La Dame de Monsoreau (58 page)

As soon as his brother was gone, the King gnashed his teeth in his rage, and, darting through the secret corridor which led to the chamber of Marguerite of Navarre, now the Due d'Anjou's, he reached a hiding-place where he could easily hear the conversation about to take place between the two dukes, just as Dionysius from his hiding-place could hear the conversation of his prisoners.

" Venire de biche ! " said Chicot, now opening both eyes at once, " but family scenes are touching! For a moment I thought I was in Olympus and witnessing the meeting of Castor and Pollux after their six months' separation."

CHAPTER XXXIX.

WHICH PROVES THAT LISTENING IS THE BEST WAY OF HEARING.

THE Due d'Anjou was now with his guest, the Due de Guise, in that chamber of the Queen of Navarre where formerly the Bearnais and De Mouy had discussed their plans of escape in a low voice, with mouth glued to ear. The provident Henri knew there were few apartments in the Louvre which had not been so constructed that words, even spoken in a whisper, could be heard by such as desired to hear them. The Due d'Anjou was by no means ignorant of this important fact; but he had been so completely beguiled by his open-hearted brother that he either forgot it now or else did not consider the matter of much moment.

Henri III., as we have stated, entered his observatory just at the moment when the Due d'Anjou entered his apartment, so that none of the speakers' words could escape his ears.

" Well, monseigneur ?" quickly asked the Due de Guise.

" Well, monsieur, the council has separated," answered the duke.

" You were very pale, monseigneur."

" Visibly ? " asked the prince, anxiously.

" To me, yes, monseigneur. 77

" Did the King notice anything ? "

" No, at least so I believe. So his Majesty detained your highness ? "

" As you saw, duke."

" Doubtless to speak of the proposal I had just laid before him ? »

" Yes, monsieur."

There was a moment of rather embarrassing silence ; its meaning was well understood by Henri, who was so placed that he could not miss a word of the conversation.

"• And what did his Majesty say, monseigneur ? " asked the Due de Guise.

" The King approves the idea; but its very immensity leads him to believe that such a man as you at the head of such an organization would be dangerous."

" Then we are likely to fail."

" I am afraid we are, my dear duke, and the League seems to me out of the question."

" The devil! " muttered the duke, " it would be death before birth, ending before beginning."

" The one has as much wit as the other," said a low, sarcastic voice, the words ringing in Henri's ear, as he leaned close to the wall.

Henri turned round quickly, and saw the tall body of Chicot listening at one hole, just as he was listening at another.

" So you followed me, rascal," cried the King.

" Hush! " said Chicot, making a gesture with his hand ; " hush, my son, you hinder me from hearing."

The King shrugged his shoulders, but as Chicot was, on the whole, the only being in whom he placed entire confidence, he went back to his occupation of listening.

The Due de Guise was speaking again.

" Monseigneur," said he, " I think, in that case, the King would have refused immediately. His reception of me was so harsh that surely he would have ventured to be plain about the matter. Does he desire to oust me from the office of chief?"

" I believe so," answered the prince, hesitatingly.

" Then he wants to ruin the enterprise ? "

" Assuredly," said the Due d'Anjou ; " though as you began the movement, I felt it my duty to give you every aid I could, and I have done so."

" In what way, monseigneur ? "

" In a way that has partially succeeded : the King has left it in my power to either kill or revive the League."

" In what manner ? " asked the Lorraine prince, whose eyes flashed in spite of himself.

" Listen. Of course, you understand the plan would have to be submitted to the principal leaders. What if, instead of expelling you and dissolving the League, he named a chief favorable to the enterprise ? What if, instead of raising the Due de Guise to that post, he substituted the Due d'Anjou?"

" Ah !" cried the duke, who could not suppress the exclamation or prevent the blood from mounting to his face.

" Good! " said Chicot, " the two bulldogs are going to fight over their bone."

But to the great surprise of the Gascon, and especially of the King, who was not so well informed on this matter as his

jester, the duke's amazement and irritation suddenly vanished, and, in a calm and almost joyful tone, he said :

" You are an able politician, monseigneur, if you have done that."

" I have done it," answered the duke.

" And very speedily! "

" Yes ; but I ought to tell you that circumstances aided me and I turned them to account; nevertheless, my dear duke," added the prince, " nothing is settled, and I would not conclude anything before seeing you."

" Why so, monseigneur ? "

"Because I do not yet know what this is going to lead us to."

" I do, and well, too," said Chicot.

" Quite a nice little plot," murmured Henri, with a smile.

" And about which M. de Morvilliers, whom you fancy to be so well informed, never said a word to you. But let us listen ; this is growing quite interesting."

" Then I will tell you, monseigneur, not what it is going to lead us to, for God alone knows that, but how it can serve us," returned the Due de Guise ; " the League is a second army; now, as I hold the first one, as my brother holds the Church, nothing can resist us, if we remain united."

" Without reckoning that I am heir presumptive to the crown."

" Aha ! " muttered Henri.

" He is right," said Chicot; "your fault, my son; you always keep the two chemises of our Lady of Chartres separated."

" But, monseigneur, though you are heir presumptive to the crown, you must take into account certain bad chances."

" Duke, do you believe I have not done so already, and that I have not weighed them a hundred times ?"

" There is first the King of Navarre."

" Oh, that fellow does not trouble me at all ; he is too busy making love to La Fosseuse."

" That fellow, monseigneur, will dispute with you your very purse-strings. He is lean, famished, out-at-elbows; he resembles those gutter cats that, after merely smelling a mouse, will pass whole nights on the sill of a garret window, while your fat, furry, pampered cat cannot draw its claws because of their heaviness from their velvet sheaths. The King of Navarre has his eyes on you; he is constantly on the watch, and

never loses sight either of you or your brother; he is hungry for your throne. Wait until some accident happen to him who is now seated on it; you will then see what elastic muscles your famished cat has; you will see whether he will jump with a single bound from Pau to Paris and fasten his claws in your flesh; you will see, monseigneur, you will see."

" Some accident to him who is now seated on the throne/' repeated Francois slowly, fixing his eyes inquiringly on the Due de Guise.

" Ha ! ha ! " murmured Chicot, " listen, Henri. This Guise is saying, or, rather, on the point of saying, things that ought to teach you something, and I should advise you to turn them to your advantage."

" Yes, monseigneur," continued the Due de Guise, " an accident ! Accidents are not rare in your family, a fact you know as well as I do, and, perhaps, better. This prince is in good health, and suddenly he falls into a lethargy ; that other is counting on long years, and he has but a few hours to live."

" Do you hear Henri ? Do you understand ? " said Chicot, taking the King's hand, which was trembling and covered with a cold perspiration.

" Yes, it is true," answered the Due d'Anjou, in a voice so dull that, to hear it, the King and Chicot were forced to pay double attention, " it is true ; the princes of my house are born under a fatal star. My brother, Henri III., is, thank God! sound and healthy. He endured formerly the fatigues of war, and now his life is a series of recreations, recreations he supports as he formerly supported the fatigues of war."

" Yes, monseigneur ; but remember this one thing," returned the duke: " the recreations to which French kings are addicted are not always without danger. How, for instance, did your father, Henri II., die, who had happily escaped all the risks of war to meet his fate in one of those recreations of which you have spoken ? The lance of Montgomery was used as a weapon of chivalry, intended for a breastplate and not for an eye. I am inclined to think myself that the death of King Henri II. was an accident. You will tell me that, a fortnight after this accident, the queen mother had M. de Montgomery arrested and beheaded. That is true, but the King was not the less dead. As for your brother, the late King Francois, — a worthy prince, though his mental weakness made the people regard him with some contempt, —

he, too, died very unfortunately. You will say, monseigneur, he died of a disease in his ears, and who the devil would look upon that as an accident ? Yet it was an accident, and a very grave one. I have heard more than once, both in the city and cainp, that this mortal disease had been poured into the ear of King Franqois II. by some one whom it would be very wrong to call Chance, since he bore another well-known name."

" Duke! " murmured Francois, turning crimson.

" Yes, monseigneur, yes," continued the duke, " the name of king has long brought misfortune in its train. The name king might be denned by the word insecurity. Look at Antoine de Bourbon. It was certainly his name of king that gained him that arquebuse-wound in the shoulder, of which he died. For any one but a king the wound was by no means fatal; yet he died of it. The eye, the ear, and the shoulder have been the occasion of much sorrow in France; and, by the way, that reminds me that your friend, M. de Bussy, has made some rather nice verses on the subject."

" What verses ? " asked Henri.

" Nonsense, man !" retorted Chicot; " do you mean to tell me you don't know them ? "

« Yes."

" Well you are, beyond yea or nay, a true King, when it's possible to hide such things from you. I am going to repeat them; listen :

"'By the ear and the shoulder and eye

Three French Kings have been fated to die.

By the shoulder, the eye, and the ear

Three French Kings have been sent to their bier.'"

" But hush! hush ! I have an idea we are going to hear something from your brother even more interesting than what we have heard already."

« But the last verse."

" You '11 have it later when M. de Bussy turns his hexastich into a decastich."

" What do you mean ? "

" I mean that the family picture lacks two personages. But listen, M. de Guise is about to speak; and you may be certain he hasn't forgot the verses."

Just when Chicot had finished, the dialogue began agair.

" Moreover, monseigneur," continued the duke, " the whole

history of your relatives and allies is not contained in the verses of Bussy."

" What did I tell you ! " said Chicot, nudging Henri with his elbow.

" For instance, there was Jeanne d'Albret, the mother of the Bearnais, who died through the nose from smelling a pair of perfumed gloves, bought by her from a Florentine living at the Pont du Michel; a very unexpected accident, quite surprising to every one, especially as it was known there were people who'had an interest in her death. You will not deny, monsei-gneur, that this death astonished you exceedingly ? "

The duke's only answer was a contraction of the eyebrows that rendered his sinister face more sinister still.

" And then, take the accident to King Charles IX., which your highness has forgotten," said the duke; "and yet it is surely one which deserves to be remembered. It was not through eye or ear or shoulder or nose that his accident happened, it was through the mouth."

" What do you mean ? " cried Francois.

And Henri III. heard the echo of his brother's footstep on the floor as he started back in terror.

" Yes, monseigneur, through the mouth," repeated Guise ; " those hunting-books are very dangerous whose pages are glued to each other, so that, in order to turn over the leaves, you have to wet your finger with saliva every moment. There is something poisonous in the very nature of old books and when this poison mingles with the saliva, even a king cannot live forever."

" Duke ! duke ! " exclaimed the prince, " I believe you really take a pleasure in inventing crimes."

" Crimes, monseigneur ? " asked Guise ; " and pray, who is talking of crimes ? I am relating accidents, that is all, accidents. I wish you to understand clearly, monseigneur, that I am dealing solely and entirely with accidents and nothing else. Was not that misfortune Charles IX. encountered while hunting also an accident ? "

" Aha! Henri," said Chicot, " you are a hunter; this must have some interest for you. Listen, listen, my son, you're going to hear something curious."

" I know what it is," said Henri.

" But I don't ; at that time, I had not been presented at court ; don't hinder me from hearing, my son."

" You know the hunt of which I am about to speak, mon-seigneur ? " continued the Lorraine prince. " I allude to the hunt in which, with the noble intention of killing the boar that turned on your brother, you fired in such a hurry that, instead of killing the animal at which you aimed, you wounded him at whom you did not aim. That arquebuse-shot, mon-seigneur, is a signal proof of the necessity of distrusting accidents. In fact, at court your skill in shooting was a matter of notoriety. Your highness had never been known before to miss your aim, and you must have been very much astonished at your failure in that instance, and very much annoyed, especially as malevolent persons propagated the report that, but for the King of Navarre, who fortunately slew the boar your highness failed to slay, his Majesty, as he had fallen from his horse, must have certainly been killed."