From the Memoirs of a Minister of France

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"Pardon, sire, a moment," the physician answered, rising from his
knees. "Where is the cat?"

Someone brought it, and M. Du Laurens, after looking at it, said
curtly, "It has been poisoned."

La Trape uttered a groan of despair. "At what hour did it take
the milk?" the physician asked.

"A little before ten last evening," I said, seeing that La Trape
was too far gone for speech.

"Ah! And the man?"

"An hour later."

Du Laurens shook his head, and was preparing to lay down the cat,
which he had taken in his hands, when some appearance led him to
examine it again and more closely. "Why what is this?" he
exclaimed, in a tone of surprise, as he took the body to the
window. "There is a large swelling under its chin."

No one answered.

"Give me a pair of scissors," he continued; and then, after a
minute, when they had been handed to him and he had removed the
fur, "Ha!" he said gravely, "this is not so simple as I thought.
The cat has been poisoned, but by a prick with some sharp
instrument."

The King uttered an exclamation of incredulity. "But it drank
the milk," he said. "Some milk that--"

"Pardon, sire," Du Laurens answered positively. "A draught of
milk, however drugged, does not produce an external swelling with
a small blue puncture in the middle."

"What does?" the King asked, with something like a sneer.

"Ah, that is the question," the physician answered. "A ring,
perhaps, with a poison-chamber and hollow dart."

"But there is no question of that here," I said. "Let us be
clear. Do you say that the cat did not die of the milk?"

"I see no proof that it did," he answered. "And many things to
show that it died of poison administered by puncture."

"But then," I answered, in no little confusion of thought, "what
of La Trape?"

He turned, and with him all eyes, to the unfortunate equerry, who
still lay seemingly moribund, with his head propped on some
cushions. M. Du Laurens advanced to him and again felt his
pulse, an operation which appeared to bring a slight tinge of
colour to the fading cheeks. "How much milk did he drink?" the
physician asked after a pause.

"More than half a pint," I answered.

"And what besides?"

"A quantity of the King's posset, and a little lemonade."

"And for supper? What did you have?" the leech continued,
addressing himself to his patient.

"I had some wine," he answered feebly. "And a little Frontignac
with the butler; and some honey-mead that the gipsy-wench gave
me.

"The gipsy-wench?"

"The butler's girl, of whom I spoke."

M. Du Laurens rose slowly to his feet, and, to my amazement,
dealt the prostrate man a hearty kick; bidding him at the same
time to rise. "Get up, fool! Get up," he continued harshly, yet
with a ring of triumph in his voice, "all you have got is the
colic, and it is no more than you deserve. Get up, I say, and
beg his Majesty's pardon!"

"But," the King remonstrated in a tone of anger, "the man is
dying!"

"He is no more dying than you are, sire," the other answered.
"Or, if he is, it is of fright. There, he can stand as well as
you or I!"

And to be sure, as he spoke, La Trape scrambled to his feet, and
with a mien between shame and doubt stood staring at us, the very
picture of a simpleton. It was no wonder that his jaw fell and
his impudent face burned; for the room shook with such a roar of
laughter, at first low, and then as the King joined in it,
swelling louder and louder, as few of us had ever heard, Though I
was not a little mortified by the way in which we had deceived
ourselves, I could not help joining in the laugh; particularly as
the more closely we reviewed the scene in which we had taken
part, the more absurd seemed the jest. It was long before
silence could be obtained; but at length Henry, quite exhausted
by the violence of his mirth held up his hand. I seized the
opportunity.

"Why, you rascal!" I said, addressing La Trape, who did not know
which way to look, "where are the ten crowns of which you
defrauded the scullion?"

"To be sure," the King said, going off into another roar. "And
the third puppy?"

"Yes," I said, "you scoundrel; and the third puppy?"

"Ay, and the gipsy girl?" the King continued. "The butler's
wench, what of her? And of your evil living? Begone, begone,
rascal!" he continued, falling into a fresh paroxysm, "or you
will kill US in earnest. Would nothing else do for you but to
die in my chamber? Begone!"

I took this as a hint to clear the room, not only of La Trape
himself but of all; and presently only I and Du Laurens remained
with the King. It then appeared that there was still a mystery,
and one which it behoved us to clear up; inasmuch as Du Laurens
took the cat's death very seriously, insisting that it had died
of poison administered in a most sinister fashion, and one that
could not fail to recall to our minds the Borgian popes. It
needed no more than this to direct my suspicions to the
Florentines who swarmed about the Queen, and against whom the
King had let drop so many threats. But the indisposition which
excitement had for a time kept at bay began to return upon me;
and I was presently glad to drop the subject; and retire to my
own apartments, leaving the King to dress.

Consequently, I was not with him when the strange discovery which
followed was made. In the ordinary course of dressing, one of
the servants going to the fire-place to throw away a piece of
waste linen, thought that he heard a rat stir among the boughs.
He moved them, and in a moment a small snake crawled out, hissing
and darting out its tongue. It was killed, and then it at once
occurred to the King that he had the secret of the cat's death.
He came to me hot-foot with the news, and found me with Du
Laurens who was in the act of ordering me to bed.

I confess that I heard the story almost with apathy, so ill was
I. Not so the physician. After examining the snake, which by
the King's orders had been brought for my inspection, he
pronounced that it was not of French origin. "It has escaped
from some snake-charmer," he said.

The King seemed to be incredulous.

"I assure you that I speak the truth, sire," Du Laurens
persisted.

"But how then did it come in my room?"

"That is what I should like to know, sire," the physician
answered severely; "and yet I think that I can guess. It was put
there, I fancy, by the person who sent up the milk to your
chamber."

"Why do you say so?" Henry asked

"Because, sire, all snakes are inordinately fond of milk."

"Ah!" the King said slowly, with a change of countenance and a
shudder which he could not repress; "and there was milk on the
floor in the morning."

"Yes, sire; on the floor, and beside the head of your bed."

But at this stage I was attacked by a fit of illness so severe
that I had to break in on the discussion, and beg the King to
withdraw. The sickness increased on me during the day, and by
noon I was prostrate, neither taking interest in anything, nor
allowing others, who began to fear for my life, to divert their
attention. After twenty-four hours I began to mend, but still
several days elapsed before I was able to devote myself to
business; and then I found that, the master-mind being absent,
and the King, as always, lukewarm in the pursuit, nothing had
been done to detect and punish the criminal.

I could not rest easy, however, with so abominable a suspicion
attaching to my house; and as soon as I could bend my mind to the
matter I began an inquiry. At the first stage, however, I came
to an IMPASSE; the butler, who had been long in my service,
cleared himself without difficulty, but a few questions
discovered the fact that a person who had been in his department
on the evening in question was now to seek, having indeed
disappeared from that time. This was the gipsy-girl, whom La
Trape had mentioned, and whose presence in my household seemed to
need the more elucidation the farther I pushed the inquiry. In
the end I had the butler punished, but though my agents sought
the girl through Paris, and even traced her to Meaux, she was
never discovered.

The affair, at the King's instance, was not made public;
nevertheless, it gave him so strong a distaste for the Arsenal
that he did not again visit me, nor use the rooms I had prepared.
That later, when the first impression wore off, he would have
done so, is probable; but, alas, within a few months the malice
of his enemies prevailed over my utmost precautions, and robbed
me of the best of masters; strangely enough, as all the world now
knows, at the corner of that very Rue de la Feronnerie which he
had seen in his dream.

XII. AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

The passion which Henry still felt for Madame de Conde, and which
her flight from the country was far from assuaging, had a great
share in putting him upon the immediate execution of the designs
we had so long prepared. Looking to find in the stir and bustle
of a German campaign that relief of mind which the Court could no
longer afford him, he discovered in the unhoped-for wealth of his
treasury an additional incitement; and now waited only for the
opening of spring and the Queen's coronation to remove the last
obstacles that kept him from the field.

Nevertheless, relying on my assurances that all things were
ready, and persuaded that the more easy he showed himself the
less prepared would he find the enemy, he made no change in his
habits; but in March, 1610, went, as usual, to Fontainebleau,
where he diverted himself with hunting. It was during this visit
that the Court credited him with seeing--I think, on the Friday
before the Feast of the Virgin--the Great Huntsman; and even went
so far as to specify the part of the forest in which he came upon
it, and the form--that of a gigantic black horseman, surrounded
by hounds--which it assumed The spectre had not been seen since
the year 1598; nevertheless, the story spread widely, those who
whispered it citing in its support not only the remarkable
agitation into which the Queen fell publicly on the evening of
that day, but also some strange particulars that attended the
King's return from the forest; and, being taken up and repeated,
and confirmed, as many thought, by the unhappy sequence of his
death, the fable found a little later almost universal credence,
so that it may now be found even in books.

As it happened, however, I was that day at Fontainebleau, and
hunted with the King; and, favoured both by chance and the
confidence with which my master never failed to honour me, am
able not only to refute this story, but to narrate the actual
facts from which it took its rise. And though there are some, I
know, who boast that they had the tale from the King's own mouth,
I undertake to prove either that they are romancers who seek to
add an inch to their stature, or dull fellows who placed their
own interpretation on the hasty words he vouchsafed such
chatterers.

As a fact, the King, on that day wishing to discuss with me the
preparations for the Queen's entry, bade me keep close to him,
since he had more inclination for my company than the chase. But
the crowd that attended him was so large, the day being fine and
warm--and comprised, besides, so many ladies, whose badinage and
gaiety he could never forego--that I found him insensibly drawn
from me. Far from being displeased, I was glad to see him forget
the moodiness which had of late oppressed him; and beyond keeping
within sight of him, gave up, for the time, all thought of
affairs, and found in the beauty of the spectacle sufficient
compensation. The bright dresses and waving feathers of the
party showed to the greatest advantage, as the long cavalcade
wound through the heather and rocks of the valley below the
Apremonts; and whether I looked to front or rear--on the
huntsmen, with their great horns, or the hounds straining in the
leashes--I was equally charmed with a sight at once joyous and
gallant, and one to which the calls of duty had of late made me a
stranger.

On a sudden a quarry was started, and the company, galloping off
pell-mell, with a merry burst of music, were in a moment
dispersed, some taking this track, and others that, through the
rocks and DEBRIS that make that part of the forest difficult.
Singling out the King, I kept as near him as possible until the
chase led us into the Apremont coverts, where, the trees growing
thickly, and the rides cut through them being intricate, I lost
him for a while. Again, however, I caught sight of him flying
down a ride bordered by dark-green box-trees, against which his
white hunting coat showed vividly; but now he was alone, and
riding in a direction which each moment carried him farther from
the line of the chase, and entangled him more deeply in the
forest.

Supposing that he had made a bad cast and was in error, I dashed
the spurs into my horse, and galloped after him; then, finding
that he still held his own, and that I did not overtake him, but
that, on the contrary, he was riding at the top of his speed, I
called to him. "You are in error, sire, I think!" I cried.
"The hounds are the other way!"

He heard, for he raised his hand, and, without turning his head,
made me a sign; but whether of assent or denial, I could not
tell. And he still held on his course. Then, for a moment, I
fancied that his horse had got the better of him, and was running
away; but no sooner had the thought occurred to me than I saw
that he was spurring it, and exciting it to its utmost speed, so
that we reached the end of that ride, and rushed through another
and still another, always making, I did not fail to note, for the
most retired part of the forest,

We had proceeded in this way about a mile, and the sound of the
hunt had quite died away behind us, and I was beginning to chafe,
as well as marvel, at conduct so singular, when at last I saw
that he was slackening his pace. My horse, which was on the
point of failing, began, in turn, to overhaul his, while I looked
out with sharpened curiosity for the object of pursuit. I could
see nothing, however, and no one; and had just satisfied myself
that this was one of the droll freaks in which he would sometimes
indulge, and that in a second or two he would turn and laugh at
my discomfiture, when, on a sudden, with a final pull at the
reins, he did turn, and showed me a face flushed with passion and
chagrin.

I was so taken aback that I cried out. "MON DIEU! sire," I
said. "What is it? What is the matter?"

"Matter enough!" he cried, with an oath. And on that, halting
his horse, he looked at me as if he would read my heart. "VENTRE
DE SAINT GRIS!" he said, in a voice that made me tremble, "if I
were sure that there was no mistake, I would--I would never see
your face again!"

I uttered an exclamation.

"Have you not deceived me?" quoth he.

"Oh, sire, I am weary of these suspicions!" I answered,
affecting an indifference I did not feel. "If your Majesty does
not--"

But he cut me short. "Answer me!" he said harshly, his mouth
working in his beard and his eyes gleaming with excitement.
"Have you not deceived me?"

"No, sire!" I said.

"Yet you have told me day by day that Madame de Conde remained in
Brussels?"

"Certainly!"

"And you still say so?"

"Most certainly!" I answered firmly, beginning to think that his
passion had turned his brain. "I had despatches to that effect
this morning."

"Of what date?"

"Three days gone. The courier travelled night and day."

"They may be true, and still she may be here to-day?" he said,
staring at me.

"Impossible, sire!"

"But, man, I have just seen her!" he cried impatiently.

"Madame de Conde?"

"Yes, Madame de Conde, or I am a madman!" Henry answered,
speaking a little more moderately. "I saw her gallop out of the
patch of rocks at the end of the Dormoir--where the trees begin.
She did not heed the line of the hounds, but turned straight down
the boxwood ride; and, after that, led as I followed. Did you
not see her?"

"No, sire," I said, inexpressibly alarmed--I could take it for
nothing but fantasy--"I saw no one."

"And I saw her as clearly as I see you," he answered. "She wore
the yellow ostrich-feather she wore last year, and rode her
favourite chestnut horse with a white stocking. But I could have
sworn to her by her figure alone; and she waved her hand to me."

"But, sire, out of the many ladies riding to-day--"

"There is no lady wearing a yellow feather," he answered
passionately. "And the horse! And I knew her, man! Besides,
she waved to me! And, for the others--why should they turn from
the hunt and take to the woods?"

I could not answer this, but I looked at him in fear; for, as it
was impossible that the Princess de Conde could be here, I saw no
alternative but to think him smitten with madness. The
extravagance of the passion which he had entertained for her, and
the wrath into which the news of her flight with her young
husband had thrown him, to say nothing of the depression under
which he had since suffered, rendered the idea not so unlikely as
it now seems. At any rate, I was driven for a moment to
entertain it; and gazed at him in silence, a prey to the most
dreadful apprehensions.

We stood in a narrow ride, bordered by evergreens, with which
that part of the forest is planted; and but for the songs of the
birds the stillness would have been absolute. On a sudden the
King removed his eyes from me, and, walking his horse a pace or
two along the ride, uttered a cry of joy.

He pointed to the ground. "We are right!" he said. "There are
her tracks! Come! We will overtake her yet!"

I looked, and saw the fresh prints of a horse's shoes, and felt a
great weight roll off my mind, for at least he had seen someone.
I no longer hesitated to fall in with his humour, but, riding
after him, kept at his elbow until he reached the end of the
ride. Here, a vista opening right and left, and the ground being
hard and free from tracks, we stood at a loss; until the King,
whose eyesight was always of the keenest, uttered an exclamation,
and started from me at a gallop.

I followed more slowly, and saw him dismount and pick up a glove,
which, even at that distance, he had discerned lying in the
middle of one of the paths. He cried, with a flushed face, that
it was Madame de Conde's; and added: "It has her perfume--her
perfume, which no one else uses!"

I confess that this so staggered me that I knew not what to
think; but, between sorrow at seeing my master so infatuated and
bewilderment at a riddle that grew each moment more perplexing, I
sat gaping at Henry like a man without counsel. However, at the
moment, he needed none, but, getting to his saddle as quickly as
he could, he began again to follow the tracks of the horse's
feet, which here were visible, the path running through a beech
wood. The branches were still bare, and the shining trunks stood
up like pillars, the ground about them being soft. We followed
the prints through this wood for a mile and a half or more, and
then, with a cry, the King darted from me, and, in an instant,
was racing through the wood at break-neck speed.

I had a glimpse of a woman flying far ahead of us; and now hidden
from us by the trunks and now disclosed; and could even see
enough to determine that she wore a yellow feather drooping from
her hat, and was in figure not unlike the Princess. But that was
all; for, once started, the inequalities of the ground drew my
eyes from the flying form, and, losing it, I could not again
recover it. On the contrary, it was all I could do to keep up
with the King; and of the speed at which the woman was riding,
could best judge by the fact that in less than five minutes he,
too, pulled-up with a gesture of despair, and waited for me to
come abreast of him.

"You saw her?" he said, his face grim, and with something of
suspicion lurking in it.

"Yes, sire," I answered, "I saw a woman, and a woman with a
yellow feather; but whether it was the Princess--"

"It was!" he said. "If not, why should she flee from us?"

To that, again, I had not a word to say, and for a moment we rode
in silence. Observing, however, that this last turn had brought
us far on the way home, I called the King's attention to this;
but he had sunk into a fit of gloomy abstraction, and rode along
with his eyes on the ground. We proceeded thus until the slender
path we followed brought up into the great road that leads
through the forest to the kennels and the new canal.

Here I asked him if he would not return to the chase, as the day
was still young.

"Mon Dieu, no!" he answered passionately. "I have other work to
do. Hark ye, M. le Duc, do you still think that she is in
Brussels?"

"I swear that she was there three days ago, sire!"

"And you are not deceiving me? If it be so, God forgive you, for
I shall not!"

"It is no trick of mine, sire," I answered firmly.

"Trick?" he cried, with a flash of his eyes. "A trick, you say?
No, VENTRE DE SAINT GRIS! there is no man in France dare trick
me so!"

I did not contradict him, the rather as we were now close to the
kennels, and I was anxious to allay his excitement; that it might
not be detected by the keen eyes that lay in wait for us, and so
add to the gossip to which his early return must give rise. I
hoped that at that hour he might enter unperceived, by way of the
kennels and the little staircase; but in this I was disappointed,
the beauty of the day having tempted a number of ladies, and
others who had not hunted, to the terrace by the canal; whence,
walking up and down, their fans and petticoats fluttering in the
sunshine, and their laughter and chatter filling the air, they
were able to watch our approach at their leisure.

Unfortunately, Henry had no longer the patience and self-control
needful for such a RENCONTRE. He dismounted with a dark and
peevish air, and, heedless of the staring, bowing throng, strode
up the steps. Two or three, who stood high in favour, put
themselves forward to catch a smile or a word, but he vouchsafed
neither. He walked through them with a sour air, and entered the
chateau with a precipitation that left all tongues wagging.

To add to the misfortune, something--I forget what--detained me a
moment, and that cost us dear. Before I could cross the terrace,
Concini, the Italian, came up, and, saluting me, said that the
Queen desired to speak to me.

"The Queen?" I said, doubtfully, foreseeing trouble.

"She is waiting at the gate of the farther court," he answered
politely, his keen black eyes reverting, with eager curiosity, to
the door by which the King had disappeared.

I could not refuse, and went to her. "The King has returned
early, M. le Duc?" she said.

"Yes, madame," I answered. "He had a fancy to discuss affairs
to-day, and we lost the hounds."

"Together?"

"I had the honour, Madame."

"You do not seem to have agreed very well?" she said, smiling.

"Madame," I answered bluntly, "his Majesty has no more faithful
servant; but we do not always agree."

She raised her hand, and, with a slight gesture, bade her ladies
stand back, while her face lost its expression of good-temper,
and grew sharp and dark. "Was it about the Conde?" she said, in
a low, grating voice. "No, madame," I answered; "it was about
certain provisions. The King's ear had been grossly abused, and
his Majesty led to believe--"

"Faugh!" she cried, with a wave of contempt, "that is an old
story! I am sick of it. Is she still at Brussels?"

"Still, madame."

"Then see that she stops there!" her Majesty retorted, with a
meaning look.

And with that she dismissed me, and went into the chateau. I
proposed to rejoin the King; but, to my chagrin, I found, when I
reached the closet, that he had already sent for Varennes, and
was shut up with him. I went back to my rooms therefore, and,
after changing my hunting suit and transacting some necessary
business, sat down to dinner with Nicholas, the King's secretary,
a man fond of the table, whom I often entertained. He kept me in
talk until the afternoon was well advanced, and we were still at
table when Maignan appeared and told me that the King had sent
for me.

"I will go," I said, rising.

"He is with the Queen, your Excellency," he continued.

This somewhat surprised me, but I thought no evil; and, finding
one of the Queen's Italian pages at the door waiting to conduct
me, I followed him across the court that lay between my lodgings
and her apartments. Two or three of the King's gentlemen were in
the anteroom when I arrived, and Varennes, who was standing by
one of the fire-places toying with a hound, made me a face of
dismay; he could not speak, owing to the company.

Still this, in a degree, prepared me for the scene in the
chamber, where I found the Queen storming up and down the room,
while the King, still in his hunting dress, sat on a low chair by
the fire, apparently drying his boots. Mademoiselle Galigai, the
Queen's waiting-woman, stood in the background; but more than
this I had not time to observe, for, before I had reached the
middle of the floor, the Queen turned on me, and began to abuse
me with a vehemence which fairly shocked me.

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