The cardinal's musketeer

PÈRE ANTOINE did not keep his appointment; in fact he was in sore perplexity between mademoiselle and Péron. Knowing the thoughts and impulses of both and pledged not to betray either, the good father found his situation full of pitfalls. He was bound to keep Renée’s secrets, although he thought that he could serve her best by revealing them, partially at least. He reproached himself too, with deception, when he went to his rooms on the Rue de Bethisi and left Péron to wait for him in vain. But what could he do? Not betray mademoiselle certainly, and he had promised to give her time. The priest, whose heart was as simple as a child’s with all his wisdom, crept up the stairs to his study with the air of a guilty man. He lighted only one taper and drew a heavy curtain before the window, the more completely to deceive any observer. He sat down there among his books and looked about him with dreamy eyes. His thoughts were back in the old days when he was a young man, and when between him and more serious things shone the brown eyes of the Marquise de Nançay, then Françoise de la Douane. He remembered the tenderness of it all, the sweetness and the pain—which had lingered with him through long years, until the wound no longer ached and there was only the scar. If it had been more of earth and less spiritual there would have been an end of it long before; but Père Antoine was one of those who can suffer so keenly that no pain ever comes to them blunted, and when their cup of sorrow fills, it runs over. It is not the flesh but the spirit that grieves.

He sat with his beautiful hands crossed on his knee and the light of the taper shining softly on his white hair and into his large blue eyes. He thought not only of Françoise de la Douane but of her son, the orphan boy whom he had watched over and trained in all those years on the Rue de la Ferronnerie; he remembered the days of anxiety when he and the three faithful servants had all dreaded Pilâtre de Marsou; he remembered the cardinal’s sharp cross-examination when the boy was taken into his household, and his own doubts and fears; and now it was all over and the heir happily restored to title and estates. It was certainly a cause for happiness and triumph, and yet Père Antoine’s heart was freshly touched by sympathy. He had seen the reverse side of the picture; he had been the bearer of the evil tidings to Renée de Nançay; he had stood beside the bier of the forsaken and disgraced marquis. A strange fate had called the same man who had walked to the scaffold with the true Marquis de Nançay, to render the last services also to the usurper of the same title and place. He had buried both the victim and his false accuser, and now he stood in the office of counsellor and friend to the son of one and the daughter of the other. It spoke clearly for the man’s honesty, his piety, his tenderness, that he could do these things without betraying any one.

He was not to escape Péron that night however. The episode at Archambault’s pastry shop sent the new marquis out in quest of Père Antoine, and failing to find him at other places, he went, at last, to the Rue de Bethisi. And just as the priest thought he had evaded him, he heard his step on the stairs. He knew that step well, for he had listened for it often and found a comfort in looking at the likeness that he saw in the boy’s face, which did not depart even with manhood. He did not stir from his chair, but waited quietly for the door to open, and Péron uttered an exclamation of surprise when he saw him sitting there.

“I thought you were coming to Archambault’s?” he said. “Have you seen mademoiselle?”

Père Antoine hesitated a moment before he replied.

“I have not seen her since last night,” he said quietly; “she has left the house on the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre.”

“Has she gone to Nançay?” Péron asked quickly.

The priest shook his head, avoiding the eager eyes of his interrogator.

Péron sat down opposite, looking at him searchingly, the truth dawning upon him.

“Surely, mon père,” he said, “you have not allowed her to leave her old home like this?”

“My son, I could not prevent it,” the priest replied simply, “nor do I see how it could have been prevented; mademoiselle could not be a pensioner upon your bounty.”

“Nay, but to turn her out for me!” cried Péron, rising and walking to and fro. “St. Denis! I feel like a ruffian and a thief.”

“And yet, Jehan, you must remember that mademoiselle might have encountered worse treatment,” Père Antoine replied. “Monsignor had Pilâtre de Marcon in his toils; he let him go, only as he has let others go, that there might be stronger evidence against him. Independently of his action in regard to your father, Marsou would have been ruined and possibly beheaded. Renée realizes this herself; she bears you no ill-will, and appreciated your intended kindness.”

“Ah, mon père, you do not know how it is,” Péron said; “for you reason is sufficient, for me there must be something more!”

Père Antoine smiled sadly. “Young people fall readily into the error of thinking their case exceptional,” he said gently, “yet there is nothing new under the sun.”

Péron, who had been pacing the room, suddenly halted in front of him.

“Tell me,” he said, “where is she?”

Père Antoine averted his eyes. “My son,” he replied, “I am not at liberty to tell you.”

The younger man frowned. “Come, come!” he said with impatience, “surely there is no need for concealment; it is not possible that she fears me.”

“She has retired into a privacy not unjustified by her mourning and her position,” the priest answered. “I cannot tell you more without violating my word.”

“Am I so hateful to her that she does not wish to see me?” exclaimed the other, in a pained tone.

Père Antoine smiled involuntarily as he shook his head.

“Nay,” he said, “but the wound is new, and the lightest touch hurts. You do not know, nor I, what she has had to bear.”

“One thing I do know,” Péron said, “she is free of a rogue;” and he told the priest of M. de Bièvre’s talk at Archambault’s.

“And you threw him over the table?” Père Antoine said slowly. “Well, my son, violence is not good; and yet you could do no less. He lied too, for mademoiselle herself set him free at the first tidings of her changed fortunes. It was a match of her father’s making, not hers, and I think that her deliverance from it is one bright spot in the dark clouds of trouble.”

“Yet you will not tell me where she is?” Péron said.

“I cannot,” the priest replied, with a smile.

“But I will find her, for all that,” the young musketeer declared firmly. “I will find her, if I have to scour Paris, from one end to the other; ay, if I have to scour all France!”

“From that I cannot deter you,” Père Antoine replied quietly; “I am bound by my promise not to tell you where she has gone, but I can assure you that she is safe.”

“Never mind, mon père,” Péron replied; “I will find her in spite of you.”

But he found this no easy task, although he set about it with much zeal. Mademoiselle had disappeared completely; she had left no trace behind her at either house, and the servants of the late marquis had deserted their places at the first tidings of his fall, as rats leave a sinking ship. No one knew and no one seemed to care where the orphan daughter had gone; some corner of Paris had engulfed her and showed no sign. Believing that the woman Ninon would be faithful to her mistress, Péron searched for her, but in vain; she also had disappeared completely, leaving no trace behind. Not only did he search for her, but he enlisted the interest of Jacques des Horloges, whose apprentices went into nearly every house of any importance in the city. He set inquiries afoot at Archambault’s; he went from one quarter to another, but no one knew where she had gone.

Days passed into weeks, weeks into months; St. Thomas’s day had come and he had not found her. He was now overwhelmed with courtesies; he was wanted at one fête and another. The new marquis who had been a musketeer was the lion of the hour; the story of his courage and address and his romantic life was whispered in the Louvre and at the Palais Cardinal; great lords and princes greeted him as an equal, great ladies stopped their carriages to speak to him in the street. The king was gracious to him, the cardinal made a favorite of him. Gossip told with unction of the occurrence at Archambault’s cook-shop and how M. de Bièvre was thrown over a table like a sack of salt.

Péron had laid aside the uniform of a musketeer and assumed a dress befitting his rank, and Madame Michel would not permit any one else to do up his lace collar and ruffles or to keep his fine clothes in order. Her broad, brown face beamed with pride at the sight of the handsome marquis, and nothing could exceed her happiness when he came to sup with them in the room behind the shop on the Rue de la Ferronnerie. She made great preparations as for a prince, and on the table was a plate of rissoles, such as he had loved in the old days, when it was one of his privileges to go to the pastry shop.

But all these things did not bring mademoiselle any nearer, nor could he wring her secret from Père Antoine, though he was a constant visitor at the Rue de Bethisi and often accompanied the priest on his walks through Paris. But with all his persuasion and persistence he gained nothing; Père Antoine made no sign to guide him, and Péron was, at last, almost in despair. M. de Nançay had been killed at Chantilly in the spring; summer had passed and autumn; it lacked but two days of Christmas and he had not yet found Renée, nor did he seem likely to find her.