La Dame de Monsoreau (74 page)

He knew there was 110 drawing back now ; he was at the mercy of his saviors, so he leaped on one of the horses ; his companions mounted the two others.

The same voice that had already whispered in his ear said with the same brevity:

" Spur."

And the three men set off at a gallop.

" So far, all goes well," thought the prince, " it is to be hoped the end will not belie the promise of the beginning."

" Thanks, my brave Bussy," said he in a low murmur to his comrade on the right, whose face was muffled up in a big brown cloak.

" Spur," was the only answer given from behind the cloak, and as the speaker himself gave the example, the three horses passed on like the wind.

In this fashion they arrived at the great fosse of the Bastile, which they crossed on a bridge improvised the night before by the Leaguers, who were unwilling to have their coinmunica-

tions with their friends interrupted, and had adopted this plan to ensure the concentration of their members where it was needed.

The three riders pushed on toward Charenton. The prince's horse seemed to have wings.

Suddenly the man on his right leaped the fosse and dashed into the forest of Vincennes, saying, with his usual curtness, this one word to the prince :

" Come."

The man on the left imitated the man on the right, but without speaking. In fact, during the whole journey, a word had never left his lips.

The prince did not need to draw the reins tight or press the flanks of his steed with his knees ; the noble animal leaped the fosse with the same ardor exhibited by the two other horses. The neigh he gave when clearing the ditch was answered by several neighs from the depths of the forest.

The prince tried to stop his horse, for he feared he was being led into an ambuscade.

But it was too late ; the animal was too excited to feel the bit; however, on seeing the other horses slacken their paces, the charger of Francois also came to a trot, and the duke soon found himself in a sort of clearing where eight or ten men on horseback, drawn up in military array, were revealed to his eyes by the moonlight, which was reflected on their cuirasses, turning them to silver.

" Monsieur," said the prince, " pray, what does this mean ? "

" Venire saint-grin! " answered the man whom he had questioned, " it means we are safe."

" What! you, Henri ! " cried the Due d'Anjou, in amazement, " you are my liberator ? "

" Egad," said the Bearnais, " I do not see why that should surprise you. Are we not allies ? "

Then, looking round for his other companion :

" Agrippa," said he, " where the devil are you ? "

" Here I am," said D'Aubigne, who had kept grimly silent until now. " You ought to be proud of yourself , ulie way you treat your horses ! — especially as you have so many of them! "

" Oh, for goodness' sake, stop your growling ; if I can only get two fresh horses, that had a rest, and are capable of doing their dozen leagues without stopping, it's all I need."

" But where are you taking me, cousin ? " asked Francois, uneasily.

"Wherever you wish," answered Henri; "but we must go quickly, for D'Aubigne is right: the King of France has better furnished stables than I have, and he is rich enough to afford killing a score of horses, if he take it into his head to catch up with us.' 7

" So, then, I am really free to go where I like ? " inquired Francois.

" Of course; I am simply at your orders," replied Henri.

" Well, then, I wish to go to Angers."

" You wish to go to Angers ? To Angers let us go, then; you are naturally at home in that quarter."

" And where are you going, cousin ? "

" Oh, as soon as we come in sight of Angers I leave you and spur for Navarre, where my good Margot is waiting for me ; she must be terribly bored at having to live so long without me ! "

" But did any one know you were in Paris ? " said Franqois.

" I suppose not. I only came to sell three diamonds belonging to my wife."

" Ah, indeed ! "

" And I wanted to find out, too, if the League was 'eally going to ruin me."

" You see it amounts to nothing."

" Yes, thanks to you."

" Thanks to me! how ? "

" Why, if, instead of refusing to be chief of the League, when you learned it was directed against me, you had accepted the command and made common cause with my enemies, I should have been ruined. So, when I found out the King had imprisoned you for your refusal, I swore to rescue you, and I have done so."

" He is always so simple," said Francois to himself, " that it is really a conscientious duty to deceive him."

" Go, cousin, go to Anjou," said the Bearnais, with a smile. " Aha, M. de Guise, you think you rule the roost! But I am sending you a friend that will, perhaps, trip you up occasionally ; look out! "

And as soon as the fresh horses were brought which Henri had ordered, both of them leaped into the saddles and set off at a gallop, accompanied by Agrippa d'Aubigne, who never stopped growling.

CHAPTER LIII

THE FRIENDS.

WHILE Paris was flaming and boiling like the interior of a furnace, Madame de Monsoreau, escorted by her father and two of those servants who at that period were temporarily recruited for an expedition like the present one, was making her way to Meridor by stages of ten leagues a day.

&he was also beginning to enjoy that freedom which is so precious to those who have suffered.

The azure sky of the country, which had nothing in keeping with the eternally threatening sky that hung above the black towers of the Bastile like a pall, the trees already green, the. beautiful lanes, winding like long, undulating ribbons through the heart of the forest, appeared to her as fresh and young, as novel and delectable as if she had really just escaped from the watery grave in which her father had believed her buried.

As for the old baron, he looked twenty years younger.

From the erectness of his bearing in the saddle, and the fire with which he urged on old Jarnac, a spectator might be excused if he took the noble lord for some graybeard husband on his wedding-tour, watching amorously over his youthful bride.

We will not attempt to describe this long journey.

Sunrise and sunset embraced its most important incidents.

When the moon illuminated with silvery tints the windows of her chamber in some hostelry on the road, Diane usually leaped out of bed, awoke the baron, aroused her servants from their heavy slumbers, and the whole party set out again, guided on their way by the lovely moonlight, all to gain a few leagues during this long journey, which the young woman thought would never have an end.

At other times, just in the heat of a-gallop, she would allow Jarnac, quite proud on such occasions of being in the lead, to shoot past her, then the rest of her escort to do the same, and, halting on some rising ground, would turn round and peer into the depths of the valley to discover whether she was followed. When the valley was evidently deserted, and Diane could see nothing but the flocks and herds-scattered along the pastures, or the solemn spire of some village church towering aloft at

the end of a highway, she returned more impatient than ever.

Whereupon, her father, glancing at her from the corner of his eye, would say :

" Do not be afraid, Diane."

« Afraid of what, father ? "

" Are you not looking to see if M. de Monsoreau is following?"

" Ah — yes — you are right; that is why I was looking," answered the young woman, with another glance behind her.

And so, after many a hope, and fear, and disappointment, Diane reached the Castle of Meridor at the end of a week, and was received on the drawbridge by Madame de Saint-Luc and her husband, who had acted as lord and lady of the manor during the baron's absence.

Then began for these four people one of those existences of which every one has dreamed who has read Virgil, Longus, and Theocritus.

The baron and Saint-Luc hunted from morning to night, followed closely by their whippers-in.

Then might be seen a very avalanche of dogs rolling down the hillsides at the tail of a> fox or hare, and when this furious cavalcade thundered past them into the woods, Diane and Jeanne, seated side by side on some mossy mound in the shade of a thicket, would start for a moment, but soon renew their tender and mysterious conversation.

" Tell me," said Jeanne, " tell me all that happened to you in your tomb, for you were, indeed, dead for us. Look ! the hawthorn is in flower, and shedding on us its little snowflakes, and the guelder-roses waft toward us their intoxicating perfume. The soft sunlight laughs amid the huge oaken branches. Not a breath in the air, not a living being in the park, for the roebucks have disappeared, dismayed by the trembling of the earth under the hoof-beat of the horses, and the foxes have vanished into their holes. Tell me everything, my little sister."

" Did I not tell you something already ? "

" You told me nothing. Are you happy, then ? Ah ! those beautiful eyes encircled by bluish shadows, the pear]y paleness of your cheeks, the drooping eyelid, the mouth that tries to smile and never completely succeeds — Diane, Diane, you must, indeed, have much to tell me."

" Nothing, I assure you,"

" Then, you are happy — with M. de Monsereau ? "

Diane started.

" You see you would deceive me," said Jeanne, reproachfully but tenderly.

" With M. de Monsoreau ! " repeated Diane ; " why do you utter that name ? Why do you raise up that spectre in the midst of these woods, in the midst of these flowers, in the midst of our happiness "

" Well, I know now why your eyes are encircled with blue, and why they are so often raised to heaven; but I know not yet why your lips try to smile."

Diane sadly shook her head.

" You told me, I think," continued Jeanne, flinging her white, round arm about Diane's neck, " that M. de Bussy has taken great interest in you."

Diane blushed so deeply that her little delicate ears seemed inflamed.

" A charming cavalier is M. de Bussy," said Jeanne. And she sang:

"'Asa picker of quarrels

D'Amboise has won laurels.'"

Diane rested her head on her friend's bosom, and, in a voice sweeter than the warbling of the birds amid the foliage, she murmured:

" ' But give Bussy his due — He is tender and ' " —

" True ! " exclaimed Jeanne, joyously, kissing her friend's eyes.

" Oh, this is all folly," said Diane, abruptly. « M. de Bussy d'Amboise no longer thinks of Diane de Meridor."

" Possibly," answered Jeanne; " but I am rather inclined to believe that Diane de Monsoreau still thinks of him."

" You must not say so."

" Why ? Because it vexes you ? "

Diane did not reply. Then, after a pause, she murmured:

" I tell you he thinks no more of me — and he does well. Oh ! I have been such a coward !"

" What do you mean ? "

" Nothing, nothing."

" Now, Diane, you are going to cry, and to blame yourself — You a coward ! you, my heroine! you were forced to act as you did."

" I believed so. I saw dangers, saw a perilous gulf beneath my feet. But now, Jeanne, all these dangers seem to me imaginary; a child might cross that gulf with a single stride. I was a coward, I tell you. Oh! if I had only had time to reflect!"

" What you tell me is to me an enigma."

" Yet, no, it was not so," said Diane, rising in great agitation. " No, it was not my fault, Jeanne; he it was who drew back. I remember how terrible my position appeared; I hesitated, I wavered. My father offered me his support and I was afraid. Jfe, he offered me his protection, but not in a way to encourage me to accept it. The Due d'Aiijou was against him ; the Due d'Anjou was in league with M. de Monsoreau, you will tell me. Well, what if they were leagued together ? Ah! if I were really determined on achieving an object, if I loved any one with my whole heart, not all the princes and masters in Christendom could hold me back; for, Jeanne, once I truly loved " —

And Diane, overcome by her emotion, leaned back against an oak, as if the soul had so tortured the body that the latter could no longer stand upright.

" Gome, come, my darling, collect yourself, try to be calm " —

" I tell you we have been cowards ! "

" We — Diane, to whom do you allude ? That we is full of significance."

" I am speaking of my father and myself; I hope you did not understand me to speak of anybody else, did you ? My father is a nobleman of rank and could have spoken to the King ; and I am proud and do not fear a man when I hate him — But — the secret of my cowardice was this : I saw he did not love me."

" You are false to your own heart! " cried Jeanne. " If you believed that, you would, from what I know of you, go to the man himself and reproach him with his baseness. But you do not believe it; you know that the contrary is the fact, hypocrite! " she added, with a tender caress.

" Oh, it is natural for you to believe in love," answered Diane, again sitting down beside Jeanne ; " you whom Saint-Luc married in spite of a king! you whom he bore away from the very centre of Paris! you who pay him by your caresses for proscription and exile! "

" And he ought to think that he is richly paid, too," said the roguish young woman.

" But I—reflect a little and be not so selfish—I whom this fiery young man pretended to love, I who attracted the admiration of the indomitable Bussy, of that man who laughs at obstacles — I espoused him as it were publicly, I offered myself to him before the eyes of the entire court, and he did not even look at me; I placed myself under his protection in the cloister of Saint Mary of Egypt; we were alone, except for the presence of Gertrude and Le Haudouin, his two accomplices — la more willing accomplice than either— Oh, when I think of it! His horse stood at the door; he could have borne me off from the very church in a fold of his cloak! For, at that moment, look you, I felt that he was disconsolate and heartbroken on account of me; I saw that his eyes were dull, his lips bloodless and parched with fever. If my death could have restored the lustre of his eyes, the ruddiness of his lips, and he had asked for my life, I would have gladly surrendered it at that moment. Well! I started to leave the church, and he did not attempt to hold me back by a corner of my veil ! Wait, wait awhile — Ah ! you do not know what I am suffering. He knew that I was departing from Paris, he knew I was returning to Meridor, he knew — hold ! I blush to say it — he knew that M. de Monsoreau is not my husband, except in name, he knew I was travelling alone, and every few minutes on the road I turned and turned, dear Jeanne, thinking I heard his horse's gallop behind us. Nothing! it was the echo of the hoofs of our own horses that came to my ear. I tell you he never thinks of me; I am not worth a journey to Anjou, as long as there are so many fair and gracious women at the court of the King of France, whose smiles have a greater charm for him than the fond devotion of a provincial 'mried in the woods of Me'ridor. Do you understand now ? Are you convinced ? Am I not right ? Am I not forgotten and despised, my poor Jeanne ? "