La Dame de Monsoreau (107 page)

M. de Monsoreau reflected a moment, and, placing his hand on Bussy's shoulder:

" My dear count," said he, " the Due d'Anjou is a miscreant, a coward, and a traitor, a man capable of sacrificing his most faithful friend, his most devoted servant, to his jealousy or to his fears. Dear count, abandon him, take a friend's advice; go and spend the day at your little house in Vincennes, go \vherever you like, but do not go to the procession on Corpus Christi."

Bussy looked at him keenly.

" Then why do you follow the Due d'Anjou yourself ? " asked he.

" Because, in connection with certain matters that concern my honor, I have need of him still, at least, for a time," answered the count.

" Well, you are like me," said Bussy : " I follow the duke on account of matters that concern mv honor also."

The Comte de Monsoreau pressed Bussy's hand, and they parted.

We have told, in the foregoing chapter, what occurred on the next day at the King's levee.

Monsoreau returned home and informed his wife of his departure for Compiegne, at the same time giving orders to have everything in readiness for this departure.

Diane heard the news with joy.

She learned from her husband of the duel between Bussy and D'Epernon, but, as D'Epernon had less reputation for courage and skill than the other minions, there was more pride than fear in her emotions with regard to the next day's combat.

Bussy had gone in the morning to the Hotel d'Anjou and accompanied the duke to the Louvre, remaining himself, however, in the gallery.

When the prince left his brother he took him along with him, and the whole royal procession moved toward Saint-Germain 1'Auxerrois.

Seeing Bussy so frank, loyal, and devoted, the prince felt some passing remorse ; but there were two things that banished this sentiment from his heart: one of them was the very influence Bussy had acquired over him, the sort of influence a vigorous mind must always acquire over a weak mind, — he feared that if Bussy stood near his throne when he was king, Bussy would be the real sovereign ; the other was Bussy's love for Madame de Monsoreau, a love that aroused all the pangs of jealousy in the very depths of the prince's soul.

However, as Monsoreau inspired him with almost as much uneasiness as Bussy, he had said to himself:

" Either Bussy will accompany me, sustain me by his valor, and secure the triumph of my cause, — and when I am triumphant, what Monsoreau says or does matters little, — or Bussy will forsake me, and then I owe him nothing, and will forsake him in my turn."

The result of this double reflection, of which Bussy was the subject, was that the prince never took his eyes off the young man for a moment.

He saw him enter the church, serene and smiling, after courteously making way for his antagonist, M. d'Epernon, and then kneel a little in rear.

The prince beckoned to Bussy to come to him. In the position he occupied, he was obliged to turn his head round

entirely ; with his gentleman beside him on the left, he had only to turn his eyes.

About a quarter of an hour after mass had begun, Remy entered the church and knelt beside his master. The duke started at the appearance of the young doctor, whom he knew to be a sharer of all Bussy's secrets.

In a, moment or so, after a few words interchanged in an undertone, Remy passed a note to the count.

The prince felt a thrill in every vein: the superscription was in a delicate, beautiful handwriting.

"From her !" said he; "she is telling him that her husband is leaving Paris."

Bussy slipped the note into the bottom of his hat, opened and read it.

The prince no longer saw the note, but he saw Bussy's face, radiant with love and joy.

" Ah! woe to you if you do not accompany me ! " he murmured.

Bussy raised the note to his lips, and then placed it inside his doublet, next his heart.

The duke looked round. If Monsoreau had been there, he would not have had the patience, perhaps, to wait till evening to denounce Bussy to him.

As soon as mass was over, the procession returned to the Louvre, where a collation was ready for the King in his apartments, and another for the gentlemen in the gallery.

The Swiss formed a line from the gate of the Louvre to the palace.

Crillon and the French guards were drawn up in the courtyard.

Chicot was watching the King as intently as the Due d'Anjou was watching Bussy.

After entering the Louvre the latter approached the duke.

" Excuse me, monseigneur," he said, bowing ; " might I say a few words to your highness ? "

" Are you in a hurry ? " asked the duke.

" In a great hurry, monseigneur."

" Could you not say them during the procession ? We shall walk side by side."

" Your highness will pardon me; but the reason why I stopped your highness was to request you not to ask me to accompany you."

" Why so ?" inquired the duke, in a voice the change in which he could not utterly conceal.

" Monseigneur, to-morrow is to be a very important day, as your highness is well aware, since it is to decide the quarrel between Anjou and France; I wish to retire to my little house at Vincennes, and spend the entire day in seclusion."

" And so you will not join the procession, although the King and his whole court form a part of it ? "

" No, monseigneur ; always, of course, with the permission of your highness."

" And so you will not return to my side even at Sainte Gen-evieve ? "

" Monseigneur, I wish to have the whole day to myself."

" But if it should happen during the day that I should have special need of my friends "

" As your highness could only need me for the purpose of drawing my sword against your King, I must, for a still stronger reason, ask your highness to grant my request; my sword is pledged to meet only M. d'Epernon."

Monsoreau had told the prince the evening before that he might rely on Bussy. Everything had changed since then, and the change came wholly from the note brought to the church by Le Haudouin.

" So," said the duke, from between his closed teeth, " you desert your lord and master, Bussy ? "

" Monseigneur," answered Bussy, " the man who is to stake his life to-morrow in a furious, bloody, and deadly duel, as, I answer for it, ours is sure to be, has but one master, and to that master shall my last devotions be paid."

" You know T am playing for a throne and you forsake me."

" Monseigneur, I have worked pretty well for you ; I will work for you again to-morrow. Do not ask me for more than my life."

" 'T is well ! " replied the duke, in a hollow voice : " you are free; go> M. de Bussy."

Bussy, undisturbed by the prince's sudden coldness, saluted, went down the staircase of the Louvre, and, once outside, made his way home with as much speed as possible.

The duke summoned Aurilly.

Aurilly appeared.

" Well, monseigneur ? " inquired the lute-player.

"Well, he has condemned himself !"

" He will not follow you ? "

"No."

" He goes to keep the appointment made in the note ? "

"Yes."

" Then it is for this evening ? "

" For this evening."

" Has M. de Monsoreau been warned ? "

" As to the rendezvous, yes ; as to the man he will find at the rendezvous, not yet."

" You are determined to sacrifice the count ? "

" I am determined to have revenge," said the prince. " I have but one fear now."

" What is it ? "

" That Monsoreau may trust to his strength and address and that Bussy may escape him."

" Monseigneur, you need not be alarmed, as far as that 's concerned."

" How so ? "

" Have you condemned M. de Bussy irrevocably ? "

" Yes, mordieu ! — a man who treats me like a schoolboy ; who deprives me of my will and puts his own in place of it; who takes my mistress from me and makes her his ; a sort of lion of whom I am not so much the master as I am the keeper. Yes, yes, Aurilly, he is condemned, without appeal and without mercy."

" Well, as I said before, your highness need not be uneasy ; if he escape Monsoreau, he will not escape from another."

" And who is this other ? "

" Does monseigneur order me to name him ? "

" Yes, I order you."

" It is M. d'Epernon."

" D'Epernon, who is to fight with him to-morrow ? "

" Yes, monseigneur."

" Tell me all about the matter."

Aurilly was about to give the information asked for, when the duke was called away. The King was at table and was surprised at the absence of the Due d'Anjou, or rather, Chicot had brought his absence to Henri's notice, and the latter had sent for his brother.

" You can tell me more during the procession," said the duke.

And he followed the usher who had come for him.

As we shall not have leisure to accompany the duke and Aurilly through the streets of Paris, our attention being claimed by a greater personage than either of them, we had better tell our readers what had passed between D'Epernon and the lute-player.

In the morning, about daybreak, D'Epernon had gone to the Hotel d'Anjou and inquired for Aurilly.

The two gentlemen had been long acquainted.

The musician had taught the royal favorite to play on the lute, and pupil and teacher had often met to scrape the violoncello or thrum the viol, as was the fashion at the time, not only in Spain, but in France.

The result was that a rather tender friendship, tempered by etiquette, existed between them.

Moreover, the wily Gascon was a diplomatist to the tips of his fingers, and considered there was no better way of reaching the masters than through their servants ; so there were very few of the Due d'Anjou's secrets of which D'Epernon was not cognizant through Aurilly.

Owing to this Machiavellian policy, he managed to keep on the side both of the King and of the prince, so that should the latter ascend the throne, he was pretty sure of not having an enemy in his future sovereign.

His object in visiting Aurilly was to discuss the approaching duel with Bussy.

This duel was a source of constant anxiety to him.

At any period of his life, bravery had never been one of his shining characteristics; now, to meet Bussy coolly in single combat would require more than bravery, it would require utter recklessness ; to fight with him was to encounter almost certain death.

Those who had essayed the experiment had measured their length on the ground, from which they had never arisen.

At the first word spoken by D'Epernon on the subject he had so much at heart, the musician, who was well aware of his master's secret hatred for Bussy, expressed the utmost sympathy for his pupil, told him, with affectionate concern, that for the last week Bussy had practised fencing two hours every morning with a trumpeter of the guards, the most dangerous swordsman ever known in Paris, a sort of artist in cutting and thrusting, a traveller and philosopher also, who had borrowed from the Italians their cautious play, from the Spaniards their

brilliant and subtle feints, from the Germans the firmness of the wrist and their method of parrying and lunging, and, finally, from the savage Poles, then known as Sarmatians, their springs and bounds, their sudden prostrations, and their close embrace, body to body. During this long enumeration of the chances against him D'Epernon in his terror actually gnawed off all the carmine that glazed his finger-nails.

" Why, I 'm a dead man!" said he, half laughing, but turning pale.

tl I 'm afraid it looks that way," answered Aurilly.

" But it is absurd!" cried D'Epernon ; " to go out with a man who is sure to kill you ! It's the same as playing dies with a man who is safe to throw up the double six every time ! "

" You. ought to have thought of that before making your engagement, M. le Due."

" Hang it," said D'Epernon, " I '11 not keep it. I was n't born in Gascony for nothing. Give up the ghost of your own free will, and you just twenty-five ! — not such an idiot. But, now I think of it —yes, that's logical; listen " —

" 1 7 m all attention."

" M. de Bussy is sure to kill me, you say ? "

" I don't doubt about it for a moment."

" Then, if that be the case, it is n't a duel; it is an assassination."

" My opinion, exactly."

" And if it is an assassination " -

"Well?"

" It is lawful to anticipate an assassination by " —

« By ? "

" By — a murder."

" Undoubtedly."

" Since he wants to kill me, what the devil hinders me from killing him first ? "

" Great heavens ! nothing at all. The very thing I was thinking of myself."

" Is not my reasoning logical, then ? "

"As clear as day."

" And natural ? "

" Nothing could be more so."

" But, instead of cruelly killing him with rny own hands, as he would kill me, well, I have a horror of blood, and so I '11 leave the job to some one else."

" Which means you will hire bravoes ? "

" By iny faith, yes ; just as M. de Guise and M. de Mayenne did for Saint-Megrin."

" It will cost you dear."

" I'll spend-three thousand crowns on it."

" But when your bravoes learn the name of the man they 're to settle,—you can't get more than six of them for three thousand crowns."

" And is not that enough ? "

" Six enough! Why, M. de Bussy would do up four of the six with a mere wave of his hand. Remember the skirmish in the Rue Saint-Antoine, when he wounded Schomberg in the thigh, and you in the arm, and almost gave Quelus his quietus !"

" I '11 spend six thousand, if necessary," said D'^lpernon. " Mordieu ! if the thing is to be done at all, it must be well done, so well done that he '11 have no chance of escaping."