La Dame de Monsoreau (26 page)

And saluting Diane with an air in which respect was blended with ardent love and deep sadness, Bussy withdrew.

Diane leaned toward the door to listen to the sound of the young man's retreating footsteps, and long after that sound had died away, she was listening still, with beating heart and eyes bathed in tears.

CHAPTER XVII.

HOW LONG IT TOOK HENRI III. TO TRAVEL FROM PARIS TO FONTAINEBLEAU.

THE sun that arose four or five hours after the events we have just related saw by its pale light, which barely succeeded in silvering the edges of a reddish cloud, the departure of Henri III. for Fontainebleau, where, as we have also mentioned, there was to be a great hunting party in two days.

This departure, which in the case of another prince might have passed unnoticed, created a sensation by the bustle, noise, and confusion it led in its train ; in this resembling all the incidents in the life of this strange monarch whose reign we have undertaken to portray.

Before eight o'clock in the morning a crowd of gentlemen on duty, mounted on good horses and wrapped in fur cloaks, rode out through the gateway situated between the Cour de Coin and the Rue de FAstruce, and formed a line on the Quai du Louvre ; after them came a legion of pages, next a multitude of lackeys, and last, a company of Swiss, which went immediately in front of the royal litter.

This litter, drawn by eight magnificently caparisoned mules, merits the honor of a detailed description, i It was a machine, almost in the form of a square, resting on 'four wheels; it was furnished with a superabundance of cushions inside and hung with curtains of brocade on the outside; it was about fifteen feet long and eight feet broad. When the roads were uneven or hilly an indefinite number of oxen was substituted for the eight mules ; their slow but vigorous pertinacity, although not conducive to speed, gave assurance, however, that they would reach their goal some time or other — if not in an hour, at least in two or three.

This machine contained Henri III. and all his court, the Queen, Louise de Vaudemont, excepted, who, we may as well say, was of so little account in her husband's court, unless during a period of processions and pilgrimages, that it is scarce worth while mentioning her.

Let us, therefore, leave out the poor Queen, and direct our attention to the composition of King Henri's court when that monarch travelled.

It consisted, first, of King Henri himself; his physician; Marc Miron, his chaplain, whose name has not come down to us; our old acquaintance, Chicot, the jester; five or six of the minions in favor, who, for the nonce, were Quelus, Schomberg, D'Epernon, D'O, and Maugiron; a couple of huge greyhounds, that yawned incessantly and slipped in their long, snake-like heads between all these people who sat, or stood, or knelt, or reclined on cushions; and a basket of little English dogs, which alternately rested on the King's knees or hung from his neck, suspended by a chain or by ribbon.

Occasionally a hind was brought from a sort of kennel made for her accommodation, and suckled this basketful of puppies from her milk-swollen udders ; the two hounds looking on sympathetically the while as they rubbed their sharp muzzles against the string of beads, fashioned like death's-

heads, that rattled at the King's side; they knew the favor they enjoyed and were not jealous.

From the ceiling of the litter swung a cage of gilt copper wire ; it contained the most beautiful doves in the world, with plumage white as snow and black rings round their necks.

If, perchance, a lady entered the royal litter the menagerie was augmented by the presence of two or three monkeys of the sapajo species, the monkey enjoying, for the moment, great favor among the exquisites at the court of the last of the Valois.

Ah image of Our Lady of Chartres, wrought in marble by Jean Goujon for Henri II., stood in a gilt niche at the back of the litter ; she gazed down on her divine son with eyes that seemed astonished at all they saw.

It was natural, then, that all the pamphlets of the time, and there was no scarcity of them, and all the satires of the period, and there were enough and to spare of them, should have done this litter the honor of directing attention to it frequently; their usual designation for it was "Noah's Ark."

The King sat at the back of the litter, just under the niche and statue ; at his feet lay Quelus and Maugiron, plaiting ribbons. This was one of the most serious occupations of the young people of that era; some of them had succeeded in weaving twelve different pieces into a braid, an unknown art till then, and unfortunately lost since that period ; Schomberg, in a corner, was embroidering his coat of arms on a piece of tapestry, as well as a motto, which he believed new, but which was really not new at all; in another corner the chaplain and the doctor were chatting ; D'O and D'Epernon were looking through the hangings, and, as they had been awakened too early, were yawning as wearily as the greyhounds ; and, finally, Chicot, seated on the edge of one of the curtains, with his legs hanging outside the litter in order to be able to jump out and in again as the whim might seize him, was singing psalms, reciting lampoons, or making anagrams; he managed to twist the names of the courtiers into forms that were infinitely disagreeable to the personages whose individuality was thus mangled by the liberties he took with their cognomens.

On reaching the Place du Chatelet, Chicot began intoning a canticle.

The chaplain, who, as we have said, was talking with Miron, turned round, frowning.

" Chicot, my friend," said the King, " beware! you may make mincemeat of my minions, tear my majesty to tatters, say what you like of God, — God is good, — but do riot get into a quarrel with the Church."

" Thanks for your advice, my son/' returned Chicot, " I did not see our worthy chaplain, who was discoursing yonder with the doctor on the subject of the last corpse sent him to bury; he was complaining it was the third that day, and always came at meal-time, thereby disturbing his digestion. Your words are golden, my son; no more psalms; they are too old. But I '11 sing you a song that is quite new."

" To what air ? " asked the King.

" To the same air always ; " and he began at the top of his voice;

" 'Our King a hundred millions owes'" —

" I owe more than that," said Henri; " your ballad-monger has not been correctly informed."

Chicot began again, without noticing the interruption :

" ' Our King two hundred millions owes, Of which his minions had the spending — To foot the bills, they now propose To tax his subjects unoffending, Propose new imposts, wrongful laws, To wring the last sou from the peasant — And all to glut their harpy maws, And make their mean lives gay and pleasant.'"

" Upon my word," said Quelus, going on with his plaiting, " you have a fine voice, Chicot; the second stanza, my friend."

" I say, Valois," said Chicot, not deigning to answer Quelus, " order thy friends not to call me their friend; it humiliates me."

" Speak in verse, Chicot; your prose is not worth a straw," replied the King.

" Agreed," returned Chicot, and he went 011:

" ' A minion 's as vile as vile can be, He's garbed in such lascivious fashion The wife who dared to dress so free Her husband soon would lay the lash on! His ample ruff looks very nice ; His neck turns easily inside it, Because that ruff is starched with rice — As for common wheat starch — he can't abide it!'"

" Bravo! " said the King; " was it not you, D'O, that invented rice-starch ? "

" No, sire," said Chicot, " it was M. de Saint-Megrin, who was killed last year by M. de Mayenne. What the devil ! would you rob a poor dead man of the honor due him ? Saint-Megrin used to reckon that his only chance of going down to posterity rested on this starch and on what he did to M. de Guise. Now, if you take away the starch from him, you stop him when he is only half way on his journey."

And, without paying attention to the expression 011 the King's face, which grew dark at the recollection evoked by his jester, Chicot continued:

The way he wears his hair is queer

" Of course," said Chicot, interrupting himself, " the allusion is for the minions only, that is understood. " " Yes, yes ; go on," said Schomberg. Chicot resumed:

" 'The way he wears his hair is queer, Although it's clipped symmetrically : 'T is long in front from ear to ear, And cropped behind, which does n't tally.' "

" Your song is stale already," said D'Epernon.

" Stale ! Why, it was made yesterday."

" Well, the fashion changed this morning. Look ! "

And D'Epernon took off his cap and showed Chicot his hair,

which was almost as closely shaved in front as behind.

" Did ever any one see such an ugly head ? " exclaimed

Chicot.

And he continued:

" 'With sticky gums his locks are fed,

And twisted and peaked that he may look daring;

A cap is perched on his empty head —

And now you've got his portrait and bearing.'

" I pass over the fourth stanza," said Chicot; " it is so immodest it might shock you." And he went on :

" ' I wonder if our sires of old,

Whose deeds illumine history's pages, Whose feats of emprise, high and bold, Will ring forever through the ages,

Would have declined the parlous fight

Till they had touched with paint their faces,

Have kept away, unless bedight

With curls and wigs and frills and laces!'"

" Bravo ! " said Henri; " if my brother were here he would be very grateful to you, Chicot."

" Whom callest thou brother, my son ?" asked Chicot. "Would it be, peradventure, Joseph Foulon, Abbot of St. Genevieve, where thou goest to say thy prayers ? "

" No, no," returned Henri, who always took kindly to the drolleries of his jester, " I mean my brother Francois."

" Ah ! thou 'rt right, my son ; the other one is not thy brother in God, but thy brother in the devil. Good ! good! thou speakest of Francois, child of France by the grace of God, Duke of Brabant, Lauthier, Luxembourg, Gueldre, Alenqon, Anjou, Touraine, Berry, Evreux, and Chateau-Thierry, Count of Flan-dres, Holland, Zeland, Zutphen, Maine, Perche, Mantes, Frise, and Malines, Defender of the liberty of Belgium, to whom nature gave one nose and to whom the small-pox hath given two, and on whom I — even I — have made this quatrain :

" ' Nothing strange the fact discloses That our Fran£ois has two noses. Two noses on a double-face Are surely in their proper place.' "

The minions fell into fits of laughter, for the Due d'Anjou was their personal enemy, and the epigram against the prince made them forget for the moment the lampoon he had sung against themselves.

As for the King, he had been hardly touched, so far, by this running fire, and laughed louder than anybody, sparing no one, giving sugar and pastry to his dogs and the rough edge of his tongue to his brother and his brother's friends.

Suddenly Chicot shouted :

" Ah, that is not judicious ! Henri, Henri, it is rash and imprudent."

" What do you mean ? " said the King.

" Take Chicot's word for it, you ought not to confess to such things as that. Shame! Shame! "

" What things ? " asked Henri, astonished.

" The things you say of yourself when you sign your name. Ah, Harry ! ah, my son ! "

"Be on your guard, sire," said Quelus, who suspected the affected gentleness of Ohicot covered some malicious roguery.

" What the devil do you mean ? " inquired the King.

" When you write your signature, how do you sign ? Be honest."

" Pardieu ! I sign — I sign myself — Henri de Valois."

" Good ! Be kind enough to notice, gentlemen, that I did not force him to say so. Let us see, now; would there be any way of finding a V among these thirteen letters ? "

" Undoubtedly. Valois begins with a V."

"'Take out your tablets, Messire Chaplain ; I want you to take down the real name of the King — the name that must be signed by him henceforth; Henri de Valois is only an anagram."

" How ? "

" Yes, only an anagram ; I am going to tell you the true name of his Majesty now happily reigning. We say : In Henri de Valois there is a V; put a V on your tablets."

" Done," said D'^pernon.

" Is there not also an i ? "

" Certainly ; it is th§ last letter of the name ( Henri.' "

" How great must be the malice of men," said Chicot, " when it tempts them to separate letters which are naturally so closely connected ! Place me the i beside the V. Are you through ? "

" Yes," said D'Epernon.

" And now let us look and see if we cannot discover an I; you 've got it, have you ? and a, we 've got that, too; now for another i, he 's ours ; and an n for the finish. Capital! Do you know how to read, Nogaret ?"

" To my shame, I confess that I do," said D'Epernon.

" Fiddlesticks ! thou knave ; thou dost not rank high enough as a noble to be able to boast of thy ignorance."

"You rascal!? returned D'Epernon, raising his cane over Chicot.

" Strike, but spell," said Chicot.

D'Epernon laughed and spelled.

" V-i-1-a-i-n, vilain" said he.

" Good! " cried Chicot. " And now you see, Henri, how the thing begins; there is your real baptismal name already discovered. I expect you to give me a pension like the one bestowed on M. Amyot by our royal brother Charles IX., as soon as I discover your fanlily name."

" I expect I shall have you cudgelled, Chicot," said the King.

" And pray where are the canes gathered with which gentlemen are cudgelled, my son ? Is it in Poland ? Tell me that."

" It seems to me, however," said Quelus, " that M. de Mayenne had no trouble in finding one, my poor Chicot, the day he detected you with his mistress."