The cardinal's musketeer

NINON’S announcement, coming with unexpected force and with truthfulness, dashed Péron’s new-born hopes to the ground. Mademoiselle’s flashes of tenderness and emotion were but the whims of a coquette, who found amusement and flattery even in the admiration of an inferior. The Renée that he knew, with her varying moods of anger and disdain interspiced with glimpses of soft-heartedness, was doubtless very different from the fiancée of M. de Bièvre. Péron tried to recall what he knew of the man, a cousin, he thought, of the Prince de Condé, and a man of some wealth and pretensions,—not an unsuitable match for mademoiselle in family and rank, but by repute a brainless young courtier and something of a roué. Yet, after all, that was Renée’s affair, not Péron’s. He thought that he had seen him once or twice at the Palais Cardinal or the Louvre, and that he bore a strong likeness in dress and manner to the younger de Vesson. Doubtless she was accustomed to men of this stamp and preferred them to a soldier of fortune—a musketeer.

In the half-hour after mademoiselle left, Péron had these thoughts and many others more bitter, and called himself a fool many times for having yielded to the charm of a fair face and two bright eyes. He had known from the first of a barrier between them that should be impassable, yet he had let a tenderness grow in his heart, and deserved punishment for his folly. So completely did mademoiselle’s betrothal fill his mind that he forgot the cardinal’s ring, forgot his surroundings, the taper burning low on the table, forgot the unbolted door, until he heard a step on the stairs and rose to fasten his latch. He was too late; before he reached it the door was opened softly and the round face of the pastry cook was thrust into the space. Seeing that Péron was alone, Archambault came in, and shutting the door behind him with his shoulder, advanced to the table, where he set down a large frosted cake with an air of satisfaction.

“Pardieu!” he said, rubbing his hands, “I had to have an errand, and I brought you one of the cakes that you used to love. You would run all the way from the Rue de la Ferronnerie for one of these when you were eight years old; ay, when you were a big boy of fourteen and with M. de Condé, you had still an affection for my cakes.”

“I thank you, Archambault, not only for the present but for the old times,” Péron replied smiling, though he wondered what had brought the fat pastry cook up all those steps for so flippant an errand.

“You are welcome enough, M. Jehan,” Archambault said; “but give me a chair, I am marvellously short of breath of late, and I hurried, having something of weight to say.”

When he was seated he clasped his fat little hands on his knee and waited placidly while his host lighted another taper and closed the shutters on the street. When Péron sat down at last, his guest was smiling and complacent, the same round little man who for forty years had catered for and flattered the wealthy coterie of the Marais, and was one of the most famous cooks of Paris. It was said, in the next reign, that Vatel learned his trade from him, as he had learned it of Zamet. His dress was far richer than the young nobleman’s. Péron wore the uniform of monsignor’s guards; the cook wore a suit of black velvet with ruffles of Flemish lace, a chain of gold around his neck, buckles that were gemmed with jewels at his knees and on his shoes. He cast a glance not unseasoned with pity at the bare room.

“Mon Dieu!” he said, “what a place for a marquis.”

The exclamation was so genuine and involuntary that Péron laughed outright.

“My tastes are more simple than yours, Archambault,” he said.

The pastry cook shrugged his shoulders.

“It makes my heart ache, M. Jehan,” he replied heartily, “for I remember who you are and what is your due. But ’tis the vulgar who gain nowadays; monsignor has no love for the grandees. However, that is not here nor there; I came for another matter. You have lost a ring?”

Péron looked at him in amazement.

“By St. Denis!” he said, “there is witchcraft in it. Yes, I have lost a ring. What more?”

Archambault looked at him placidly, his round eyes showing neither amazement nor curiosity.

“The ring is in the hands of M. de Nançay,” he said calmly.

Péron rose from his chair with a sharp exclamation.

“I fear I am ruined!” he cried; “tell me all you know, Archambault.”

The pastry cook rubbed his hands together with a certain unctuous enjoyment of the situation.

“They were at my shop,” he said, with a deliberation that tormented his auditor; “M. de Nançay, M. de Vesson, and another, a relative, I take it, of M. de Bouillon. They had a private room, and—” he stopped, looking a little abashed under Péron’s searching eyes. “Well, monsieur,” he went on with a shrug, “what would you? I have found it useful to keep an eye on my guests; I have known many things. In that same room I heard the challenge discussed of the famous duel on the Place Royale, for which M. de Bouteville and M. de Chapelles suffered,—monsignor’s example to enforce his edict. I—”

“Ciel, Archambault, go on!” cried Péron in despair.

“I am going on,” the pastry cook replied aggrieved. “I have a peep-hole—un œil-de-bœuf—concealed in the partition, you understand, M. Jehan, and there I overheard the story of the cardinal’s ring. They sent a man into your rooms here through some window—” the narrator stopped again to look for it—“Ah, bah! do you not see that roof? He found the ring in your coat and they have it. There is mischief brewing; they would ruin you with the cardinal,—for I think they suspect your identity,—and they would ruin the cardinal’s schemes. They start to-morrow with that ring for Brussels; doubtless you know more of what they can do with it than I do.”

He stopped, gazing at Péron eager for enlightenment, but he received none. His host was on his feet in a moment looking at sword and pistols and gathering some necessaries together. Archambault looked on in aggrieved amazement; he had that natural love for gossip that belongs to his class and character.

“What will you do, M. Jehan?” he asked blankly.

“If they go to Brussels to-morrow I go to-night,” Péron replied decisively; “and look you, Archambault, I will give you a letter to Père Antoine, he must go for me to monsignor; I cannot lose an hour, nay, not a minute.”

“You cannot go alone!” Archambault cried, with agitation. “Mère de Dieu! there will be four or six of them—you are mad.”

“So much the better—one can more easily outstrip four or six in a race for Flanders,” Péron replied, changing his uniform for a dark suit and a hallecrèt, while he talked.

“Ah, I see, you would be first in Brussels,” Archambault exclaimed; “but it will not do—one man cannot outwit them.”

He fell into meditation, sitting cross-legged on the high wooden stool; with all his flippancy and selfish greed, the pastry cook had still something of manhood left, and no little wit of a low order but keen enough to serve his ends.

“I have it,” he said, looking up and waving his hands. “Choin is at my place, a little tipsy, I believe, but in the morning he will be on his feet. The great hulk was asleep on the kitchen floor, and but for my haste to come here I would have had him thrown into monsignor’s gardens to cool; but, parbleu! he is the very man.”

“The man, if sober,” Péron replied, smiling, “but drunk—he is as useless as the figures on Maître Jacques’s great jacquemart!”

“He will be sober in the morning, and so will Matthieu and Jeannot,” said the pastry cook; “by your leave, therefore, M. Jehan, I will send them after you post-haste.”

“A useless trouble, good Archambault,” Péron replied, picking up his cloak and sword, being now fully equipped for his journey; “they would scarcely overtake me, and would doubtless get into a drunken brawl by the way.”

The cook shook his head. “Nay,” he said, “I have noticed that Choin does not drink when he has work; you used him before, and you may use him again. I can send him at daybreak, for I will set my fellows to work upon him with cold water enough to drown the fires out of his brain and belly.”

Péron was not untouched by the honest man’s anxiety.

“I thank you, friend,” he said, shaking the other’s hand, “but it is useless; I can make shift with a good horse to outstrip these plotters on the road, and I am off at once. There is the letter for Père Antoine; and for the cake—why, keep it against my return.”

“Which road do you take, M. Jehan?” persisted the pastry cook, as they went down the narrow stairs together.

“By the way of Amiens, though I shall avoid the town,” Péron replied; “but I shall cross the Somme at the Blanche Tache.”

No more was said; Péron believed that he had discouraged the cook’s well-meant scheme, and hastened to the stables for his horse, knowing well that every hour counted and that he must reach Brussels before the conspirators, or all would be lost. The stable-boys were asleep and he saddled and bridled his own horse, thinking once or twice that he heard something stir in the straw in the next stall, but putting it down to the credit of the rats.

It had been an eventful evening; at nightfall mademoiselle came to warn him, later Archambault told his story, and at midnight he was riding along the Rue St. Denis on his way to Flanders. His future, and perhaps his life, depended upon the four feet of his horse and his own wit. In spite of the stirring occurrences of the last few weeks, in spite of his disappointment at the tidings of mademoiselle’s betrothal, he was calm and alert as he went out on his dangerous and uncertain errand. He not only wished to save his own honor, but he believed that there was peril to France in the plotting of these conspirators. He knew that on a little thing hangs sometimes the fate of an empire, and he understood something of the web that the cardinal was ever weaving with the patience and the skill of a spider. Yet with all these reflections, with the weight of this anxiety upon him, he longed greatly to settle an account with M. de Bièvre, and the face of mademoiselle haunted him. He thought with a smile, however, of the party waiting with fruitless patience at the stone bridge of the Cours la Reine.