La Dame de Monsoreau (66 page)

" Sire," cried Francois, " I am in the Louvre, the home of my mother."

"And your mother's home is my home. Come, a truce to words ; monsieur, give me that paper."

" What paper ? "

^ The one you were reading, of course! The one open on your night table which you hid when you saw me."

" Sire, reflect," said the duke.

" On what ? " asked the King.

" On this : the demand you are now making, while quite worthy of one of your police officers, is utterly unworthy of a gentleman of honor."

The King grew livid.

" That letter, monsieur ! " said he.

" A woman's letter, sire, reflect! " exclaimed Francois.

" There are women's letters which it is very useful to see and very dangerous not to see; witness those written by our mother!"

" Brother ! " said Francois.

" That letter, monsieur !" cried the King, stamping on the floor, " or I ? 11 have it torn from you by my Swiss! "

The duke leaped out of bed, holding the crumpled letter in his hand, evidently intending to reach the fireplace and throw it into the fire.

" You would do this to your brother ? " said he.

Henri guessed his intention and at once stood between him and the chimney-piece.

" Not to my brother," said he, " but to my deadliest enemy. Not to my brother, but to the Due d'Anjou, who has spent the whole evening running through the streets of Paris behind the tail of M. de Guise's horse! To my brother, who is now trying to conceal from me a letter from one of his accomplices, the Lorraine princes."

" This time/' said the duke, " your police have made a mistake."

" I tell you I saw the three merlets of Lorraine 011 the seal, those famous merlets that aspire to swallow the lilies of France. Give it up, mordieu ! Give it up, or "-

Henri advanced a step toward the duke and laid a hand on his shoulder.

No sooner did Francois feel the pressure of the royal hand, no sooner did he observe, by a side glance, the menacing attitude of the four minions, who were making ready to draw their swords, than he dropped on his knees, falling back against the side of the bed, and cried:

" Help ! save me ! help ! My brother wants to kill me."

These words, uttered in tones of deep and heartfelt terror, impressed the King and extinguished his anger, especially because they supposed that anger greater than it really was. He believed that Francois really was afraid of being assassinated, of a murderous attack which would be a fratricide. Then his brain grew dizzy at the thought that in his family, a family accursed as are all the families of a race just about to expire, it had become a tradition that brother should assassinate brother.

" No," said he, " you are wrong, brother ; I will not do you 3,ny injury of the kind you fear. You have struggled ; now

acknowledge that you are beaten. You know the King is your master; even if you were ignorant of it before, you know it now. Well, then ! confess as much, not only to yourself, but aloud, before the world."

" I confess it, brother, I proclaim it," cried the duke.

" Very well. Now for the letter. The King orders you to give up the letter."

The Due d'Anjou dropped the paper.

The King picked it up, and, without reading it, folded and slipped it into his pocket-book.

" Is that all, sire ? " asked the duke, with his malignant look.

" No, monsieur," answered Henri, " as a punishment for this rebellion, which, luckily, has had no unpleasant consequences, you will have the goodness to keep your room until my suspicions in your regard are completely dissipated. You are here in a comfortable apartment with which you are quite familiar and which has not at all the look of a prison ; you will stay here, then. You will have good company, at least outside the door, and, for to-night, these four gentlemen will guard you ; to morrow morning they will be relieved by a Swiss guard."

" But can I not see my own friends ? "

" Whom do you call your friends ? "

" M. de Monsoreau, of course, and M. de Blbeirac, M. Antra-guet, and M. de Bussy." , " Oh, yes ; the latter, of course, especially."

" Has he had the misfortune to displease your Majesty ? "

"Yes," answered the King.

« When ? "

" Always, and particularly to-night."

" To-night ? What has he done to-night ? "

" He has been the means of getting me insulted in the streets of Paris."

" You, sire ? "

" Yes, me, or my faithful friends, which is the same thing."

" Bussy has been the occasion of some one being insulted in the streets of Paris to-night ? You have been misinformed, sire."

" I know what I am talking about."

" Sire," cried the duke, with an air of triumph, " M. de Bussy has not left his hotel for the last two days ! He is ill in bed, shivering with fever."

The King turned to Schomberg.

"If he was shivering with fever," said the young man, " then he was shivering in the Rue Coquilliere, and not in his hotel."

" Who told you," asked the Due d'Anjou, rising, " that Bussy was in the Rue Coquilliere ? "

" I saw him."

" You saw Bussy abroad ? "

" Yes, Bussy, looking fresh, hale, and hearty, apparently the happiest man in the world; he was in the company of that follower of his, Remy, his squire or doctor, hang me if I know which."

" Then I am entirely in the dark," said the duke, bewildered. " I saw M. de Bussy in the evening; he was in bed. He must have been deceiving me."

" No matter," said the King. " M. de Bussy will be punished like the others, and with the others, Avhen this affair is cleared up."

The duke, who fancied a good means of diverting the anger of the King from himself would be to turn it on Bussy, said nothing further in defence of his gentleman.

" If M. de Bussy has acted thus," said he, " if, after refusing to accompany me, he went out alone, it was doubtless because he had designs which, knowing my devotion to your Majesty, he could not confess to me."

" You hear what my brother asserts, gentlemen; he asserts that he has not influenced M. de Bussy in any respect."

" So much the better," said Schomberg.

" Why so much the better ? "

" Because then, perhaps, your Majesty will allow us to act as we like in the matter."

"Well, well, we'll see as to that later on," said Henri. " Gentlemen, I recommend my brother to your care. You will have him under your guard during the rest of the night; show him all the respect which is due to him as a prince of the blood, that is to say, as the first person in the realm next to myself."

" Oh, sire," answered Quelus, with a look that sent a shiver through the duke's veins, " do not be uneasy; we know all we owe to his highness."

" 'T is well; adieu, gentlemen," said Henri.

" Sire," cried the duke, more alarmed at the King's depart-

ure than lie had been at his arrival, " can it be that I am seriously a prisoner ? Is it possible that my friends cannot visit me and that I am not allowed to go out ? "

And the thought of the next morning flashed through his mind, that morning when his presence was so absolutely necessary to M. de Guise.

" Sire," said the duke, who saw that the King was wavering, " let me, at least, remain near your Majesty; my proper place is at the side of your Majesty; I am your prisoner there quite as much as elsewhere, and more immediately under your eye than elsewhere. Pray, sire, grant me the favor of staying with your Majesty."

The King saw no real danger in yielding to the Due d'An-jou's request, and he was just 011 the point of saying " Yes," when his attention was distracted from his brother and drawn toward the door by the appearance of a very long and very nimble body, which, with arms, and head, and neck, and everything it could stir, was making the most violent negative gestures that any one could invent and execute without dislocating his bones.

The gesticulating body was that of Chicot.

"No," answered Henri, "you are very well here, brother, and here you must stay."

" Sire," stammered the duke.

" It seems to me it should satisfy you to learn that such is the good pleasure of the King of France, monsieur," added Henri, with an air of imperiousness that completed the duke's dismay.

" Did I not say I was the true King of France ? " murmured Chicot.

CHAPTER XLVI.

HOW CHICOT PAID A VISIT TO BUSSY AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

ON the morning after the day, or rather the night, whose events we have been describing, Bussy was quietly breakfasting at nine o'clock, with Remy, who, as his physician, had seen to it that the most nourishing eatables were on the table; they were discussing the events of the evening, and Remy was trying to recall the legends of the frescoes in the little church of Saint Mary of Egypt.

" I say, Remy," asked Bussy, suddenly, " do you think you recognized the gentleman they were dipping in a vat when we passed the corner of the Rue Coquilliere ? "

" I think I have seen him somewhere before, M. le Comte, and ever since I perceived him I have been trying to remember his name."

" But you did not recognize him fully ? "

" No, monsieur; he was already quite blue."

" I ought to have rescued him," said Bussy ; " gentlemen should always aid one another against clowns ; but, in good truth, Remy, I was too much taken up with my own affairs."

" Well," said Remy, " though we did not recognize him, he certainly recognized us, who had our natural color, for his eyes rolled frightfully and he shook his clinched fist at us, evidently accompanying the gesture with a threat."

" Are you sure of that, Remy ? "

" I am sure about his eyes, but not so sure about his fist or the threat," answered Le Haudouin, who knew the irascible temper of Bussy.

" Then we must find out who the gentleman is; I cannot let such an insult as that pass."

" Wait, wait a moment," cried Le Haudouin, who, having made one blundering admission, apparently thought to better it by making another, " I have it! I know who he was !"

" How do you know it ? "

" I heard him swear."

" I can easily believe you, mordieu ; any one would swear in such a position."

" Yes, but he swore in German."

" Bah!"

" He said : * Gott verdammeS "

" Then it was Schomberg."

" The very man, M. le Comte; the very man."

"Then, my dear Remy, you had better prepare your salves."

"Why?"

" Because you '11 have to do a little patching up on my skin or on his before long."

" You will not be so mad as to get killed, now that you are in such good health and so happy," said Remy. " Egad! though Saint Mary of Egypt has restored you to life once, she might get tired if you asked a second miracle of her, especially as Christ himself only performed that sort of miracle twice."

"On the contrary, Remy," answered the count, "you have no idea how much it adds to a man's happiness, when he is really happy, to stake his life against the life of another man. I assure you I have never had any real pleasure in fighting when I had lost large sums at the gaming-table, or discovered the treachery of a mistress, or was conscious of some fault on my own part. But, on the other hand, when my purse was full, my heart light, and my conscience clear, I have always gone merrily and boldly to the field. At such times I am perfectly sure of my hand, can read every thought in my opponent's eyes, and I crush him with my good fortune. I am in the position of a man playing a game of chance and who has such a run of luck all the time that he feels as if a gale of fortune was blowing all his antagonist's gold in his direction. That is the time I feel glorious, the time I am sure of myself and ready for everything and anything. I ought to be able to fight splendidly to-day, Re'my," said the young man, holding out his hand to the doctor, " for, thanks to you, I am very happy!"

" Do not be in such a hurry, if you please," said Le Hau-douin; " in fact, you must really abandon the pleasure you have set before you. A beautiful lady of my acquaintance has recommended you to my care, and has made me swear to keep you safe and sound. She maintains that you owe her your life and that no one has a right to make away with what he owes."

" My good Remy!" said Bussy, and then he fell into one of those vague reveries in which the lover sees and hears everything that is said and everything that is done, but as if behind the opaline gauze of a theatre, through which objects are perceived without their angles and the crudity of their tones: a delicious state that is almost a dream, for while pursuing the sweet and pleasing fancies that spring to life in the soul, we have our senses distracted by the words or gestures of a friend.

" You call me your ' good Remy ' because I brought you to see Madame de Monsoreau, but T wonder whether you are likely to call me so when you are separated from her, and, unfortunately, the day of parting is approaching, if it has not come already."

" What do you mean ? " cried Bussy, energetically. " No jesting on that subject, Maitre le Haudouin."

" Faith, monsieur, I am not jesting ; are you not aware that she is on the point of starting for Anjou, and that I, too, am about to lose Mademoiselle Gertrude ? Ah! "

Bussy could not help smiling at Remy's pretended despair.

" You are very fond of her ? " he asked.

" Certainly I am — and as for her — if you were to see how she beats me !"

" And you let her ? "

" All on account of my love for science. She has forced me to invent a pomade which is a sovereign remedy for banishing blue marks."

" In that case you ought to send a few pots to Schomberg."

"Drop Schomberg; it was agreed between us to let him clean himself up in whatever fashion he likes himself."