La Dame de Monsoreau (33 page)

And the Due d'Anjou, as if inspired by the jester's encouragement, went on :

" But," said he, " the interests of religion should not be the sole aim which you gentlemen propose to attain. As for me, I see another."

" Egad! " muttered Chicot, " I am a gentlemen too; this ought to have as much interest for me as for the others ; go on, Anjou, go on."

" Monseigneur," said the cardinal, " we are listening to your Highness with the most serious attention."

" And our hearts beat hopefully in listening to you," said M. de Mayenne.

" Then I will explain," said the Due d'Anjou, at the same time trying to pierce the dark recesses of the chapel with his uneasy glances, as if to be certain his words would fall only on ears worthy such confidence.

M. de Monsoreau knew the cause of the prince's anxiety,

and reassured him by a significant look, accompanied by a significant smile.

" Now, when a gentleman thinks of what he owes to God," continued the duke, involuntarily lowering his voice, "he thinks, at the same time, of his "

" Parbleu ! " breathed Chicot, " of his king, that 's well known."

" Of his country," said the Due d'Anjou, " and he asks himself does his country really enjoy all the honor and all the prosperity that should fall to her lot ; for every honorable gentleman is indebted for the advantages he possesses to God, in the first place, but, in the second, to the country whose child he is."

The assembly broke out into violent applause.

" Ah ! but then, what about the King ? " whispered Chicot. " So this poor monarch of ours is no longer worth talking about ? And I who used to believe, as it is written on the pyramid of Juvisy, that the king and the ladies come next after God!"

" I ask myself, then," pursued the Due d'Anjou, whose prominent cheek-bones gradually took on a tinge of red, owing to his feverish excitement, " I ask myself whether my country enjoys the peace and happiness that the sweet and lovely land which answers to the name of France deserves, and to my grief I see that she is far indeed from enjoying them.

" In fact, my brothers, the state is torn asunder by different wills and tastes, one as powerful as another, and this is owing to the feebleness of that superior will which forgets that it is its duty to govern for the welfare of its subjects, or never remembers that royal duty except capriciously and at long intervals, and then a,t the wrong time, so that even its acts of energy only work evil; it is no doubt either to the fatal destiny of France or to the blindness of her chief that we must attribute her misfortunes. But whether we are ignorant of their true source or only suspect it, her misfortunes are not the less real. As for myself, I make the false friends of the King rather than the King himself responsible for the crimes and iniquities committed against religion. In any case, gentlemen, I feel bound, as a servant of the altar and the throne, to unite with those who seek by all means the extinction of heresy and the downfall of perfidious counsellors.

" And now, gentlemen, you know what I intended to do for the League when I became your associate."

" Oh ! " murmured Chicot, struck all of a heap with wonder, " I think I can detect the earmarks of the conspiracy, and they are not the ears of an ass, either, as I had at first supposed, they are a fox's."'

The speech of the Due d'Anjou, which may have appeared a little long to our readers, separated as they are by three centuries from the politics of that period, had such deep interest for his hearers that most of them had come close up to the prince, so as not to lose a syllable of a discourse uttered in a voice that grew more and more faint according as the meaning grew more and more clear.

The scene was then a curious one. The twenty-five or thirty persons present, after they had thrown back their cowls, displayed, under the dim light of the solitary lamp, faces that were noble, keen, daring, and alive with curiosity.

Masses of shadow filled all the other parts of the building, which seemed to stand apart from the drama that was being acted at one single point.

The pale face of the Due d'Anjou was a striking feature in the midst of this assembly, with his deep sunken eyes and a mouth that, when it opened, seemed distorted by the sinister grin of a death's head.

" Monseigneur," said the Due de Guise, " while thanking you for the words you have just spoken, I think it right to inform you that you are surrounded by men not only devoted to the principles you profess, but to the person of your Royal Highness as well, and, if you doubted the truth of my statement, the close of the session would bring it home to you with irresistible force."

The Due d'Anjou bowed and, as-he raised his head, threw an anxious glance over the assembly.

" If I am not greatly mistaken," murmured Chicot, " all we have seen so far is but a preliminary, and something is going to take place of more importance than the humbug and twaddle we have seen and heard so far."

" Monseigneur," said the cardinal, who had noticed the prince's uneasy look, " if your Highness felt any alarm, the mere names of those around you would suffice to reassure you. They are the Governor of Aunis, M. d'Antraguet, Junior, M. de Rlbeirac, and M. de Livarot, gentlemen, perhaps, known to

your Highness, and who are as brave as they are loyal. Then we have the Yidame de Castillon, the Baron de Lusignan, M. Cruce, and M. Leclerc, all equally admirers of the wisdom of your Royal Highness and all ready to march under your guidance for the emancipation of religion and the throne. We shall receive with gratitude the orders your Royal Highness will deign to give us."

The Due d'Anjou could not repress a movement of pride. These Guises, whose haughty heads could never be forced to bend, now spoke of obeying.

The Due de Mayenne spoke next.

" You are, by your birth," said he, " and because of your sagacity, monseigneur, the natural chief of the holy Union, and it is from you we must learn what ought to be our course with regard to those false friends of the King about whom we lately spoke."

" Nothing more simple," answered the prince, with that feverish excitement which in feeble natures supplies the place of courage ; " when parasitic and poisonous plants grow in a field which, but for them, would produce a rich harvest, these dangerous weeds must be torn from the soil. The King is surrounded, not by friends, but by courtiers who are ruining him and who arouse continual scandal in France and throughout Christendom."

" It is true," said the Due de Guise, in a gloomy voice.

" And moreover," rejoined the cardinal, " these courtiers prevent us, the true friends of his Majesty, from approaching him, as our birth and the offices we hold give us the right of doing."

" Oh," said the Due de Mayenne, bluntly, " let us leave to common Leaguers, such as those present at our first meeting, the task of serving God. By serving God they will serve those who speak to them of God. But let us attend to our own business. Certain men are in our way ; they defy and insult us, and are constantly showing their contempt for the prince whom we especially honor, and who is our leader."

At this the Due d'Anjou's face flushed.

" Let us destroy," continued Mayenne, " let us destroy, to the very last among them, this infernal -brood of rascals whom the King enriches with the fragments of our fortunes, and let each of us undertake to cut off one of them from the land of the living. We are thirty here ; let us count."

" Your proposal is a wise one," said the Due d'Anjou, " and your part of the work has already been accomplished, M. de Mayenne."

" What is done does not count," said Mayenne.

" We must have some part in the business, however, mon-seigneur," said D'Entragues. " I take Quelus for my share."

" And I Maugiron," said Livarot.

" And I Schomberg," said Ribeirac.

" Nothing could be better ! " assented the Due d'Anjou, " and we still have Bussy, my brave Bussy ; he 's pretty sure to give a good account of some of them."

" And we, too ; we, too ! " cried the rest of the Leaguers.

M. de Monsoreau advanced.

" Aha," muttered Chicot, who, seeing the turn things were taking, no longer felt any inclination to laugh ; " so the grand huntsman is going to claim his share in the quarry also! "

Chicot was mistaken.

" Gentlemen," said Monsoreau, stretching out his hand, " I ask you to be silent for a moment. We are determined men, and yet we are afraid to open our hearts to one another. We are intelligent men, and yet we balk at childish scruples.

" Come, now, gentlemen, let us have a little courage, a little boldness, a little frankness. The question before us is not the conduct of the King's minions, the question before us is not the difficulty of approaching his royal person."

" Ah ! we 're coming to it," thought Chicot, straining his eyes and turning his hands into an ear-trumpet, so as not to lose a word of the harangue. " Well, go on, Monsoreau ; make haste, I 'm waiting."

" What we really complain of," resumed the count, " is that we are placed in an impossible situation. The kind of royalty under which we live is not acceptable to the French nobility : litanies, despotism, impotence, orgies, a prodigal expenditure on amusements that make us the laughing-stock of Europe, and, with that, the utmost penuriousness in all that concerns the arts or war. The conduct to which I refer is not simply the result of ignorance or weakness, gentlemen, it is the result of insanity."

The grand huntsman's words were received with deathlike silence. The impression made was the deeper because every one had often said in a whisper what he heard now spoken aloud, and was startled, as if by the echo of his own voice, and

shuddered at the thought that he was on all points in unison with the speaker.

M. de Monsoreau, who knew well that this silence was a mark of unanimous approval, continued :

" Must we live under an idle, slothful, foolish king at the very moment when Spain is lighting her stakes, at the very moment when the old heresiarchs of Germany are waking from their slumbers in the shadow of her cloisters,' at the very moment when England, acting according to her inflexible political system, is cutting off heads and ideas at the same time ? Every nation is working gloriously for the attainment of some object. We, we, I say, are asleep. Gentlemen, pardon me for saying before a great prince, who will, perhaps, blame my temerity, being naturally prejudiced by family feeling, that for four years we have been governed, not by a king, but by a monk."

At these words, the explosion, so skilfully prepared and so skilfully held in check by the leaders during the last hour, burst with such violence that no one would have now recognized in those fanatic enthusiasts the cool and wily politicians of the former scene.

" Down w^ith Valois ! " they shouted. " Down with Brother Henri! Give us a prince who is a gentleman ; a king who is a knight; a tyrant, if it must be, but not a shaveling !"

" Gentlemen, gentlemen," said the Due d'Anjou, hypocritically, " let me plead for my brother, who deceives himself, or rather, who is deceived. Let me hope, gentlemen, that our judicious remonstrances, that the efficacious intervention of the power of the League, will lead him back into the right path."

" Hiss, serpent, hiss," muttered Chicot.

" Monseigneur," answered the Due de Guise, " your Highness has heard, perhaps a little too soon, but, at all events, you have heard, the sincere expression of the meaning of our association. No, the object of this meeting is not a league against the Bearnais, who is a mere bugbear to frighten fools with, nor is it to take care of the Church, which is perfectly able to take care of herself ; our object is the rescue of the French nobility from their present abject position. Too long have we been held back by the respect with which your Highness inspires us ; too long has our knowledge of the love you feel for your family compelled us to dissemble our intentions. But all is now revealed, and your Highness is about to witness a

genuine session of the League, to which the former one was but introductory."

" What do you mean, M. le Due ? " asked the prince, his heart beating at once with alarm and ambition.

" Monseigneur," continued the Due de Guise, " we have met, not, — as M. de Monsoreau has judiciously remarked, — not for the purpose of discussing worn-out theories, but for effective action. To-day we have chosen as our chief a prince capable of honoring and enriching the nobility of France; and, as it was -the custom of the ancient Franks, when they elected a leader, to offer that leader a present worthy of him, so we, too, offer a present to our chosen leader."

Every heart beat, but none so furiously as that of the Due d'Anjou.

However, he remained mute and impassive ; his paleness . alone betrayed his emotion.

"Gentlemen," the speaker went on, taking from the bench behind him a rather heavy object and raising it in both his hands, " gentlemen, this is the present which, in your name, I lay at the prince's feet."

" A crown ! " cried the duke, scarcely able to stand, " a crown for me, gentlemen!''"

" Long live Francois III. ! " shouted all the gentlemen, in tones that shook the building, and, at the same time, drawing their swords.

" For me ! for me ! " stammered the prince, quaking with joy and terror, — " for me ! Oh, it is impossible ! My brother lives; my brother is the Lord's anointed."

" We depose him," said the duke, " waiting until God sanctions the election we have made by his death, or, rather, waiting until some of his subjects, weary of this inglorious reign, anticipate by poison or dagger the justice of God ! "

" Gentlemen ! " said the prince, feebly, " gentlemen "—