The House of the Wolf
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Stanley Weyman >> The House of the Wolf
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I ran the faster for the sharp report of a pistol behind me, and
the whirr of a ball past my ear. But I was not scared by it:
and as my feet alighted with a bound on the topmost step, I
glanced back. The dogs were halfway across the court. I made a
bungling attempt to shut and lock the great door--failed in this;
and heard behind me a roar of coarse triumph. I waited for no
more. I darted up the oak staircase four steps at a time, and
rushed into the great drawing-room on my left, banging the door
behind me.
The once splendid room was in a state of strange disorder. Some
of the rich tapestry had been hastily torn down. One window was
closed and shuttered; no doubt Croisette had done it. The other
two were open--as if there had not been time to close them--and
the cold light which they admitted contrasted in ghastly fashion
with the yellow rays of candles still burning in the sconces.
The furniture had been huddled aside or piled into a barricade, a
CHEVAUX DE FRISE of chairs and tables stretching across the width
of the room, its interstices stuffed with, and its weakness
partly screened by, the torn-down hangings. Behind this frail
defence their backs to a door which seemed to lead to an inner
room, stood Marie and Croisette, pale and defiant. The former
had a long pike; the latter levelled a heavy, bell-mouthed
arquebuse across the back of a chair, and blew up his match as I
entered. Both had in addition procured swords. I darted like a
rabbit through a little tunnel left on purpose for me in the
rampart, and took my stand by them.
"Is all right?" ejaculated Croisette turning to me nervously.
"All right, I think," I answered. I was breathless.
"You are not hurt?"
"Not touched!"
I had just time then to draw my sword before the assailants
streamed into the room, a dozen ruffians, reeking and tattered,
with flushed faces and greedy, staring eyes. Once inside,
however, suddenly--so suddenly that an idle spectator might have
found the change ludicrous--they came to a stop. Their wild
cries ceased, and tumbling over one another with curses and oaths
they halted, surveying us in muddled surprise; seeing what was
before them, and not liking it. Their leader appeared to be a
tall butcher with a pole-axe on his half-naked shoulder; but
there were among them two or three soldiers in the royal livery
and carrying pikes. They had looked for victims only, having met
with no resistance at the gate, and the foremost recoiled now on
finding themselves confronted by the muzzle of the arquebuse and
the lighted match.
I seized the occasion. I knew, indeed, that the pause presented
our only chance, and I sprang on a chair and waved my hand for
silence. The instinct of obedience for the moment asserted
itself; there was a stillness in the room.
"Beware!" I cried loudly--as loudly and confidently as I could,
considering that there was a quaver at my heart as I looked on
those savage faces, which met and yet avoided my eye. "Beware of
what you do! We are Catholics one and all like yourselves, and
good sons of the Church. Ay, and good subjects too! VIVE LE
ROI, gentlemen! God save the King! I say." And I struck the
barricade with my sword until the metal rang again. "God save
the King!"
"Cry VIVE LA MESSE!" shouted one.
"Certainly, gentlemen!" I replied, with politeness. "With all
my heart. VIVE LA MESSE! VIVE LA MESSE!"
This took the butcher, who luckily was still sober, utterly
aback. He had never thought of this. He stared at us as if the
ox he had been about to fell had opened its mouth and spoken, and
grievously at a loss, he looked for help to his companions.
Later in the day, some Catholics were killed by the mob. But
their deaths as far as could be learned afterwards were due to
private feuds. Save in such cases--and they were few--the cry of
VIVE LA MESSE! always obtained at least a respite: more easily
of course in the earlier hours of the morning when the mob were
scarce at ease in their liberty to kill, while killing still
seemed murder, and men were not yet drunk with bloodshed.
I read the hesitation of the gang in their faces: and when one
asked roughly who we were, I replied with greater boldness, "I am
M. Anne de Caylus, nephew to the Vicomte de Caylus, Governor,
under the King, of Bayonne and the Landes!" This I said with
what majesty I could. "And these" I continued--"are my brothers.
You will harm us at your peril, gentlemen. The Vicomte, believe
me, will avenge every hair of our heads."
I can shut my eyes now and see the stupid wonder, the baulked
ferocity of those gaping faces. Dull and savage as the men were
they were impressed; they saw reason indeed, and all seemed going
well for us when some one in the rear shouted, "Cursed whelps!
Throw them over!"
I looked swiftly in the direction whence the voice came--the
darkest corner of the room the corner by the shuttered window. I
thought I made out a slender figure, cloaked and masked--a
woman's it might be but I could not be certain and beside it a
couple of sturdy fellows, who kept apart from the herd and well
behind their fugleman.
The speaker's courage arose no doubt from his position at the
back of the room, for the foremost of the assailants seemed less
determined. We were only three, and we must have gone down,
barricade and all, before a rush. But three are three. And an
arquebuse--Croisette's match burned splendidly--well loaded with
slugs is an ugly weapon at five paces, and makes nasty wounds,
besides scattering its charge famously. This, a good many of
them and the leaders in particular, seemed to recognise. We
might certainly take two or three lives: and life is valuable to
its owner when plunder is afoot. Besides most of them had common
sense enough to remember that there were scores of Huguenots
--genuine heretics--to be robbed for the killing, so why go out
of the way, they reasoned, to cut a Catholic throat, and perhaps
get into trouble. Why risk Montfaucon for a whim? and offend a
man of influence like the Vicomte de Caylus, for nothing!
Unfortunately at this crisis their original design was recalled
to their minds by the same voice behind, crying out, "Pavannes!
Where is Pavannes?"
"Ay!" shouted the butcher, grasping the idea, and at the same
time spitting on his hands and taking a fresh grip of the axe,
"Show us the heretic dog, and go! Let us at him."
"M. de Pavannes," I said coolly--but I could not take my eyes off
the shining blade of that man's axe, it was so very broad and
sharp--"is not here!"
"That is a lie! He is in that room behind you!" the prudent
gentleman in the background called out. "Give him up!"
"Ay, give him up!" echoed the man of the pole-axe almost good
humouredly, "or it will be the worse for you. Let us have at him
and get you gone!"
This with an air of much reason, while a growl as of a chained
beast ran through the crowd, mingled with cries of "A MORT LES
HUGUENOTS! VIVE LORRAINE!"--cries which seemed to show that all
did not approve of the indulgence offered us.
"Beware, gentlemen, beware," I urged, "I swear he is not here! I
swear it, do you hear?"
A howl of impatience and then a sudden movement of the crowd as
though the rush were coming warned me to temporize no longer.
"Stay! Stay!" I added hastily. "One minute! Hear me! You are
too many for us. Will you swear to let us go safe and untouched,
if we give you passage?"
A dozen voices shrieked assent. But I looked at the butcher
only. He seemed to be an honest man, out of his profession.
"Ay, I swear it!" he cried with a nod.
"By the Mass?"
"By the Mass."
I twitched Croisette's sleeve, and he tore the fuse from his
weapon, and flung the gun--too heavy to be of use to us longer--
to the ground. It was done in a moment. While the mob swept
over the barricade, and smashed the rich furniture of it in
wanton malice, we filed aside, and nimbly slipped under it one by
one. Then we hurried in single file to the end of the room, no
one taking much notice of us. All were pressing on, intent on
their prey. We gained the door as the butcher struck his first
blow on that which we had guarded--on that which we had given up.
We sprang down the stairs with bounding hearts, heard as we
reached the outer door the roar of many voices, but stayed not to
look behind--paused indeed for nothing. Fear, to speak candidly,
lent us wings. In three seconds we had leapt the prostrate
gates, and were in the street. A cripple, two or three dogs, a
knot of women looking timidly yet curiously in, a horse tethered
to the staple--we saw nothing else. No one stayed us. No one
raised a hand, and in another minute we had turned a corner, and
were out of sight of the house.
"They will take a gentleman's word another time," I said with a
quiet smile as I put up my sword.
"I would like to see her face at this moment," Croisette replied.
"You saw Madame d'O?"
I shook my head, not answering. I was not sure, and I had a
queer, sickening dread of the subject. If I had seen her, I had
seen oh! it was too horrible, too unnatural! Her own sister!
Her own brother in-law!
I hastened to change the subject. "The Pavannes," I made shift
to say, "must have had five minutes' start."
"More," Croisette answered, "if Madame and he got away at once.
If all has gone well with them, and they have not been stopped in
the streets they should be at Mirepoix's by now. They seemed to
be pretty sure that he would take them in."
"Ah!" I sighed. "What fools we were to bring madame from that
place! If we had not meddled with her affairs we might have
reached Louis long ago our Louis, I mean."
"True," Croisette answered softly, "but remember that then we
should not have saved the other Louis as I trust we have. He
would still be in Pallavicini's hands. Come, Anne, let us think
it is all for the best," he added, his face shining with a steady
courage that shamed me. "To the rescue! Heaven will help us to
be in time yet!"
"Ay, to the rescue!" I replied, catching his spirit. "First to
the right, I think, second to the left, first on the right again.
That was the direction given us, was it not? The house opposite
a book-shop with the sign of the Head of Erasmus. Forward, boys!
We may do it yet."
But before I pursue our fortunes farther let me explain. The
room we had guarded so jealously was empty! The plan had been
mine and I was proud of it. For once Croisette had fallen into
his rightful place. My flight from the gate, the vain attempt to
close the house, the barricade before the inner door--these were
all designed to draw the assailants to one spot. Pavannes and
his wife--the latter hastily disguised as a boy--had hidden
behind the door of the hutch by the gates--the porter's hutch,
and had slipped out and fled in the first confusion of the
attack.
Even the servants, as we learned afterwards, who had hidden
themselves in the lower parts of the house got away in the same
manner, though some of them--they were but few in all were
stopped as Huguenots and killed before the day ended. I had the
more reason to hope that Pavannes and his wife would get clear
off, inasmuch as I had given the Duke's ring to him, thinking it
might serve him in a strait, and believing that we should have
little to fear ourselves once clear of his house; unless we
should meet the Vidame indeed.
We did not meet him as it turned out; but before we had traversed
a quarter of the distance we had to go we found that fears based
on reason were not the only terrors we had to resist. Pavannes'
house, where we had hitherto been, stood at some distance from
the centre of the blood-storm which was enwrapping unhappy Paris
that morning. It was several hundred paces from the Rue de
Bethisy where the Admiral lived, and what with this comparative
remoteness and the excitement of our own little drama, we had not
attended much to the fury of the bells, the shots and cries and
uproar which proclaimed the state of the city. We had not
pictured the scenes which were happening so near. Now in the
streets the truth broke upon us, and drove the blood from our
cheeks. A hundred yards, the turning of a corner, sufficed. We
who but yesterday left the country, who only a week before were
boys, careless as other boys, not recking of death at all, were
plunged now into the midst of horrors I cannot describe. And the
awful contrast between the sky above and the things about us!
Even now the lark was singing not far from us; the sunshine was
striking the topmost storeys of the houses; the fleecy clouds
were passing overhead, the freshness of a summer morning was--
Ah! where was it? Not here in the narrow lanes surely, that
echoed and re-echoed with shrieks and curses and frantic prayers:
in which bands of furious men rushed up and down, and where
archers of the guard and the more cruel rabble were breaking in
doors and windows, and hurrying with bloody weapons from house to
house, seeking, pursuing, and at last killing in some horrid
corner, some place of darkness--killing with blow on blow dealt
on writhing bodies! Not here, surely, where each minute a child,
a woman died silently, a man snarling like a wolf--happy if he
had snatched his weapon and got his back to the wall: where foul
corpses dammed the very blood that ran down the kennel, and
children--little children--played with them!
I was at Cahors in 1580 in the great street fight; and there
women were killed, I was with Chatillon nine years later, when he
rode through the Faubourgs of Paris, with this very day and his
father Coligny in his mind, and gave no quarter. I was at
Courtas and Ivry, and more than once have seen prisoners led out
to be piked in batches--ay, and by hundreds! But war is war, and
these were its victims, dying for the most part under God's
heaven with arms in their hands: not men and women fresh roused
from their sleep. I felt on those occasions no such horror, I
have never felt such burning pity and indignation as on the
morning I am describing, that long-past summer morning when I
first saw the sun shining on the streets of Paris. Croisette
clung to me, sick and white, shutting his eyes and ears, and
letting me guide him as I would. Marie strode along on the other
side of him, his lips closed, his eyes sinister. Once a soldier
of the guard whose blood-stained hands betrayed the work he had
done, came reeling--he was drunk, as were many of the butchers--
across our path, and I gave way a little. Marie did not, but
walked stolidly on as if he did not see him, as if the way were
clear, and there were no ugly thing in God's image blocking it.
Only his hand went as if by accident to the haft of his dagger.
The archer--fortunately for himself and for us too--reeled clear
of us. We escaped that danger. But to see women killed and pass
by--it was horrible! So horrible that if in those moments I had
had the wishing-cap, I would have asked but for five thousand
riders, and leave to charge with them through the streets of
Paris! I would have had the days of the Jacquerie back again,
and my men-at-arms behind me!
For ourselves, though the orgy was at its height when we passed,
we were not molested. We were stopped indeed three times--once
in each of the streets we traversed--by different bands of
murderers. But as we wore the same badges as themselves, and
cried "VIVE LA MESSE!" and gave our names, we were allowed to
proceed. I can give no idea of the confusion and uproar, and I
scarcely believe myself now that we saw some of the things we
witnessed. Once a man gaily dressed, and splendidly mounted,
dashed past us, waving his naked sword and crying in a frenzied
way "Bleed them! Bleed them! Bleed in May, as good to-day!"
and never ceased crying out the same words until he passed beyond
our hearing. Once we came upon the bodies of a father and two
sons, which lay piled together in the kennel; partly stripped
already. The youngest boy could not have been more than thirteen,
I mention this group, not as surpassing others in pathos, but
because it is well known now that this boy, Jacques Nompar de
Caumont, was not dead, but lives to-day, my friend the Marshal de
la Force.
This reminds me too of the single act of kindness we were able to
perform. We found ourselves suddenly, on turning a corner, amid
a gang of seven or eight soldiers, who had stopped and surrounded
a handsome boy, apparently about fourteen. He wore a scholar's
gown, and had some books under his arm, to which he clung firmly
--though only perhaps by instinct--notwithstanding the furious
air of the men who were threatening him with death. They were
loudly demanding his name, as we paused opposite them. He either
could not or would not give it, but said several times in his
fright that he was going to the College of Burgundy. Was he a
Catholic? they cried. He was silent. With an oath the man who
had hold of his collar lifted up his pike, and naturally the lad
raised the books to guard his face. A cry broke from Croisette.
We rushed forward to stay the blow.
"See! see!" he exclaimed loudly, his voice arresting the man's
arm in the very act of falling. "He has a Mass Book! He has a
Mass Book! He is not a heretic! He is a Catholic!"
The fellow lowered his weapon, and sullenly snatched the books.
He looked at them stupidly with bloodshot wandering eyes, the red
cross on the vellum bindings, the only thing he understood. But
it was enough for him; he bid the boy begone, and released him
with a cuff and an oath.
Croisette was not satisfied with this, though I did not
understand his reason; only I saw him exchange a glance with the
lad. "Come, come!" he said lightly. "Give him his books! You
do not want them!"
But on that the men turned savagely upon us. They did not thank
us for the part we had already taken; and this they thought was
going too far. They were half drunk and quarrelsome, and being
two to one, and two over, began to flourish their weapons in our
faces. Mischief would certainly have been done, and very
quickly, had not an unexpected ally appeared on our side.
"Put up! put up!" this gentleman cried in a boisterous voice--
he was already in our midst. "What is all this about? What is
the use of fighting amongst ourselves, when there is many a bonny
throat to cut, and heaven to be gained by it! put up, I say!"
"Who are you?" they roared in chorus.
"The Duke of Guise!" he answered coolly. "Let the gentlemen go,
and be hanged to you, you rascals!"
The man's bearing was a stronger argument than his words, for I
am sure that a stouter or more reckless blade never swaggered in
church or street. I knew him instantly, and even the crew of
butchers seemed to see in him their master. They hung back a few
curses at him, but having nothing to gain they yielded. They
threw down the books with contempt--showing thereby their sense
of true religion; and trooped off roaring, "TUES! TUES! Aux
Huguenots!" at the top of their voices.
The newcomer thus left with us was Bure--Blaise Bure--the same
who only yesterday, though it seemed months and months back, had
lured us into Bezers' power. Since that moment we had not seen
him. Now he had wiped off part of the debt, and we looked at
him, uncertain whether to reproach him or no. He, however, was
not one whit abashed, but returned our regards with a not
unkindly leer.
"I bear no malice, young gentlemen," he said impudently.
"No, I should think not," I answered.
"And besides, we are quits now," the knave continued.
"You are very kind," I said.
"To be sure. You did me a good turn once," he answered, much to
my surprise. He seemed to be in earnest now. "You do not
remember it, young gentleman, but it was you and your brother
here"--he pointed to Croisette--"did it! And by the Pope and the
King of Spain I have not forgotten it!"
"I have," I said.
"What! You have forgotten spitting that fellow at Caylus ten
days ago? CA! SA! You remember. And very cleanly done, too!
A pretty stroke! Well, M. Anne, that was a clever fellow, a very
clever fellow. He thought so and I thought so, and what was more
to the purpose the most noble Raoul de Bezers thought so too.
You understand!"
He leered at me and I did understand. I understood that
unwittingly I had rid Blaise Bure of a rival. This accounted for
the respectful, almost the kindly way in which he had--well,
deceived us.
"That is all," he said. "If you want as much done for you, let
me know. For the present, gentlemen, farewell!"
He cocked his hat fiercely, and went off at speed the way we had
ourselves been going; humming as he went,
"Ce petit homme tant joli,
Qui toujours cause et toujours rit,
Qui toujours baise sa mignonne
Dieu gard' de mal ce petit homme!"
His reckless song came back to us on the summer breeze. We
watched him make a playful pass at a corpse which some one had
propped in ghastly fashion against a door--and miss it--and go on
whistling the same air--and then a corner hid him from view.
We lingered only a moment ourselves; merely to speak to the boy
we had befriended.
"Show the books if anyone challenges you," said Croisette to him
shrewdly. Croisette was so much of a boy himself, with his fair
hair like a halo about his white, excited face, that the picture
of the two, one advising the other, seemed to me a strangely
pretty one. "Show the books and point to the cross on them. And
Heaven send you safe to your college."
"I would like to know your name, if you please," said the boy.
His coolness and dignity struck me as admirable under the
circumstances. "I am Maximilian de Bethune, son of the Baron de
Rosny."
"Then," said Croisette briskly, "one good turn has deserved
another. Your father, yesterday, at Etampes--no it was the day
before, but we have not been in bed--warned us--"
He broke off suddenly; then cried, "Run! run!"
The boy needed no second warning indeed. He was off like the
wind down the street, for we had seen and so had he, the stealthy
approach of two or three prowling rascals on the look out for a
victim. They caught sight of him and were strongly inclined to
follow him; but we were their match in numbers. The street was
otherwise empty at the moment: and we showed them three
excellent reasons why they should give him a clear start.
His after adventures are well-known: for he, too, lives. He was
stopped twice after he left us. In each case he escaped by
showing his book of offices. On reaching the college the porter
refused to admit him, and he remained for some time in the open
street exposed to constant danger of losing his life, and knowing
not what to do. At length he induced the gatekeeper, by the
present of some small pieces of money, to call the principal of
the college, and this man humanely concealed him for three days.
The massacre being then at an end, two armed men in his father's
pay sought him out and restored him to his friends. So near was
France to losing her greatest minister, the Duke de Sully.
To return to ourselves. The lad out of sight, we instantly
resumed our purpose, and trying to shut our eyes and ears to the
cruelty, and ribaldry, and uproar through which we had still to
pass, we counted our turnings with a desperate exactness, intent
only on one thing--to reach Louis de Pavannes, to reach the house
opposite to the Head of Erasmus, as quickly as we could. We
presently entered a long, narrow street. At the end of it the
river was visible gleaming and sparkling in the sunlight. The
street was quiet; quiet and empty. There was no living soul to
be seen from end to end of it, only a prowling dog. The noise of
the tumult raging in other parts was softened here by distance
and the intervening houses. We seemed to be able to breathe more
freely.
"This should be our street," said Croisette.
I nodded. At the same moment I espied, half-way down it, the
sign we needed and pointed to it, But ah! were we in time? Or
too late? That was the question. By a single impulse we broke
into a run, and shot down the roadway at speed. A few yards
short of the Head of Erasmus we came, one by one, Croisette
first, to a full stop. A full stop!
The house opposite the bookseller's was sacked! gutted from top
to bottom. It was a tall house, immediately fronting the street,
and every window in it was broken. The door hung forlornly on
one hinge, glaring cracks in its surface showing where the axe
had splintered it. Fragments of glass and ware, hung out and
shattered in sheer wantonness, strewed the steps: and down one
corner of the latter a dark red stream trickled--to curdle by and
by in the gutter. Whence came the stream? Alas! there was
something more to be seen yet, something our eyes instinctively
sought last of all. The body of a man.
It lay on the threshold, the head hanging back, the wide glazed
eyes looking up to the summer sky whence the sweltering heat
would soon pour down upon it. We looked shuddering at the face.
It was that of a servant, a valet who had been with Louis at
Caylus. We recognised him at once for we had known and liked
him. He had carried our guns on the hills a dozen times, and
told us stories of the war. The blood crawled slowly from him.
He was dead.
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