Like the calm of the heavens when pregnant with thunder was the calm of that crowd. And as brief it was; for scarce had I taken a dozen steps when my ears were assailed by a rumble of angry voices and a rush of feet. One glance over my shoulder, one second's hesitation whether I should stay and beard them, then the thought of Andrea de Mancini and of what would befall him did this canaille vent its wrath upon me decided my course and sent me hotfoot down the Rue Monarque. Howling and bellowing that rabble followed in my wake, stumbling over one another in their indecent haste to reach me.
But I was fleet of foot, and behind me there was that that would lend wings to the most deliberate, so that when I turned into the open space before the Hôtel Vendôme I had set a good fifty yards betwixt myself and the foremost of my hunters.
A coach was passing at that moment. I shouted, and the knave who drove glanced at me, then up the Rue Monarque at my pursuers, whereupon, shaking his head, he would have left me to my fate. But I was of another mind. I dashed towards the vehicle, and as it passed me I caught at the window, which luckily was open, and drawing up my legs I hung there despite the shower of mud which the revolving wheels deposited upon me.
From the bowels of the coach I was greeted by a woman's scream; a pale face, and a profusion of fair hair flashed before my eyes.
“Fear not, Madame,” I shouted. “I am no assassin, but rather one who stands in imminent peril of assassination, and who craves your protection.”
More I would have said, but at that juncture the lash of the coachman's whip curled itself about my shoulders, and stung me vilely.
“Get down, you rascal,” he bellowed; “get down or I'll draw rein!”
To obey him would have been madness. The crowd surged behind with hoots and yells, and had I let go I must perforce have fallen into their hands. So, instead of getting down as he inconsiderately counselled, I drew myself farther up by a mighty effort, and thrust half my body into the coach, whereupon the fair lady screamed again, and the whip caressed my legs. But within the coach sat another woman, dark of hair and exquisite of face, who eyed my advent with a disdainful glance. Her proud countenance bore the stamp of courage, and to her it was that I directed my appeal.
“Madame, permit me, I pray, to seek shelter in your carriage, and suffer me to journey a little way with you. Quick, Madame! Your coachman is drawing rein, and I shall of a certainty be murdered under your very nose unless you bid him change his mind. To be murdered in itself is a trifling matter, I avow, but it is not nice to behold, and I would not, for all the world, offend your eyes with the spectacle of it.”
I had judged her rightly, and my tone of flippant recklessness won me her sympathy and aid. Quickly thrusting her head through the other window:
“Drive on, Louis,” she commanded. “Faster!” Then turning to me, “You may bring your legs into the coach if you choose, sir,” she said.
“Your words, Madame, are the sweetest music I have heard for months,” I answered drily, as I obeyed her. Then leaning out of the carriage again I waved my hat gallantly to the mob which—now realising the futility of further pursuit—had suddenly come to a halt.
“Au plaisir de vous revoir, Messieurs,” I shouted. “Come to me one by one, and I'll keep the devil busy finding lodgings for you.”
They answered me with a yell, and I sat down content, and laughed.
“You are not a coward, Monsieur,” said the dark lady.
“I have been accounted many unsavoury things, Madame, but my bitterest enemies never dubbed me that.”
“Why, then, did you run away?”
“Why? Ma foi! because in the excessive humility of my soul I recognised myself unfit to die.”
She bit her lip and her tiny foot beat impatiently upon the floor.
“You are trifling with me, Monsieur. Where do you wish to alight?”
“Pray let that give you no concern; I can assure you that I am in no haste.”
“You become impertinent, sir,” she cried angrily. “Answer me, where are you going?”
“Where am I going? Oh, ah—to the Palais Royal.”
Her eyes opened very wide at that, and wandered over me with a look that was passing eloquent. Indeed, I was a sorry spectacle for any woman's eyes—particularly a pretty one's. Splashed from head to foot with mud, my doublet saturated and my beaver dripping, with the feather hanging limp and broken, whilst there was a rent in my breeches that had been made by Canaples's sword, I take it that I had not the air of a courtier, and that when I said that I went to the Palais Royal she might have justly held me to be the adventurous lover of some kitchen wench. But unto the Palais Royal go others besides courtiers and lovers—spies of the Cardinal, for instance, and in her sudden coldness and the next question that fell from her beauteous lips I read that she had guessed me one of these.
“Why did the mob pursue you, Monsieur?”
There was in her voice and gesture when she asked a question the imperiousness of one accustomed to command replies. This pretty queenliness it was that drove me to answer—as I had done before—in a bantering strain.
“Why did the mob pursue me? Hum! Why does the mob pursue great men? Because it loves their company.”
Her matchless eyes flashed an angry glance, and the faint smile on my lips must have tried her temper sorely.
“What did you do to deserve this affection?”
“A mere nothing—I killed a man,” I answered coolly. “Or, at least, I left him started on the road to—Paradise.”
The little flaxen-haired doll uttered a cry of horror, and covered her face with her small white hands. My inquisitor, however, sat rigid and unaffected. My answer had confirmed her suspicions.
“Why did you kill him?”
“Ma foi!” I replied, encouraging her thoughts, “because he sought to kill me.”
“Ah! And why did he seek to kill you?”
“Because I disturbed him at dinner.”
“Have a care how you trifle, sir!” she retorted, her eyes kindling again.
“Upon my honour, 't was no more than that. I pulled the cloth from the table whilst he ate. He was a quick-tempered gentleman, and my playfulness offended him. That is all.”
Doubt appeared in her eyes, and it may have entered her mind that perchance her judgment had been over-hasty.
“Do you mean, sir, that you provoked a duel?”
“Alas, Madame! It had become necessary. You see, M. de Canaples—”
“Who?” Her voice rang sharp as the crack of a pistol.
“Eh? M. de Canaples.”
“Was it he whom you killed?”
From her tone, and the eager, strained expression of her face, it was not difficult to read that some mighty interest of hers was involved in my reply. It needed not the low moan that burst from her companion to tell me so.
“As I have said, Madame, it is possible that he is not dead—nay, even that he will not die. For the rest, since you ask the question, my opponent was, indeed, M. de Canaples—Eugène de Canaples.”
Her face went deadly white, and she sank back in her seat as if every nerve in her body had of a sudden been bereft of power, whilst she of the fair hair burst into tears.
A pretty position was this for me!—luckily it endured not. The girl roused herself from her momentary weakness, and, seizing the cord, she tugged it violently. The coach drew up.
“Alight, sir,” she hissed—“go! I wish to Heaven that I had left you to the vengeance of the people.”
Not so did I; nevertheless, as I alighted: “I am sorry, Madame, that you did not,” I answered. “Adieu!”
The coach moved away, and I was left standing at the corner of the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue des Bons Enfants, in the sorriest frame of mind conceivable. The lady in the coach had saved my life, and for that I was more grateful perchance than my life was worth. Out of gratitude sprang a regret for the pain that I had undoubtedly caused her, and the sorrow which it might have been my fate to cast over her life.
Still, regret, albeit an admirable sentiment, was one whose existence was usually brief in my bosom. Dame! Had I been a man of regrets I might have spent the remainder of my days weeping over my past life. But the gods, who had given me a character calculated to lead a man into misfortune, had given me a stout heart wherewith to fight that misfortune, and an armour of recklessness against which remorse, regrets, aye, and conscience itself, rained blows in vain.
And so it befell that presently I laughed myself out of the puerile humour that was besetting me, and, finding myself chilled by inaction in my wet clothes, I set off for the Palais Royal at a pace that was first cousin to a run.
Ten minutes later I stood in the presence of the most feared and hated man in France.
“Cospetto!” cried Mazarin as I entered his cabinet. “Have you swum the Seine in your clothes?”
“No, your Eminence, but I have been serving you in the rain for the past hour.”
He smiled that peculiar smile of his that rendered hateful his otherwise not ill-favoured countenance. It was a smile of the lips in which the eyes had no part.
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I have heard of your achievements.”
“You have heard?” I ejaculated, amazed by the powers which this man wielded.
“Yes, I have heard. You are a brave man, M. de Luynes.”
“Pshaw, your Eminence!” I deprecated; “the poor are always brave. They have naught to lose but their life, and that is not so sweet to them that they lay much store by it. Howbeit, Monseigneur, your wishes have been carried out. There will be no duel at St. Germain this evening.”
“Will there not? Hum! I am not so confident. You are a brave man, M. de Luynes, but you lack that great auxiliary of valour—discretion. What need to fling into the teeth of those fine gentlemen the reason you had for spitting Canaples, eh? You have provoked a dozen enemies for Andrea where only one existed.”
“I will answer for all of them,” I retorted boastfully.
“Fine words, M. de Luynes; but to support them how many men will you have to kill? Pah! What if some fine morning there comes one who, despite your vaunted swordsmanship, proves your master? What will become of that fool, my nephew, eh?”
And his uncanny smile again beamed on me. “Andrea is now packing his valise. In an hour he will have left Paris secretly. He goes—but what does it signify where he goes? He is compelled by your indiscretion to withdraw from Court. Had you kept a close tongue in your foolish head—but there! you did not, and so by a thoughtless word you undid all that you had done so well. You may go, M. de Luynes. I have no further need of you—and thank Heaven that you leave the Palais Royal free to go whither your fancy takes you, and not to journey to the Bastille or to Vincennes. I am merciful, M. de Luynes—as merciful as you are brave; more merciful than you are prudent. One word of warning, M. de Luynes: do not let me learn that you are in my nephew's company, if you would not make me regret my clemency and repair the error of it by having you hanged. And now, adieu!”
I stood aghast. Was I indeed dismissed? Albeit naught had been said, I had not doubted, since my interview with him that morning, that did I succeed in saving Andrea my rank in his guards—and thereby a means of livelihood—would be restored to me. And now matters were no better than they had been before. He dismissed me with the assurance that he was merciful. As God lives, it would have been as merciful to have hanged me!
He met my astonished look with an eye that seemed to ask me why I lingered. Then reading mayhap what was passing in my thoughts, he raised a little silver whistle to his lips and blew softly upon it.
“Bernouin,” said he to his valet, who entered in answer to the summons, “reconduct M. de Luynes.”
I remember drawing down upon my bedraggled person the curious gaze of the numerous clients who thronged the Cardinal's ante-chamber, as I followed Bernouin to the door which opened on to the corridor, and which he held for me. And thus, for the second time within twenty-four hours, did I leave the Palais Royal to wend my way home to the Rue St. Antoine with grim despondency in my heart.
I found Michelot on the point of setting out in search of me, with a note which had been brought to my lodging half an hour ago, and which its bearer had said was urgent. I took the letter, and bidding Michelot prepare me fresh raiment that I might exchange for my wet clothes, I broke the seal and read:
“A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the service you have rendered me and of which his Eminence, my uncle, has informed me. I fear that you have made many enemies for yourself through an action which will likely go unrewarded, and that Paris is therefore as little suited at present to your health as it is to mine. I am setting out for Blois on a mission of exceeding delicacy wherein your advice and guidance would be of infinite value to me. I shall remain at Choisy until to-morrow morning, and should there be no ties to hold you in Paris, and you be minded to bear me company, join me there at the Hôtel du Connétable where I shall lie to-night. Your grateful and devoted
“ANDRE.”
So! There was one at least who desired my company! I had not thought it. “If there be no ties to hold you in Paris,” he wrote. Dame! A change of air would suit me vastly. I was resolved—a fig for the Cardinal's threat to hang me if I were found in his nephew's company!
“My suit of buff, Michelot,” I shouted, springing to my feet, “and my leather jerkin.”
He gazed at me in surprise.
“Is Monsieur going a journey?”
I answered him that I was, and as I spoke I began to divest myself of the clothes I wore. “Pack my suit of pearl grey in the valise, with what changes of linen I possess; then call Master Coupri that I may settle with him. It may be some time before we return.”
In less than half an hour I was ready for the journey, spurred and booted, with my rapier at my side, and in the pocket of my haut-dechausses a purse containing some fifty pistoles—best part of which I had won from Vilmorin at lansquenet some nights before, and which moderate sum represented all the moneys that I possessed.
Our horses were ready, my pistols holstered, and my valise strapped to Michelot's saddle. Despite the desperate outlook of my fortunes, of which I had made him fully cognisant, he insisted upon clinging to me, reminding me that at Rocroi I had saved his life and that he would leave me only when I bade him go.
As four o'clock was striking at Nôtre Dame we crossed the Pont Neuf, and going by the Quai des Augustins and the Rue de la Harpe, we quitted Paris by the St. Michel Gate and took the road to Choisy. The rain had ceased, but the air was keen and cold, and the wind cut like a sword-edge.
Twixt Paris and Choisy there lies but a distance of some two leagues, which, given a fair horse, one may cover with ease in little more than half an hour. So that as the twilight was deepening into night we drew rein before the hostelry of the Connétable, in the only square the little township boasts, and from the landlord I had that obsequious reception which is ever accorded to him who travels with a body-servant.
I found Andrea installed in a fair-sized and comfortable apartment, to the original decoration of which he added not a little by bestowing his boots in the centre of the floor, his hat, sword, and baldrick on the table, his cloak on one chair, and his doublet on another. He himself sat toasting his feet before the blazing logs, which cast a warm, reddish glow upon his sable hair and dainty shirt of cambric.
He sprang up as I entered, and came towards me with a look of pleasure on his handsome, high-bred face, that did me good to see.
“So, you have come, De Luynes,” he cried, putting forth his hand. “I did not dare to hope that you would.”
“No,” I answered. “Truly it was not to be expected that I could be easily lured from Paris just as my fortunes are nearing a high tide, and his Eminence proposing to make me a Marshal of France and create me Duke. As you say, you had scant grounds for hoping that my love for you would suffice to make me renounce all these fine things for the mere sake of accompanying you on your jaunt to Blois.”
He laughed, then fell to thanking me for having rid him of Canaples. I cut him short at last, and in answer to his questions told him what had passed 'twixt his Eminence and me that afternoon. Then as the waiter entered to spread our supper, the conversation assumed a less delicate character, until we were again alone with the table and its steaming viands between us.
“You have not told me yet, Andrea, what takes you to Blois,” quoth I then.
“You shall learn. Little do you dream how closely interwoven are our morning adventures with this journey of mine. To begin with, I go to Blois to pay my dévoirs to the lady whom his Eminence has selected for my future wife.”
“You were then right in describing this as a mission of great delicacy.”
“More than you think—I have never seen the lady.”
“Never seen her? And you go a-wooing a woman you have never seen?”
“It is so. I have never seen her; but his Eminence has, and 't is he who arranges the affair. Ah, the Cardinal is the greatest matchmaker in France! My cousin Anna Martinozzi is destined for the Prince de Conti, my sisters Olympia and Marianne he also hopes to marry to princes of the blood, whilst I dare wager that he has thoughts of seating either Maria or Hortensia upon the throne of France as the wife of Louis XIV., as soon as his Majesty shall have reached a marriageable age. You may laugh, De Luynes, nevertheless all this may come to pass, for my uncle has great ambitions for his family, and it is even possible that should that poor, wandering youth, Charles II. of England, ever return to the throne of his fathers he may also become my brother-in-law. I am likely to become well connected, De Luynes, so make a friend of me whilst I am humble. So much for Mazarin's nieces. His nephews are too young for alliances just yet, saving myself; and for me his Eminence has chosen one of the greatest heiresses in France—Yvonne St. Albaret de Canaples.”
“Whom?” I shouted.
He smiled.
“Curious, is it not? She is the sister of the man whom I quarrelled with this morning, and whom you fought with this afternoon. Now you will understand my uncle's reasons for so strenuously desiring to prevent the duel at St. Germain. It appears that the old Chevalier de Canaples is as eager as the Cardinal to see his daughter wed to me, for his Eminence has promised to create me Duke for a wedding gift. 'T will cost him little, and 't will please these Canaples mightily. Naturally, had Eugène de Canaples and I crossed swords, matters would have been rendered difficult.”
“When did you learn all this?” I inquired.
“To-day, after the duel, and when it was known what St. Auban and Montmédy had threatened me with. My uncle thought it well that I should withdraw from Paris. He sent for me and told me what I have told you, adding that I had best seize the opportunity, whilst my presence at Court was undesirable, to repair to Blois and get my wooing done. I in part agreed with him. The lady is very rich, and I am told that she is beautiful. I shall see her, and if she pleases me, I'll woo her. If not, I'll return to Paris.”
“But her brother will oppose you.”
“Her brother? Pooh! If he doesn't die of the sword-thrust you gave him, which I am told is in the region of the lung and passing dangerous, he will at least be abed for a couple of months to come.”
“But I, mon cher André? What rôle do you reserve for me, that you have desired me to go with you?”
“The rôle of Mentor if you will. Methought you would prove a merry comrade to help one o'er a tedious journey, and knowing that there was little to hold you to Paris, and probably sound reasons why you should desire to quit it, meseemed that perhaps you would consent to bear me company. Who knows, my knight errant, what adventures may await you and what fortunes? If the heiress displeases me, it may be that she will please you—or mayhap there is another heiress at Blois who will fall enamoured of those fierce moustachios.”
I laughed with him at the improbability of such things befalling. I carried in my bosom too large a heart, and one that was the property of every wench I met—for just so long as I chanced to be in her company.
It was no more than in harmony with this habit of mine, that when, next morning in the common-room of the Connétable, I espied Jeanneton, the landlord's daughter, and remarked that she was winsome and shapely, with a complexion that would not have dishonoured a rose-petal, I permitted myself to pinch her dainty cheek. She slapped mine in return, and in this pleasant manner we became acquainted.
“Sweet Jeanneton,” quoth I with a laugh, “that was mightily ill-done! I did but pinch your cheek as one may pinch a sweet-smelling bud, so that the perfume of it may cling to one's fingers.”
“And I, sir,” was the pert rejoinder, “did but slap yours as one may slap a misbehaving urchin's; so that he may learn better manners.”
Nevertheless she was pleased with my courtly speech, and perchance also with my moustachios, for a smile took the place of the frown wherewith she had at first confronted me. Now, if I had uttered glib pleasantries in answer to her frowns, how many more did not her smiles wring from me! I discoursed to her in the very courtliest fashion of cows and pullets and such other matters as interesting to her as they were mysterious to me. I questioned her in a breath touching her father's pigs and the swain she loved best in that little township, to all of which she answered me with a charming wit, which would greatly divert you did I but recall her words sufficiently to set them down. In five minutes we had become the best friends in the world, which was attested by the protecting arm that I slipped around her waist, as I asked her whether she loved that village swain of hers better than she loved me, and refused to believe her when she answered that she did.
Outside two men were talking, one calling for a farrier, and when informed that the only one in the village was absent and not likely to return till noon, demanding relays of horses. The other—probably the hostler—answered him that the Connétable was not a post-house and that no horses were to be had there. Then a woman's voice, sweet yet commanding, rose above theirs.
“Very well, Guilbert,” it said. “We will await this farrier's return.”
“Let me go, Monsieur!” cried Jeanneton. “Some one comes.”
Now for myself I cared little who might come, but methought that it was likely to do poor Jeanneton's fair name no benefit, if the arm of Gaston de Luynes were seen about her waist. And so I obeyed her, but not quickly enough; for already a shadow lay athwart the threshold, and in the doorway stood a woman, whose eye took in the situation before we had altered it sufficiently to avert suspicion. To my amazement I beheld the lady of the coach—she who had saved me from the mob in Place Vendôme, and touching whose identity I could have hazarded a shrewd guess.
In her eyes also I saw the light of recognition which swiftly changed to one of scorn. Then they passed from me to the vanishing Jeanneton, and methought that she was about to call her back. She paused, however, and, turning to the lackey who followed at her heels.
“Guilbert,” she said, “be good enough to call the landlord, and bid him provide me with an apartment for the time that we may be forced to spend here.”
But at this juncture the host himself came hurrying forward with many bows and endless rubbing of hands, which argued untold deference. He regretted that the hostelry of the Connétable, being but a poor inn, seldom honoured as it was at that moment, possessed but one suite of private apartments, and that was now occupied by a most noble gentleman. The lady tapped her foot, and as at that moment her companion (who was none other than the fair-haired doll I had seen with her on the previous day) entered the room, she turned to speak with her, whilst I moved away towards the window.
“Will this gentleman,” she inquired, “lend me one of his rooms, think you?”
“Hélas, Mademoiselle, he has but two, a bedroom and an ante-chamber, and he is still abed.”
“Oh!” she cried in pretty anger, “this is insufferable! 'T is your fault, Guilbert, you fool. Am I, then, to spend the day here in the common-room?”
“No, no, Mademoiselle,” exclaimed the host in his most soothing accents. “Only for an hour, or less, perhaps, until this very noble lord is risen, when assuredly—for he is young and very gallant—he will resign one or both of his rooms to you.”
More was said between them, but my attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere. Michelot burst into the room, disaster written on his face.
“Monsieur,” he cried, in great alarm, “the Marquis de St. Auban is riding down the street with the Vicomte de Vilmorin and another gentleman.”
I rapped out an oath at the news; they had got scent of Andrea's whereabouts, and were after him like sleuth-hounds on a trail.
“Remain here, Michelot,” I answered in a low voice. “Tell them that M. de Mancini is not here, that the only occupant of the inn is your master, a gentleman from Normandy, or Picardy, or where you will. See that they do not guess our presence—the landlord fortunately is ignorant of M. de Mancini's name.”
There was a clatter of horses' hoofs without, and I was barely in time to escape by the door leading to the staircase, when St. Auban's heavy voice rang out, calling the landlord.
“I am in search of a gentleman named Andrea de Mancini,” he said. “I am told that he has journeyed hither, and that he is here at present. Am I rightly informed?”
I determined to remain where I was, and hear that conversation to the end.
“There is a gentleman here,” answered the host, “but I am ignorant of his name. I will inquire.”
“You may spare yourself the trouble,” Michelot interposed. “That is not the gentleman's name. I am his servant.”
There was a moment's pause, then came Vilmorin's shrill voice.
“You lie, knave! M. de Mancini is here. You are M. de Luynes's lackey, and where the one is, there shall we find the other.”
“M. de Luynes?” came a voice unknown to me. “That is Mancini's sword-blade of a friend, is it not? Well, why does he hide himself? Where is he? Where is your master, rascal?”
“I am here, Messieurs,” I answered, throwing wide the door, and appearing, grim and arrogant, upon the threshold.
Mort de ma vie! Had they beheld the Devil, St. Auban and Vilmorin could not have looked less pleased than they did when their eyes lighted upon me, standing there surveying them with a sardonic grin.
St. Auban muttered an oath, Vilmorin stifled a cry, whilst he who had so loudly called to know where I hid myself—a frail little fellow, in the uniform of the gardes du corps—now stood silent and abashed.
The two women, who had withdrawn into a dark and retired corner of the apartment, stood gazing with interest upon this pretty scene.
“Well, gentlemen?” I asked in a tone of persiflage, as I took a step towards them. “Have you naught to say to me, now that I have answered your imperious summons? What! All dumb?”
“Our affair is not with you,” said St. Auban, curtly.
“Pardon! Why, then, did you inquire where I was?”
“Messieurs,” exclaimed Vilmorin, whose face assumed the pallor usual to it in moments of peril, “meseems we have been misinformed, and that M. de Mancini is not here. Let us seek elsewhere.”
“Most excellent advice, gentlemen,” I commented,—“seek elsewhere.”
“Monsieur,” cried the little officer, turning purple, “it occurs to me that you are mocking us.”
“Mocking you! Mocking you? Mocking a gentleman who has been tied to so huge a sword as yours. Surely—surely, sir, you do not think—”
“I'll not endure it,” he broke in. “You shall answer to me for this.”
“Have a care, sir,” I cried in alarm as he rushed forward. “Have a care, sir, lest you trip over your sword.”
He halted, drew himself up, and, with a magnificent gesture: “I am Armand de Malpertuis, lieutenant of his Majesty's guards,” he announced, “and I shall be grateful if you will do me the honour of taking a turn with me, outside.”
“I am flattered beyond measure, M. Malappris—”
“Mal-per-tuis,” he corrected furiously.
“Malpertuis,” I echoed. “I am honoured beyond words, but I do not wish to take a turn.”
“Mille diables, sir! Don't you understand? We must fight.”
“Must we, indeed? Again I am honoured; but, Monsieur, I don't fight sparrows.”
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” cried St. Auban, thrusting himself between us. “Malpertuis, have the goodness to wait until one affair is concluded before you create a second one. Now, M. de Luynes, will you tell me whether M. de Mancini is here or not?”
“What if he should be?”
“You will be wise to withdraw—we shall be three to two.”
“Three to two! Surely, Marquis, your reckoning is at fault. You cannot count the Vicomte there as one; his knees are knocking together; at best he is but a woman in man's clothes. As for your other friend, unless his height misleads me, he is but a boy. Therefore, Monsieur, you see that the advantage is with us. We are two men opposed to a man, a woman, and a child, so that—”
“In Heaven's name, sir,” cried St. Auban, again interposing himself betwixt me and the bellicose Malpertuis, “will you cease this foolishness? A word with you in private, M. de Luynes.”
I permitted him to take me by the sleeve, and lead me aside, wondering the while what curb it was that he was setting upon his temper, and what wily motives he might have for adopting so conciliatory a tone.
With many generations to come, the name of César de St. Auban must perforce be familiar as that of one of the greatest roysterers and most courtly libertines of the early days of Louis XIV., as well as that of a rabid anti-cardinalist and frondeur, and one of the earliest of that new cabal of nobility known as the petits-maîtres, whose leader the Prince de Condé was destined to become a few years later. He was a man of about my own age, that is to say, between thirty-two and thirty-three, and of my own frame, tall, spare, and active. On his florid, débonnair countenance was stamped his character of bon-viveur. In dress he was courtly in the extreme. His doublet and haut-de-chausses were of wine-coloured velvet, richly laced, and he still affected the hanging sleeves of a fast-disappearing fashion. Valuable lace filled the tops of his black boots, a valuable jewel glistened here and there upon his person, and one must needs have pronounced him a fop but for the strength and resoluteness of his bearing, and the long rapier that hung from his gold-embroidered baldrick. Such in brief is a portrait of the man who now confronted me, his fine blue eyes fixed upon my face, wherein methinks he read but little, search though he might.
“M. de Luynes,” he murmured at last, “you appear to find entertainment in making enemies, and you do it wantonly.”
“Have you brought me aside to instruct me in the art of making friends?”
“Possibly, M. de Luynes; and without intending an offence, permit me to remark that you need them.”
“Mayhap. But I do not seek them.”
“I have it in my heart to wish that you did; for I, M. de Luynes, seek to make a friend of you. Nay, do not smile in that unbelieving fashion. I have long esteemed you for those very qualities of dauntlessness and defiance which have brought you so rich a crop of hatred. If you doubt my words, perhaps you will recall my attitude towards you in the horse-market yesterday, and let that speak. Without wishing to remind you of a service done, I may yet mention that I stood betwixt you and the mob that sought to avenge my friend Canaples. He was my friend; you stood there, as indeed you have always stood, in the attitude of a foe. You wounded Canaples, maltreated Vilmorin, defied me; and yet but for my intervention, mille diables sir, you had been torn to pieces.”
“All this I grant is very true, Monsieur,” I made reply, with deep suspicion in my soul. “Yet, pardon me, if I confess that to me it proves no more than that you acted as a generous enemy. Pardon my bluntness also—but what profit do you look to make from gaining my friendship?”
“You are frank, Monsieur,” he said, colouring slightly, “I will be none the less so. I am a frondeur, an anti-cardinalist. In a word, I am a gentleman and a Frenchman. An interloping foreigner, miserly, mean-souled, and Jesuitical, springs up, wins himself into the graces of a foolish, impetuous, wilful queen, and climbs the ladder which she holds for him to the highest position in France. I allude to Mazarin; this Cardinal who is not a priest; this minister of France who is not a Frenchman; this belittler of nobles who is not a gentleman.”
“Mort Dieu, Monsieur—”
“One moment, M. de Luynes. This adventurer, not content with the millions which his avaricious talons have dragged from the people for his own benefit, seeks, by means of illustrious alliances, to enrich a pack of beggarly nieces and nephews that he has rescued from the squalor of their Sicilian homes to bring hither. His nieces, the Mancinis and Martinozzis, he is marrying to Dukes and Princes. 'T is not nice to witness, but 't is the affair of the men who wed them. In seeking, however, to marry his nephew Andrea to one of the greatest heiresses in France, he goes too far. Yvonne de Canaples is for some noble countryman of her own—there are many suitors to her hand—and for no nephew of Giulio Mazarini. Her brother Eugène, himself, thinks thus, and therein, M. de Luynes, you have the real motive of the quarrel which he provoked with Andrea, and which, had you not interfered, could have had but one ending.”
“Why do you tell me all this, Monsieur?” I inquired coldly, betraying none of the amazement his last words gave birth to.
“So that you may know the true position of affairs, and, knowing it, see the course which the name you bear must bid you follow. Because Canaples failed am I here to-day. I had not counted upon meeting you, but since I have met you, I have set the truth before you, confident that you will now withdraw from an affair to which no real interest can bind you, leaving matters to pursue their course.”
He eyed me, methought, almost anxiously from under his brows, as he awaited my reply. It was briefer than he looked for.
“You have wasted time, Monsieur.”
“How? You persist?”
“Yes. I persist. Yet for the Cardinal I care nothing. Mazarin has dismissed me from his service unjustly and unpaid. He has forbidden me his nephew's company. In fact, did he know of my presence here with M. de Mancini, he would probably carry out his threat to hang me.”
“Ciel!” cried St. Auban, “you are mad, if that be so. France is divided into two parties, cardinalists and anti-cardinalists. You, sir, without belonging to either, stand alone, an enemy to both. Your attitude is preposterous!”
“Nay, sir, not alone. There is Andrea de Mancini. The boy is my only friend in a world of enemies. I am growing fond of him, Monsieur, and I will stand by him, while my arm can wield a sword, in all that may advance his fortunes and his happiness. That, Monsieur, is my last word.”
“Do not forget, M. de Luynes,” he said—his suaveness all departed of a sudden, and his tone full of menace and acidity—“do not forget that when a wall may not be scaled it may be broken through.”
“Aye, Monsieur, but many of those who break through stand in danger of being crushed by the falling stones,” I answered, entering into the spirit of his allegory.
“There are many ways of striking,” he said.
“And many ways of being struck,” I retorted with a sneer.
Our words grew sinister, our eyes waxed fiery, and more might have followed had not the door leading to the staircase opened at that moment to admit Andrea himself. He came, elegant in dress and figure, with a smile upon his handsome young face, whose noble features gave the lie to St. Auban's assertion that he had been drawn from a squalid Sicilian home. Such faces are not bred in squalor.
In utter ignorance of the cabal against him, he greeted St. Auban—who was well known to him—with a graceful bow, and also Vilmorin, who stood in the doorway with Malpertuis, and who at the sight of Mancini grew visibly ill at ease. In coming to Choisy, the Vicomte had clearly expected to do no more than second St. Auban in the duel which he thought to see forced upon Andrea. He now realised that if a fight there was, he might, by my presence, be forced into it. Malpertuis looked fierce and tugged at his moustachios, whilst his companions returned Andrea's salutation—St. Auban gravely, and Vilmorin hesitatingly.
“Ha, Gaston,” said the boy, advancing towards me, “our host tells me that two ladies who have been shipwrecked here wish to do me the honour of occupying my apartments for an hour or so. Ha, there they are,” he added, as the two girls came suddenly forward. Then bowing—“Mesdames, I am enchanted to set the poor room at your disposal for as long as it may please you to honour it.”
As the ladies—of whose presence St. Auban had been unaware—appeared before us, I shot a glance at the Marquis, and, from the start he gave upon beholding them, I saw that things were as I had suspected.
Before they could reply to Andrea, St. Auban suddenly advanced:
“Mesdemoiselles,” quoth he, “forgive me if in this miserable light I did not earlier discover your presence and offer you my services. I do so now, with the hope that you will honour me by making use of them.”
“Merci, M. de St. Auban,” replied the dark-haired one—whom I guessed to be none other than Yvonne de Canaples herself—“but, since this gentleman so gallantly cedes his apartments to us, all our needs are satisfied. It would be churlish to refuse that which is so graciously proffered.”
Her tone was cold in the extreme, as also was the inclination of her head wherewith she favoured the Marquis. In arrant contrast were the pretty words of thanks she addressed to Andrea, who stood by, blushing like a girl, and a damnable scowl did this contrast draw from St. Auban, a scowl that lasted until, escorted by the landlord, the two ladies had withdrawn.
There was an awkward pause when they were gone, and methought from the look on St. Auban's face that he was about to provoke a fight after all. Not so, however, for, after staring at us like a clown whilst one might tell a dozen, he turned and strode to the door, calling for his horse and those of his companions.
“Au révoir, M. de Luynes,” he said significantly as he got into the saddle.
“Au révoir, M. de Luynes,” said also Malpertuis, coming close up to me. “We shall meet again, believe me.”
“Pray God that we may not, if you would die in your bed,” I answered mockingly. “Adieu!”