, then?"
"Yes; intentionally or unintentionally there has been a crime committed."
"On you?"
"Yes."
"Impossible!"
"Impossible? Look at me, Margot."
The young woman looked at her brother and trembled, seeing him so pale.
"Margot, I have not three months to live!" said Charles.
"You, brother! you, Charles!" she cried.
"Margot, I am poisoned."
Marguerite screamed.
"Hush," said Charles. "It must be thought that I am dying by magic."
"Do you know who is guilty?"
"Yes."
"You said it was not La Mole?"
"No, it is not he."
"Nor Henry either, surely--great God! could it be"--
"Who?"
"My brother--D'Alençon?" murmured Marguerite.
"Perhaps."
"Or--or"--Marguerite lowered her voice as if frightened at what she was going to say, "or--our mother?"
Charles was silent.
Marguerite looked at him, and read all that she asked in his eyes. Then still on her knees she half fell over against a chair.
"Oh! my God! my God!" she whispered, "that is impossible."
"Impossible?" said Charles, with a strident laugh, "it is a pity Réné is not here to tell you the story."
"Réné?"
"Yes; he would tell you that a woman to whom he dares refuse nothing asked him for a book on hunting which was in his library; that a subtle poison was poured on every page of this book; that the poison intended for some one, I know not for whom, fell by a turn of chance, or by a punishment of Heaven, on another. But in the absence of Réné if you wish to see the book it is there in my closet, and written in the Florentine's handwriting you will see that this volume, which still contains the death of many among its pages, was given by him to his fellow countrywoman."
"Hush, Charles, hush!" said Marguerite.
"Now you see that it must be supposed that I die of magic."
"But it is monstrous, monstrous! Pity! Pity! you know he is innocent."
"Yes, I know it, but he must be thought guilty. Let your lover die; it is very little to do in order to save the honor of the house of France; I myself shall die that the secret may die with me."
Marguerite bent her head, realizing that nothing could be obtained from the King towards saving La Mole, and withdrew weeping, having no hope except in her own resources.
Meantime Catharine, as Charles had divined, had lost not a minute, but had written to the Attorney-General Laguesle a letter, every word of which has been preserved by history and which throws a lurid light upon the drama:
"Monsieur le Procureur: I have this evening been informed beyond a doubt that La Mole has committed sacrilege. Many evil things such as books and papers have been found in his apartments in Paris. I beg you to summon the chief president, and to inform him as early as possible of the affair of the waxen figure meant for the King, and which was pierced to the heart.
"CATHARINE."[18]
LVI. THE INVISIBLE BUCKLERS
The day after that on which Catharine had written this letter the governor entered Coconnas's cell with an imposing retinue consisting of two halberdiers and four men in black gowns.
Coconnas was asked to descend to a room in which the Attorney Laguesle and two judges waited to question him according to Catharine's instructions.
During the week he had spent in prison Coconnas had reflected a great deal. Besides that, he and La Mole were together for a few minutes each day, through the kindness of their jailer, who, without saying anything to them, had arranged this surprise, which in all probability they did not owe to his philosophy alone,--besides, we say, La Mole and he had agreed on the course they were to pursue, which was to persist in absolute denial; and they were persuaded that with a little skill the affair would take a more favorable turn; the charges were no greater against them than against the others. Henry and Marguerite had made no attempt at flight; they could not therefore be compromised in an affair in which the chief ring-leaders were free. Coconnas did not know that Henry was in the prison, and the complaisance of the jailer told him that above his head hovered a certain protection which he called the invisible bucklers.
Up to then the examination had been confined to the intentions of the King of Navarre, his plans of flight, and the part the two friends had played in them. To all these questions Coconnas had constantly replied in a way more than vague and much more than adroit; he was ready still to reply in the same way, and had prepared in advance all his little repartees, when he suddenly found the object of the examination was altered. It turned upon one or more visits to Réné, one or more waxen figures made at the instigation of La Mole.
Prepared as he was, Coconnas believed that the accusation lost much of its intensity, since it was no longer a question of having betrayed a king but of having made a figure of a queen; and this figure not more than ten inches high at the most. He, therefore, replied brightly that neither he nor his friend had played with a doll for some time, and noticed with pleasure that several times his answers made the judges smile.
It had not yet been said in verse: "I have laughed, therefore am I disarmed," but it had been said a great deal in prose. And Coconnas thought that he had partly disarmed his judges because they had smiled.
His examination over, he went back to his cell, singing so merrily that La Mole, for whom he was making all the noise, drew from it the happiest auguries.
La Mole was brought down, and like Coconnas saw with astonishment that the accusation had abandoned its first ground and had entered a new field. He was questioned as to his visits to Réné. He replied that he had gone to the Florentine only once. Then, if he had not ordered a waxen figure. He replied that Réné had showed him such a figure ready made. He was then asked if this figure did not represent a man. He replied that it represented a woman. Then, if the object of the charm was not to cause the death of the man. He replied that the purpose of the charm was to cause himself to be beloved by the woman.
These questions were put in a hundred different forms, but La Mole always replied in the same way. The judges looked at one another with a certain indecision, not knowing what to say or do before such simplicity, when a note brought to the Attorney-General solved the difficulty.
"If the accused denies resort to the torture.
"C."
The attorney put the note into his pocket, smiled at La Mole, and politely dismissed him.
La Mole returned to his cell almost as reassured, if not as joyous, as Coconnas.
"I think everything is going well," said he.
An hour later he heard footsteps and saw a note slipped under his door, without seeing the hand that did it. He took it up, thinking that in all probability it came from the jailer?
Seeing it, a hope almost as acute as a disappointment sprang into his heart; he hoped it was from Marguerite, from whom he had had no news since he had been a prisoner.
He took it up with trembling hand, and almost died of joy as he looked at the handwriting.
"Courage!" said the note. "I am watching over you."
"Ah! if she is watching," cried La Mole, covering with kisses the paper which had touched a hand so dear, "if she is watching, I am saved."
In order for La Mole to comprehend the note and rely with Coconnas on what the Piedmontese called his invisible bucklers it is necessary for us to conduct the reader to that small house, to that chamber in which the reminders of so many scenes of intoxicating happiness, so many half-evaporated perfumes, so many tender recollections, since become agonizing, were breaking the heart of a woman half reclining on velvet cushions.
"To be a queen, to be strong, young, rich, beautiful, and suffer what I suffer!" cried this woman; "oh! it is impossible!"
Then in her agitation she rose, paced up and down, stopped suddenly, pressed her burning forehead against the ice-cold marble, rose pale, her face covered with tears, wrung her hands, and crying aloud fell back again hopeless into a chair.
Suddenly the tapestry which separated the apartment of the Rue Cloche Percée from that in the Rue Tizon was raised, and the Duchesse de Nevers entered.
"Ah!" exclaimed Marguerite, "is it you? With what impatience I have waited for you! Well! What news?"
"Bad news, my poor friend. Catharine herself is hurrying on the trial, and at present is at Vincennes."
"And Réné?"
"Is arrested."
"Before you were able to speak to him?"
"Yes."
"And our prisoners?"
"I have news of them."
"From the jailer?"
"Yes."
"Well?"
"Well! They see each other every day. The day before yesterday they were searched. La Mole broke your picture to atoms rather than give it up."
"Dear La Mole!"
"Annibal laughed in the face of the inquisitors."
"Worthy Annibal! What then?"
"This morning they were questioned as to the flight of the king, his projects of rebellion in Navarre, and they said nothing."
"Oh! I knew they would keep silence; but silence will kill them as much as if they spoke."
"Yes, but we must save them."
"Have you thought over our plan?"
"Since yesterday I have thought of nothing else."
"Well?"
"I have just come to terms with Beaulieu. Ah! my dear queen, what a hard and greedy man! It will cost a man's life, and three hundred thousand crowns."
"You say he is hard and greedy--and yet he asks only the life of a man and three hundred thousand crowns. Why, that is nothing!"
"Nothing! Three hundred thousand crowns! Why, all your jewels and all mine would not be enough."
"Oh! that is nothing. The King of Navarre will pay something, the Duc d'Alençon will pay part, and my brother Charles will pay part, or if not"--
"See! what nonsense you talk. I have the money."
"You?"
"Yes, I."
"How did you get it?"
"Ah! that is telling!"
"Is it a secret?"
"For every one except you."
"Oh, my God!" said Marguerite, smiling through her tears, "did you steal it?"
"You shall judge."
"Well, let me."
"Do you remember that horrible Nantouillet?"
"The rich man, the usurer?"
"If you please."
"Well?"
"Well! One day seeing a certain blonde lady, with greenish eyes, pass by, wearing three rubies, one over her forehead, the other two over her temples, an arrangement which was very becoming to her, this rich man, this usurer, cried out:
"'For three kisses in the place of those three rubies I will give you three diamonds worth one hundred thousand crowns apiece!'"
"Well, Henriette?"
"Well, my dear, the diamonds appeared and are sold."
"Oh, Henriette! Henriette!" cried Marguerite.
"Well!" exclaimed the duchess in a bold tone at once innocent and sublime, which sums up the age and the woman, "well, I love Annibal!"
"That is true," said Marguerite, smiling and blushing at the same time, "you love him a very great deal, too much, perhaps."
And yet she pressed her friend's hand.
"So," continued Henriette, "thanks to our three diamonds, the three hundred thousand crowns and the man are ready."
"The man? What man?"
"The man to be killed; you forget a man must be killed."
"Have you found the necessary man?"
"Yes."
"At the same price?" asked Marguerite, smiling.
"At the same price I could have found a thousand," replied Henriette, "no, no, for five hundred crowns."
"For five hundred crowns you have found a man who has consented to be killed?"
"What can you expect? It is necessary for us to live."
"My dear friend, I do not understand you. Come, explain. Enigmas require too much time to guess at such a moment as this."
"Well, listen; the jailer to whom the keeping of La Mole and Coconnas is entrusted is an old soldier who knows what a wound is. He would like to help save our friends, but he does not want to lose his place. A blow of a dagger skilfully aimed will end the affair. We will give him a reward and the kingdom, indemnification. In this way the brave man will receive money from both parties and will renew the fable of the pelican."
"But," said Marguerite, "a thrust of a dagger"--
"Do not worry; Annibal will give it."
"Well," said Marguerite, "he has given as many as three blows of his sword to La Mole, and La Mole is not dead; there is therefore every reason to hope."
"Wicked woman! You deserve to have me stop."
"Oh! no, no; on the contrary, tell me the rest, I beg you. How are we to save them; come!"
"Well, this is the plan. The chapel is the only place in the castle where women can enter who are not prisoners. We are to be hidden behind the altar. Under the altar cloth they will find two daggers. The door of the vestry-room will be opened beforehand. Coconnas will strike the jailer, who will fall and pretend to be dead; we appear; each of us throws a cloak over the shoulders of her friend; we run with them through the small doors of the vestry-room, and as we have the password we can leave without hindrance."
"And once out?"
"Two horses will be waiting at the door; the men will spring on them, leave France, and reach Lorraine, whence now and then they will return incognito."
"Oh! you restore me to life," said Marguerite. "So we shall save them?"
"I am almost sure of it."
"Soon?"
"In three or four days. Beaulieu is to let us know."
"But if you were recognized in the vicinity of Vincennes that might upset our plan."
"How could any one recognize me? I go there as a nun, with a hood, thanks to which not even the tip of my nose is visible."
"We cannot take too many precautions."
"I know that well enough, by Heaven! as poor Annibal would say."
"Did you hear anything about the King of Navarre?"
"I was careful to ask."
"Well?"
"Well, he has never been so happy, apparently; he laughs, sings, eats, drinks, and sleeps well, and asks only one thing, and that is to be well guarded."
"He is right. And my mother?"
"I told you she is hurrying on the trial as fast as she can."
"Yes, but does she suspect anything about us?"
"How could she? Every one who has a secret is anxious to keep it. Ah! I know that she told the judges in Paris to be in readiness."
"Let us act quickly, Henriette. If our poor prisoners change their abode, everything will have to be done over again."
"Do not worry. I am as anxious as you to see them free."
"Oh, yes, I know that, and thank you, thank you a hundred times for all you have done."
"Adieu, Marguerite. I am going into the country again."
"Are you sure of Beaulieu?"
"I think so."
"Of the jailer?"
"He has promised."
"Of the horses?"
"They will be the best in the stables of the Duc de Nevers."
"I adore you, Henriette."
And Marguerite threw her arms about her friend's neck, after which the two women separated, promising to see each other again the next day, and every day, at the same place and hour.
These were the two charming and devoted creatures whom Coconnas, with so much reason, called his invisible bucklers.
LVII. THE JUDGES
"Well, my brave friend," said Coconnas to La Mole, when the two were together after the examination, at which, for the first time, the subject of the waxen image had been discussed, "it seems to me that everything is going on finely, and that it will not be long before the judges will dismiss us. And this diagnosis is entirely different from that of a dismissal by physicians. When the doctor gives up the patient it is because he cannot cure him, but when the judge gives up the accused it is because he has no further hope of having him beheaded."
"Yes," said La Mole; "and moreover, it seems to me, from the politeness and gentleness of the jailer and the looseness of the doors, that I recognize our kind friends; but I do not recognize Monsieur de Beaulieu, at least from what I had been told of him."
"I recognize him," said Coconnas; "only it will cost dearly. But one is a princess, the other a queen; both are rich, and they will never have so good an opportunity to use their money. Now let us go over our lesson. We are to be taken to the chapel, and left there in charge of our turnkey; we shall each find a dagger in the spot indicated. I am to make a hole in the body of our guide."
"Yes, but a slight one in the arm; otherwise you will rob him of his five hundred crowns."
"Ah, no; not in the arm, for in that case he would have to lose it, and it would be easy to see that it was given intentionally. No, it must be in his right side, gliding skilfully along his ribs; that would look natural, but in reality would be harmless."
"Well, aim for that, and then"--
"Then you will barricade the front door with benches while our two princesses rush from behind the altar, where they are to be hidden, and Henriette opens the vestry door. Ah, faith, how I love Henriette to-day! She must have been faithless to me in some way for me to feel as I do."
"And then," said La Mole, with the trembling voice which falls from lips like music, "then we shall reach the forest. A kiss given to each of us will make us strong and happy. Can you not picture us, Annibal, bending over our swift horses, our hearts gently oppressed? Oh, what a good thing is fear! Fear in the open air when one has one's naked sword at one's side, when one cries 'hurra' to the courser pricked by the spur, and which at each shout speeds the faster."
"Yes," said Coconnas, "but fear within four walls--what do you say to that, La Mole? I can speak of it, for I have felt something of it. When Beaulieu, with his pale face, entered my cell for the first time, behind him in the darkness shone halberds, and I heard a sinister sound of iron striking against iron. I swear to you I immediately thought of the Duc d'Alençon, and I expected to see his ugly face between the two hateful heads of the halberdiers. I was mistaken, however, and this was my sole consolation. But that was not all; night came, and I dreamed."
"So," said La Mole, who had been following his happy train of thought without paying attention to his friend, "so they have foreseen everything, even the place in which we are to hide. We shall go to Lorraine, dear friend. In reality I should rather have had it Navarre, for there I should have been with her, but Navarre is too far; Nancey would be better; besides, once there, we should be only eighty leagues from Paris. Have you any feeling of regret, Annibal, at leaving this place?"
"Ah, no! the idea! Although I confess I am leaving everything that belongs to me."
"Well, could we manage to take the worthy jailer with us instead of"--
"He would not go," said Coconnas, "he would lose too much. Think of it! five hundred crowns from us, a reward from the government; promotion, perhaps; how happy will be that fellow's life when I shall have killed him! But what is the matter?"
"Nothing! An idea came to me."
"It is not a funny one, apparently, for you are frightfully pale."
"I was wondering why they should take us to the chapel."
"Why," said Coconnas, "to receive the sacrament. This is the time for it, I think."
"But," said La Mole, "they take only those condemned to death or the torture to the chapel."
"Oh!" said Coconnas, becoming somewhat pale in turn, "this deserves our attention. Let us question the good man whom I am to split open. Here, turnkey!"
"Did monsieur call?" asked the jailer, who had been keeping watch at the top of the stairs.
"Yes; come here."
"Well?"
"It has been arranged that we are to escape from the chapel, has it not?"
"Hush!" said the turnkey, looking round him in terror.
"Do not worry; no one can hear us."
"Yes, monsieur; it is from the chapel."
"They are to take us to the chapel, then?"
"Yes; that is the custom."
"The custom?"
"Yes; it is customary to allow every one condemned to death to pass the night in the chapel."
Coconnas and La Mole shuddered and glanced at each other.
"You think we are condemned to death, then?"
"Certainly. You, too, must think so."
"Why should we think so?" asked La Mole.
"Certainly; otherwise you would not have arranged everything for your escape."
"Do you know, there is reason in what he says!" said Coconnas to La Mole.
"Yes; and what I know besides is that we are playing a close game, apparently."
"But do you think I am risking nothing?" said the turnkey. "If in a moment of excitement monsieur should make a mistake"--
"Well! by Heaven! I wish I were in your place," said Coconnas, slowly, "and had to deal with no hand but this; with no sword except the one which is to graze you."
"Condemned to death!" murmured La Mole, "why, that is impossible!"
"Impossible!" said the turnkey, naïvely, "and why?"
"Hush!" said Coconnas, "I think some one is opening the lower door."
"To your cells, gentlemen, to your cells!" cried the jailer, hurriedly.
"When do you think the trial will take place?" asked La Mole.
"To-morrow, or later. But be easy; those who must be informed shall be."
"Then let us embrace each other and bid farewell to these walls."
The two friends rushed into each other's arms and then returned to their cells, La Mole sighing, Coconnas singing.
Nothing new happened until seven o'clock. Night fell dark and rainy over the prison of Vincennes, a perfect night for flight. The evening meal was brought to Coconnas, who ate with his usual appetite, thinking of the pleasure he would feel in being soaked in the rain, which was pattering against the walls, and already preparing himself to fall asleep to the dull, monotonous murmur of the wind, when suddenly it seemed to him that this wind, to which he occasionally listened with a feeling of melancholy never before experienced by him until he came to prison, whistled more strangely than usual under the doors, and that the stove roared with a louder noise than common. This had happened every time one of the cells above or opposite him was opened. It was by this noise that Annibal always knew the jailer was coming from La Mole's cell.
But this time it was in vain that Coconnas remained with eye and ear alert.
The moments passed; no one came.
"This is strange," said Coconnas, "La Mole's door has been opened and not mine. Could La Mole have called? Can he be ill? What does it mean?"
With a prisoner everything is a cause for suspicion and anxiety, as everything is a cause for joy and hope.
Half an hour passed, then an hour, then an hour and a half.
Coconnas was beginning to grow sleepy from anger when the grating of the lock made him spring to his feet.
"Oh!" said he, "has the time come for us to leave and are they going to take us to the chapel without condemning us? By Heaven, what joy it would be to escape on such a night! It is as dark as an oven! I hope the horses are not blind."
He was about to ask some jocular question of the turnkey when he saw the latter put his finger to his lips and roll his eyes significantly. Behind the jailer Coconnas heard sounds and perceived shadows.
Suddenly in the midst of the darkness he distinguished two helmets, on which the smoking candle threw a yellow light.
"Oh!" said he in a low voice, "what is this sinister procession? What is going to happen?"
The jailer replied by a sigh which greatly resembled a groan.
"By Heaven!" murmured Coconnas; "what a wretched existence! always on the ragged edge; never on firm land; either we paddle in a hundred feet of water or we hover above the clouds; never a happy medium. Well, where are we going?"
"Follow the halberdiers, monsieur," repeated the same voice.
He had to obey. Coconnas left his room, and perceived the dark man whose voice had been so disagreeable. He was a clerk, small and hunchbacked, who no doubt had put on the gown in order to hide his bandy legs, as well as his back. He slowly descended the winding stairs. At the first landing the guards paused.
"That is a good deal to go down," murmured Coconnas, "but not enough."
The door opened. The prisoner had the eye of a lynx and the scent of a bloodhound. He scented the judges and saw in the shadow the silhouette of a man with bare arms; the latter sight made the perspiration mount to his brow. Nevertheless, he assumed his most smiling manner, and entered the room with his head tipped to one side, and his hand on his hip, after the most approved manner of the times.
A curtain was raised, and Coconnas perceived the judges and the clerks.
A few feet away La Mole was seated on a bench.
Coconnas was led to the front of the tribunal. Arrived there, he stopped, nodded and smiled to La Mole, and then waited.
"What is your name, monsieur?" inquired the president.
"Marcus Annibal de Coconnas," replied the gentleman with perfect ease. "Count de Montpantier, Chenaux, and other places; but they are known, I presume."
"Where were you born?"
"At Saint Colomban, near Suza."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-seven years and three months."
"Good!" said the president.
"This pleases him, apparently," said Coconnas.
"Now," said the president after a moment's silence which gave the clerk time to write down the answers of the accused; "what was your reason for leaving the service of Monsieur d'Alençon?"
"To rejoin my friend Monsieur de la Mole, who had already left the duke three days before."
"What were you doing the day of the hunt, when you were arrested?"
"Why," said Coconnas, "I was hunting."
"The King was also present at that hunt, and was there seized with the first attack of the malady from which he is at present suffering."
"I was not near the King, and I can say nothing about this. I was even ignorant of the fact that he had been ill."
The judges looked at one another with a smile of incredulity.
"Ah! you were ignorant of his Majesty's illness, were you?" said the president.
"Yes, monsieur, and I am sorry to hear of it. Although the King of France is not my king, I have a great deal of sympathy for him."
"Indeed!"
"On my honor! It is different so far as his brother the Duc d'Alençon is concerned. The latter I confess"--
"We have nothing to do with the Duc d'Alençon, monsieur; this concerns his Majesty."
"Well, I have already told you that I am his very humble servant," said Coconnas, turning about in an adorably impudent fashion.
"If as you pretend, monsieur, you are really his servant, will you tell us what you know of a certain waxen figure?"
"Ah, good! we have come back to the figure, have we?"
"Yes, monsieur; does this displease you?"
"On the contrary, I prefer it; go ahead."
"Why was this statue found in Monsieur de la Mole's apartments?"
"At Monsieur de la Mole's? At Réné's, you mean?"
"You acknowledge that it exists, then, do you?"
"Why, if you will show it to me."
"Here it is. Is this the one you know?"
"It is."
"Clerk," said the president, "write down that the accused recognizes the image as the one seen at Monsieur de la Mole's."
"No, no!" said Coconnas, "do not let us misunderstand each other--as the one seen at Réné's."
"At Réné's; very good! On what day?"
"The only day La Mole and myself were at Réné's."
"You admit, then, that you were at Réné's with Monsieur de la Mole?"
"Why, did I ever deny it?"
"Clerk, write down that the accused admits having gone to Réné's to work conjurations."
"Stop there, Monsieur le Président. Moderate your enthusiasm, I beg you. I did not say that at all."
"You deny having been at Réné's to work conjurations?"
"I deny it. The magic took place by accident. It was unpremeditated."
"But it took place?"
"I cannot deny that something resembling a charm did take place."
"Clerk, write down that the accused admits that he obtained at Réné's a charm against the life of the King."
"What! against the King's life? That is an infamous lie! There was no charm obtained against the life of the King."
"You see, gentlemen!" said La Mole.
"Silence!" said the president; then turning to the clerk: "Against the life of the King," he continued. "Have you that?"
"Why, no, no!" cried Coconnas. "Besides, the figure is not that of a man, but of a woman."
"What did I tell you, gentlemen?" said La Mole.
"Monsieur de la Mole," said the president, "answer when you are questioned, but do not interrupt the examination of others."
"So you say that it is a woman?"
"Certainly I say so."
"In that case, why did it have a crown and a cloak?"
"By Heaven!" said Coconnas, "that is simple enough, because it was"--
La Mole rose and put his finger on his lips.
"That is so," said Coconnas, "what was I going to say that could possibly concern these gentlemen?"
"You persist in stating that the figure is that of a woman?"
"Yes; certainly I persist."
"And you refuse to say what woman?"
"A woman of my country," said La Mole, "whom I loved and by whom I wished to be loved in return."
"We are not asking you, Monsieur de la Mole," said the president; "keep silent, therefore, or you shall be gagged."
"Gagged!" exclaimed Coconnas; "what do you mean, monsieur of the black robe? My friend gagged? A gentleman! the idea!"
"Bring in Réné," said the Attorney-General Laguesle.
"Yes; bring in Réné," said Coconnas; "we shall see who is right here, we two or you three."
Réné entered, pale, aged, and almost unrecognizable to the two friends, bowed under the weight of the crime he was about to commit much more than because of those he had already committed.
"Maître Réné," said the judge, "do you recognize the two accused persons here present?"
"Yes, monsieur," replied Réné, in a voice which betrayed his emotion.
"From having seen them where?"
"In several places; and especially at my house."
"How many times did they go to your house?"
"Once only."
As Réné spoke the face of Coconnas expanded; La Mole's, on the contrary, looked as though he had a presentiment of evil.
"For what purpose were they at your house?"
Réné seemed to hesitate a moment.
"To order me to make a waxen figure," said he.
"Pardon me, Maître Réné," said Coconnas, "you are making a slight mistake."
"Silence!" said the president; then turning to Réné, "was this figure to be that of a man or a woman?"
"A man," replied Réné.
Coconnas sprang up as if he had received an electric shock.
"A man!" he exclaimed.
"A man," repeated Réné, but in so low a tone that the president scarcely heard him.
"Why did this figure of a man have on a mantle and a crown?"
"Because it represented a king."
"Infamous liar!" cried Coconnas, infuriated.
"Keep still, Coconnas, keep still," interrupted La Mole, "let the man speak; every one has a right to sell his own soul."
"But not the bodies of others, by Heaven!"
"And what was the meaning of the needle in the heart of the figure, with the letter 'M' on a small banner?"
"The needle was emblematical of the sword or the dagger; the letter 'M' stands for mort."
Coconnas sprang forward as though to strangle Réné, but four guards restrained him.
"That will do," said the Attorney Laguesle, "the court is sufficiently informed. Take the prisoners to the waiting-room."
"But," exclaimed Coconnas, "it is impossible to hear one's self accused of such things without protesting."
"Protest, monsieur, no one will hinder you. Guards, did you hear?"
The guards seized the two prisoners and led them out, La Mole by one door, Coconnas by another.
Then the attorney signed to the man whom Coconnas had perceived in the shadow, and said to him:
"Do not go away, my good fellow, you shall have work this evening."
"Which shall I begin with, monsieur?" asked the man, respectfully holding his cap in his hand.
"With that one," said the president, pointing to La Mole, who could still be seen disappearing in the distance between the two guards. Then approaching Réné, who stood trembling, expecting to be led back to the cell in which he had been confined:
"You have spoken well, monsieur," said he to him, "you need not worry. Both the King and the queen shall know that it is to you they are indebted for the truth of this affair."
But instead of giving him strength, this promise seemed to terrify Réné, whose only answer was a deep sigh.
LVIII. THE TORTURE OF THE BOOT
It was only when he had been led away to his new cell and the door was locked on him that Coconnas, left alone, and no longer sustained by the discussion with the judges and his anger at Réné, fell into a train of mournful reflections.
"It seems to me," thought he, "that matters are turning against us, and that it is about time to go to the chapel. I suspect we are to be condemned to death. It looks so. I especially fear being condemned to death by sentences pronounced behind closed doors, in a fortified castle, before faces as ugly as those about me. They really wish to cut off our heads. Well! well! I repeat what I said just now, it is time to go to chapel."
These words, uttered in a low tone, were followed by a silence, which in turn was broken by a cry, shrill, piercing, lugubrious, unlike anything human. It seemed to penetrate the thick walls, and vibrate against the iron bars.
In spite of himself Coconnas shivered; and yet he was so brave that his courage was like that of wild beasts. He stood still, doubting that the cry was human, and taking it for the sound of the wind in the trees or for one of the many night noises which seem to rise or descend from the two unknown worlds between which floats our globe. Then he heard it again, shriller, more prolonged, more piercing than before, and this time not only did Coconnas distinguish the agony of the human tone in it, but he thought it sounded like La Mole's.
As he realized this the Piedmontese forgot that he was confined behind two doors, three gates, and a wall twelve feet thick. He hurled his entire weight against the sides of the cell as though to push them out and rush to the aid of the victim, crying, "Are they killing some one here?" But he unexpectedly encountered the wall and the shock hurled him back against a stone bench on which he sank down.
Then there was silence.
"Oh, they have killed him!" he murmured; "it is abominable! And one is without arms, here, and cannot defend one's self!"
He groped about.
"Ah! this iron chain!" he cried, "I will take it and woe to him who comes near me!"
Coconnas rose, seized the iron chain, and with a pull shook it so violently that it was clear that with two such efforts he would wrench it away.
But suddenly the door opened and the light from a couple of torches fell into the cell.
"Come, monsieur," said the same voice which had sounded so disagreeable to him, and which this time, in making itself heard three floors below, did not seem to him to have acquired any new charm.
"Come, monsieur, the court is awaiting you."
"Good," said Coconnas, dropping his ring, "I am to hear my sentence, am I not?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Oh! I breathe again; let us go," said he.
He followed the usher, who preceded him with measured tread, holding his black rod.
In spite of the satisfaction he had felt at first, as he walked along Coconnas glanced anxiously about him.
"Oh!" he murmured, "I do not perceive my good jailer. I confess I miss him."
They entered the hall the judges had just left, in which a man was standing alone, whom Coconnas recognized as the Attorney-General. In the course of the examination the latter had spoken several times, always with an animosity easy to understand.
He was the one whom Catharine, both by letter and in person, had specially charged with the trial.
At the farther end of this room, the corners of which were lost in darkness behind a partly raised curtain, Coconnas saw such dreadful sights that he felt his limbs give away, and cried out: "Oh, my God!"
It was not without cause that the cry had been uttered. The sight was indeed terrible. The portion of the room hidden during the trial by the curtain, which was now drawn back, looked like the entrance to hell.
A wooden horse was there, to which were attached ropes, pulleys, and other accessories of torture. Further on glowed a brazier, which threw its lurid glare on the surrounding objects, and which added to the terror of the spectacle. Against one of the pillars which supported the ceiling stood a man motionless as a statue, holding a rope in his hand. He looked as though made of the stone of the column against which he leaned. To the walls above the stone benches, between iron links, chains were suspended and blades glittered.
"Oh!" murmured Coconnas, "the chamber of horrors is all ready, apparently waiting only for the patient! What can it mean?"
"On your knees, Marc Annibal Coconnas," said a voice which caused that gentleman to raise his head. "On your knees to hear the sentence just pronounced on you!"
This was an invitation against which the whole soul of Annibal instinctively rebelled.
But as he was about to refuse two men placed their hands on his shoulders so unexpectedly and so suddenly that his knees bent under him on the pavement. The voice continued.
"Sentence of the court sitting in the prison of Vincennes on Marc Annibal de Coconnas, accused and convicted of high treason, of an attempt to poison, of sacrilege and magic against the person of the King, of a conspiracy against the kingdom, and of having by his pernicious counsels driven a prince of the blood to rebellion."
At each charge Coconnas had shaken his head, keeping time like a fractious child. The judge continued:
"In consequence of which, the aforesaid Marc Annibal de Coconnas shall be taken from prison to the Place Saint Jean en Grève to be there beheaded; his property shall be confiscated; his woods cut down to the height of six feet; his castles destroyed, and a post planted there with a copper plate bearing an inscription of his crime and punishment."
"As for my head," said Coconnas, "I know you will cut that off, for it is in France, and in great jeopardy; but as for my woods and castles, I defy all the saws and axes of this most Christian kingdom to harm them."
"Silence!" said the judge; and he continued:
"Furthermore, the aforesaid Coconnas"--
"What!" interrupted Coconnas, "is something more to be done to me after my head is cut off? Oh! that seems to me very hard!"
"No, monsieur," said the judge, "before."
And he resumed:
"Furthermore, the aforesaid Coconnas before the execution of his sentence shall undergo the severest torture, consisting of ten wedges"--
Coconnas sprang up, flashing a burning glance at the judge.
"And for what?" he cried, finding no other words but these simple ones to express the thousand thoughts that surged through his mind.
In reality this was complete ruin to Coconnas' hopes. He would not be taken to the chapel until after the torture, from which many frequently died. The braver and stronger the victim, the more likely he was to die, for it was considered an act of cowardice to confess; and so long as the prisoner refused to confess the torture was continued, and not only continued, but increased.
The judge did not reply to Coconnas; the rest of the sentence answered for him. He continued:
"In order to compel the aforesaid Coconnas to confess in regard to his accomplices, and the details of the plan and conspiracy."
"By Heaven!" cried Coconnas; "this is what I call infamous; more than infamous--cowardly!"
Accustomed to the anger of his victims, which suffering always changed to tears, the impassible judge merely made a sign.
Coconnas was seized by the feet and the shoulders, overpowered, laid on his back, and bound to the rack before he was able even to see those who did the act.
"Wretches!" shouted he, in a paroxysm of fury, straining the bed and the cords so that the tormentors themselves drew back. "Wretches! torture me, twist me, break me to pieces, but you shall know nothing, I swear! Ah! you think, do you, that it is with pieces of wood and steel that a gentleman of my name is made to speak? Go ahead! I defy you!"
"Prepare to write, clerk," said the judge.
"Yes, prepare," shouted Coconnas; "and if you write everything I am going to tell you you infamous hangmen, you will be kept busy. Write! write!"
"Have you anything you wish to confess?" asked the judge in his calm voice.
"Nothing; not a word! Go to the devil!"
"You had better reflect, monsieur. Come, executioner, adjust the boot."
At these words the man, who until then had stood motionless, the ropes in his hand, stepped forward from the pillar and slowly approached Coconnas, who turned and made a grimace at him.
It was Maître Caboche, the executioner of the provostship of Paris.
A look of sad surprise showed itself on the face of Coconnas, who, instead of crying out and growing agitated, lay without moving, unable to take his eyes from the face of the forgotten friend who appeared at that moment.
Without moving a muscle of his face, without showing that he had ever seen Coconnas anywhere except on the rack, Caboche placed two planks between the limbs of the victim, two others outside of his limbs, and bound them securely together by means of the rope he held in his hand.
This was the arrangement called the "boot."
For ordinary torture six wedges were inserted between the two planks, which, on being forced apart, crushed the flesh.
For severe torture ten wedges were inserted, and then the planks not only broke the flesh but the bones.
The preliminaries over, Maître Caboche slipped the end of the wedge between the two planks, then, mallet in hand, bent on one knee and looked at the judge.
"Do you wish to speak?" said the latter.
"No," resolutely answered Coconnas, although he felt the perspiration rise to his brow and his hair begin to stand on end.
"Proceed, then," said the judge. "Insert the first wedge."
Caboche raised his arm, with its heavy mallet, and struck the wedge a tremendous blow, which gave forth a dull sound. The rack shook.
Coconnas did not utter a single word at the first wedge, which usually caused the most resolute to groan. Moreover, the only expression on his face was that of indescribable astonishment. He watched Caboche in amazement, who, with arm raised, half turned towards the judge, stood ready to repeat the blow.
"What was your idea in hiding in the forest?" asked the judge.
"To sit down in the shade," replied Coconnas.
"Proceed," said the judge.
Caboche gave a second blow which resounded like the first.
Coconnas did not move a muscle; he continued to watch the executioner with the same expression.
The judge frowned.
"He is a hard Christian," he murmured; "has the wedge entered?"
Caboche bent down to look, and in doing so said to Coconnas:
"Cry out, you poor fellow!"
Then rising:
"Up to the head, monsieur," said he.
"Second wedge," said the judge, coldly.
The words of Caboche explained all to Coconnas. The worthy executioner had rendered his friend the greatest service in his power: he was sparing him not only pain, but more, the shame of confession, by driving in wedges of leather, the upper part of which was covered with wood, instead of oak wedges. In this way he was leaving him all his strength to face the scaffold.
"Ah! kind, kind Caboche," murmured Coconnas, "fear nothing; I will cry out since you ask me to, and if you are not satisfied it will be because you are hard to please."
Meanwhile Caboche had introduced between the planks the end of a wedge larger than the first.
"Strike," cried the judge.
At this word Caboche struck as if with a single blow he would demolish the entire prison of Vincennes.
"Ah! ah! Stop! stop!" cried Coconnas; "a thousand devils! you are breaking my bones! Take care!"
"Ah!" said the judge, smiling, "the second seems to take effect; that surprises me."
Coconnas panted like a pair of bellows.
"What were you doing in the forest?" asked the judge.
"By Heaven! I have already told you. I was enjoying the fresh air."
"Proceed," said the judge.
"Confess," whispered Caboche.
"What?"
"Anything you wish, but something."
And he dealt a second blow no less light than the former.
Coconnas thought he would strangle himself in his efforts to cry out.
"Oh! oh!" said he; "what is it you want to know, monsieur? By whose order I was in the forest?"
"Yes."
"I was there by order of Monsieur d'Alençon."
"Write," said the judge.
"If I committed a crime in setting a trap for the King of Navarre," continued Coconnas, "I was only an instrument, monsieur, and I was obeying my master."
The clerk began to write.
"Oh! you denounced me, pale-face!" murmured the victim; "but just wait!"
And he related the visit of François to the King of Navarre, the interviews between De Mouy and Monsieur d'Alençon, the story of the red cloak, all as though he were just remembering them between the blows of the hammer.
At length he had given such precise, terrible, uncontestable evidence against D'Alençon, making it seem as though it was extorted from him only by the pain,--he grimaced, roared, and yelled so naturally, and in so many different tones of voice,--that the judge himself became terrified at having to record details so compromising to a son of France.
"Well!" said Caboche to himself, "here is a gentleman who does not need to say things twice, and who gives full measure of work to the clerk. Great God! what if, instead of leather, the wedges had been of wood!"
Coconnas was excused from the last wedge; but he had had nine others, which were enough to have crushed his limbs completely.
The judge reminded the victim of the mercy allowed him on account of his confession, and withdrew.
The prisoner was alone with Caboche.
"Well," asked the latter, "how are you?"
"Ah! my friend! my kind friend, my dear Caboche!" exclaimed Coconnas. "You may be sure I shall be grateful all my life for what you have done for me."
"The deuce! but you are right, monsieur, for if they knew what I have done it would be I who would have to take your place on the rack, and they would not treat me as I have treated you."
"But how did the idea come to you?"
"Well," said Caboche, wrapping the limbs of Coconnas in bloody bands of linen; "I knew you had been arrested, and that your trial was going on. I knew that Queen Catharine was anxious for your death. I guessed that they would put you to the torture and consequently took my precautions."
"At the risk of what might have happened?"
"Monsieur," said Caboche, "you are the only gentleman who ever gave me his hand, and we all have memories and hearts, even though we are hangmen, and perhaps for that very reason. You will see to-morrow how well I will do my work."
"To-morrow?" said Coconnas.
"Yes."
"What work?"
Caboche looked at Coconnas in amazement.
"What work? Have you forgotten the sentence?"
"Ah! yes, of course! the sentence!" said Coconnas; "I had forgotten it."
The fact is that Coconnas had not really forgotten it, but he had not been thinking of it.
What he was thinking of was the chapel, the knife hidden under the altar cloth, of Henriette and the queen, of the vestry door, and the two horses waiting on the edge of the forest; he was thinking of liberty, of the ride in the open air, of safety beyond the boundaries of France.
"Now," said Caboche, "you must be taken skilfully from the rack to the litter. Do not forget that for every one, even the guards, your limbs are broken, and that at every jar you must give a cry."
"Ah! ah!" cried Coconnas, as the two assistants advanced.
"Come! come! Courage," said Caboche, "if you cry out already, what will you do in a little while?"
"My dear Caboche," said Coconnas, "do not have me touched, I beg, by your estimable acolytes; perhaps their hands are not as light as yours."
"Place the litter near the racks," said Caboche.
The attendants obeyed. Maître Caboche raised Coconnas in his arms as if he were a child and laid him in the litter, but in spite of every care Coconnas uttered loud shrieks.
The jailer appeared with a lantern.
"To the chapel," said he.
The bearers started after Coconnas had given Caboche a second grasp of the hand. The first had been of too much use to the Piedmontese for him not to repeat it.
LIX. THE CHAPEL
In profound silence the mournful procession crossed the two drawbridges of the fortress and the courtyard which leads to the chapel, through the windows of which a pale light colored the white faces of the red-robed priests.
Coconnas eagerly breathed the night air, although it was heavy with rain. He looked at the profound darkness and rejoiced that everything seemed propitious for the flight of himself and his companion. It required all his will-power, all his prudence, all his self-control to keep from springing from the litter when on entering the chapel he perceived near the choir, three feet from the altar, a figure wrapped in a great white cloak.
It was La Mole.
The two soldiers who accompanied the litter stopped outside of the door.
"Since they have done us the final favor of once more leaving us together," said Coconnas in a drawling voice, "take me to my friend."
The bearers had had no different order, and made no objection to assenting to Coconnas's demand.
La Mole was gloomy and pale; his head rested against the marble wall; his black hair, bathed with profuse perspiration, gave to his face the dull pallor of ivory, and seemed still to stand on end.
At a sign from the turnkey the two attendants went to find the priest for whom Coconnas had asked.
This was the signal agreed on.
Coconnas followed them with anxious eyes; but he was not the only one whose glance was riveted on them.
Scarcely had they disappeared when two women rushed from behind the altar and hurried to the choir with cries of joy, rousing the air like a warm and restless breeze which precedes a storm.
Marguerite rushed towards La Mole, and caught him in her arms.
La Mole uttered a piercing shriek, like one of the cries Coconnas had heard in his dungeon and which had so terrified him.
"My God! What is the matter, La Mole?" cried Marguerite, springing back in fright.
La Mole uttered a deep moan and raised his hands to his eyes as though to hide Marguerite from his sight.
The queen was more terrified at the silence and this gesture than she had been at the shriek.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "what is the matter? You are covered with blood."
Coconnas, who had rushed to the altar for the dagger, and who was already holding Henriette in his arms, now came back.
"Rise," said Marguerite, "rise, I beg you! You see the time has come."
A hopelessly sad smile passed over the white lips of La Mole, who seemed almost unequal to the effort.
"Beloved queen!" said the young man, "you counted without Catharine, and consequently without a crime. I underwent the torture, my bones are broken, my whole body is nothing but a wound, and the effort I make now to press my lips to your forehead causes me pain worse than death."
Pale and trembling, La Mole touched his lips to the queen's brow.
"The rack!" cried Coconnas, "I, too, suffered it, but did not the executioner do for you what he did for me?"
Coconnas related everything.
"Ah!" said La Mole, "I see; you gave him your hand the day of our visit; I forgot that all men are brothers, and was proud. God has punished me for it!"
La Mole clasped his hands.
Coconnas and the women exchanged a glance of indescribable terror.
"Come," said the jailer, who until then had stood at the door to keep watch, and had now returned, "do not waste time, dear Monsieur de Coconnas; give me my thrust of the dagger, and do it in a way worthy of a gentleman, for they are coming."
Marguerite knelt down before La Mole, as if she were one of the marble figures on a tomb, near the image of the one buried in it.
"Come, my friend," said Coconnas, "I am strong, I will carry you, I will put you on your horse, or even hold you in front of me, if you cannot sit in the saddle; but let us start. You hear what this good man says; it is a question of life and death."
La Mole made a superhuman struggle, a final effort.
"Yes," said he, "it is a question of life or death."
And he strove to rise.
Annibal took him by the arm and raised him. During the process La Mole uttered dull moans, but when Coconnas let go of him to attend to the turnkey, and when he was supported only by the two women his legs gave way, and in spite of the effort of Marguerite, who was wildly sobbing, he fell back in a heap, and a piercing shriek which he could not restrain echoed pitifully throughout the vaults of the chapel, which vibrated long after.
"You see," said La Mole, painfully, "you see, my queen! Leave me; give me one last kiss and go. I did not confess, Marguerite, and our secret is hidden in our love and will die with me. Good-by, my queen, my queen."
Marguerite, herself almost lifeless, clasped the dear head in her arms, and pressed on it a kiss which was almost holy.
"You Annibal," said La Mole, "who have been spared these agonies, who are still young and able to live, flee, flee; give me the supreme consolation, my dear friend, of knowing you have escaped."
"Time flies," said the jailer; "make haste."
Henriette gently strove to lead Annibal to the door. Marguerite on her knees before La Mole, sobbing, and with dishevelled hair, looked like a Magdalene.
"Flee, Annibal," said La Mole, "flee; do not give our enemies the joyful spectacle of the death of two innocent men."
Coconnas quietly disengaged himself from Henriette, who was leading him to the door, and with a gesture so solemn that it seemed majestic said:
"Madame, first give the five hundred crowns we promised to this man."
"Here they are," said Henriette.
Then turning to La Mole, and shaking his head sadly:
"As for you, La Mole, you do me wrong to think for an instant that I could leave you. Have I not sworn to live and die with you? But you are suffering so, my poor friend, that I forgive you."
And seating himself resolutely beside his friend Coconnas leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
Then gently, as gently as a mother would do to her child, he drew the dear head towards him, until it rested on his breast.
Marguerite was numb. She had picked up the dagger which Coconnas had just let fall.
"Oh, my queen," said La Mole, extending his arms to her, and understanding her thought, "my beloved queen, do not forget that I die in order to destroy the slightest suspicion of our love!"
"But what can I do for you, then," cried Marguerite, in despair, "if I cannot die with you?"
"You can make death sweet to me," replied La Mole; "you can come to me with smiling lips."
Marguerite advanced and clasped her hands as if asking him to speak.
"Do you remember that evening, Marguerite, when in exchange for the life I then offered you, and which to-day I lay down for you, you made me a sacred promise."
Marguerite gave a start.
"Ah! you do remember," said La Mole, "for you shudder."
"Yes, yes, I remember, and on my soul, Hyacinthe, I will keep that promise."
Marguerite raised her hand towards the altar, as if calling God a second time to witness her oath.
La Mole's face lighted up as if the vaulted roof of the chapel had opened and a heavenly ray had fallen on him.
"They are coming!" said the jailer.
Marguerite uttered a cry, and rushed to La Mole, but the fear of increasing his agony made her pause trembling before him.
Henriette pressed her lips to Coconnas's brow, and said to him:
"My Annibal, I understand, and I am proud of you. I well know that your heroism makes you die, and for that heroism I love you. Before God I will always love you more than all else, and what Marguerite has sworn to do for La Mole, although I know not what it is, I swear I will do for you also."
And she held out her hand to Marguerite.
"Ah! thank you," said Coconnas; "that is the way to speak."
"Before you leave me, my queen," said La Mole, "one last favor. Give me some last souvenir, that I may kiss it as I mount the scaffold."
"Ah! yes, yes," cried Marguerite; "here!"
And she unfastened from her neck a small gold reliquary suspended from a chain of the same metal.
"Here," said she, "is a holy relic which I have worn from childhood. My mother put it around my neck when I was very little and she still loved me. It was given me by my uncle, Pope Clement and has never left me. Take it! take it!"
La Mole took it, and kissed it passionately.
"They are at the door," said the jailer; "flee, ladies, flee!"
The two women rushed behind the altar and disappeared.
At the same moment the priest entered.
LX. THE PLACE SAINT JEAN EN GRÈVE
It was seven o'clock in the morning, and a noisy crowd was waiting in the squares, the streets, and on the quays. At six o'clock a tumbril, the same in which after their duel the two friends had been conveyed half dead to the Louvre, had started from Vincennes and slowly crossed the Rue Saint Antoine. Along its route the spectators, so huddled together that they crushed one another, seemed like statues with fixed eyes and open mouths.
This day there was to be a heartrending spectacle offered by the queen mother to the people of Paris.
On some straw in the tumbril, we have mentioned, which was making its way through the streets, were two young men, bareheaded, and entirely clothed in black, leaning against each other. Coconnas supported on his knees La Mole, whose head hung over the sides of the tumbril, and whose eyes wandered vaguely here and there.
The crowd, eager to see even the bottom of the vehicle, crowded forward, lifted itself up, stood on tiptoe, mounted posts, clung to the angles of the walls, and appeared satisfied only when it had succeeded in seeing every detail of the two bodies which were going from the torture to death.
It had been rumored that La Mole was dying without having confessed one of the charges imputed to him; while, on the contrary, Coconnas, it was asserted, could not endure the torture, and had revealed everything.
So there were cries on all sides:
"See the red-haired one! It was he who confessed! It was he who told everything! He is a coward, and is the cause of the other's death! The other is a brave fellow, and confessed nothing."
The two young men heard perfectly, the one the praises, the other the reproaches, which accompanied their funeral march; and while La Mole pressed the hands of his friend a sublime expression of scorn lighted up the face of the Piedmontese, who from the foul tumbril gazed upon the stupid mob as if he were looking down from a triumphal car.
Misfortune had done its heavenly work, and had ennobled the face of Coconnas, as death was about to render divine his soul.
"Are we nearly there?" asked La Mole. "I can stand no more, my friend. I feel as if I were going to faint."
"Wait! wait! La Mole, we are passing by the Rue Tizon and the Rue Cloche Percée; look! look!"
"Oh! raise me, raise me, that I may once more gaze on that happy abode."
Coconnas raised his hand and touched the shoulder of the executioner, who sat at the front of the tumbril driving.
"Maître," said he, "do us the kindness to stop a moment opposite the Rue Tizon."
Caboche nodded in assent, and drew rein at the place indicated.
Aided by Coconnas, La Mole raised himself with an effort, and with eyes blinded by tears gazed at the small house, silent and mute, deserted as a tomb. A groan burst from him, and in a low voice he murmured:
"Adieu, adieu, youth, love, life!"
And his head fell forward on his breast.
"Courage," said Coconnas; "we may perhaps find all this above."
"Do you think so?" murmured La Mole.
"I think so, because the priest said so; and above all, because I hope so. But do not faint, my friend, or these staring wretches will laugh at us."
Caboche heard the last words and whipping his horse with one hand he extended the other, unseen by any one, to Coconnas. It contained a small sponge saturated with a powerful stimulant, and La Mole, after smelling it and rubbing his forehead with it, felt himself revived and reanimated.
"Ah!" said La Mole, "I am better," and he kissed the reliquary, which he wore around his neck.
As they turned a corner of the quay and reached the small edifice built by Henry II. they saw the scaffold rising bare and bloody on its platform above the heads of the crowd.
"Dear friend," said La Mole, "I wish I might be the first to die."
Coconnas again touched the hangman's shoulder.
"What is it, my gentleman?" said the latter, turning around.
"My good fellow," said Coconnas, "you will do what you can for me, will you not? You said you would."
"Yes, and I repeat it."
"My friend has suffered more than I and consequently has less strength"--
"Well?"
"Well, he says that it would cause him too much pain to see me die first. Besides, if I were to die before him he would have no one to support him on the scaffold."
"Very well," said Caboche, wiping away a tear with the back of his hand; "be easy, it shall be as you wish."
"And with one blow, eh?" said the Piedmontese in a low tone.
"With one blow."
"That is well. If you have to make up for it, make up on me."
The tumbril stopped. They had arrived. Coconnas put on his hat.
A murmur like that of the waves at sea reached the ears of La Mole. He strove to rise, but strength failed him. Caboche and Coconnas supported him under the arms.
The place was paved with heads; the steps of the Hôtel de Ville seemed an amphitheatre peopled with spectators. Each window was filled with animated faces, the eyes of which seemed on fire.
When they saw the handsome young man, no longer able to support himself on his bruised legs, make a last effort to reach the scaffold, a great shout rose like a cry of universal desolation. Men groaned and women uttered plaintive shrieks.
"He was one of the greatest courtiers!" said the men; "and he should not have to die at Saint Jean en Grève, but at the Pré aux Clercs."
"How handsome he is! How pale!" said the women; "he is the one who would not confess."
"Dearest friend," said La Mole, "I cannot stand. Carry me!"
"Wait," said Coconnas.
He signed to the executioner, who stepped aside; then, stooping, he lifted La Mole in his arms as if he were a child, and without faltering carried his burden up the steps of the scaffold, where he put him down, amid the frantic shouting and applause of the multitude. Coconnas raised his hat and bowed. Then he threw the hat on the scaffold beside him.
"Look round," said La Mole, "do you not see them somewhere?"
Coconnas slowly glanced around the place, and, having reached a certain point, without removing his eyes from it he laid his hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Look," said he, "look at the window of that small tower!"
With his other hand he pointed out to La Mole the little building which still stands at the corner of the Rue de la Vannerie and the Rue Mouton,--a reminder of past ages.
Somewhat back from the window two women dressed in black were leaning against each other.
"Ah!" said La Mole, "I feared only one thing, and that was to die without seeing her again. I have seen her; now I can go."
And with his eyes riveted on the small window he raised the reliquary to his lips and covered it with kisses.
Coconnas saluted the two women with as much grace as if he were in a drawing-room. In response to this they waved their handkerchiefs bathed in tears.
Caboche now touched Coconnas on the shoulder, and looked at him significantly.
"Yes, yes," said the Piedmontese. Then turning to La Mole:
"Embrace me," said he, "and die like a man. This will not be hard for you, my friend; you are so brave!"
"Ah!" said La Mole, "there will be no merit in my dying bravely, suffering as I do."
The priest approached and held the crucifix before La Mole, who smiled and pointed to the reliquary in his hand.
"Never mind," said the priest, "ask strength from Him who suffered what you are about to suffer."
La Mole kissed the feet of the Christ.
"Commend me to the prayers of the nuns of the Avens Sainte Vierge."
"Make haste, La Mole," said Coconnas, "you cause me such suffering that I feel myself growing weak."
"I am ready," said La Mole.
"Can you keep your head steady?" inquired Caboche, holding his sword behind La Mole, who was on his knees.
"I hope so," said the latter.
"Then all will go well."
"But," said La Mole, "you will not forget what I asked of you? This reliquary will open the doors to you."
"Be easy. Now try to keep your head straight."
La Mole raised his head and turned his eyes towards the little tower.
"Adieu, Marguerite," said he; "bless"--
He never finished. With one blow of his sword, as swift as a stroke of lightning, Caboche severed the head, which rolled to the feet of Coconnas.
The body fell back gently as if going to rest.
A great cry rose from thousands of voices, and, among them, it seemed to Coconnas that he heard a shriek more piercing than all the rest.
"Thank you, my good friend," said Coconnas, and a third time he extended his hand to the hangman.
"My son," said the priest, "have you nothing to confess to God?"
"Faith no, father," said the Piedmontese; "all that I had to say I said to you yesterday."
Then turning to Caboche:
"Now, executioner, my last friend, one more favor!"
Before kneeling down he turned on the crowd a glance so calm and serene that a murmur of admiration rose, which soothed his ear and flattered his pride. Then, raising the head of his friend and pressing a kiss on the purple lips, he gave a last look toward the little tower, and kneeling down, still holding the well-loved head in his hand, he said:
"Now!"
Scarcely had he uttered the word before Caboche had cut off his head.
This done, the poor hangman began to tremble.
"It was time it was over," said he. "Poor fellow!"
And with difficulty he drew from the clinched fingers of La Mole the reliquary of gold. Then he threw his cloak over the sad remains which the tumbril was to convey to his own abode.
The spectacle over, the crowd dispersed.
LXI. THE HEADSMAN'S TOWER
Night descended over the city, which still trembled at the remembrance of the execution, the details of which passed from mouth to mouth, saddening the happy supper hour in every home. In contrast to the city, which was silent and mournful, the Louvre was noisy, joyous, and illuminated. There was a grand fête at the palace, a fête ordered by Charles IX., a fête he had planned for that evening at the very time that he had ordered the execution for the morning.
The previous evening the Queen of Navarre had received word to be present, and, in the hope that La Mole and Coconnas would have escaped during the night, since every measure had been taken for their safety, she had promised her brother to comply with his wishes.
But when she had lost all hope, after the scene in the chapel, after, out of a last feeling of piety for that love, the greatest and the deepest she had ever known, she had been present at the execution, she resolved that neither prayers nor threats should force her to attend a joyous festival at the Louvre the same day on which she had witnessed so terrible a scene at the Grève.
That day King Charles had given another proof of the will power which no one perhaps carried as far as he. In bed for a fortnight, weak as a dying man, pale as a corpse, yet he rose about five o'clock and donned his most beautiful clothes, although during his toilet he fainted three times.
At eight o'clock he asked what had become of his sister, and inquired if any one had seen her and what she was doing. No one could tell him, for the queen had gone to her apartments about eleven o'clock and had absolutely refused admittance to every one.
But there was no refusal for Charles. Leaning on the arm of Monsieur de Nancey, he went to the queen's rooms and entered unannounced by the secret corridor.
Although he had expected a melancholy sight, and had prepared himself for it in advance, that which he saw was even more distressing than he had anticipated.
Marguerite, half dead, was lying on a divan, her head buried in the cushions, neither weeping nor praying, but moaning like one in great agony; and this she had been doing ever since her return from the Grève. At the other end of the chamber Henriette de Nevers, that daring woman, lay stretched on the carpet unconscious. On coming back from the Grève her strength, like Marguerite's, had given out, and poor Gillonne was going from one to the other, not daring to offer a word of consolation.
In the crises which follow great catastrophes one hugs one's grief like a treasure, and any one who attempts to divert us, ever so slightly, is looked on as an enemy. Charles IX. closed the door, and leaving Nancey in the corridor entered, pale and trembling.
Neither of the women had seen him. Gillonne alone, who was trying to revive Henriette, rose on one knee, and looked in a startled way at the King.
The latter made a sign with his hand, whereupon the girl rose, courtesied, and withdrew.
Charles then approached Marguerite, looked at her a moment in silence, and in a tone of which his harsh voice was supposed to be incapable, said:
"Margot! my sister!"
The young woman started and sat up.
"Your Majesty!" said she.
"Come, sister, courage."
Marguerite raised her eyes to Heaven.
"Yes," said Charles, "but listen to me."
The Queen of Navarre made a sign of assent.
"You promised me to come to the ball," said Charles.
"I!" exclaimed Marguerite.
"Yes, and after your promise you are expected; so that if you do not come every one will wonder why."
"Excuse me, brother," said Marguerite, "you see that I am suffering greatly."
"Exert yourself."
For an instant Marguerite seemed to try to summon her courage, then suddenly she gave way and fell back among the cushions.
"No, no, I cannot go," said she.
Charles took her hand and seating himself on the divan said:
"You have just lost a friend, I know, Margot; but look at me. Have I not lost all my friends, even my mother? You can always weep when you wish to; but I, at the moment of my greatest sorrows, am always forced to smile. You suffer; but look at me! I am dying. Come, Margot, courage! I ask it of you, sister, in the name of our honor! We bear like a cross of agony the reputation of our house; let us bear it, sister, as the Saviour bore his cross to Calvary; and if on the way we stagger, as he did, let us like him rise brave and resigned."
"Oh, my God! my God!" cried Marguerite.
"Yes," said Charles, answering her thought; "the sacrifice is severe, sister, but each one has his own burden, some of honor, others of life. Do you suppose that with my twenty-five years, and the most beautiful throne in the world, I do not regret dying? Look at me! My eyes, my complexion, my lips are those of a dying man, it is true; but my smile, does not my smile imply that I still hope? and in a week, a month at the most, you will be weeping for me, sister, as you now weep for him who died to-day."
"Brother!" exclaimed Marguerite, throwing her arms about Charles's neck.
"So dress yourself, dear Marguerite," said the King, "hide your pallor and come to the ball. I have given orders for new jewels to be brought to you, and ornaments worthy of your beauty."
"Oh! what are diamonds and dresses to me now?" said Marguerite.
"Life is long, Marguerite," said Charles, smiling, "at least for you."
The pages withdrew; Gillonne alone remained.
"Prepare everything that is necessary for me, Gillonne," said Marguerite.
"Sister, remember one thing: sometimes it is by stifling or rather by dissimulating our suffering that we show most honor to the dead."
"Well, sire," said Marguerite, shuddering, "I will go to the ball."
A tear, which soon dried on his parched eyelid, moistened Charles's eye.
He leaned over his sister, kissed her forehead, paused an instant before Henriette, who had neither seen nor heard him, and murmured:
"Poor woman!"
Then he went out silently.
Soon after several pages entered, bringing boxes and jewel-caskets.
Marguerite made a sign for them to set everything down.
Gillonne looked at her mistress in astonishment.
"Yes," said Marguerite, in a tone the bitterness of which it is impossible to describe; yes, I will dress and go to the ball; I am expected. Make haste; the day will then be complete. A fête on the Grève in the morning, a fête in the Louvre in the evening."
"And the duchess?" said Gillonne.
"She is quite happy. She may remain here; she can weep; she can suffer at her ease. She is not the daughter of a king, the wife of a king, the sister of a king. She is not a queen. Help me to dress, Gillonne."
The young girl obeyed. The jewels were magnificent, the dress gorgeous. Marguerite had never been so beautiful.
She looked at herself in a mirror.
"My brother is right," said she; "a human being is indeed a miserable creature."
At that moment Gillonne returned.
"Madame," said she, "a man is asking for you."
"For me?"
"Yes."
"Who is he?"
"I do not know, but he is terrible to look at; the very sight of him makes me shudder."
"Go and ask him his name," said Marguerite, turning pale.
Gillonne withdrew, and returned in a few moments.
"He will not give his name, madame, but he begged me to give you this."
Gillonne handed to Marguerite the reliquary she had given to La Mole the previous evening.
"Oh! bring him in, bring him in!" said the queen quickly, growing paler and more numb than before.
A heavy step shook the floor. The echo, indignant, no doubt, at having to repeat such a sound, moaned along the wainscoting. A man stood on the threshold.
"You are"--said the queen.
"He whom you met one day near Montfaucon, madame, and who in his tumbril brought back two wounded gentlemen to the Louvre."
"Yes, yes, I know you. You are Maître Caboche."
"Executioner of the provostship of Paris, madame."
These were the only words Henriette had heard for an hour. She raised her pale face from her hands and looked at the man with her sapphire eyes, from which a double flame seemed to dart.
"And you come"--said Marguerite, trembling.
"To remind you of your promise to the younger of the two gentlemen, who charged me to give you this reliquary. You remember the promise, madame?"
"Yes, yes," exclaimed the queen, "and never has a noble soul had more satisfaction than his shall have; but where is"--
"At my house with the body."
"At your house? Why did you not bring it?"
"I might have been stopped at the gate of the Louvre, and compelled to raise my cloak. What would they have said if they had seen a head under it?"
"That is right; keep it. I will come for it to-morrow."
"To-morrow, madame," said Caboche, "may perhaps be too late."
"How so?"
"Because the queen mother wanted the heads of the first victims executed by me to be kept for her magical experiments."
"Oh! What profanation! The heads of our well-beloved! Henriette," cried Marguerite, turning to her friend, who had risen as if a spring had placed her on her feet, "Henriette, my angel, do you hear what this man says?"
"Yes; what must we do?"
"Go with him."
Then uttering a cry of pain by which great sufferers return to life:
"Ah! I was so happy," said Henriette; "I was almost dead."
Meanwhile Marguerite had thrown a velvet cloak over her bare shoulders.
"Come," said she, "we will go and see them once more."
Telling Gillonne to have all the doors closed, the queen gave orders for a litter to be brought to the private entrance, and taking Henriette by the arm, she descended by the secret corridor, signing to Caboche to follow.
At the lower door was the litter; at the gate Caboche's attendant waited with a lantern. Marguerite's porters were trusty men, deaf and dumb, more to be depended on than if they had been beasts of burden.
They walked for about ten minutes, preceded by Caboche and his servant, carrying the lantern. Then they stopped. The hangman opened the door, while his man went ahead.
Marguerite stepped from the litter and helped out the Duchesse de Nevers. In the deep grief which bound them together it was the nervous organism which was the stronger.
The headsman's tower rose before them like a dark, vague giant, giving out a lurid gleam from two narrow upper windows.
The attendant reappeared at the door.
"You can enter, ladies," said Caboche; "every one is asleep in the tower."
At the same moment the light from above was extinguished.
The two women, holding to each other, passed through the small gothic door, and reached a dark hall with damp and uneven pavement. At the end of a winding corridor they perceived a light and guided by the gruesome master of the place they set out towards it. The door closed behind them.
Caboche, a wax torch in hand, admitted them into a lower room filled with smoke. In the centre was a table containing the remains of a supper for three. These three were probably the hangman, his wife, and his chief assistant. In a conspicuous place on the wall a parchment was nailed, sealed with the seal of the King. It was the hangman's license. In a corner was a long-handled sword. This was the flaming sword of justice.
Here and there were various rough drawings representing martyrs undergoing the torture.
At the door Caboche made a low bow.
"Your majesty will excuse me," said he, "if I ventured to enter the Louvre and bring you here. But it was the last wish of the gentleman, so that I felt I"--
"You did well, Maître," said Marguerite, "and here is a reward for you."
Caboche looked sadly at the large purse which Marguerite laid on the table.
"Gold!" said he; "always gold! Alas! madame, if I only could buy back for gold the blood I was forced to spill to-day!"
"Maître," said Marguerite, looking around with a sad hesitation, "Maître, do we have to go to some other room? I do not see"--
"No, madame, they are here; but it is a sad sight, and one which I could have spared you by wrapping up in my cloak that for which you have come."
Marguerite and Henriette looked at each other.
"No," said the queen, who had read in her friend's eye the same thought as in her own; "no, show us the way and we will follow."
Caboche took the torch and opened an oaken door at the top of a short stairway, which led to an underground chamber. At that instant a current of air blew some sparks from the torch and brought to the princesses an ill-smelling odor of dampness and blood. Henriette, white as an alabaster statue, leaned on the arm of her less agitated friend; but at the first step she swayed.
"I can never do it," said she.
"When one loves truly, Henriette," replied the queen, "one loves beyond death."
It was a sight both horrible and touching presented by the two women, glowing with youth, beauty, and jewels, as they bent their heads beneath the foul, chalky ceiling, the weaker leaning on the stronger, the stronger clinging to the arm of the hangman.
They reached the final step. On the floor of the cellar lay two human forms covered with a wide cloth of black serge.
Caboche raised a corner of it, and, lowering the torch:
"See, madame," said he.
In their black clothes lay the two young men, side by side, in the strange symmetry of death. Their heads had been placed close to their bodies, from which they seemed to be separated only by a bright red circle about the neck. Death had not disunited their hands, for either from chance or the kind care of the hangman the right hand of La Mole rested in Coconnas's left hand.
There was a look of love under the lids of La Mole, and a smile of scorn under those of Coconnas.
Marguerite knelt down by the side of her lover, and with hands that sparkled with gems gently raised the head she had so greatly loved.
The Duchesse de Nevers leaned against the wall, unable to remove her eyes from that pale face on which so often she had gazed for pleasure and for love.
"La Mole! Dear La Mole!" murmured Marguerite.
"Annibal! Annibal!" cried the duchess, "so beautiful! so proud! so brave! Never again will you answer me!"
And her eyes filled with tears.
This woman, so scornful, so intrepid, so insolent in happiness; this woman who carried scepticism as far as absolute doubt, passion to the point of cruelty; this woman had never thought of death.
Marguerite was the first to move.
She put into a bag, embroidered with pearls and perfumed with finest essences, the head of La Mole, more beautiful than ever as it rested against the velvet and the gold, and the beauty of which was to be preserved by a special preparation, used at that time in the embalming of royal personages.
Henriette then drew near and wrapped the head of Coconnas in a fold of her cloak.
And both women, bending beneath their grief more than beneath their burdens, ascended the stairs with a last look at the remains which they left to the mercy of the hangman in that sombre abode of ordinary criminals.
"Do not fear, madame," said Caboche, who understood their look, "the gentlemen, I promise you, shall be buried in holy ground."
"And you will have masses said for them with this," said Henriette, taking from her neck a magnificent necklace of rubies, and handing it to the hangman.
They returned to the Louvre by the same road by which they had gone. At the gate the queen gave her name; at the foot of her private stairway she descended and, returning to her rooms, laid her sad burden in the closet adjoining her sleeping-room, destined from that moment to become an oratory. Then, leaving Henriette in her room, paler and more beautiful than ever, she entered the great ballroom, the same room in which, two years and a half ago, the first chapter of our history opened.
All eyes were turned on her, but she bore the general gaze with a proud and almost joyous air.
She had religiously carried out the last wish of her friend.
Seeing her, Charles pushed tremblingly through the gilded crowd around her.
"Sister," said he, aloud, "I thank you."
Then in a low tone:
"Take care!" said he, "you have a spot of blood on your arm."
"Ah! what difference does that make, sire," said Marguerite, "since I have a smile on my lips?"
LXII. THE SWEAT OF BLOOD
A few days after the terrible scene we have just described, that is, on the 30th of May, 1574, while the court was at Vincennes, suddenly a great commotion was heard in the chamber of the King. The latter had been taken ill in the midst of the ball he had given the day of the execution of the two young men, and had been ordered by his physicians into the pure air of the country.
It was eight o'clock in the morning. A small group of courtiers were talking excitedly in the antechamber, when suddenly a cry was heard, and Charles's nurse appeared at the door, her eyes filled with tears, calling frantically:
"Help! Help!"
"Is his Majesty worse?" asked the Captain de Nancey, whom, as we know, the King had relieved from all duty to Queen Catharine in order to attach him to himself.
"Oh! Blood! Blood!" cried the nurse. "The doctors! call the doctors!"
Mozille and Ambroise Paré in turn attended the august patient, and the latter, seeing the King fall asleep, had taken advantage of the fact to withdraw for a few moments. Meanwhile a great perspiration had broken out all over the King; and as Charles suffered from a relaxation of the capillary vessels, which caused a hæmorrhage of the skin, the bloody sweat had alarmed the nurse, unaccustomed to this strange phenomenon, who, being a Protestant, kept repeating that it was a judgment for the blood of the Huguenots shed in the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
The courtiers went in all directions in search of the doctor, who could not be far away, and whom they could not fail to meet. The antechamber, therefore, became deserted, every one being anxious to show his zeal in bringing the much-needed physician.
Just then a door opened and Catharine appeared. She passed hurriedly through the antechamber and hastily entered the apartment of her son.
Charles was stretched on his bed, his eyes closed, his breast heaving; from his body oozed a crimson sweat. His hand hung over the bed, and from the end of each finger dropped a ruby liquid. It was a horrible sight.
At the sound of his mother's steps, as if he knew she was there, Charles sat up.
"Pardon, madame," said he, looking at her, "but I desire to die in peace."
"To die, my son?" said Catharine. "This is only a passing attack of your wretched trouble. Would you have us despair in this way?"
"I tell you, madame, I feel that my soul is about to pass away. I tell you, madame, that death is near me, by Heaven! I feel what I feel, and I know what I am talking about!"
"Sire," said the queen, "your imagination is your most serious trouble. Since the well-merited punishment of those two sorcerers, those assassins, La Mole and Coconnas, your physical suffering should have diminished. The mental trouble alone continues, and if I could talk with you for just ten minutes I could prove to you"--
"Nurse," said Charles, "watch at the door that no one may enter. Queen Catharine de Médicis wishes to speak with her well-loved son Charles IX."
The nurse withdrew.
"Well," continued Charles, "this interview will have to take place some day or other, and better to-day than to-morrow. Besides, to-morrow may be too late. But a third person must be present."
"Why?"
"Because I tell you I am dying," repeated Charles with frightful seriousness; "because at any moment death may enter this chamber, as you have done, pale, silent, and unannounced. It is, therefore, time. Last night I settled my personal affairs; this morning I will arrange those of the kingdom."
"What person do you desire to see?" asked Catharine.
"My brother, madame. Have him summoned."
"Sire," said the queen, "I see with pleasure that the prejudices dictated by hatred rather than pain are leaving your mind, as they soon will fade from your heart. Nurse!" cried Catharine, "nurse!"
The woman, who was keeping watch outside, opened the door.
"Nurse," said Catharine, "by order of my son, when Monsieur de Nancey returns say to him to summon the Duc d'Alençon."
Charles made a sign which detained the woman.
"I said my brother, madame," said Charles.
Catharine's eyes dilated like those of a tigress about to show her anger. But Charles raised his hand imperatively.
"I wish to speak to my brother Henry," said he. "Henry alone is my brother; not he who is king yonder, but he who is a prisoner here. Henry shall know my last wishes."
"And do you think," exclaimed the Florentine, with unusual boldness in the face of the dread will of her son, her hatred for the Béarnais being strong enough to make her forget her customary dissimulation,--"do you think that if, as you say, you are near the tomb, I will yield to any one, especially a stranger, my right to be present at your last hour; my right as queen and mother?"
"Madame," said Charles, "I am still King; and I still command. I tell you that I desire to speak to my brother Henry and yet you do not summon my captain of the guard. A thousand devils! I warn you, madame, I still have strength enough to go for him myself."
The King made a movement as if to rise from the bed, which brought to light his body, bloody like Christ's after the flogging.
"Sire," cried Catharine, holding him back, "you wrong us all. You forget the insults given to our family, you repudiate our blood. A son of France alone should kneel before the death-bed of a King of France. As to me, my place is marked out; it is here by the laws of nature as well as the laws of royalty. Therefore I shall remain."
"And by what right do you remain, madame?" demanded Charles IX.
"Because I am your mother."
"You are no more my mother, madame, than is the Duc d'Alençon my brother."
"You are mad, monsieur," said Catharine; "since when is she who gives birth to a child no longer his mother?"
"From the moment, madame, when the unnatural mother takes away that which she gives," replied Charles, wiping away a bloody sweat from his lips.
"What do you mean, Charles? I do not understand you," murmured Catharine, gazing at her son, her eyes dilated with astonishment.
"But you will, madame."
Charles searched under his pillow and drew out a small silver key.
"Take this, madame, and open my travelling-box. It contains certain papers which will speak for me."
Charles pointed to a magnificent carved box, closed with a silver lock, like the key, which occupied the most conspicuous place in the room.
Catharine, dominated by the look and manner of Charles, obeyed, advanced slowly to the box, and opened it. But no sooner had she looked into it than she suddenly sprang back as if she had seen some sleeping reptile inside it.
"Well," said Charles, who had not taken his eyes from his mother, "what is there in the box to startle you, madame?"
"Nothing," said Catharine.
"Then put in your hand, madame, and take out a book that is there; there is one, is there not?" added Charles, with a pale smile, more terrible in him than a threat in another.
"Yes," faltered Catharine.
"A book on hunting?"
"Yes."
"Take it out and bring it to me."
In spite of her assurance Catharine turned pale, and trembled in every limb, as she extended her hand towards the box.
"Fatality!" she murmured, raising the book.
"Very good," said Charles, "now listen; this book on hunting--I loved the chase madly, above everything else--I read this book too eagerly, do you understand, madame?"
Catharine gave a dull moan.
"It was a weakness," continued Charles; "burn it, madame. The weakness of kings and queens must not be known!"
Catharine stepped to the glowing hearth, and dropped the book into the flames.
Then, standing motionless and silent, she watched with haggard eye the bluish light which rose from the poisoned leaves.
As the book burned a strong odor of arsenic spread through the room. Soon the volume was entirely destroyed.
"And now, madame," said Charles, with irresistible majesty, "call my brother."
Catharine, overcome, crushed under a multiple emotion which her profound wisdom could not analyze, and which her almost superhuman strength could not combat, took a step forward as if to speak.
The mother grew remorseful; the queen was afraid; the poisoner felt a return of hatred.
The latter sentiment dominated.
"Curse him!" she cried, rushing from the room, "he triumphs, he gains his end; curse him! curse him!"
"You understand, my brother, my brother Henry," cried Charles, calling after his mother; "my brother Henry, with whom I wish to speak instantly regarding the regency of the kingdom!"
Almost at the same instant Maître Ambroise Paré entered through the door opposite the one by which the queen had just left, and, pausing on the threshold, noticed the peculiar odor in the room.
"Who has been burning arsenic here?" said he.
"I," replied Charles.
LXIII. THE DONJON OF THE PRISON OF VINCENNES
Henry of Navarre was strolling dreamily along the terrace of the prison. He knew the court was at the château, not a hundred feet away, and through the walls it seemed as if his piercing eye could picture Charles as he lay dying.
The weather was perfect. A broad band of sunlight lay on the distant fields, bathing in liquid gold the tops of the forest trees, proud of the richness of their first foliage. The very stones of the prison itself, gray as they were, seemed impregnated with the gentle light of heaven, and some flowers, lured by the breath of the east wind, had pushed through the crevices of the wall, and were raising their disks of red and yellow velvet to the kisses of the warm air.
But Henry's eyes were fixed neither on the verdant plains nor on the gilded tree tops. His glance went beyond, and was fixed, full of ambition, on the capital of France, destined one day to become the capital of the world.
"Paris," murmured the King of Navarre, "there is Paris; that is, joy, triumph, glory, power, and happiness. Paris, in which is the Louvre, and the Louvre, in which is the throne; and only one thing separates me from this Paris, for which I so long, and that something the stones at my feet, which shut me in with my enemy!"
As he glanced from Paris to Vincennes, he perceived on his left, in a valley, partly hidden by flowering almond-trees, a man, whose cuirass sparkled in the sunlight at its owner's slightest movement.
This man rode a fiery steed and led another which seemed no less impatient.
The King of Navarre fixed his eyes on this cavalier and saw him draw his sword from his sheath, place his handkerchief on the point, and wave it like a signal.
At the same instant the signal was repeated from the opposite hill, then all around the château a belt of handkerchiefs seemed to flutter.
It was De Mouy and his Huguenots, who, knowing the King was dying, and fearing that some attempt might be made on Henry's life, had gathered together, ready to defend or attack.
Henry, with his eyes still on the horseman he had seen first, bent over the balustrade, and shading his eyes with his hand to keep out the dazzling rays of the sun, recognized the young Huguenot.
"De Mouy!" he exclaimed, as though the latter could hear him.
And in his joy at seeing himself surrounded by friends, the king raised his hat and waved his scarf.
All the white banners were again set in motion with an energy which proved the joy of their owners.
"Alas! they are waiting for me," said Henry, "and I cannot join them. Why did I not do so when I could? Now it is too late!"
He made a despairing gesture, to which De Mouy returned a sign which meant, "I will wait."
Just then Henry heard steps on the stone stairs. He hastily withdrew. The Huguenots understood the cause of his sudden disappearance, and their swords were returned to their sheaths and their handkerchiefs disappeared.
Henry saw on the stairs a woman whose quick breathing showed that she had come in haste.
He recognized, not without the secret dread he always felt on seeing her, Catharine de Médicis.
Behind her were two guards who stopped at the head of the stairs.
"Oh!" thought Henry, "it must be something new and important that makes the queen mother come to seek me on the balcony of the prison of Vincennes."
Catharine seated herself on a stone bench against the battlement to recover her breath.
Henry approached her, and with his most gracious smile:
"Are you seeking me, my good mother?"
"Yes, monsieur," replied Catharine, "I wish to give you a final proof of my attachment. The King is dying and wishes to see you."
"Me!" said Henry, with a start of joy.
"Yes. He has been told, I am sure, that not only do you covet the throne of Navarre but that of France as well."
"Oh!" exclaimed Henry.
"It is not true, I know, but he believes it, and no doubt the object of the interview he wishes with you is to lay a snare for you."
"For me?"
"Yes. Before dying Charles wants to know what there is to hope or fear from you. And on your answer to his offer, mark you, will depend his final commands, that is, your life or death."
"But what will he offer me?"
"How do I know? Impossibilities, probably."
"But have you no idea?"
"No; but suppose for instance"--
Catharine paused.
"What."
"Suppose he credited you with these ambitious aims of yours he has heard about; suppose he should wish to hear these aims from your own lips; suppose he should tempt you as once they used to tempt the guilty in order to provoke a confession without torture; suppose," continued Catharine, looking fixedly at Henry, "he were to offer you a kingdom, the regency!"
A thrill of indescribable joy pervaded Henry's weary heart, but he guessed the snare and his strong and supple soul rebounded.
"Me?" said he; "the snare would be too palpable; offer me the regency when there is you yourself and my brother D'Alençon?"
Catharine compressed her lips to conceal her satisfaction.
"Then," said she, quickly, "you would refuse it?"
"The King is dead," thought Henry, "and she is laying a trap for me."
Aloud, he said:
"I must first hear what the King of France has to say; for from your own words, madame, all this is mere supposition."
"Doubtless," said Catharine; "but you can tell me your intentions."
"Why!" said Henry, innocently, "having no pretensions, I have no intentions."
"That is no answer," said Catharine, feeling that time was flying, and giving way to her anger; "you can give some answer."
"I cannot answer suppositions, madame; a positive resolution is so difficult and so grave a thing to assume that I must wait for facts."
"Listen, monsieur," said Catharine; "there is no time to lose, and we are wasting it in vain discussion, in toying with words. Let us play our rôle of king and queen. If you accept the regency you are a dead man."
"The King lives," thought Henry.
Then aloud:
"Madame," said he, firmly, "God holds the lives of men and of kings in his hands. He will inspire me. Let his Majesty be informed that I am ready to see him."
"Reflect, monsieur."
"During the two years in which I have been persecuted, during the month I have been a prisoner," replied Henry, bravely, "I have had time to reflect, madame, and I have reflected. Have the goodness, therefore, to go to the King before me, and to tell him that I am following you. These two guards," added Henry, pointing to the soldiers, "will see that I do not escape. Moreover, that is not my intention."
There was such firmness in Henry's tone that Catharine saw that all her attempts, under whatever disguise, would not succeed. Therefore she hastily descended.
As soon as she had disappeared Henry went to the parapet and made a sign to De Mouy, which meant: "Draw near and be ready in case of necessity."
De Mouy, who had dismounted, sprang into the saddle, and still leading the second horse galloped to within musket-shot of the prison.
Henry thanked him by a gesture, and descended.
On the first landing he found the two soldiers who were waiting for him.
A double troop of Swiss and light-horse guarded the entrance to the court, and to enter or leave the château it was necessary to traverse a double line of halberds.
Catharine had stopped and was waiting for him.
She signed to the two soldiers to go on, and laying her hand on Henry's arm, said:
"This court has two gates. At one, behind the apartments of the King, if you refuse the regency, a good horse and freedom await you. At the other, through which you have just passed, if you listen to the voice of ambition--What do you say?"
"I say that if the King makes me regent, madame, I, and not you, shall give orders to the soldiers. I say that if I leave the castle at night, all these pikes, halberds, and muskets shall be lowered before me."
"Madman!" murmured Catharine, exasperated, "believe me, and do not play this terrible game of life and death with me."
"Why not?" said Henry, looking closely at Catharine; "why not with you as well as with another, since up to this time I have won?"
"Go to the King's apartments, monsieur, since you are unwilling to believe or listen to anything," said Catharine, pointing to the stairway with one hand, and with the other toying with one of the two poisoned daggers she always wore in the black shagreen case, which has become historical.
"Pass before me, madame," said Henry; "so long as I am not regent, the honor of precedence belongs to you."
Catharine, thwarted in all her plans, did not attempt to struggle, but ascended the stairs ahead of the King of Navarre.
LXIV. THE REGENCY
The King, beginning to grow impatient, had summoned Monsieur de Nancey to his room, and had just given him orders to go in search of Henry, when the latter appeared.
On seeing his brother-in-law at the door Charles uttered a cry of joy, but Henry stood motionless, as startled as if he had come face to face with a corpse.
The two physicians who were at the bedside and the priest who had been with Charles withdrew.
Charles was not loved, and yet many were weeping in the antechambers. At the death of kings, good or bad, there are always persons who lose something and who fear they will not find it again under the successor.
The mourning, the sobbing, the words of Catharine, the sinister and majestic surroundings of the last moments of a king, the sight of the King himself, suffering from a malady common enough afterwards, but which, at that time, was new to science, produced on Henry's mind, which was still youthful and consequently still susceptible, such a terrible impression that in spite of his determination not to cause Charles fresh anxiety as to his condition, he could not as we have said repress the feeling of terror which came to his face on perceiving the dying man dripping with blood.
Charles smiled sadly. Nothing of those around them escapes the dying.
"Come, Henriot," said he, extending his hand with a gentleness of voice Henry had never before noticed in him. "Come in; I have been very unhappy at not seeing you for so long. I have tormented you greatly during my life, my poor friend, and sometimes, believe me, I have reproached myself for it. Sometimes I have taken the hands of those who tormented you, it is true, but a king cannot control circumstances, and besides my mother Catharine, my brothers D'Anjou and D'Alençon, I had to consider during my lifetime something else which was troublesome and which ceases the moment I draw near to death--state policy."
"Sire," murmured Henry, "I remember only the love I have always had for my brother, the respect I have always felt for my King."
"Yes, yes, you are right," said Charles, "and I am grateful to you for saying this, Henriot, for truly you have suffered a great deal under my reign without counting the fact that it was during my reign that your poor mother died. But you must have seen that I was often driven? Sometimes I have resisted, but oftener I have yielded from very fatigue. But, as you said, let us not talk of the past. Now it is the present which concerns me; it is the future which frightens me."
And the poor King hid his livid face in his emaciated hands.
After a moment's silence he shook his head as if to drive away all gloomy thoughts, thus causing a shower of blood to fall about him.
"We must save the state," he continued in a low tone, leaning towards Henry. "We must prevent its falling into the hands of fanatics or women."
As we have just said, Charles uttered these words in a low tone, yet Henry thought he heard behind the headboard something like a dull exclamation of anger. Perhaps some opening made in the wall at the instigation of Charles himself permitted Catharine to hear this final conversation.
"Of women?" said the King of Navarre to provoke an explanation.
"Yes, Henry," said Charles, "my mother wishes the regency until my brother returns from Poland. But mind what I tell you, he will not come back."
"Why not?" cried Henry, whose heart gave a joyful leap.
"No, he cannot return," continued Charles, "because his subjects will not let him leave."
"But," said Henry, "do you not suppose, brother, that the queen mother has already written to him?"
"Yes, but Nancey stopped the courier at Château Thierry, and brought me the letter, in which she said I was to die. I wrote to Varsovia myself, my letter reached there, I am sure, and my brother will be watched. So, in all probability, Henry, the throne will be vacant."
A second sound louder than the first was heard in the alcove.
"She is surely there," thought Henry, "and is listening."
Charles heard nothing.
"Now," he continued, "I am dying without male heir." Then he stopped. A sweet thought seemed to light up his face, and, laying his hand on the King of Navarre's shoulder:
"Alas!" said he, "do you remember, Henriot, the poor little boy I showed you one evening sleeping in his silken cradle, watched over by an angel? Alas! Henriot, they will kill him!"
"Oh, sire!" cried Henry, whose eyes filled with tears, "I swear to you that I will watch over him all the days and nights of my life. Command me, my King."
"Thanks, Henriot, thanks!" said Charles, with a show of feeling unusual in him, but which the situation had roused, "I accept your promise. Do not make him a king,--fortunately he was not born for a throne,--but make him happy. I have left him an independent fortune. Let him inherit his mother's nobility, that of the heart. Perhaps it would be better for him if he were to enter the church. He would inspire less fear. Oh! it seems to me that I should die, if not happy, at least calm, if I had the kisses of the child and the sweet face of its mother to console me."
"Sire, could you not send for them?"
"Ah, poor wretches! They would never be allowed to leave the Louvre! Such is the condition of kings, Henriot. They can neither live nor die as they please. But since you promise I am more resigned."
Henry reflected.
"Yes, no doubt, my King. I have promised, but can I keep my word?"
"What do you mean?"
"Shall I not be persecuted, and threatened like him, even more than him? For I am a man, and he is only a child."
"You are mistaken," said Charles; "after my death you shall be great and powerful. Here is what will make you so."
And the King drew a parchment from under the pillow.
"See!" said he.
Henry glanced over the document sealed with the royal seal.
"The regency for me, sire!" said he, growing pale with joy.
"Yes, for you, until the return of the Duc d'Anjou, and as in all probability the duke will never return it is not the regency only but the throne that this gives you."
"The throne!" murmured Henry.
"Yes," said Charles, "you alone are worthy of it; you alone are capable of governing these debauched gallants, and these bold women who live by blood and tears. My brother D'Alençon is a traitor, and would deceive every one. Leave him in the prison in which I have placed him. My mother will try to kill you, therefore banish her. My brother D'Anjou in three or four months, perhaps in a year, will leave Varsovia and will come to dispute the throne with you. Answer him by a bull from the pope. I have already arranged that matter through my ambassador, the Duc de Nevers, and you will receive the document before long."
"Oh, my King!"
"You have but one thing to fear, Henry,--civil war; but by remaining converted you will avoid this, for the Huguenots are strong only when you put yourself at their head, and Monsieur de Condé is nothing when opposed to you. France is a country of plains, Henry, and consequently a Catholic country. The King of France ought to be the king of the Catholics and not the king of the Huguenots, for the King of France ought to be the king of the majority. It is said I feel remorse for the massacre of Saint Bartholomew; doubts, yes; remorse, no. It is said I am bleeding the blood of those Huguenots from every pore. I know what is flowing from me. It is arsenic and not blood."
"What do you mean, sire?"
"Nothing. If my death must be avenged, Henriot, it must be avenged by God alone. Let us speak now of the future. I leave you a faithful parliament and a trusty army. Lean on them and they will protect you against your only enemies--my mother and the Duc d'Alençon."
Just then the sound of arms and military commands were heard in the vestibule.
"I am dead!" murmured Henry.
"You fear? You hesitate?" said Charles, anxiously.
"I! sire," replied Henry; "no, I do not fear, nor do I hesitate. I accept."
Charles pressed Henry's hand. At that moment the nurse approached with a drink she had been preparing in the adjoining room, not knowing that the fate of France was being decided three feet from her.
"Call my mother, nurse, and have Monsieur d'Alençon also summoned."
LXV. THE KING IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING!
A few moments later Catharine and the Duc d'Alençon, pale with fright and trembling with rage, entered Charles's room. As Henry had conjectured, Catharine had overheard everything and in a few words had told all to François.
Henry was standing at the head of Charles's bed.
The King spoke his wishes:
"Madame," said he to his mother, "had I a son, you would be regent, or in default of you it would be the King of Poland; or in default of him it would be my brother François; but I have no son, and after me the throne belongs to my brother the Duc d'Anjou, who is absent. As some day he will claim this throne I do not wish him to find in his place a man who by almost equal rights might dispute it with him, and who consequently might expose the kingdom to civil war. This is why I do not appoint you regent, madame, for you would have to choose between your two sons, which would be painful for a mother. This is why I do not choose my brother François, for he might say to his elder brother, 'You had a throne, why did you leave it?' No, I have chosen as regent one who can take the crown on trust, and who will keep it in his hand and not on his head. Salute this regent, madame; salute him, brother; it is the King of Navarre!"
And with a gesture of supreme authority the King himself saluted Henry.
Catharine and D'Alençon made a gesture between a nervous shudder and a salute.
"Here, my Lord Regent," said Charles to the King of Navarre, "here is the parchment which, until the return of the King of Poland, gives you the command of the armies, the keys of the treasury, and the royal power and authority."
Catharine devoured Henry with her eyes; François swayed so that he could scarcely stand; but this weakness of the one and strength of the other, instead of encouraging Henry, showed him the danger which threatened him.
Nevertheless he made a violent effort and overcoming his fears took the parchment from the hands of the king, raised himself to his full height, and gave Catharine and François a look which meant:
"Take care! I am your master."
"No," said she, "never; never shall my race bow to a foreign one; never shall a Bourbon reign in France while a Valois remains!"
"Mother," cried Charles IX., sitting up among the crimson sheets of his bed, more frightful looking than ever, "take care, I am still King. Not for long, I well know; but it does not take long to give an order; it does not take long to punish murderers and poisoners."
"Well! give the order, if you dare, and I will give mine! Come, François, come!"
And the queen left the room rapidly, followed by the Duc d'Alençon.
"Nancey!" cried Charles; "Nancey! come here! I order you, Nancey, to arrest my mother, and my brother, arrest"--
A stream of blood choked his utterance, just as the captain of the guards opened the door, and, almost suffocated, the King fell back on his bed. Nancey had heard only his name; the orders which followed, and which had been uttered in a less audible tone, were lost in space.
"Guard the door," said Henry, "and let no one enter."
Nancey bowed and withdrew.
Henry looked at the almost lifeless body, which already would have seemed like that of a corpse had not a light breath stirred the fringe of foam on the lips.
Henry looked for several moments, then, speaking to himself:
"The final moment has come!" said he; "shall I reign? shall I live?"
Just then the tapestry of the alcove was raised, a pale face appeared behind it, and a voice vibrated through the silence of death which reigned throughout the royal chamber.
"Live!" said this voice.
"Réné!" cried Henry.
"Yes, sire."
"Your prediction was false, then; I shall not be king?"
"You shall be, sire; but the time has not yet come."
"How do you know? Speak, that I may know if I may believe you."
"Listen."
"Well?"
"Stoop down."
Henry leaned over Charles. Réné did the same. They were separated by the width of the bed alone, and even this distance was lessened by their positions. Between them, silent and motionless, lay the dying King.
"Listen," said Réné; "placed here by the queen mother to ruin you, I prefer to serve you, for I have faith in your horoscope. By serving you I shall profit both in body and soul."
"Did the queen mother command you to say this also?" asked Henry, full of doubt and pain.
"No," said Réné; "but I will tell you a secret."
He leaned still further over.
Henry did likewise, so that their heads almost touched.
This interview between two men bending over the body of a dying king was so sombre that the hair of the superstitious Florentine rose on end, and Henry's face became covered with perspiration.
"Listen," continued Réné, "I will tell you a secret known only to me. I will reveal it to you if you will swear over this dying man to forgive me for the death of your mother."
"I have already promised you this," said Henry, with darkening brow.
"You promised, but you did not swear," said Réné, drawing back.
"I swear it," said Henry, raising his right hand over the head of the King.
"Well, sire," said the Florentine, hastily, "the King of Poland will soon arrive!"
"No," said Henry, "the messenger was stopped by King Charles."
"King Charles intercepted only the one on the road to Château Thierry. But the queen mother wisely sent couriers by three different routes."
"Oh! I am lost!" exclaimed Henry.
"A messenger arrived this morning from Varsovia. The king left after him without any one's thinking of opposing him, for at Varsovia the illness of the King of France was not yet known. This courier only preceded Henry of Anjou by a few hours."
"Oh! had I but eight days!" cried Henry.
"Yes, but you have not eight hours. Did you hear the noise of arms?"
"Yes."
"They are making ready to kill you. They will seek you even here in the apartment of the King."
"The King is not yet dead."
Réné looked closely at Charles.
"He will be in ten minutes; you have ten minutes to live, therefore; perhaps less."
"What shall I do?"
"Flee instantly, without delaying a minute, a second."
"But how? If they are waiting in the antechamber they will kill me as I go out."
"Listen! I will risk everything for you. Never forget this."
"Fear not."
"Follow me by the secret corridor. I will lead you to the postern. Then, to gain time, I will tell the queen mother that you are coming down; you will be seen to have discovered this secret passage, and to have profited by it to escape. Flee! Flee!"
"Nurse!" murmured Charles, "nurse!"
Henry took from the bed Charles's sword, of no further use to the dying King, put the parchment which made him regent in his breast, kissed Charles's brow for the last time, and turning away hurried through the door, which closed behind him.
"Nurse!" cried the King, in a stronger voice, "nurse!"
The woman ran to him.
"What is it, Charlot?" she asked.
"Nurse," said the King, his eye dilated by the terrible fixity of death, "something must have happened while I slept. I see a great light. I see God, our Master, I see Jesus, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are praying and interceding for me. The all-powerful Lord pardons me--calls to me--My God! my God! In thy mercy, receive me! My God! forget that I have been King, for I come to you without sceptre or crown. My God! forget the crimes of the King, and remember only the suffering of the man. My God, I come!"
And Charles, who as he spoke had risen more and more as if to go to the One who was calling him, after uttering these words heaved a sigh and fell back still and cold in the arms of his nurse.
Meantime, while the soldiers, commanded by Catharine, were beginning to fill the main corridor in which they expected Henry to appear, the latter, guided by Réné, passed along the secret passage and reached the postern, sprang on the horse which was waiting for him, and galloped to the place where he knew he would find De Mouy.
Hearing the sound of the horse's hoofs, the galloping of which fell on the hard pavement, some sentinels turned and cried:
"He flees! He flees!"
"Who?" cried the queen mother, stepping to a window.
"The King of Navarre!" cried the sentinels.
"Fire on him! Fire!" cried Catharine.
The sentinels levelled their muskets, but Henry was already too far away.
"He flees!" cried the queen mother; "then he is vanquished!"
"He flees!" murmured the Duc d'Alençon; "then I am king!"
At that instant, while François and his mother were still before the window, the drawbridge thundered under horses' hoofs and preceded by a clanking of arms and great noise a young man galloped up, his hat in his hand, shouting as he entered the court: "France!" He was followed by four gentlemen, covered like himself with perspiration, dust, and foam.
"My son!" exclaimed Catharine, extending both arms out of the window.
"Mother!" replied the young man, springing from his steed.
"My brother D'Anjou!" cried François, stepping back in amazement.
"Am I too late?" asked Henry d'Anjou.
"No, just in time, and God must have guided you, for you could not have arrived at a better moment. Look and listen!"
Monsieur de Nancey, captain of the guards, had come out upon the balcony from the chamber of the King.
All eyes were turned towards him.
Breaking a wand in two, with arms extended, he took a piece in either hand and cried three times:
"King Charles IX. is dead! King Charles IX. is dead! King Charles IX. is dead!"
Then he dropped the pieces of the wand.
"Long live King Henry III.!" shouted Catharine, making the sign of the cross. "Long live King Henry III.!"
All took up the cry except Duc François.
"Ah, she has betrayed me!" murmured he, digging his nails into his breast.
"I have won," cried Catharine, "and that hateful Béarnais will not reign!"
LXVI. EPILOGUE
One year had elapsed since the death of Charles IX. and the accession of his successor to the throne.
King Henry III., happily reigning by the grace of God and his mother Catharine, was attending a fine procession given in honor of Notre Dame de Cléry.
He had gone on foot with the queen, his wife, and all the court.
King Henry III. could well afford this little pastime, for no serious business occupied him for the moment. The King of Navarre was in Navarre, where he had so long desired to be, and where he was said to be very much taken up with a beautiful girl of the blood of the Montmorencies whom he called La Fosseuse. Marguerite was with him, sad and gloomy, finding in the beautiful mountains not distraction but a softening of the two greatest griefs of life,--absence and death.
Paris was very quiet and the queen mother, really regent since her dear son Henry had been King, resided sometimes at the Louvre, sometimes at the Hôtel de Soissons, which occupied the site to-day covered by the Halle au Blé, of which nothing remains beyond the beautiful column which is still standing.
One evening when she was deeply engaged in studying the stars with Réné, of whose little act of treason she was still ignorant, and who had been reinstated in her favor after the false testimony he had so opportunely given at the trial of Coconnas and La Mole, she was informed that a man waited for her in her oratory with something to tell her of the greatest importance.
Hastily descending, the queen found the Sire de Maurevel.
"He is here!" cried the ancient captain of the guards, not giving Catharine time to address him, according to royal etiquette.
"What he?" demanded Catharine.
"Who but the King of Navarre, madame!"
"Here!" said Catharine, "here! He--Henry--And what has he come for, the madman?"
"If appearances are to be believed, he comes to see Madame de Sauve. That is all. If probabilities are to be considered, he comes to conspire against the King."
"How do you know he is here?"
"Yesterday I saw him enter a house, and an instant later Madame de Sauve joined him there."
"Are you sure it was he?"
"I waited until he came out, that is, part of the night. At three o'clock the two lovers appeared. The king led Madame de Sauve as far as the gate of the Louvre, where, thanks to the porter, who no doubt is in her pay, she was admitted without opposition, and the king returned, humming a tune, and with a step as free as if he were among his own mountains."
"Where did he go then?"
"To the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, Hôtel de la Belle Étoile, the same inn in which the two sorcerers used to lodge whom your majesty had executed a year ago."
"Why did you not come and tell me this at once?"
"Because I was not yet sure of my man."
"And now?"
"Now I am certain."
"Did you see him?"
"Yes. I hid in a wine merchant's opposite. I saw him enter the same building as on the previous night. Then as Madame de Sauve was late he imprudently put his face against the window pane on the first floor, and I had no further doubt. Besides, a few minutes later Madame de Sauve came and again joined him."
"Do you think that like last night they will remain until three o'clock in the morning?"
"It is probable."
"Where is the house?"
"Near the Croix des Petits Champs, close to Saint Honoré."
"Very good," said Catharine. "Does Monsieur de Sauve know your handwriting?"
"No."
"Sit down, then, and write."
Maurevel took a pen and obeyed.
"I am ready, madame," said he.
Catharine dictated:
"While the Baron de Sauve is on service at the Louvre the baroness is with one of her friends, in a house near the Croix des Petits Champs, close to Saint Honoré. The Baron de Sauve will know the house by a red cross on the wall."
"Well?" said Maurevel.
"Make a copy of the letter," said Catharine.
Maurevel obeyed in silence.
"Now," said the queen, "have one of these letters taken by a clever man to the Baron de Sauve, and drop the other in the corridors of the Louvre."
"I do not understand," said Maurevel.
Catharine shrugged her shoulders.
"You do not understand that a husband who receives such a note will be angry?"
"But the King of Navarre never used to be angry, madame."
"It is not always with a king as with a simple courtier. Besides, if De Sauve is not angry you can be so for him."
"I!"
"Yes. You can take four men or six, if necessary, put on a mask, break down the door, as if you had been sent by the baron, surprise the lovers in the midst of their tête à tête, and strike your blow in the name of the King. The next day the note dropped in the corridor of the Louvre, and picked up by some kind friend who already will have circulated the news, will prove that it was the husband who had avenged himself. Only by chance, the gallant happened to be King of Navarre; but who would have imagined that, when every one thought him at Pau."
Maurevel looked at Catharine in admiration, bowed, and withdrew.
As Maurevel left the Hôtel de Soissons Madame de Sauve entered the small house near the Croix des Petits Champs.
Henry was waiting for her at the half-open door.
As soon as he saw her on the stairs, he said:
"You have not been followed, have you?"
"Why, no," said Charlotte, "at least, not so far as I know."
"I think I have been," said Henry, "not only to-night but last evening as well."
"Oh! my God!" said Charlotte, "you frighten me, sire! If this meeting between you and one of your old friends should bring any harm to you I should be inconsolable."
"Do not worry, my love," said the Béarnais, "we have three swordsmen watching in the darkness."
"Three are very few, sire."
"Three are enough when they are De Mouy, Saucourt, and Barthélemy."
"Is De Mouy in Paris with you?"
"Certainly."
"He dared to return to the capital? Has he, then, like you, some poor woman who is in love with him?"
"No, but he has an enemy whose death he has sworn to have. Nothing but hate, my dear, commits as many follies as love."
"Thank you, sire."
"Oh," said Henry, "I do not refer to our present follies. I mean those of the past and the future. But do not let us discuss this; we have no time to lose."
"You still plan to leave Paris?"
"To-night."
"Are your affairs which brought you back to Paris finished?"
"I came back only to see you."
"Gascon!"
"Ventre saint gris! My love, that is true; but let us put aside such thoughts. I have still two or three hours in which to be happy; then farewell forever."
"Ah! sire," said Madame de Sauve, "nothing is forever except my love."
Henry had just said that he had no time for discussion; therefore he did not discuss this point. He believed, or sceptic that he was, he pretended to believe.
As the King of Navarre had said, De Mouy and his two companions were hidden near by.
It was arranged that Henry should leave the small house at midnight instead of at three o'clock; that, as on the previous night, they would escort Madame de Sauve back to the Louvre, and from there they would go to the Rue de la Cerisaie, where Maurevel lived.
It was only during that day that De Mouy had been sure of his enemy's whereabouts. The men had been on guard about an hour when they perceived a man, followed at a few feet by five others, who drew near to the door of the small house and tried several keys successively. De Mouy, concealed within the shelter of a neighboring door, made one bound from his hiding-place, and seized the man by the arm.
"One moment," said he; "you cannot enter there."
The man sprang back, and in doing so his hat fell off.
"De Mouy de Saint Phale!" he cried.
"Maurevel!" thundered the Huguenot, raising his sword. "I sought you, and you have come to me. Thanks!"
But his anger did not make him forget Henry, and turning to the window he whistled in the manner of the Béarnais shepherds.
"That will be enough," said he to Saucourt. "Now, then, murderer!"
And he sprang towards Maurevel.
The latter had had time to draw a pistol from his belt.
"Ah! now," said the King's Slayer, aiming at the young man, "I think you are a dead man!"
He fired. De Mouy jumped to one side and the ball passed by without touching him.
"It is my turn now!" cried the young man.
And he dealt Maurevel such a violent thrust with his sword that, although the blade had to encounter his buff belt, the sharp point pierced this obstacle and sank into the flesh.
The assassin gave a terrible cry of pain; whereupon the soldiers with him, thinking he was killed, fled in alarm down the Rue Saint Honoré.
Maurevel was not brave. Seeing himself abandoned by his followers, and having to face an adversary like De Mouy, he strove to escape, and ran after the guard, shouting, "help! help!"
De Mouy, Saucourt, and Barthélemy, carried away by their ardor, pursued him. As they entered the Rue de Grenelle, which they had taken as a short cut, a window opened and a man sprang out from the first floor, landing on the ground lately wet by the rain.
It was Henry.
De Mouy's whistle had warned him of some danger and the pistol-shot had showed him that the danger was great, and had drawn him to the aid of his friends.
Energetic and vigorous, he dashed after them, sword in hand.
A cry guided him; it came from the Barrier des Sergents. It was Maurevel, who being hard pressed by De Mouy was calling a second time for help from his men who had run away.
Maurevel had to turn or be run through the back; he turned, therefore, and, meeting his enemy's steel, gave him back so skilful a thrust that the scarf of the latter was cut through. But De Mouy at once lunged. The sword again sank into the flesh it had already broken, and a second jet of blood spurted from a second wound.
"At him!" cried Henry, coming up. "Quick, quick, De Mouy!"
De Mouy needed no encouragement.
Again he charged at Maurevel; but the latter had not waited.
Pressing his left hand over his wound, he again took to flight.
"Kill him! Quick! Kill him!" cried the king, "here are the soldiers, and the despair of cowards is of no moment to the brave."
Maurevel, who was well nigh exhausted, whose every breath caused a bloody perspiration, fell down; but almost immediately he rose again, and turning on one knee presented the point of his sword to De Mouy.
"Friends! Friends!" cried Maurevel. "There are only two. Fire at them! Fire!"
Saucourt and Barthélemy had gone in pursuit of the other soldiers, down the Rue des Poulies, and the king and De Mouy were alone with the four men.
"Fire!" cried Maurevel again, while one of the soldiers levelled his gun.
"Yes, but first," said De Mouy, "die, traitor, murderer, assassin!" and seizing Maurevel's sword with one hand, with the other he plunged his own up to its hilt into the breast of his enemy, with such force that he nailed him to the earth.
"Take care! Take care!" cried Henry.
De Mouy sprang back, leaving his sword in Maurevel's body, just as a soldier was in the act of firing at him.
Henry at once passed his sword through the body of the soldier, who gave a cry and fell by the side of Maurevel.
The two others took to flight.
"Come, De Mouy, come!" cried Henry, "let us not lose an instant; if we are recognized it will be all over with us."
"Wait, sire. Do you suppose I want to leave my sword in the body of this wretch?" and De Mouy approached Maurevel, who lay apparently without sign of life.
But just as he took hold of his sword, which was run through Maurevel's body, the latter raised himself, and with the gun the soldier had dropped fired directly at De Mouy's breast.
The young man fell without a cry. He was killed outright.
Henry rushed at Maurevel, but the latter had fallen again, and the king's sword pierced only a dead body.
It was necessary to flee. The noise had attracted a large number of persons; the night watch might arrive at any moment. Henry looked around to see if there was any face he knew, and gave a cry of delight on recognizing La Hurière.
As the scene had occurred at the foot of the Croix du Trahoir, that is, opposite the Rue de l'Arbre Sec, our old friend, whose naturally gloomy disposition had been still further saddened since the death of La Mole and Coconnas, his two favorite lodgers, had left his furnaces and his pans in the midst of his preparations for the King of Navarre's supper, and had run to the fight.
"My dear La Hurière, I commend De Mouy to your care, although I greatly fear nothing can be done for him. Take him to your inn, and if he still live, spare nothing. Here is my purse. As to the other, leave him in the gutter, that he may die like a dog."
"And yourself?" said La Hurière.
"I have a farewell to make. I must hasten, but in ten minutes I shall be with you. Have my horses ready."
Henry immediately set out towards the Croix des Petits Champs; but as he turned from the Rue de Grenelle he stopped in terror.
A large crowd was before the door.
"What is the matter?" asked Henry. "What is going on in the house?"
"Oh!" answered the man addressed, "a terrible affair, monsieur. A beautiful young woman has just been stabbed by her husband, to whom a note had been given informing him that his wife was here with her lover."
"And the husband?" cried Henry.
"Has escaped."
"And the wife?"
"She is in the house."
"Dead?"
"Not yet, but, thank God, there is scarcely any hope."
"Oh!" exclaimed Henry, "I am accursed indeed!" and he rushed into the house.
The room was full of people standing around a bed on which lay poor Charlotte, who had been stabbed twice.
Her husband, who had hidden his jealousy for two years, had seized this opportunity to avenge himself on her.
"Charlotte! Charlotte!" cried Henry, pushing through the crowd and falling on his knees before the bed.
Charlotte opened her beautiful eyes, already veiled by death, and uttered a cry which caused the blood to flow afresh from her two wounds. Making an effort to rise, she said:
"Oh! I well knew I could not die without seeing you again!"
And as if she had waited only for that moment to return to Henry the soul he had so loved, she pressed her lips to the King's forehead, again whispered for a last time, "I love you!" and fell back dead.
Henry could not remain longer without risking his own life. He drew his dagger, cut a lock of the beautiful blonde hair which he had so often loosened that he might admire its length, and went out sobbing, in the midst of the tears of all present, who did not doubt but that they were weeping for persons of high degree.
"Friend! mistress!" cried Henry in despair--"all forsake me, all leave me, all fail me at once!"
"Yes, sire," said a man in a low tone, who had left the group in front of the house, and who had followed Henry; "but you still have the throne!"
"Réné!" exclaimed Henry.
"Yes, sire, Réné, who is watching over you. That scoundrel Maurevel uttered your name as he died. It is known you are in Paris; the archers are hunting for you. Flee! Flee!"
"And you say that I shall be King, Réné? I, a fugitive?"
"Look, sire," said the Florentine, pointing to a brilliant star, which appeared from behind the folds of a black cloud, "it is not I who say so, but the star!"
Henry heaved a sigh, and disappeared in the darkness.
END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]
"To uphold the faith I am beautiful and trusty. To the king's enemies I am beautiful and cruel."
[2] Bons chiens chassent de race.
[3]
From up above to down below Gaspard was flung, And then from down below to high above was hung.
[4]
Here lies--the term the question begs, For him you need a word that's stronger: Here hangs the admiral by the legs-- Because he has a head no longer!
[5]
Hawthorn brightly blossoming, Thou dost fling Verdant shadows down the river; Thou art clad from top to roots With long shoots On which graceful leaflets quiver.
Here the poetic nightingale Ne'er doth fail-- Having sung his love to capture-- To repair to consecrate, 'Neath thy verdure, hours of rapture.
Therefore live, O Hawthorn fair, Live fore'er! May no thunder bolt dare smite thee! May no axe or cruel blast Overcast! May the tooth of time....
[6] Raffinés or raffiné d'honneur was a term applied in the 16th century to men sensitively punctilious and ready to draw their swords at the slightest provocation.--N.H.D.
[7] The original has à l'aide d'une promenade.
[8] "Who are standing by my litter?"
"Two pages and an outrider."
"Good! They are barbarians! Tell me, La Mole, whom did you find in your room?"
"Duke François."
"Doing what?"
"I do not know."
"With whom?"
"With a stranger."
[9] "I am alone; enter, my dear."
[10] She was in the habit of carrying a large farthingale, containing pockets, in each of which she put a gold box in which was the heart of one of her dead lovers; for she was careful as they died to have their hearts embalmed. This farthingale hung every night from a hook which was secured by a padlock behind the headboard of her bed. (Tallemant Des Réaux, History of Marguerite of Valois.)
[11]
Fair duchess, your dear eyes Are emerald skies, Half hid 'neath cloud-lids white, Whence fiercer lightning flies, Launched forth for our surprise, Than could arise From twenty Joves in furious might.
[12] Charles IX. had married Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of Maximilian.
[13] Had this natural child, no other than the famous Duc d'Angoulême, who died in 1650, been legitimate, he would have supplanted Henry III., Henry IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV. What would he have given in place of them? The imagination gropes hopelessly about among the shadows of such a question.
[14]
"Thus had perished one who was feared, Sooner, too soon, would he have died, had it not been for prudence."
[15] Your unlooked-for presence in this court would overwhelm my husband and myself with joy, did it not bring with it a great misfortune, that is, the loss not only of a brother, but also that of a friend.
[16] We are heartbroken at being separated from you, when we should have preferred going with you, but the same fate which decrees that you must leave Paris without delay, retains us in this city. Go, therefore, dear brother; go, dear friend; go without us. Our hopes and our good wishes follow you.
[17] He who beats on the wall will never get into the castle.
[18] Textual.