"What is her meaning?" demanded Charles of Montsoreau, as he gazed earnestly upon the door; and as he thus thought his heart beat vehemently, for there was a hope in it which he would not suffer his reason to rest upon for a moment, so improbable did it seem, and so fearful would be disappointment. "What is her meaning?" And he still asked himself the question, as one minute flew by after another, and to his impatience it seemed long ere she returned.
But a few minutes elapsed, however, in reality, ere there were steps heard coming back, and in another minute Catharine de Medici again appeared, saying, "For one hour, remember! For one hour only!"
There was somebody behind her, and the brightest hope that Charles of Montsoreau had dared to entertain was fully realised.
The Queen had drawn Marie de Clairvaut forward; and passing out again, she closed the door, leaving her alone with her lover. If his heart had wanted any confirmation of the deep, earnest, overpowering affection which she entertained towards him, it might have been found in the manner in which--apparently without the power even to move forward, trembling, gasping for breath--she stood before him on so suddenly seeing him again, without having been forewarned, after long and painful and anxious absence. As he had himself acknowledged, he was ignorant in the heart of woman; but love had been a mighty instructor, and he now needed no explanation of the agitation that he beheld.
Starting instantly forward, he threw his arms around her; and it was then, held to his bosom, pressed to his heart, that all Marie de Clairvaut's love and tenderness burst forth. Gentle, timid, modest in her own nature as she was, love and joy triumphed over all. The agony of mind she had been made to suffer, was greater than even he could fancy, and the relief of that moment swept away all other thoughts: the tears, the happy but agitated tears, flowed rapidly from her eyes; but her lips sought his cheek from time to time, her arms clasped tenderly round him, and as soon as she could speak, she said, "Oh Charles, Charles, do I see you again? Am I, am I held in your arms once more; the only one that I have ever loved in life, my saviour, my protector, my defender. For days, for weeks, I have not known whether you were living or dead. They had the cruelty, they had the barbarity not even to let me know whether you had or had not escaped the plague. They have kept me in utter ignorance of where you were, of all and of every thing concerning you." And again she kissed his cheek, though even while she did so, under the overpowering emotions of her heart, the blush of shame came up into her own: and then she hid her eyes upon his bosom, and wept once more in agitation but in happiness.
"As they have acted to you, dearest Marie," he replied, "as they have acted to you, so they have acted to me. The day they separated me from you at Epernon, was the last day that I have spoken with any living creature up to this morning. No answers have been returned to my questions; not a word of intelligence could I obtain concerning your fate; and oh, dear, dear Marie, you would feel, you would know how terrible has been that state to me, if you could tell how ardently, how deeply, how passionately I love you." And his lips met hers, and sealed the assurance there.
"I know it, I know it all, Charles," replied Marie. "I know it by what I have felt; I know it by what I feel myself, for I believe, I do believe, from my very heart, that if it be possible for two people to feel exactly alike, we so feel."
"But tell me, dear Marie, tell me," exclaimed her lover, "tell me where you have been. Have they treated you kindly? Does the Duke of Guise know where you are?"
"Alas, no, Charles!" replied Marie de Clairvaut; "he does not, I grieve to say. Well treated indeed I may say that I have been, for all that could contribute to my mere comfort has been done for me. Nothing that I could desire or wish for, Charles, has been ungiven, and I have ever had the society of the good sisters in the neighbouring convent. But the society that I love has of course been denied me; and no news, no tidings of any kind have reached me. I have lived in short with numbers of people surrounding me, as if I were not in the world at all, and the moment that I asked a question, a deep silence fell upon every one, and I could obtain no reply."
"This is strange indeed," said Charles, "very strange. However, we must be grateful that our treatment has been kind indeed in some respects."
"Oh, and most grateful," replied Marie de Clairvaut, "for these bright moments of happiness. Do you not think, Charles, do you not think, that perhaps the Queen may kindly grant us such interviews again?"
Who is there that does not know how lovers while away the time? Who is there that has not known how short is a lover's hour? But with Charles of Montsoreau and Marie de Clairvaut that hour seemed shorter than it otherwise would have done; for it was not alone the endearing caress, the words, the acknowledgments, the hopes of love, but they had a thousand things in the past to tell each other; they had cares and fears, and plans and purposes for the future, to communicate.
Even had not all shyness, all timidity been done away before, that was not a moment in which Marie de Clairvaut could have affected aught towards her lover; so that what between tidings of the past and thoughts of the future, and the dear dalliance of that spendthrift of invaluable moments, love, an envious clock in some church-tower hard by, had marked the arrival of the last quarter of an hour they were to remain together, ere one tenth part of what they had to think of or to say was either thought or said. The sound startled them, and it became a choice whether they should give up the brief remaining space to serious thoughts of the future, or whether they should yield it all to love. Who is it with such a choice before him that ever hesitated long?
The space allotted for their interview had drawn near its close, and the very scantiness of the period that remained was causing them to spend it in regrets that it was not longer, when suddenly the general sounds which came from the streets became louder and more loud, as if some door or gate had been opened which admitted the noise more distinctly. Both Marie de Clairvaut and her lover listened, and almost at the same instant loud cries were heard of "The Duke of Guise! The Duke of Guise! Long live the Duke of Guise! Long live the great pillar of the Catholic church! Long live the House of Lorraine!" And this was followed by the noise and trampling of horses, as if entering into a court below.
Marie and her lover gazed in each other's faces, but she it was that first spoke the joyful hopes that were in the heart of both.
"He has come to deliver us!" she cried. "Oh Charles, he has come to deliver us! Hear how gladly the people shout his well-loved name! Surely they will not deceive him, and tell him we are not here."
"Oh no, dear Marie," replied her lover; "he has certain information, depend upon it, and will not be easily deceived. He has already discovered my abode, dear Marie; and this letter was thrown through the window this morning, though I myself know not where we are--that is to say, I am well aware that we are now in Paris, but I know not in what part of the city."
"Oh, that I discovered from one of the nuns," replied Marie. "We are at the house of the Black Penitents, in the Rue St. Denis. I remember the outside of it well; a large dark building with only two windows to the street. Do you not remember it? You must have seen it in passing."
"I am not so well acquainted with the city as you are, dear Marie," replied Charles of Montsoreau; "but, depend upon it, where they have confined me is not in the house of the Black Penitents. It would be a violation of the rules of the order which could not be."
"It communicates with their dwelling," replied Marie de Clairvaut; "of that at least I am certain; for the Queen, when she brought me hither, took me not into the open air. She led me indeed through numerous passages, one of which, some ten or twelve yards in length, was nearly dark, for it had no windows, and was only lighted by the door left open behind us. I was then placed in a little room while the Queen went on, and a short time after I heard a voice, that made my heart beat strangely, begin to sing a song that you once sung at Montsoreau; and when I was thinking of you Charles, and all that you had done for me--how you had first saved me from the reiters, and then rescued me from the deep stream, and had then come to seek me and deliver me in the midst of death and pestilence--I was thinking of all these things, when Catherine came back, and without telling me what was her intention, led me hither."
"Hark!" cried Charles of Montsoreau. "They shout again. I wonder that we have heard no farther tidings."
And they both sat and listened for some minutes, but no indication of any farther event took place, and they gradually resumed their conversation, beginning in a low tone, as if afraid of losing a sound from without. Marie de Clairvaut had already told her lover how she had remained at Epernon for a day or two under the protection of the wife of the Duke, and had been thence brought by her to Paris and placed in the convent at a late hour of the evening; but as the time wore away, and their hopes of liberation did not seem about to be realized, she recurred to the subject of her arrival, saying, "There is one thing which makes me almost fear they will deceive him, Charles. I forgot to tell you, that as we paused before this building on the night that I was brought hither, while the gates were being opened by the portress, a horseman rode up to the side of the carriage and gazed in. There were torches on the other side held by the servants round the gate, and though I could not see that horseman as well as he could see me, yet I feel almost sure that it was the face of the Abbé de Boisguerin I beheld."
"I know he was to return to Paris," said Charles of Montsoreau, "after accompanying my brother some part of the way back to the château. But fear not him, dear Marie; he has no power or influence here."
"Oh, but I fear far more wile and intrigue," cried Marie de Clairvaut, "than I do power and influence, Charles. Power is like a lion, bold and open; but when once satisfied, injures little; but art is like a serpent that stings us, without cause, when we least expect it. But hark!" she continued again. "They are once more shouting loudly."
Charles of Montsoreau listened also, and the cries, repeated again and again, of "Long live the Duke of Guise! Long live the House of Lorraine! Long live the good Queen Catherine![5] Life to the Queen! Life to the Queen!" were heard mingled with thundering huzzas and acclamations. The heart of the young Count sank, for he judged that the Duke had gone forth again amongst the people, and had either forgotten his fate altogether in more important affairs, or had been deceived by false information regarding himself and Mademoiselle de Clairvaut.
The cries, which were at first loud and distinct, gradually sunk, till first the words could no longer be distinguished; then the acclamations became more and more faint, till the whole died away into a distant murmur, rising and falling like the sound of the sea beating upon a stormy shore. The young Count gazed in the countenance of Marie de Clairvaut, and saw therein written even more despairing feelings than were in his own heart.
"Fear not, dear Marie," he said pressing her to his bosom. "Fear not; the Duke must know that I am here by this letter: nor is he one to be easily deceived. Depend upon it he will find means to deliver us ere long."
Marie de Clairvaut shook her head with a deep sigh and with her eyes filled with tears. But she had not time to reply, for steps were heard in the passage, and the moment after the door of the room was opened.
It was no longer, however, the figure of Catherine de Medici that presented itself, but the homely person and somewhat unmeaning face of a good lady, dressed in the habit of a prioress. Behind her, again, was a lay-sister, and beside them both the attendant who was accustomed to wait upon the young Count. The good lady who first appeared looked round the scene that the opening door disclosed to her with evident marks of curiosity and surprise; and, indeed, the whole expression of her countenance left little doubt that she had never been in that place before.
After giving up a minute to her curiosity, however, she turned to Mademoiselle de Clairvaut, saying, "I have been sent by the Queen, madam, to conduct you back to your apartments."
"Let me first ask one question," replied Marie de Clairvaut. "Has not the Duke of Guise been here?"
The nun answered not a word.
"We need no assurance of it, dear Marie," said Charles of Montsoreau, hoping to drive the Prioress to some answer. "We know that he has, and must have been deceived in regard to your state and mine."
The Prioress was still silent; and Marie de Clairvaut, after waiting for a moment, added, "If he have been deceived, Charles, woe to those who have deceived him. He is not a man to pass over lightly such conduct as has been shown to me already."
"Madam," said the Prioress, "I have been sent by the Queen to show you to your apartments."
It was vain to resist or to linger. Marie de Clairvaut gave her hand to her lover, and they gazed in each other's faces for a moment with a long and anxious glance, not knowing when they might meet again. Charles of Montsoreau could not resist; and notwithstanding the presence of nun, prioress, and attendant, he drew the fair creature whose hand he held in his gently to his bosom, and pressed a parting kiss upon her lips.
Marie turned away with her eyes full of tears, and leaving her hand in his till the last moment, she slowly approached the door. She turned for one other look ere she departed, and then, dashing the tears from her eyes, passed rapidly out. The door closed behind her, and Charles of Montsoreau alone, and almost without hope, buried his face in his hands, and gave himself up to think over the sweet moments of the past.
It was on the morning of Monday, the 9th of May, 1588, at about half past eleven o'clock, that a party, consisting of sixteen horsemen, of whom eight were gentlemen and the rest grooms, appeared at the gates of Paris. But though each of those eight persons who led the cavalcade were strong and powerful men, in the prime of life, highly educated, and generally distinguished in appearance, yet there was one on whom all eyes rested wherever he passed, and rested with that degree of wonder and admiration which might be well called forth by the union of the most perfect graces of person, with the appearance of the greatest vigour and activity, and with a dignity and beauty of expression which breathed not only from the countenance, but from the whole person, and shone out in every movement, as well as in every look.
The gates of the city were at this time open, and though a certain number of guards were hanging about the buildings on either hand, yet no questions were asked of any one who came in or went out of the city. The moment, however, that the party we have mentioned appeared, and he who was at its head paused for a moment on the inside of the gate and gazed round, as if looking for some one that he expected to see there, one of the bystanders whispered eagerly to the other, "It is the Duke! It is the Duke of Guise!"
All hats were off in a moment; all voices cried, "The Duke! The Duke!" A loud acclamation ran round the gate, and the people from the small houses in the neighbourhood poured forth at the sound, rending the air with their acclamations, and pressing forward round his horse with such eagerness that it was scarcely possible for him to pass along his way. Some kissed his hand, some threw themselves upon their knees before him, some satisfied themselves by merely touching his cloak, as if it had saintly virtue in it, and still the cry ran on of "The Duke of Guise! The Duke of Guise! Long live the Duke of Guise!" while every door-way and alley and court-yard poured forth its multitudes, till the people seemed literally to crush each other in the streets, and all Paris echoed with the thundering acclamations.
After that momentary pause at the gates, the Duke of Guise rode on, uncovering his splendid head, and bowing lowly to the people as he went. His face had been flushed by exercise when he arrived, but now the deep excitement of such a reception had taken the colour from his cheek; he was somewhat pale, and his lip quivered with intense feeling. But there was a fire in his eye which seemed to speak that his heart was conscious of great purposes, and ready to fulfil its high emprise; and there was a degree of stern determination on that lordly brow, which spoke also the knowledge but the contempt of danger, and the resolution of meeting peril and overcoming resistance.
Thus passing on amidst the people, and bowing as he went to their repeated cheers, the Duke of Guise reached the convent of the Black Penitents, where for the time the Queen-mother had taken up her abode. The gates of the outer court into which men were suffered to enter were thrown open to admit him; and signifying to such of the crowd as were nearest to the gate that they had better not follow him into the court, the Duke of Guise rode in with his attendants, and the gates were again closed. The servants and the gentlemen who accompanied him remained beside their horses in the court, while he alone entered the parlour of the convent to speak with the Queen-mother.
She did not detain him an instant, but came in with a countenance on which much alarm was painted, either by nature or by art. The Duke at once advanced to meet her, and bending low his towering head, he kissed the hand which she held out to him.
"Alas! my Lord of Guise," she said, "I must not so far falsify the truth as to say that I am glad to see you. Glad, most glad should I have been to see you, any where but here. But, alas! I fear you have come at great peril to yourself, good cousin! You know not how angry the minds of men are; you know not how much hostility reigns against you in the breasts of many of the highest of the land; you have not bethought you, that on every step to the throne there stands an enemy----"
"Who shall fall before me, madam," replied the Duke of Guise.
"Till you have reached the throne itself, fair cousin?" said the Queen-mother.
"No, madam, no," answered the Duke of Guise eagerly. "I thought your Majesty had known me better. I have always believed that you were one of those who felt and understood that I never dreamt of wronging my master and my king, or of snatching, as you now hinted, the crown from its lawful possessor."
"I have felt it, and I have understood it, cousin of Guise," replied Catharine de Medici. "But, alas! my Lord, I know how ambition grows upon the heart. It begins with an acorn, Guise, but it ends with an oak. Those that watch it, the very soil that bears it, perceive not its increase; and yet it soon overshadows all things, and root it out who can!"
"Madam," answered the Duke of Guise, boldly, "to follow the figure that you have used, the axe soon reduces the oak; and may the axe be used on me, and ease me of earth's ambition for ever, if any such designs as have been attributed to me exist within my bosom! You see, madam, I meet you boldly, look to ultimate consequences of ambitious designs, and fear not the result. It is such accusations that I come to repel, and it is those who have propagated them, and instilled them both into the mind of his Majesty, and, as it would appear, your own, that I come to punish. Trusting that, humble though I be, your Majesty was the best friend I had at the court of France, I have ridden straight hither, without even stopping at my own abode, to beseech you to accompany me to the presence of the King."
"I do believe, cousin of Guise, that I am your best friend at the court of France," replied the Princess. "In fact, I may say, I know that none there loves you but myself. Nor must you think that I accuse you of actual ambition, or believe the rumours that have been circulated against you. I merely wish to warn you of the growth of such things in your own bosom."
"Dear madam," replied the Duke, "had I been ambitious, what might I not have become? Here am I simply the Duke of Guise; a poor officer, commanding part of the King's troops, and contributing no small part of my own to swell his forces; with scarcely a place, a post, a government, an emolument, or a revenue, except what I derive from my own estates. Am I the most ambitious man in France? Am I so ambitious as he who adds, to the government of Metz, the government of Normandy, and piles upon that Touraine, Anjou, Saintonge, the Angoumois, seizes upon the office of High-admiral, creates himself Colonel-general of the Infantry? This, lady, is the ambitious man; but of him you seem to entertain no fear."
"There are two ambitions, my Lord Duke," replied the Queen: "the ambition which grasps at power, and the ambition which snatches at wealth: the moment that ambition mingles itself with avarice, the grovelling passion, chained in its own sordid bonds, is no longer to be feared. It is where the object is power; where there is a mind to conceive the means, and a heart to dare all the risks, that there is indeed occasion for apprehension and for precaution. Still, my Lord, I believe you; still I believe that the hand of Guise will never be raised to pull down the bonnet of Valois. You may strip the minion Epernon of the golden plumes with which he has decked his mid-air wings, for aught I care or think of; you may cast down the dark and plotting Villequier, and sweep the court of apes and parrots, fools and villains, and the whole tribe of natural and human beasts, without my saying one word to oppose you, or without my dreaming for a moment that you aim at higher things; you may even soar higher still, and like your great father become at once the guide and the defender of the state, and still I will not fear you. But Guise," she added in a softer tone, "I must and will still fear for you; and though I will go with you to the King if you continue to demand it, yet I tell you, and I warn you, that every step you take is perilous, and that I cannot be your safeguard nor your surety for a moment!"
"Madam, I must fulfil my fate," replied the Duke of Guise looking up. "I came here to justify myself; I came here to deliver and to support my friends; I came here to secure honour and safety to the Catholic Church; and did I know that the daggers of a hundred assassins would be in my bosom at the first step I took beyond those gates, I would go forth as resolutely as I came hither."
"Then I must send to announce your coming to the King," said the Queen. "Of course I cannot take you to the Louvre unannounced."
Thus saying she quitted the room for a moment, and the Duke remained behind with his arms crossed upon his bosom in deep thought. She returned in a moment, however, saying that she had sent one of her gentlemen upon the errand, and the next minute as the gates were opened for some one to go out, long and reiterated shouts of "A Guise! A Guise! Long live the Guise!" were heard echoing round the building. Catharine de Medici smiled and looked at the Duke. "How often have I heard," she said, "those same light Parisian tongues exclaim the name of different princes! I remember well, Guise, when first I came from my fair native land, how the glad multitude shouted on my way; how all the streets were strewed with flowers; and how, if I had believed the words I heard, I should have fancied that not a man in all the land but would have died to serve me; and yet, not long after, I have heard execrations murmured in the throats of the dull multitude while I passed by, and the name of Diana of Poitiers echoed through the streets. Then have I not heard the names of a Francis and a Henry shouted far and wide? and after Jarnac and Moncontour, the heavens were scarcely high enough to hold the sounds of his name who now sits upon the throne of France. To-day it is Guise they call upon!--Who shall it be to-morrow? And then another and another still shall come, the object of an hour's love changed into hatred in a moment."
"It is too true, madam," replied the Duke. "Popularity is the most fleeting, the most vacillating--if you will, the most contemptible--of all those means and opportunities which Heaven gives us to be made use of for great ends. But nevertheless, madam, we must so make use of them all; and as this same popularity is one of the briefest of the whole, so must we be the more ready, the more prompt, the more decided in taking advantage of the short hour of brightness. I may be wrong in thinking," he continued after the pause of a moment or two, "I may be wrong in thinking that my well-being and that of the state and church of this realm are intimately bound up together. It may be, and probably is, a delusion of human vanity. Nevertheless, such being my opinion, none can say that I am wrong in taking advantage of the moment of my popularity to do the best that I can both for the church and for the state. Such, I assure you, madam, is my object; and if I benefit myself at all in these transactions, it can be, and shall be, but collaterally; while in the mean time I incur perils which I know and yet fear not."
Thus went on the conversation between the Queen and the Duke of Guise for nearly half an hour, at the end of which time the gentleman who had been dispatched to the King returned, bearing his Majesty's reply, which was, that since his mother desired it, she might bring the Duke of Guise to his presence, and Catherine prepared immediately to set out. Her chair was brought round; and after speaking a few words with the superior of the convent, she placed herself in the vehicle, the Duke of Guise walking by her side. The gentlemen who had come with him gave their horses to the grooms, and followed on foot; and several servants and attendants ran on before to clear the way through the people.
The moment the gates were opened, a spectacle struck the eyes of the Queen and the Duke, such as no city in the world perhaps, except Paris, could produce. In the short period which had elapsed since the Duke's arrival, the news had spread from one end of the capital to the other, and the whole of its multitudes were poured out into the streets or lining the windows, or crowning the house-tops. With a rapidity scarcely to be conceived, scaffoldings had been raised in that short space of time in different parts of the streets, to enable the multitude to see the Duke better as he passed[6]; in many places, velvets and rich tapestries were hung out upon the fronts of the houses, as if some solemn procession of the church were taking place; the ladies of the higher classes at the windows, or on their scaffolds, were generally without the masks which they usually wore in the streets; and again, when the gates of the convent opened, and the Queen and the Duke issued forth, the air seemed actually rent with the acclamations of the people, and a long line of waving hats and handkerchiefs was seen all the way up the Rue St. Denis.
The same gratulations as before met the Duke on every side as he passed along; the populace seemed absolutely inclined to worship him, and many threw themselves upon their knees as he passed. He looked round upon the dense mass of people, upon the crowded houses, upon the waving hands; he heard from every tongue a welcome, at every step a gratulation, and it was impossible for the heart of man not to feel at that moment a pride and a confidence fit to bear him strongly on his perilous way.
All the way down the Rue St. Denis, and through every other street that he passed, the same scene presented itself, the same acclamations followed him, so that the shouts thundered in the ear of the King as he sat in the Louvre.
At length the Queen and those who accompanied her approached the palace; and in the open space before it, which was at that time railed off, was drawn up a long double line of guards, forming a lane through which it was necessary to pass to the gates. The well-known Crillon, celebrated for his determination and bravery, was at their head; and the Duke of Guise, obliged to pause in order to suffer the chair of the Queen-mother to pass on first, bowed to the commander, whom he knew and respected.
Crillon scarcely returned his salutation, but looked frowning along the double row of his soldiery. The people, close by the railings, watched every movement, and a murmur of something like apprehension for their favourite ran through them as they watched these signs. But not a moment's pause marked the slightest hesitation in the Duke of Guise. With his head raised and his eyes flashing, he drew forward the hilt of his unconquered sword ready for his hand, and holding the scabbard in his left, strode after the chair of the Queen till the gates of the Louvre closed upon him and his train.
A number of officers and gentlemen were waiting in the vestibule to receive the Queen-mother, who however gave her hand to the Duke of Guise to assist her from her chair. On him they gazed with eyes of wonder and of scrutiny, as if they would fain have discovered what feelings were in the heart of one so hated and dreaded by the King, at a moment when he stood with closed doors within a building filled with his enemies, and surrounded by soldiers ready to massacre him at a word. But the fire which the menacing look of Crillon had brought into the eyes of the Duke had now passed away, and all was calm dignity and easy though grave self-possession. The eye wandered not round the hall; the lip, though not compressed, was firm and motionless, except when he smiled in saluting some of those around whom he knew, or in speaking a few words to the Queen-mother, whose dress had become somewhat entangled with a mantle of sables which she had worn in the chair.
As soon as it was detached, one of the officers of the household said, bowing low, "His Majesty has commanded me, Madam, to conduct you and his Highness of Guise to the chamber of her Majesty the Queen, where he waits your coming." And he led the way up the stairs of the Louvre to the somewhat extraordinary audience chamber which the King had selected.
Henry, when the party entered, was sitting near the side of the bed, surrounded by several of his officers, one of whom, Alphonzo d'Ornano by name, whispered something over the King's shoulder with his eyes fixed upon the Duke of Guise.
The words, which were, "Do you hold him for your friend or your enemy?" were spoken in such a tone as almost to reach the Duke himself. The King did not reply, but looked up at the Duke with a frown that was quite sufficient.
"Speak but the word," said Ornano in a lower tone, "speak but the word, and his head shall be at your feet in a minute."
The King measured Ornano and the Duke of Guise with his eyes, then shook his head with somewhat of a scornful smile; and then, looking up to the Duke, who had by this time come near him, he said in a dull heavy tone, "What brings you here, my cousin?"
"My Lord," replied the Duke, "I have found it absolutely necessary to present myself before your Majesty, in order to repel numerous calumnies."
"Stay, cousin of Guise," said the King; and turning to Bellievre, who stood amongst the persons behind him, he demanded abruptly, "Did you not tell me that he would not come to Paris?"
"My Lord Duke," exclaimed Bellievre, not replying directly to the King's question, but addressing the Duke, "did not your Highness assure me that you would delay your journey till I returned?"
"Yes, Monsieur de Bellievre," replied the Duke. "But you did not return."
"But I wrote you two letters, your Highness," replied Bellievre, "reiterating his Majesty's commands for you not to come to Paris."
"Those letters," replied the Duke of Guise, with a bitter smile, "like some other letters which have been written to me upon important occasions, have, from some cause, failed to reach my hands. Nevertheless, Sire, believe me when I tell you, that my object in coming is solely to prove to your Majesty that I am not guilty either of the crimes or the designs which base and grasping men have laid to my charge. Believe me, that after my devotion to God and our holy religion, there is no one whom I am so anxious to serve zealously and devotedly as your Majesty. This you will find ever, Sire, if you will but give me the opportunity of rendering you any service."
The King was about to reply, but the Queen-mother, who had advanced and stood by his side, touched his arm saying, "You have not yet spoken to me, my son." And the King turning towards her, she added something in a low voice. The King replied in the same tone; and the Duke of Guise, passing through the midst of the frowning faces ranged around the royal seat, approached the Queen-consort, the mild and unhappy Louisa, and addressed a few words to her of reverence and respect which were gratifying to her ear. He then turned once more to the King, who seemed to have heard what Catharine de Medici had to say, and having given his reply, sat in moody silence. The Queen-mother stood by with some degree of apprehension in her countenance, as if feeling very doubtful still how the affair would terminate. The brows of the courtiers were gloomy and undecided, and the few followers of the Duke of Guise ranged at some distance from the spot to which he had now advanced, kept their eyes fixed either on him or on those surrounding the King, as if, at the least menacing movement, they were ready to start forward in defence of their leader.
The only one that was perfectly calm was Guise himself; but he, retreading his steps till he stood opposite the King, again addressed the Monarch saying, "I hope, Sire, that you will give me a full opportunity of justifying myself."
"Your conduct, cousin of Guise," replied the King, "must best justify you for the past; and I shall judge by the event, of your intentions for the future."
"Let it be so," replied the Duke, "and such being the case, I will humbly take my leave of your Majesty, wishing you, from my heart, health and happiness."
Thus saying he once more bowed low, and retired from the presence of the King, followed by the gentlemen who had accompanied him. Not an individual of the palace stirred a step to conduct him on his way, though his rank, his services, his genius, and his vast renown, rendered the piece of neglect they showed disgraceful to themselves rather than injurious to him. He was accompanied from the gates of the Louvre, however, and followed to the Hôtel de Guise, by an infinite number of people, who ceased not for one moment to make the streets ring with their acclamations.
Nor were these by any means composed entirely of the lowest classes of the people, the least respectable, or the least well-informed. On the contrary, it must, alas! be said, that the great majority of all that was good, upright, and noble in the city hailed his coming loudly as a security and a safeguard.
A number, an immense number, of the inferior nobility of the realm were mingled with the crowd that followed him, or joined the acclaim from the windows. The robes of the law were seen continually in the dense multitude, and almost all the courts had there numbers of their principal members; while the municipal officers of the city, with the exception of two or three, were there in a mass, accompanied by a large body of the most opulent and respectable merchants.
Thus followed, the Duke of Guise proceeded to his hotel on foot as he came, speaking from time to time with those who pressed near him with that peculiar grace which won all hearts, and smiling with the far-famed smile of his race, which was said never to fall upon any man without making him feel as if he stood in the sunshine.
Already collected on the steps of the Hôtel de Guise, at the news that he was returning from the Louvre, was a group of the brightest, the bravest, the most talented, and the most beautiful of the French nobility,--Madame de Montpensier, Mademoiselle de St. Beuve, the Chevalier d'Aumale, Brissac, and a thousand others. The servants and attendants of his household in gorgeous dresses kept back the crowd with courteous words and kindly gestures; and when he reached the steps that led to the high doorway of the porter's lodge, on the right of the porte cochère, he ascended a little way amongst his gratulating friends, and then turned and bowed repeatedly to the people, pointing out here and there some of the most popular of the citizens and magistrates, and whispering a word to the nearest attendant, who instantly made his way through the crowd to the spot where the personage designated stood, and in his master's name requested that he would come in and take some refreshment.
When this was over, he again bowed and retired; and while the multitude separated, he walked on into his lordly halls with a number of persons clinging round him, whom he had not seen for months--for months which to him had been full of activity, thought, care, and peril, and to them of anxiety for the head of their race.
As he passed along, however, to a chamber where the dinner which had been prepared for him had remained untouched for many an hour, his eye fell upon a boy dressed in the habit of one of his own pages; and taking suddenly a step forward, he called the boy apart into a window, demanding eagerly, "Well, have you found your master?"
"I have, your Highness," replied the boy, "and have found means to give him the letter?"
"What!" exclaimed the Duke, "outwitted Villequier, and Pisani, and all! The wit of a page against that of a politician for a thousand crowns!"
"I dressed myself as a girl, your Highness," replied the boy, "and got into the convent, and then through a gate into what is called the rector's court, where Doctor Botholph and the Curé live, and where men are admitted, and women not shut out when they like to go in; and I got talking to the old verger of the church by the side, and he called me a pretty little fool, and said he dared to say I would soon be among the penitents within there; and with that I got him to tell me every thing, and the whole story of the young Count being brought there at night, and shut up in what are called the rector's apartments."
As he spoke, one or two of the higher class of those whom the Duke had selected from the crowd below, and who felt themselves privileged to present themselves in his private apartments, entered the hall, and instantly caught his eye.
"I cannot speak with you more at present, Ignati," he said, "nor, perhaps, during the whole day, for there is business of life and death before me; but come to me while I am rising to-morrow, and only tell me in the mean time where our poor Logères is, for I know not what convent you mean."
"He is in the rector's court," replied the boy, "close by the convent of the Black Penitents, in the Rue St. Denis."
"By my faith!" exclaimed the Duke in no slight surprise, "I have been there this very day myself, and there the Queen-mother has made her abode for the last ten days. She must be deceiving me; and yet, perhaps, the mighty matters that occupied her mind when I saw her might have made her forget all other things. However, Logères shall not be long so fettered. Come to me to-morrow, Ignati; come to me to-morrow, as I am rising; and in the mean time, if you can find some means of giving the Count intimation that he is not forgotten, it were all the better."
"I will try, my Lord," replied the boy. And the Duke hurried on to welcome his new guests, making them sit down at table with him, and covering them with every sort of honour and distinction.
In our dealings with each other there is nothing which we so much miscalculate as the ever varying value of time, and indeed it is but too natural to look upon it as it seems to us, and not as it seems to others. The slow idler on whose head it hangs heavy, holds the man of business by the button, and remorselessly robs him on the king's highway of a thing ten times more valuable than the purse that would hang him if he took it. The man of action and of business whose days seem but moments, forgets in his dealing with the long expecting applicant, and the weary petitioner, that to them each moment is far longer than his day.
The hours, not one minute of which were unfilled to the Duke of Guise, passed slowly over the head of Charles of Montsoreau, and it seemed as if the brief gleam of happiness which had come across his path had but tended to make the long solitary moments seem longer and more dreary; in fact, to give full and painful effect to solitude and want of liberty, and yet he would not have lost that gleam for all the world.
He thought of it, he dwelt upon it, he called to mind each and every particular; and, though it was crossed, as the memory of all such brief meetings are, with the recollection of a thousand things which he could have wished to have said, but which he had forgotten, and also by many a speculation of a painful kind concerning the visit of the Duke of Guise to the very place in which he was confined, without the slightest effort being made for his liberation, yet it was a consolation and a happiness and a joy to him--one of those blessings which have been stamped by the past with the irrevocable seal of enjoyment, which are our own, the unalienable jewels of our fate, held for ever in the treasury of memory.
Nothing occurred through the rest of the day to call his attention, or to rouse his feelings. He heard the distant murmur, and the shouts of the people from time to time; but the gates were now shut, and the sounds dull, and all passed on evenly till darkness shut up the world. In the mean time he knew--as if to make his state of imprisonment and inactivity more intolerable--that busy actions were taking place without, that his own fate was deciding by the hands of others, that his happiness and that of Marie de Clairvaut formed but a small matter in the great bulk of political affairs which were then being weighed between the two angry parties in the capital, and might be tossed into this scale or that, as accident, or convenience, or policy might direct.
Though he retired to rest as usual, he slept not, and ever and anon when a sort of half slumber fell upon his eyes he started up, thinking he heard some sound, a distant shout of the people, the tolling of a bell, or the roll of some far off drum. Nothing however occurred, and the night passed over as the day.
In the grey of the morning, however, just when the slow creaking of a gate, or the noise of footsteps here and there breaking the previous stillness, told that the world was beginning to awake, a few sweet notes suddenly met his ear like those of a musical instrument, and in a moment after he heard the same air which the boy Ignati had played with such exquisite skill just before he freed him from his Italian masters.
"A blessing be upon that boy," he cried, as he instantly recognised not only the sounds but the touch. "He has come to tell me that I am not forgotten."
Suddenly, however, before the air was half concluded, the music stopped, and voices were heard speaking, but not so loud that the words could be distinguished. It seemed to the young Count, and seemed truly, that some one had sent the boy away; but though he heard no more, those very sounds had given him hope and comfort.
Driven away by the old verger, who had now discovered the trick which had been put upon him the day before, the boy returned with all speed to the Hôtel de Guise, and, according to the Duke's order, presented himself in his chamber at the hour of his rising. But the Duke was already surrounded with people, all eager to speak with him on different affairs, and his brow was evidently dark and clouded by some news that he had just heard.
"Send round," he was saying as the boy entered, "Send round speedily to all the inns, and let those who are known for their fidelity be informed that the doors of this hotel will never be shut against any of those who have come to Paris for my service, or for that of the church, as long as there is a chamber vacant within. And you, my good Lords," he continued, turning to some of the gentlemen who surrounded him, "I must call upon your hospitality, also, to provide lodging for these poor friends of ours, whom this new and iniquitous proceeding of the court is likely to drive from Paris. But stay, Bussi," he continued, and his eye fell upon the page as he spoke; "you say you saw the Prévôt des Marchands but a minute ago in the Rue d'Anvoye seeking out the lodgers in the inns, and ordering them to quit Paris immediately. Hasten down after him quickly, and tell him from Henry of Guise that there is a very dangerous prisoner and a zealous servant of the church lodged in the Rue St. Denis; that he had better drive him forth also; and that, if he wants direction to the place where he sojourns, one of my pages shall lead him thither. You may add, moreover, that if he do not drive him forth, I will bring him forth before the world be a day older."
The Duke of Guise then took the pen from the ink which was standing before him, and, though not yet half-dressed, wrote hastily the few following words to the Queen-mother:--