La Dame de Monsoreau (34 page)

" Monseigneur," interupted the cardinal, " to the noble scruple your Highness has just now expressed, this is our answer: Henri III. was the Lord's anointed, but we have deposed him: he is no longer the elect of God; it is you who are going to be so. We have here a temple as venerable as that of Rheims, for within it repose the relics of Sainte Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris; within it is interred the body of Clovis, our first Christian king. Well, then, monseigneur, in this holy temple, before the statue of

the real founder of the French monarchy, I, a prince of the Church, who may not unreasonably hope one day to become her head, say to you, monseigneur, that I have here a holy oil sent by Pope Gregory XIII. to take the place of the holy chrism. Monseigneur, name your future archbishop of E-heims, name your constable, and in a moment you will be our anointed king, and your brother Henri, unless he surrender the throne to you, will be the usurper. Child, light the altar."

Immediately the chorister, who was evidently expecting the order, issued from the sacristy with a lighter in his hand, and in a moment fifty lights blazed on the altar and in the choir.

Then were seen on the altar a mitre, gleaming with jewels, and a sword, adorned with flower-de-luces: the one was the archiepiscopal mitre ; the other the constable's sword.

The same instant, through the darkness which the illumination of the choir had not entirely dispersed, the " Veni Creator " resounded from the organ.

This startling scenic display, so skilfully introduced by the three Lorraine princes, was a surprise to the Due d'Anjou himself, and produced the deepest impression on the spectators. The bold grew bolder, and the weak felt themselves strengthened.

The Due d'Anjou raised his heaa, and, with firmer step and steadier arm than could have been expected, marched up to the altar, took the mitre in his left hand and the sword in his right, returned to the cardinal and the duke, who knew already the honors in store for them, placed the mitre on the cardinal's head, and buckled the sword on the duke.

This decisive action, which was the less expected because the Due d'Anj ou's irresolute nature was a matter of notoriety, was hailed with thunders of applause.

" Gentlemen," said the duke to the others, " give your names to M. de Mayenne, grand master of France; the day I am king you shall all be Knights of the Order."

The applause was renewed, and all went after one another to give their names to the Due de Mayenne.

" Mordieu ! " thought Chicot, " what a chance to win the blue ribbon ! I '11 never see such another — and to think I must let it slip ! "

" Now to the altar, sire," said the Cardinal de Guise.

" M. de Monsoreau, my captain-colonel, MM. de Ribeirac

and D'Entragues, my captains, M. de Livarot, my lieutenant of the guards, take the places in the choir to which the posts I confide to you give you a right."

Each of those named took the position which, at a real coronation, etiquette would have assigned him.

" Gentlemen," added the duke, addressing the rest of the assembly, " you may all ask me for a favor, and 1 will see to it that none of you depart dissatisfied."

During this time the cardinal was robing himself in his pontifical vestments behind the altar. He soon reappeared, carrying the holy ampulla, which he laid on the altar.

Then, at a sign from him, the little chorister brought a Bible and a cross. The cardinal took both, placed the cross on the Bible, and presented them to the Due d'Anjou, who laid his hand on them.

" In presence of God," said the prince, " I promise my people to maintain and honor our holy religion, as it behooves the most Christian King and eldest son of the Church to do. And so may God and his Holy Gospel aid me ! "

" Amen ! " answered all the spectators in unison.

" Amen! " responded a kind of echo that seemed to come from the depths of the church.

The Due de Guise, in performance of his function as constable, mounted the three steps of the altar and laid his sword in front of the tabernacle to be blessed by the cardinal.

The cardinal next drew it from the scabbard, and, seizing the blade, presented the hilt to the king, who clasped it.

" Sire," said he, " take this sword, which is given to you with the benediction of the Lord, so that with it and through the power of the Holy Ghost you may be able to resist all your enemies, and protect and defend Holy Church and the kingdom entrusted to you. Take this sword so that with its aid you may dispense justice, protect the widow and the orphan, and correct abuses, to the end that, covering yourself with glory by the practice of all the virtues, you may deserve to reign with Him whose image you are on earth, and who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, reigneth for ever and ever."

The duke lowered the sword unfcil the point touched the floor, and, after offering it to God, restored it to the Due de Guise.

Then the chorister brought a cushion and placed it before the prince, who knelt upon it.

Next, the cardinal opened the little silver-gilt casket and extracted from it, with the point of a gold needle, a particle of holy oil, which he spread on the patine.

Then, holding the patine in his left hand, he said two prayers over the duke, and, smearing his finger with the oil, traced a cross on his head, saying :

(< Ungo te in regem de oleo sanctificato, in nomine Pdtris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."

Almost immediately after, the chorister wiped off the oil with a gold-embroidered handkerchief.

Next, the cardinal took the crown in both his hands and held it immediately above the prince's head, without, however, touching it. The Due de Guise and the Due de Mayenne then approached and supported the crown on each side. The cardinal, thereupon, withdrew his right hand from the crown and with it blessed the prince, saying:

"May God crown you with the crown of glory and justice ! "

Then taking the crown and placing it on the duke's head, he said:

" Receive this crown in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

The Due d'Aiijou, pale and frightened, felt the pressure of the crown on his head and instinctively raised his hand to touch it.

Then the chorister rang a bell; all the spectators bent their heads.

But they soon raised them again, brandishing their swords and crying :

" Long live Francois III. ! "

" Sire," said the cardinal to the Due d'Anjou, " from to-day you reign over France, for you have been crowned by Pope Gregory XIII. himself, and I am merely his representative."

" Venire de biche ! " muttered Chicot, " what a pity it is I have n't the king's evil! "

« Gentlemen," said the Due d'Anjou, rising with an air of pride and majesty, " I shall never forget the names of the thirty gentlemen who were the first to deem me worthy of reigning over them ; anc^ now, gentlemen, farewell, and may God have you in his safe and holy keeping !"

The cardinal bent his head, as did also the Due de Guise, but Chicot, who had a side view of them, perceived that while the Due de Mayenne was escorting the new king from the

church, the other two Lorraine princes exchanged an ironical smile.

"Oho! " said the Gascon to himself, " what does that mean, I wonder, and what kind of a game is it at which every one cheats ? "

Meanwhile the Due d'Anjou descended the staircase to the crypt and was soon lost in the darkness of the subterranean church, whither all the other members of the association followed him, one after the other, except the three brothers, who entered the sacristy, and the brother porter, who remained to put out the lights on the altar.

The chorister shut the door of the crypt behind those who had passed in, and the church was lit only by that single lamp which, as it was never extinguished, seemed an unknown symbol to the vulgar, but told the elect of some mysterious initiation.

CHAPTER XXI.

HOW CHICOT THOUGHT HE WAS LEARNING HISTORY, BUT WAS REALLY LEARNING GENEALOGY.

CHICOT got up in his confessional to straighten out his stiffened members. He had every reason to suppose this session was the last, and, as it was nearly two in the morning, he set about making himself comfortable for the rest of the night.

But, to his amazement, no sooner did the three Lorraine princes hear the grating of the key in the lock of the crypt than they came out of the sacristy; this time, however, they were unfrocked and in their usual dress.

Moreover, when the little chorister saw them, he burst out into such a frank and merry fit of laughter that Chicot could not, for the life of him, help laughing also, without exactly knowing why.

The Due de Mayenne quickly approached the staircase.

" Do not laugh so boisterously, sister," said he, « they have barely left, and you might be heard."

" Sister!" repeated Chicot, marching from one surprise to another. " Can this little devil of a monk be a woman ? "

And, in fact, when the cowl of the novice was flung back,

there appeared the brightest and most bewitching woman's face that ever Leonardo da Vinci transferred to canvas, although he has painted La Goconda: —

Jet black eyes, sparkling with mischief, but which, when the pupils dilated, became still darker and assumed an expression that was almost terrible in its seriousness.

A little, rosy, delicately formed mouth, a nose that was faultless in shape and outline, and, finally, a beautifully rounded chin terminating the perfect oval of a countenance that was, perhaps, rather pale, but contrasted superbly with the ebony of the classical eyebrows.

Such is the portrait of the sister of the Guises, Madame de Montpensier, a dangerous siren who was accused of having one shoulder a little higher than the other and of an ungraceful malformation of the left leg that made her limp slightly ; but these imperfections were hidden at present by her thick monkish robe.

It was, perhaps, because of these imperfections that the soul of a demon was lodged in a body which had the head of an angel.

Chicot recognized her, for he had seen her a score of times at the court of her cousin, Queen Louise de Vaudemont, and the mystery was deepened by her presence here, as it was by that of the three brothers who persisted so obstinately in remaining after every one else had gone.

" Ah, Brother Cardinal," exclaimed the duchess, in a paroxysm of laughter, " how well you acted the saint and how piously you spoke of God ! You actually frightened me for a moment. I thought you were taking the thing seriously ; and the fool who let himself be greased and crowned ! —and what an object he was under that same crown! "

" That does n't matter," said the duke, " we have got what we wanted : Francois cannot eat his own words now. That Monsoreau, who no doubt has his own sinister motives for his action, has managed so well that we are at last pretty certain that our doughty leader cannot desert us half-way to the scaffold, as he did La Mole and Coconnas."

" Oh, as for that," answered Mayenne, " the way to the scaffold is a route there would be some difficulty in getting the princes of our house to take ; the distance between the abbey of St. Genevieve and the Louvre will always be less than that between the Hotel de Ville and the Place de Grene."

Chicot saw they were making sport of the Due d'Anjou, and, as he hated the prince, he could have gladly embraced the Guises for hoodwinking him so artfully — all except Mayenne : he would give Mayenne's share in the embrace to Madame de Montpensier.

" And now to business, gentlemen," said the cardinal. " Are all the doors safely locked ? "

" I am sure they are," answered the duchess ; " but I will go and see."

"No, no," said the duke, " you must be tired, my dear little choir boy."

" Oh, not at all; the whole thing was too amusing."

" Mayenne, you said he was here, did you not ? " asked the duke.

« Yes."

" I did not notice him."

"Naturally. He is hiding."

" Where ? "

" In a confessional."

The words sounded in Chicot' s ears like the thousand trumpets of the Apocalypse.

" Who is hiding in a confessional ? " he muttered, quaking like an aspen. " Venire de biche, there can be no one hiding but me !"

" Then he has seen and heard everything ? " inquired the duke.

" Oh, that does n't matter ; does n't he belong to us ? "

" Bring him here, Mayenne," said the duke.

Mayenne went down one of the stairs of the choir, paused as if at a loss, and then made straight for the box that concealed the Gascon.

Chicot was brave, but this time his teeth fairly chattered with terror, and cold drops of sweat dropped from his forehead on his hand.

" Ah, now I 'm in for it! " said he to himself, trying to free his sword from the folds of his robe, " but I won't die in this box, like a rat in a hole. I '11 show a bold front to death, if I have to, venire de biche ! And now that I have the chance, I '11 try to make short work of that fellow before I hop the twig myself."

And, with the purpose of executing this doughty project, Chicot, who had at length found the hilt of his sword, had his

hand already on the latch of the door, when the voice of the duchess came to his ears.

" Not that one, Mayenne," said she, " not that one; the other to the left, yonder at the back."

" Ah, I see," answered the duke, whose hand almost touched Chicot's confessional, but who, 011 hearing his sister's direction, turned quickly to the confessional opposite.

" Ugh !" said the Gascon, with a sigh that Gorenflot might have envied, "it was a narrow escape; but who the devil is in the other one ? "

" Come out, Maitre Nicolas David," said Mayenne, " we are alone."

"Here I am, monseigneur," said a man who stepped from the confessional.