La Dame de Monsoreau (93 page)

" Yes."

At this triple affirmation the King rose from the table, red and trembling. It would have been difficult to say by what emotions he was excited.

" Excuse me," he said to the Queen, as he wiped his mustache and flung his napkin on the chair, " but this is one of those state affairs which do not concern women."

" Yes," said Chicot, speaking in his loudest tone, " this is a state affair."

The Queen half rose from her seat, intending to leave the apartment.

" No, madame," said Henri, " oblige me by remaining. I am going into my cabinet."

" Oh ! sire," said the Queen, in a voice denoting the tender interest she always took in her ungrateful husband, " I beseech you do not lose your temper."

" God forbid ! " answered Henri, without noticing the air of mockery with which Chicot twisted his mustache.

Henri passed hastily out of the chamber, followed by Chicot. Once outside :

" What has he come to do here, the traitor ? " asked Henri, in an agitated voice.

" Who knows ? " answered Chicot.

" He comes as deputy from the States of Anjou. I am quite sure of that. He comes as ambassador from my brother, and naturally, too, considering what happens in all rebellions : they are troubled and muddy waters in which the disloyal always manage to fish with profit to themselves. It is true their profits are mean and sordid, but they ultimately turn to their advantage j for, however provisional and precarious they

are at first, they gradually become fixed and immutable. As soon as Saint-Luc got an inkling of the rebellion, he considered it gave him a chance of obtaining a safe-conduct and, therefore, an opportunity to come here and insult me."

" Who knows ? " said Chicot.

The King stared for a moment at his curt companion.

" Perhaps, on the other hand," continued Henri, walking up and down the gallery with an irregular step that betrayed his agitation, " it may be that he comes to demand the restoration of his estates, the rents of which I am keeping in my own hands, — possibly a little arbitrary on my part, as, after all, he has committed no crime. Eh ? "

" Who knows ?." replied Chicot.

" Ah ! " exclaimed Henri, "you are like my popinjay, always repeating the same thing. Mort de ma vie ! You will drive me crazy in the end with your eternal ' Who knows ?' 3

" And, mordieu! do you think you are very amusing yourself with your eternal questions ?"

" At least you might answer some of them."

" And what answer do you want ? Do you take me, per-adventure, for the Fatum of the ancients ? Do you take me for Jupiter or Apollo or Manto ? It is you, egad! that will drive me crazy with your idiotic suppositions."

" Monsieur Chicot"

" Well, what next, Monsieur Henri ? "

" Chicot, my friend, you see how afflicted I am and yet you jeer at me."

" Well, don't be afflicted, then, mordieu! "

" But everybody betrays me."

" Who knows, ventre de biche ! who knows ? "

Henri, lost in conjectures as to the motive for Saint-Luc's return, went down into his cabinet. There he found, already assembled, all the gentlemen who held official positions in the Louvre, and among them, or rather at their head, the dashing Crillon, with his fiery eyes, red nose, and bristling mustache. He looked not unlike a bulldog who was furious for a scuffle.

Saint-Luc was there also, standing coolly in the centre of these menacing faces ; angry murmurs reached his ears, but he did not show the least sign of agitation.

Strange to say, his wife had come with him, and was seated on a stool close to the bed.

The husband, his hand firmly planted on the hip, returned

the insolent looks of those around him with looks fully as insolent as their own.

Through respect for the young woman, certain of the courtiers, who had a strong desire to jostle Saint-Luc, retired to a distance from him, and although it would have pleased them to address a few disagreeable words to him, they were silent. So it was in the void and silence made around him that the ex-favorite moved.

Jeanne, modestly muffled in her travelling mantle, was waiting, with eyes cast down.

Saint-Luc, haughtily draped in his cloak, was waiting, in an attitude that seemed to challenge hostility rather than to fear it.

On the other hand, the gentlemen present were waiting, perfectly ready to call Saint-Luc to account, and also anxious to find out what was his business in this court, where all who desired to share in the favor once enjoyed by him thought his appearance in it now decidedly uncalled for.

In fact, when the King appeared, it was the expectation of all the waiters that their waiting was to be followed by something important.

Henri entered, evidently very excited, and doing his best to add further intensity to his excitement; a manner that has been thought to give dignity to the deportment of princes.

He was followed by Chicot, who assumed that air of calmness and dignity a king of France ought to have assumed, and was evidently struck by the bearing of Saint-Luc in the way in which Henri III. ought at once to have been struck by it.

" Ha ! so you are here ?" cried the King, immediately on entering, taking no notice of those around him, in this resembling the bull in the Spanish arena, who sees in the thousands of men before him only a moving fog, and in the rainbow of banners a single color — red.

"Yes, sire," answered Saint-Luc, modestly and simply, as he made a respectful inclination.

So little effect had this response on the King's ear, so little successful was this calm and deferential behavior in communicating to his darkened mind those feelings of reason and mildness which the union of respect for others with the sense of personal dignity ought to excite, that the King went on, without pausing:

" Really, your presence in the Louvre is a strange surprise to me."

At this rude attack there was a deathlike silence around the King and his late favorite.

It was the silence that used to arise in the lists when it was known that the two adversaries must fight out their conflict to the bitter end.

Saint-Luc was the first to break it.

" Sire," said he, with his usual grace, and without seeming at all disturbed by this royal sail}', " what surprises me is that, considering the circumstances in which you are placed, your Majesty did not expect me."

" What does that mean, monsieur ? " answered Henri, with a pride that was altogether royal, and raising his face, which on great occasions assumed an expression of incomparable dignity.

" Sire," said Saint-Luc, " your Majesty is in great danger."

" In great danger ! " cried the courtiers.

" Yes, gentlemen, this danger is very great and very real and very serious, a danger in which the King has need of the smallest as well as of the greatest of those devoted to him ; and, with the firm conviction that, in such a danger as that to which I allude, no help is too feeble to be disregarded, I have come to lay at the feet of my King the offer of my humble services."

" Aha! " said Chicot, " you see, my son, I was right in saying : < Who knows ?' '

Henri did not reply at once. He looked round at his courtiers ; they were evidently annoyed and offended ; he soon gauged from their looks the jealousy that rankled in the hearts of most of them.

He concluded, therefore, that Saint-Luc had done something which the majority of the assembly were incapable of doing, that is to say, something disinterested.

However, he did not like to surrender all at once.

"Monsieur," he answered, "you have only done your duty; your services are due to us."

" The services of all the King's subjects are due to the King; I am aware of that, sire/' replied Saint-Luc; " but in these times many people forget to pay their debts. I, sire, have come to pay mine, happy if your Majesty be graciously pleased to always number me among your debtors."

Henri, disarmed by Saint-Luc's unalterable gentleness and humility, advanced a step'toward him.

" So, then," said he, " you return from no other motive

except the one you mention ? You have no mission or safe-conduct ? "

" Sire," answered Saint-Luc, eagerly, for he knew from his master's tone that he was no longer angry or vindictive, "I have returned purely and simply for the sake of returning, and that, too, as fast as my horse could carry me. And now, your Majesty may throw me into the Bastile in an hour-, and may have me shot in two; but I shall have done my duty. Sire, Anjou is on fire ; Touraine is on the point of revolting, and Guyenne is rising and will lend her a hand. M. le Due d'Anjou is hard at work in the west and south of France.' 7

" And he is well supported, is he not ? " cried the King.

" Sire," said Saint-Luc, " neither advice nor argument can stay the duke; and even M. de Bussy, unmoved as he is himself, cannot inspire your brother with courage, so terrible is his dread of your Majesty."

, " Ha! he trembles, then, the rebel!" said Henri, and he smiled under his mustache.

" Egad!" said Chicot to himself, rubbing his chin, " that Saint-Luc is wondrous clever ! "

And elbowing the King out of the way :

" Stand aside, Henri," said he, " I want to shake hands with M. de Saint-Luc."

Chicot's movement won over,the King entirely. He allowed the Gascon to pay his compliments to the newcomer; then, going slowly up to his former friend, he laid his hand on his shoulder and said:

" You are welcome, Saint-Luc."

" Ah, sire," cried Saint-Luc, kissing the King's hand, " I have found my beloved master again at last!"

" Yes, but I do not find you again, my poor Saint-Luc," returned the King; " you have grown so thin that, if I had met you in the street, I should not have recognized you."

At these words a feminine voice was heard.

" Sire," said this voice, " his grief at displeasing your Majesty is the cause of his thinness."

Although the voice was very soft and respectful, Henri started. It sounded as disagreeably in his ears as did the noise of thunder in the ears of Augustus.

" Madame de Saint-Luc ! " he murmured. " Ah ! — yes — I had forgotten "

Jeanne flung herself on her knees.

" Rise, madame," said the King. " I love all who bear the name of Saint-Luc."

Jeanne seized the King's hand and raised it to her lips.

Henri withdrew it quickly.

" Go," said Chicot to the young woman. " Go and try to convert the King, venire de bichef You are pretty enough to succeed ! "

But Henri turned his back on Jeanne, and, throwing his arm around Saint-Luc's neck, proceeded with him to his apartments.

" So we have made peace, Saint-Luc ? " said the King.

" Say rather, sire," answered the courtier, " that a pardon has been granted."

" Madame,' 7 whispered Chicot to Jeanne, who was uncertain what to do, " a good wife should not forsake her husband, especially when that husband is in danger."

And he pushed Jeanne after the King and Saint-Luc.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

IN WHICH ARE MET TWO IMPORTANT PERSONAGES WHOM THE READER HAS LOST SIG^T OP FOR SOME TIME.

THERE is one of the personages belonging to this history — nay, even two — about whose feats and achievements the reader has the right to demand information.

With all the humility of the author of a preface in past ages, we hasten to answer the reader's questions, for we are not blind to their importance.

The first question would naturally concern an enormous monk, with bushy eyebrows, lips red and fleshy, big hands, vast shoulders, and a neck that grows smaller every day, while the chest and cheeks gain in development what it loses.

The next question would concern a very large donkey, whose sides had grown so rotund that they now presented the graceful outlines of a balloon.

The monk will soon resemble a hogshead supported by two posts.

The ass already resembles a child's cradle resting on four distaffs.

The one is the tenant of a cell in the convent of Sainte Genevieve, where all the graces of the Lord come to visit him.

The other is a tenant in one of the stables of the same convent, where he lives within reach of a manger that is always full.

The one answers to the name of Gorenflot.

The other should answer to the name of Panurge.

Both, for the time at least, are in the enjoyment of the most prosperous lot ever dreamed of by ass or monk. The Genevievans are lavish of their attentions to their illustrious comrade, and like unto the divinities of the third order, whose care it used to be to wait upon Jupiter's eagle and Juno's peacock and Venus's doves, so the lay brothers make it their special concern to fatten Panurge in honor of his master.

The abbey kitchen smokes perpetually. The most renowned vineyards in Burgundy supply the vintage that is poured into the largest-sized glasses ever known.

Does a missionary arrive at the convent after propagating the faith in foreign lands, or a confidential legate from the Pope with indulgences granted by his holiness ? Brother Gorenflot is at once placed on exhibition as a model of the church preaching as well as of the church militant, as one who handles the Word like Saint^Luke and the sword like Saint Paul. Gorenflot is pointed out to them in all his glory, that is to say, in the midst of a feast, seated at a table wherein a hollow has been cut out for his sacred stomach, and the holy pilgrim is told with noble pride that their Gorenflot, without any assistance at all, engorges the rations of eight of the most robust appetites in the convent.

And when the visitor has piously contemplated this marvellous spectacle :

" What an admirably endowed nature is his! " says the prior, with clasped hands and eyes raised to heaven. " Brother Gorenflot loves good cheer, and he also cultivates the arts ; you see how he eats ! Ah ! if you could have heard the sermon he preached on a certain night, a sermon in which he offered to sacrifice his life for the triumph of the faith! Behold a mouth that speaks like that of Saint John Ohrysostom, and swallows like that of Gargantua! "