A Gentleman of France

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'By heavens, sir, I knew nothing of this!' I heard the King of
Navarre declare, addressing himself to the Vicomte de Turenne.
'The man is here by no connivance of mine. Interrogate him
yourself, if you will. Or I will. Speak, sir,' he continued,
turning to me with his countenance hard and forbidding. 'You
heard me yesterday, what I promised you? Why, in God's name, are
you here to-day?'

I tried to answer, but Maignan had so handled me that I had not
breath enough, and stood panting.

'Your Highness's clemency in this matter,' M. de Turenne said,
with a sneer, 'has been so great he trusted to its continuance.
And doubtless he thought to find you alone. I fear I am in the
way.'

I knew him by his figure and his grand air, which in any other
company would have marked him for master; and forgetting the
impatience which a moment before had consumed me--doubtless I was
still light-headed--I answered him. 'Yet I had once the promise
of your lordship's protection,' I gasped.

'My protection, sir?' he exclaimed, his eyes gleaming angrily.

'Even so,' I answered. 'At the inn at Etampes, where M. de
Crillon would have fought me.'

He was visibly taken aback. 'Are you that man?' he cried.

'I am. But I am not here to prate of myself,' I replied. And
with that--the remembrance of my neglected errand flashing on me
again--I staggered to the King of Navarre's side, and, falling on
my knees, seized his stirrup. 'Sire, I bring you news! great
news! dreadful news!' I cried, clinging to it. 'His Majesty
was but a quarter of an hour ago stabbed in the body in his
chamber by a villain monk. And is dying, or, it may be, dead.'

'Dead? The King!' Turenne cried with an oath. 'Impossible!'

Vaguely I heard others crying, some this, some that, as surprise
and consternation, or anger, or incredulity moved them. But I
did not answer them, for Henry, remaining silent, held me
spellbound and awed by the, marvellous change which I saw fall on
his face. His eyes became on a sudden suffused with blood, and
seemed to retreat under his heavy brows; his cheeks turned of a
brick-red colour; his half-open lips showed his teeth gleaming
through his beard; while his great nose, which seemed to curve
and curve until it well-nigh met his chin, gave to his mobile
countenance an aspect as strange as it was terrifying. Withal he
uttered for a time no word, though I saw his hand, grip the
riding-whip he held in a convulsive grasp, as though his thought
were ''Tis mine! Mine! Wrest it away who dares!'

'Bethink you, sir,' he said at last, fixing his piercing eyes on
me, and speaking in a harsh, low tone, like the growling of a
great dog, 'this is no jesting-time. Nor will you save your skin
by a ruse. Tell me, on your peril, is this a trick?'

'Heaven forbid, sire!' I answered with passion. 'I was in the
chamber, and saw it; with my own eyes. I mounted on the instant,
and rode hither by the shortest route to warn your Highness to
look to yourself. Monks are many, and the Holy Union is not apt
to stop half-way.'

I saw he believed me, for his face relaxed. His breath seemed to
come and go again, and for the tenth part of a second his eyes
sought M. de Rosny's. Then he looked at me again.

'I thank you, sir, he said, bowing gravely and courteously, 'for
your care for me--not for your tidings, which are of the
sorriest. God grant my good cousin and king may be hurt only.
Now tell us exactly--for these gentlemen are equally interested
with myself--had a surgeon seen him?'

I replied in the negative, but added that the wound was in the
groin, and bled much,

'You said a few minutes ago, "dying or already dead!"' the King
of Navarre rejoined. 'Why?'

'His Majesty's face was sunken,' I stammered.

He nodded. 'You may be mistaken,' he said. 'I pray that you
are. But here comes Mornay. He may know more.'

In a moment I was abandoned, even by M. de Turenne, so great was
the anxiety which possessed all to learn the truth. Maignan
alone, under pretence of adjusting a stirrup, remained beside me,
and entreated me in a low voice to begone. 'Take this horse, M.
de Marsac, if you will,' he urged, 'and ride back the way you
came. You have done what you came to do. Go back, and be
thankful.'

'Chut!' I said, 'there is no danger.'

'You will see,' he replied darkly, 'if you stay here. Come,
come, take my advice and the horse,' he persisted, 'and begone!
Believe me, it will be for the best.'

I laughed outright at his earnestness and his face of perplexity.
'I see you have M. de Rosny's orders to get rid of me,' I said.
'But I am not going, my friend. He must find some other way out
of his embarrassment, for here I stay.'

'Well, your blood be on your own head,' Maignan retorted,
swinging himself into the saddle with a gloomy face. 'I have
done my best to save you!'

'And your master!' I answered, laughing.

For flight was the last thing I had in my mind. I had ridden
this ride with a clear perception that the one thing I needed was
a footing at Court. By the special kindness of Providence I had
now gained this; and I was not the man to resign it because it
proved to be scanty and perilous. It was something that I had
spoken to the great Vicomte face to face and not been consumed,
that I had given him look for look and still survived, that I had
put in practice Crillon's lessons and come to no harm.

Nor was this all. I had never in the worst times blamed the King
of Navarre for his denial of me, I had been foolish, indeed,
seeing that it was in the bargain, had I done so; nor had I ever
doubted his good-will or his readiness to reward me should
occasion arise. Now, I flattered myself, I had given him that
which he needed, and had hitherto lacked--an excuse, I mean, for
interference in my behalf.

Whether I was right or wrong in this notion I was soon to learn,
for at this moment Henry's cavalcade, which had left me a hundred
paces behind, came to a stop, and while some of the number waved
to me to come on, one spurred back to summon me to the king. I
hastened to obey the order as fast as I could, but I saw on
approaching that though all was at a standstill till I came up,
neither the King of Navarre nor M. de Turenne was thinking
principally of me. Every face, from Henry's to that of his least
important courtier, wore an air of grave preoccupation; which I
had no difficulty in ascribing to the doubt present in every
mind, and outweighing every interest, whether the King of France
was dead, or dying, or merely wounded.

'Quick, sir!' Henry said with impatience, as soon as I came
within hearing. 'Do not detain me with your affairs longer than
is necessary. M. de Turenne presses me to carry into effect the
order I gave yesterday. But as you have placed yourself in
jeopardy on my account I feel that; something is due to you. You
will be good enough, therefore, to present yourself at once at M.
la Varenne's lodging, and give me your parole to remain there
without stirring abroad until your affair is concluded.'

Aware that I owed this respite, which at once secured my present
safety and promised well for the future, to the great event that,
even in M. de Turenne's mind, had overshadowed all others, I
bowed in silence. Henry, however, was not content with this.
'Come, sir,' he said sharply, and with every appearance of anger,
'do you agree to that?'

I replied humbly that I thanked him for his clemency.

'There is no need of thanks,' he replied coldly. 'What I have
done is without prejudice to M. de Turenne's complaint. He must
have justice.'

I bowed again, and in a moment the troop were gone at a gallop
towards Meudon, whence, as I afterwards learned, the King of
Navarre, attended by a select body of five-and-twenty horsemen,
wearing private arms, rode on at full speed to St. Cloud to
present himself at his Majesty's bedside. A groom who had caught
the Cid, which had escaped into the town with no other injury
than a slight wound in the shoulder, by-and-by met me with the
horse; and in this way I was enabled to render myself with some
decency at Varenne's lodging, a small house at the foot of the
hill, not far from the Castle-gate.

Here I found myself under no greater constraint than that which
my own parole laid upon me; and my room having the conveniency of
a window looking upon the public street, I was enabled from hour
to hour to comprehend and enter into the various alarms and
surprises which made that day remarkable. The manifold reports
which flew from mouth to mouth on the occasion, as well as the
overmastering excitement which seized all, are so well
remembered, however, that I forbear to dwell upon them, though
they served to distract my mind from my own position. Suffice it
that at one moment we heard that His Majesty was dead, at another
that the wound was skin deep, and again that we might expect him
at Meudon before sunset. The rumour that the Duchess de
Montpensier had taken poison was no sooner believed than we were
asked to listen to the guns of Paris firing FEUX DE JOIE in
honour of the King's death.

The streets were so closely packed with persons telling and
hearing these tales that I seemed from my window to be looking on
a fair. Nor was all my amusement withoutdoors; for a number of
the gentlemen of the Court, hearing that I had been at St. Cloud
in the morning, and in the very chamber, a thing which made me
for the moment the most desirable companion in the world,
remembered on a sudden that they had a slight acquaintance with
me, and honoured me by calling upon me and sitting a great part
of the day with me. From which circumstance I confess I derived
as much hope as they diversion; knowing that courtiers are the
best weather-prophets in the world, who hate nothing so much as
to be discovered in the company of those on whom the sun does not
shine.

The return of the King of Navarre, which happened about the
middle of the afternoon, while it dissipated the fears of some
and dashed the hopes of others, put an end to this state of
uncertainty by confirming, to the surprise of many, that His
Majesty was in no danger. We learned with varying emotions that
the first appearances, which had deceived, not myself only, but
experienced leeches, had been themselves belied by subsequent
conditions; and that, in a word, Paris had as much to fear, and
loyal men as much to hope, as before this wicked and audacious
attempt.

I had no more than stomached this surprising information, which
was less welcome to me, I confess, than it should have been, when
the arrival of M. d'Agen, who greeted me with the affection which
he never failed to show me, distracted my thoughts for a time.
Immediately on learning where I was and, the strange adventures
which had befallen me he had ridden off; stopping only once, when
he had nearly reached me, for the purpose of waiting on Madame de
Bruhl. I asked him how she had received him.

'Like herself,' he replied with an ingenuous blush. 'More kindly
than I had a right to expect, if not as warmly as I had the
courage to hope.'

'That will come with time,' I said, laughing. 'And Mademoiselle
de la Vire?'

'I did not see her,' he answered, 'but I heard she was well. And
a hundred fathoms deeper in love,' he added, eyeing me roguishly,
'than when I saw her last.'

It was my turn to colour now, and I did so, feeling all the
pleasure and delight such, a statement was calculated to afford
me. Picturing mademoiselle as I had seen her last, leaning from
her horse with love written so plainly on her weeping face that
all who ran might read, I sank into so delicious a reverie that
M. la Varenne, entering suddenly, surprised us both before
another word passed on either side.

His look and tone were as abrupt as it was in his nature, which
was soft and compliant, to make them. 'M. de Marsac,' he said,
'I am sorry to put any constraint upon you, but I am directed to
forbid you to your friends. And I must request this gentleman to
withdraw.'

'But all day my friends have come in and out,' I said with
surprise. 'Is this a new order?'

'A written order, which reached me no farther back than two
minutes ago, 'he answered plainly. 'I am also directed to remove
you to a room at the back of the house, that you may not overlook
the street.'

'But my parole was taken,' I cried, with a natural feeling of
indignation.

He shrugged his shoulders. 'I am sorry to say that I have
nothing to do with that,' he answered. 'I can only obey orders.
I must ask this gentleman, therefore, to withdraw.'

Of course M. d'Agen had no option but to leave me; which he did,
I could see, notwithstanding his easy and confident expressions,
with a good deal of mistrust and apprehension. When he was gone,
La Varenne lost no time in carrying out the remainder of his
orders. As a consequence I found myself confined to a small and
gloomy apartment which looked, at a distance of three paces, upon
the smooth face of the rock on which the Castle stood. This
change, from a window which commanded all the life of the town,
and intercepted every breath of popular fancy, to a closet
whither no sounds penetrated, and where the very transition from
noon to evening scarcely made itself known, could not fail to
depress my spirits sensibly; the more as I took it to be
significant of a change in my fortunes fully as grave.
Reflecting that I must now appear to the King of Navarre in the
light of a bearer of false tidings, I associated the order to
confine me more closely with his return from St. Cloud; and
comprehending that M. de Turenne was once more at liberty to
attend to my affairs, I began to look about me with forebodings
which were none the less painful because the parole I had given
debarred me from any attempt to escape.

Sleep and habit enabled me, nevertheless, to pass the night in
comfort. Very early in the morning a great firing of guns, which
made itself heard even in my quarters, led me to suppose that
Paris had surrendered; but the servant who brought me my
breakfast; declined in a surly fashion to give me any
information. In the end, I spent the whole day alone, my
thoughts divided between my mistress and my own prospects, which
seemed to grow more and more gloomy as the hours succeeded one
another. No one came near me, no step broke the silence of the
house; and for a while I thought my guardians had forgotten even
that I needed food. This omission, it is true, was made good
about sunset, but still M. la Varenne did not appear, the servant
seemed to be dumb, and I heard no sounds in the house.

I had finished my meal an hour or more, and the room was growing
dark, when the silence was at last broken by quick steps passing
along the entrance. They paused, and seemed to hesitate at the
foot of the stairs, but the next moment they came on again, and
stopped at my door. I rose from my seat on hearing the key
turned in the lock, and my astonishment may be conceived when I
saw no other than M. de Turenne enter, and close the door behind
him.

He saluted me in a haughty manner as he advanced to the table,
raising his cap for an instant and then replacing it. This done
he stood looking at me, and I at him, in a silence which on my
side was the result of pure astonishment; on his, of contempt and
a kind of wonder. The evening light, which was fast failing,
lent a sombre whiteness to his face, causing it to stand out from
the shadows behind him in a way which was not without its
influence on me.

'Well!' he said at, last, speaking slowly and with unimaginable
insolence, 'I am here to look at you!'

I felt my anger rise, and gave him back look for look. 'At your
will,' I said, shrugging my shoulders.

'And to solve a question,' he continued in the same tone. 'To
learn whether the man who was mad enough to insult and defy me
was the old penniless dullard some called him, or the dare-devil
others painted him.'

'You are satisfied now?' I said.

He eyed me for a moment closely; then with sudden heat he cried,
'Curse me if I am! Nor whether I have to do with a man very deep
or very shallow, a fool or a knave!'

'You may say what you please to a prisoner,' I retorted coldly.

'Turenne commonly does--to whom he pleases!' he answered. The
next moment he made me start by saying, as he drew out a comfit-
box and opened it, 'I am just from the little fool you have
bewitched. If she were in my power I would have her whipped and
put on bread and water till she came to her senses. As she is
not, I must take another way. Have you any idea, may I ask,' he
continued in his cynical tone, 'what is going to become of you,
M. de Marsac?'

I replied, my heart inexpressibly lightened by what he had said
of mademoiselle, that I placed the fullest confidence in the
justice of the King of Navarre.

He repeated the name in a tone, I did not understand.

'Yes, sir, the King of Navarre,' I answered firmly.

'Well, I daresay you have good reason to do so,' he rejoined with
a sneer. 'Unless I am mistaken he knew a little more of this
affair than he acknowledges.'

'Indeed? The King of Navarre?' I said, staring stolidly at him.

'Yes, indeed, indeed, the King of Navarre!' he retorted,
mimicking me, with a nearer approach to anger than I had yet
witnessed in him. 'But let him be a moment, sirrah!' he
continued, 'and do you listen to me. Or first look at that.
Seeing is believing.'

He drew out as he spoke a paper, or, to speak more correctly, a
parchment, which he thrust with a kind of savage scorn into my
hand. Repressing for the moment the surprise I felt, I took it
to the window, and reading it with difficulty, found it to be a
royal patent drawn, as far as I could judge, in due form, and
appointing some person unknown--for the name was left blank--to
the post of Lieutenant-Governor of the Armagnac, with a salary of
twelve thousand livres a year!

'Well, sir?' he said impatiently.

'Well?' I answered mechanically. For my brain reeled; the
exhibition of such a paper in such a way raised extraordinary
thoughts in my mind.

'Can you read it?' he asked.

'Certainly,' I answered, telling myself that he would fain play a
trick on me.

'Very well,' he replied, 'then listen. I am going to condescend;
to make you an offer, M. de Marsac. I will procure you your
freedom, and fill up the blank, which you see there, with your
name--upon one condition.'

I stared at him with all the astonishment it was natural for me
to feel in the face, of such a proposition. 'You will confer
this office on me?' I muttered incredulously.

'The king having placed it at my disposal,' he answered, 'I will.
But first let me remind you,' he went on proudly, 'that the
affair has another side. On the one hand I offer you such
employment, M. de Marsac, as should satisfy your highest
ambition. On the other, I warn you that my power to avenge
myself is no less to-day than it was yesterday; and that if I
condescend to buy you, it is because that course commends itself
to me for reasons, not because it is the only one open.'

I bowed. 'The condition, M. le Vicomte?' I said huskily,
beginning to understand him.

'That you give up all claim and suit to the hand of my
kinswoman,' he answered lightly. 'That is all. It is a simple
and easy condition.'

I looked at him in renewed astonishment, in wonder, in
stupefaction; asking myself a hundred questions. Why did he
stoop to bargain, who could command? Why did he condescend to
treat, who held me at his mercy? Why did he gravely discuss my
aspirations, to whom they must seem the rankest presumption?
Why?--but I could not follow it. I stood looking at him in
silence; in perplexity as great as if he had offered me the Crown
of France; in amazement and doubt and suspicion that knew no
bounds.

'Well!' he said at last, misreading the emotion which appeared
in my face. 'You consent, sir?'

'Never!' I answered firmly.

He started. 'I think I cannot have heard you aright,' he said,
speaking slowly and almost courteously. 'I offer you a great
place and my patronage, M. de Marsac. Do I understand that you
prefer a prison and my enmity?'

'On those conditions,' I answered.

'Think, think!' he said harshly.

'I have thought,' I answered.

'Ay, but have you thought where you are?' he retorted. 'Have
you thought how many obstacles lie between you and this little
fool? How many persons you must win over, how many friends you
must gain? Have you thought what it will be to have me against
you in this, or which of us is more likely to win in the end?'

'I have thought,' I rejoined.

But my voice shook, my lips were dry. The room had grown dark.
The rock outside, intercepting the light, gave it already the
air of a dungeon. Though I did not dream of yielding to him,
though I even felt that in this interview he had descended to my
level, and I had had the better of him, I felt my heart sink.
For I remembered how men immured in prisons drag out their lives
always petitioning, always forgotten; how wearily the days go,
that to free men are bright with hope and ambition. And I saw in
a flash what it would be to remain here, or in some such place;
never to cross horse again, or breathe the free air of Heaven,
never to hear the clink of sword against stirrup, or the rich
tones of M. d'Agen's voice calling for his friend!

I expected M. de Turenne to go when I had made my answer, or else
to fall into such a rage as opposition is apt to cause in those
who seldom encounter it. To my surprise, however, he restrained
himself. 'Come,' he said, with patience which fairly astonished
me, and so much the more as chagrin was clearly marked in his
voice, 'I know where you put your trust. You think the King of
Navarre will protect you. Well, I pledge you the honour of
Turenne that he will not; that the King of Navarre will do
nothing to save you. Now, what do you say?'

'As I said before,' I answered doggedly.

He took up the parchment from the table with a grim laugh. 'So
much the worse for you then!' he said, shrugging his shoulders.
'So much the worse for you! I took you for a rogue! It seems
you are a fool!'

CHAPTER XXXVI.

'VIVE LE ROI!'

He took his leave with those words. But his departure, which I
should have hailed a few minutes before with joy, as a relief
from embarrassment and humiliation, found me indifferent. The
statement to which he had solemnly pledged himself in regard to
the King of Navarre, that I could expect no further help from
him, had prostrated me; dashing my hopes and spirits so
completely that I remained rooted to the spot long after his step
had ceased to sound on the stairs. If what he said was true, in
the gloom which darkened alike my room and my prospects I could
descry no glimmer of light. I knew His Majesty's weakness and
vacillation too well to repose any confidence in him; if the King
of Navarre also abandoned me, I was indeed without hope, as
without resource.

I had stood some time with my mind painfully employed upon this
problem, which my knowledge of M. de Turenne's strict honour in
private matters did not allow me to dismiss lightly, when I heard
another step on the stairs, and in a moment M. la Varenne opened
the door. Finding me in the dark he muttered an apology for the
remissness of the servants; which I accepted, seeing nothing else
for it, in good part.

'We have been at sixes-and-sevens all day, and you have been
forgotten,' he continued. 'But you will have no reason to
complain now. I am ordered to conduct you to His Majesty without
delay.'

'To St. Cloud?' I exclaimed, greatly astonished.

'No, the king of France is here,' he answered.

'At Meudon?'

'To be sure. Why not?'

I expressed my wonder at his Majesty's rapid recovery.

'Pooh!' he answered roughly. 'He is as well as he ever was. I
will leave you my light. Be good enough to descend as soon as
you are ready, for it is ill work keeping kings waiting. Oh!
and I had forgotten one thing,' he continued, returning when he
had already reached the door. 'My orders are to see that you do
not hold converse with anyone until you have seen the king, M. de
Marsac. You will kindly remember this if we are kept waiting in
the antechamber.'

'Am I to be transported to--other custody?' I asked, my mind
full of apprehension.

He shrugged his shoulders. 'Possibly,' he replied. 'I do not
know.'

Of course there was nothing for it but to murmur that I was at
the king's disposition; after which La Varenne retired, leaving
me to put the best face on the matter I could. Naturally I
augured anything but well of an interview weighted with such a
condition; and this contributed still further to depress my
spirits, already lowered by the long solitude in which I had
passed the day. Fearing nothing, however, so much as suspense, I
hastened to do what I could to repair my costume, and then
descended to the foot of the stairs, where I found my custodian
awaiting me with a couple of servants, of whom one bore a link.

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