La Dame de Monsoreau (72 page)

" If the night, as we are told, brings good counsel along with it, it should surely bring good counsel to prisoners."

"And so," murmured the duke, "for a mere fanciful suspicion that bears a closer resemblance to a nightmare than to reality, I have lost your Majesty's favor ? "

" Say, rather, you have been crushed by my justice."

" But at least, sire, fix a term to my captivity ; let me know what I am to expect."

" When your sentence is read, you will know it."

"My mother ! Can I not see my mother ? "

" For what purpose ? There were but three copies in the whole world of the famous hunting-book that killed my brother; and of the two that remain, one is in Florence and one in London. Besides, I am not a JSTimrod, like my poor brother. Adieu, Francois."

The prince fell back on his armchair in utter despair.

" Gentlemen," said the King, again opening the door, " Mon-seigneur le Due d'Anjou has begged my permission to be allowed to reflect during the night on an answer he is to give me to-morrow morning. You will, therefore, leave him alone in his chamber, making him, however, such occasional visits as your prudence may dictate. You will, perhaps, find your prisoner a little excited by the conversation we have just had together; but remember that when M. d'Anjou conspired against me he renounced the title of my brother; consequently, there are none here except a captive and his guards. No ceremony, then ; if the prisoner annoy you, inform me of the fact; I have the Bastile close at hand, and in the Bastile is Maltre Laurent Testu, than whom there is 110 one in the world more fitted to control a rebellious temper."

" Sire! sire ! " exclaimed Francois, making a final effort, " remember I am your "

"You were also, if I do not mistake, the brother of Charles IX.," said Henri.

" But, at least, restore me my servants, my friends."

" Are you complaining ? Why, I am giving you mine,

although it is to me a great privation."

And Henri shut the door in the face of his brother, who

staggered back, pale and trembling, and again sank into his

chair.

CHAPTER LI.

WHICH PROVES THAT RUMMAGING IN EMPTY CLOSETS IS NOT ALWAYS A WASTE OF TIME.

THE scene in which the Due d'Anjou and the King had just been actors led the prince to regard his situation as quite hopeless.

The minions had taken good care to inform him of everything that had occurred in the Louvre; they had exaggerated the defeat of the Guises and Henri's triumph, and he could hear the cries of the people shouting: " Long live the King ! Long live the League ! " All this was utterly incomprehensible to him, but he felt that he was abandoned by the principal leaders, and that they, too, had to defend their lives.

Forsaken by his family, which had been decimated by poisonings and assassinations, and divided by every sort of discord and animosity, he sighed as he recalled that past upon which the King had dwelt ; then, in his struggle with Charles IX., he had always had for confidants, or rather dupes, those two devoted hearts, those two flaming swords, that bore the names of Coconnas and La Mole.

For many consciences remorse is but regret for lost advantages.

And yet, for the first time in his life, Francois, in his loneliness and isolation, did experience a kind of remorse at the thought of having sacrificed Coconnas and La Mole.

In those days his sister Marguerite had loved and consoled him. How had he rewarded that sister ?

His mother, Queen Catherine, was left. But his mother had never liked him.

Whenever she had made use of him she used him as he did others, simply as an instrument.

And Francois, in pondering on the relative position of his

mother and himself, was candid. Once in her hands, he confessed that he was no more his own master than a ship is its own master when tossing on the ocean in the grip of the tempest.

And then he remembered that even lately he had close to him one heart that was worth a thousand hearts, one sword that was worth a thousand swords.

Bussy, the brave Bussy, came back to his memory and filled it to the exclusion of aught else.

Ah! now, most assuredly, the feeling he experienced was something like remorse. He had offended Bussy to please Monsoreau. He had wished to please Monsoreau because Mon-soreau knew his secret, and lo, this secret, with which Monsoreau had threatened him, was in the possession of the King, and Monsoreau was no longer to be feared.

He had, therefore, quarrelled with Bussy uselessly and even gratuitously, a kind of action since described by a great statesman as worse than a crime, for it is a blunder!

Now, what an advantage it would have been for the prince in his present situation to be aware that Bussy, Bussy grateful and, consequently, faithful, was watching over him ; Bussy the invincible; Bussy of the loyal heart; Bussy the universal favorite, for a noble heart and a heavy hand always make friends of those who have received from God the former, and from Fate the latter.

With Bussy watching over him, liberty would have been probable, vengeance would have been certain.

But, as we have said already, Bussy, wounded to the quicK, had withdrawn from the prince and retired sullenly to his tent, and D'Anjou was there, a prisoner, with a depth of fifty feet to descend if he tried to reach the fosses, and four minions to disable if he tried to penetrate to the corridor.

And, moreover, the courtyards were full of Swiss and soldiers.

From time to time he went to the window and tried to sound the depth of these fosses ; but the elevation was high enough to render even the bravest dizzy, and M. d'Anjou was far from being proof against dizziness.

In addition to all this, one of the prince's guards, now Schomberg, now Maugiron, at one time D'Epernon, at another Quelus, entered his chamber frequently, and acting as if he were not present, sometimes not even saluting him, went round

the apartment, opened doors and windows, searched closets and trunks, looked under beds and tables, and saw to it that the curtains were in their places and the bedclothes not cut up and twisted into ropes.

Occasionally they leaned out over the balcony; the distance of forty-five feet between it and the ground reassured them.

" By my faith," said Maugiron, after returning from one of those investigations, " I 'm through with it ; I won't budge from the drawing-room, and I must not be awakened every four hours to pay a visit to M. d'Anjou.^

" I 'm at one with you there," said D'Epernon. " Easy seeing we're great big babies, who have always been captains and never soldiers. Why, hang it, man, we don't even understand our instructions ! "

" How can that be ? " asked Quelus.

" What I say is God's truth. What does the King want ? He wants us to guard, not to regard, M. d'Anjou."

" So much the better," answered Maugiron, " I don't object to guarding him, but as to regarding him! Why, he 's as ugly as sin ! "

" That's all very well," said Schomberg, "but we must keep our eyes open, for all that; the rascal beats the devil for cunning."

" I agree with you there," said D'Epernon ; " but it requires something more than cunning to pass over the bodies of four blades like^us."

And D'Epernon, drawing himself up to his full height, proudly twisted his mustache.

" D'Epernon is right," said Quelus.

" Oh, indeed ? " retorted Schomberg. " Do you think M. d'Anjou such a donkey as to try to make his escape through our gallery ? If he is absolutely set on getting out, he is capable of making a hole through the wall.

" With what ? He has no weapons."

" What do you say to windows ? " inquired Schomberg, but rather timidly, for he himself had measured with his eyes their height above the ground.

" Ah, the windows ! upon my word, you are delightful," retorted D']£pernon. " The windows ! bravo, Schomberg. Of course, I know you would take a jump of forty-five feet without winking, eh ? "

" I confess that forty-five feet are rather " —

" Well! and this fellow who limps, who is so heavy, who is as timid as " —

" You are yourself/ 7 said Schomberg.

" My dear fellow/' answered D'Epernon, " you know perfectly well I am afraid of nothing but ghosts; it is simply a matter of the nerves."

" His nervousness," said Quelus, gravely, " is accounted for oy the fact that all those he killed in his duels appeared to him on the same night."

" We oughtn't to make light of it," said Maugiron ; " I have read of hundreds of miraculous escapes - - with the sheets, usually."

" Ah," said D'^pernon, " Maugiron's remark has some sense in it, at least. I myself saw a prisoner at Bordeaux who managed to get out by the help of his sheets."

" You see, then, a man can get out," remarked Schomberg.

" Yes," rejoined D'Epernon, " but he had his back broken and his brains dashed out for his pains. The rope he made was thirty feet too short; he had to jump for it; so that, though his body escaped from prison, his soul escaped from his body."

" Well, if he do escape/' said Quelus, " we '11 have a rattling fine hunt after a prince of the blood. We '11 track him to his lair, and when we catch up with him we '11 take devilish good care that there will be some part of his princely anatomy in a broken condition at the end of the chase."

" And by heavens !" cried Maugiron, " we '11 then be acting our proper parts: we're hunters, not jailers."

This peroration wound up the discussion, and they turned to other subjects, though it was agreed they should visit the chamber of M. d'Anjou every hour or so.

The minions were perfectly correct in their supposition that the Due d'Anjou would never attempt to gain his freedom by violence, and that, on the other hand, he would not venture on any escape that was perilous or difficult.

Not that this worthy prince was deficient in imagination, and we may as well say that his imagination was thoroughly excited whenever he walked from his bed to the famous cabinet occupied for two nights by La Mole, after he was saved by Marguerite, during the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.

From time to time the prince's pale face was glued to one of the panes of the window that overlooked the fosses of the Louvre.

Beyond the fosses stretched a sandy beach about fifteen feet wide, and, beyond the beach, the Seine could be seen through the darkness, rolling on with as smooth a surface as a mirror's.

On the other side of the river the Tour de Nesle loomed up out of the obscurity, standing like some motionless giant.

The Due d'Anjou had watched the sunset in all its varying phases ; had watched it with the interest a prisoner takes in such spectacles, in the gradual disappearance of light and the gradual coming on of darkness.

He had contemplated the wondrous spectacle afforded by old Paris and its roofs, gilded for an hour by the last gleams of the sunlight, and afterward silvered by the first beams of the moon. Then a feeling of extreme terror took hold of him when he saw immense clouds rolling along the sky and gathering above the Louvre, portending a storm during the night.

Among the Due d'Anjou's many weaknesses, one was a dread of thunder.

The prince would now have given a great deal to have the minions guarding him in his chamber, though they insulted him the while.

However, he abandoned all idea of calling them in for such a purpose; their gibes and sneers would be unendurable.

He threw himself on his bed, but could not sleep; he tried to read, the characters whirled before his eyes like so many black devils ; he tried to drink, the wine tasted bitter ; he drew the tips of his fingers across the strings of Aurilly's lute, which hung from the wall, but the effect of the vibrations on his nerves was to make him shed tears.

Then he began swearing like a pagan and breaking everything within reach of his hand.

This was a family failing, to which every one residing in the Louvre was accustomed.

The minions half opened the door to see what was the meaning of this ear-splitting uproar ; but as soon as they perceived it was only the prince amusing himself, they closed the door again, and this inflamed his fury to a higher degree than ever.

He had just broken a chair when there was a crash in the direction of the window ; the sound could not be mistaken, it was the sound of broken glass, and, at the same moment, the prince felt a sharp pain in one of his hips.

His first idea was that he had been wounded by an arque-

buse-bullet, and that the shot had been fired by an emissary of the King.

" Ah ! traitor ! coward ! " cried the prisoner, " you have had me killed in the way you threatened. Ah ! I am dead ! "

And he fell all in a heap on the carpet.

But, after falling, his hand came in contact with a somewhat hard object, more uneven, and larger, especially, than an arquebuse-bullet.

" Ha ! a stone," said he ; " was it a shot from a falconet ? But, in that case, I must have heard an explosion."

And at the same time he stretched out his leg; although the pain was acute enough, evidently there was no serious injury.

He picked up the stone 'and examined the pane.

The stone had been hurled with such force that, instead of shattering the glass, it had rather made a hole in it.

The stone appeared to be wrapped up in something likepaper.

Then the duke's ideas took a different direction :

" What if this stone had been hurled by a friend, and not by an enemy ? "

Drops of sweat stood on his forehead; hope, like fear, is often a source of anguish.