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From the Memoirs of a Minister of France

by Stanley John Weyman · English · Gutenberg #2079 · 418,315 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: From the Memoirs of a Minister of France

Author: Stanley John Weyman


        
Release date: February 1, 2000 [eBook #2079]
                Most recently updated: December 31, 2020

Language: English

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FROM THE MEMOIRS OF A MINISTER OF FRANCE

BY

STANLEY WEYMAN




CONTENTS.

    I.--THE CLOCKMAKER OF POISSY
   II.--THE TENNIS BALLS
  III.--TWO MAYORS OF BOTTITORT
   IV.--LA TOUSSAINT
    V.--THE LOST CIPHER
   VI.--THE MAN OF MONCEAUX
  VII.--THE GOVERNOR OF GUERET
 VIII.--THE OPEN SHUTTER
   IX.--THE MAID OF HONOUR
    X.--FARMING THE TAXES
   XI.--THE CAT AND THE KING
  XII.--AT FONTAINEBLEAU




I.

THE CLOCKMAKER OF POISSY.


Foreseeing that some who do not love me will be swift to allege that in
the preparation of these memoirs I have set down only such things as
redound to my credit, and have suppressed the many experiences not so
propitious which fall to the lot of the most sagacious while in power,
I take this opportunity of refuting that calumny.  For the truth stands
so far the other way that my respect for the King's person has led me
to omit many things creditable to me; and some, it may be, that place
me in a higher light than any I have set down.  And not only that:  but
I propose in this very place to narrate the curious details of an
adventure wherein I showed to less advantage than usual; and on which I
should, were I moved by the petty feelings imputed to me by malice, be
absolutely silent.

One day, about a fortnight after the quarrel between the King and the
Duchess of Beaufort, which I have described, and which arose, it will
be remembered, out of my refusal to pay the christening expenses of her
second son on the scale of a child of France, I was sitting in my
lodgings at St. Germains when Maignan announced that M. de Perrot
desired to see me.  Knowing Perrot to be one of the most notorious
beggars about the court, with an insatiable maw of his own and an
endless train of nephews and nieces, I was at first for being employed;
but, reflecting that in the crisis in the King's affairs which I saw
approaching--and which must, if he pursued his expressed intention of
marrying the Duchess, be fraught with infinite danger to the State and
himself--the least help might be of the greatest moment, I bade them
admit him; privately determining to throw the odium of any refusal upon
the overweening influence of Madame de Sourdis, the Duchess's aunt.

Accordingly I met him with civility, and was not surprised when, with
his second speech, he brought out the word FAVOUR.  But I was
surprised--for, as I have said, I knew him to be the best practised
beggar in the world--to note in his manner some indications of
embarrassment and nervousness; which, when I did not immediately
assent, increased to a sensible extent.

"It is a very small thing, M. de Rosny," he said, breathing hard.

On that hint I declared my willingness to serve him.  "But," I added,
shrugging my shoulders and speaking in a confidential tone, "no one
knows the Court better than you do, M. de Perrot. You are in all our
secrets, and you must be aware that at present--I say nothing of the
Duchess, she is a good woman, and devoted to his Majesty--but there are
others--"

"I know," he answered, with a flash of malevolence that did not escape
me.  "But this is a private favour, M. de Rosny.  It is nothing that
Madame de Sourdis can desire, either for herself or for others."

That aroused my curiosity.  Only the week before, Madame de Sourdis had
obtained a Hat for her son, and the post of assistant Deputy
Comptroller of Buildings for her Groom of the Chambers. For her niece
the Duchess she meditated obtaining nothing less than a crown.  I was
at pains, therefore, to think of any office, post, or pension that
could be beyond the pale of her desires; and in a fit of gaiety I bade
M. de Perrot speak out and explain his riddle.

"It is a small thing," he said, with ill-disguised nervousness. "The
King hunts to-morrow."

"Yes," I said.

"And very commonly he rides back in your company, M. le Marquis."

"Sometimes," I said; "or with M. d'Epernon.  Or, if he is in a mood for
scandal, with M. la Varenne or Vitry."

"But with you, if you wish it, and care to contrive it so," he
persisted, with a cunning look.

I shrugged my shoulders.  "Well?"  I said, wondering more and more what
he would be at.

"I have a house on the farther side of Poissy," he continued. "And I
should take it as a favour, M. de Rosny, if you could induce the King
to dismount there to-morrow and take a cup of wine."

"That is a very small thing," I said bluntly, wondering much why he had
made so great a parade of the matter, and still more why he seemed so
ill at ease.  "Yet, after such a prelude, if any but a friend of your
tried loyalty asked it, I might expect to find Spanish liquorice in the
cup."

"That is out of the question, in my case," he answered with a slight
assumption of offence, which he immediately dropped.  "And you say it
is a small thing; it is the more easily granted, M. de Rosny."

"But the King goes and comes at his pleasure," I replied warily. "Of
course, he might-take it into his head to descend at your house.  There
would be nothing surprising in such a visit.  I think that he has paid
you one before, M. de Perrot?"

He assented eagerly.

"And he may do so," I said, smiling, "to-morrow.  But then, again, he
may not.  The chase may lead him another way; or he may be late in
returning; or--in fine, a hundred things may happen."

I had no mind to go farther than that; and I supposed that it would
satisfy him, and that he would thank me and take his leave. To my
surprise, however, he stood his ground, and even pressed me more than
was polite; while his countenance, when I again eluded him, assumed an
expression of chagrin and vexation so much in excess of the occasion as
to awaken fresh doubts in my mind.  But these only the more confirmed
me in my resolution to commit myself no farther, especially as he was
not a man I loved or could trust; and in the end he had to retire with
such comfort as I had already given him.

In itself, and on the surface, the thing seemed to be a trifle,
unworthy of the serious consideration of any man.  But in so far as it
touched the King's person and movements, I was inclined to view it in
another light; and this the more, as I still had fresh in my memory the
remarkable manner in which Father Cotton, the Jesuit, had given me a
warning by a word about a boxwood fire. After a moment's thought,
therefore, I summoned Boisrueil, one of my gentlemen, who had an
acknowledged talent for collecting gossip; and I told him in a casual
way that M. de Perrot had been with me.

"He has not been at Court for a week," he remarked.

"Indeed?"  I said.

"He applied for the post of Assistant Deputy Comptroller of Buildings
for his nephew, and took offence when it was given to Madame de
Sourdis' Groom of the Chambers."

"Ha!"  I said; "a dangerous malcontent."

Boisrueil smiled.  "He has lived a week out of the sunshine of his
Majesty's countenance, your excellency.  After that, all things are
possible."

This was my own estimate of the man, whom I took to be one of those
smug, pliant self-seekers whom Courts and peace breed up. I could
imagine no danger that could threaten the King from such a quarter;
while curiosity inclined me to grant his request.  As it happened, the
deer the next day took us in the direction of Poissy, and the King, who
was always itching to discuss with me the question of his projected
marriage, and as constantly, since our long talk in the garden at
Rennes, avoiding the subject when with me, bade me ride home with him.
On coming within half a mile of Perrot's I let fall his name, and in a
very natural way suggested that the King should alight there for a few
minutes.

It was one of the things Henry delighted to do, for, endowed with the
easiest manners, and able in a moment to exchange the formality of the
Louvre for the freedom of the camp, he could give to such cheap favours
their full value.  He consented on the instant, therefore; and turning
our horses into a by-road, we sauntered down it with no greater
attendance than a couple of pages.

The sun was near setting, and its rays, which still gilded the
tree-tops, left the wood below pensive and melancholy.  The house stood
in a solitary place on the edge of the forest, half a mile from Poissy;
and these two things had their effect on my mind.  I began to wish that
we had brought with us half a troop of horse, or at least two or three
gentlemen; and, startled by the thought of the unknown chances to
which, out of mere idle curiosity, I was exposing the King, I would
gladly have turned back.  But without explanation I could not do so;
and while I hesitated Henry cried out gaily that we were there.

A short avenue of limes led from the forest road to the door.  I looked
curiously before us as we rode under the trees, in some fear lest M. de
Perrot's preparations should discover my complicity, and apprise the
King that he was expected.  But so far was this from being the case
that no one appeared; the house rose still and silent in the mellow
light of sunset, and, for all that we could see, might have been the
fabled palace of enchantment.

"'He is Jean de Nivelle's dog; he runs away when you call him,'" the
King quoted.  "Get down, Rosny.  We have reached the palace of the
Sleeping Princess.  It remains only to sound the horn, and--"

I was in the act of dismounting, with my back to him, when his words
came to this sudden stop.  I turned to learn what caused it, and saw
standing in the aperture of the wicket, which had been silently opened,
a girl, little more than a child, of the most striking beauty.
Surprise shone in her eyes, and shyness and alarm had brought the
colour to her cheeks; while the level rays of the sun, which forced her
to screen her eyes with one small hand, clothed her figure in a robe of
lucent glory.  I heard the King whistle low.  Before I could speak he
had flung himself from his horse and, throwing the reins to one of the
pages, was bowing before her.

"We were about to sound the horn, Mademoiselle," he said, smiling.

"The horn, Monsieur?"  she exclaimed, opening her eyes in wonder, and
staring at him with the prettiest face of astonishment.

"Yes, Mademoiselle; to awaken the sleeping princess," he rejoined.
"But I see that she is already awake."

Through the innocence of her eyes flashed a sudden gleam of archness.
"Monsieur flatters himself," she said, with a smile that just revealed
the whiteness of her teeth.

It was such an answer as delighted the King; who loved, above all
things, a combination of wit and beauty, and never for any long time
wore the chains of a woman who did not unite sense to more showy
attractions.  From the effect which the grace and freshness of the girl
had on me, I could judge in a degree of the impression made on him; his
next words showed not only its depth, but that he was determined to
enjoy the adventure to the full. He presented me to her as M. de Sage,
and inquiring affectionately after Perrot, learned in a trice that she
was his niece, not long from a convent at Loches; finally, begging to
be allowed to rest awhile, he dropped a gallant hint that a cup of wine
from her hands would be acceptable.

All this, and her innocent doubt what she ought to do, thus brought
face to face with two strange cavaliers, threw the girl into such a
state of blushing confusion as redoubled her charms. It appeared that
her uncle had been summoned unexpectedly to Marly, and had taken his
son with him; and that the household had seized the occasion to go to a
village FETE at Acheres.  Only an old servant remained in the house;
who presently appeared and took her orders.  I saw from the man's start
of consternation that he knew the King; but a glance from Henry's eyes
bidding me keep up the illusion, I followed the fellow and charged him
not to betray the King's incognito.  When I returned, I found that
Mademoiselle had conducted her visitor to a grassy terrace which ran
along the south side of the house, and was screened from the forest by
an alley of apple trees, and from the east wind by a hedge of yew.
Here, where the last rays of the sun threw sinuous shadows on the turf,
and Paris seemed a million miles away, they were walking up and down,
the sound of their laughter breaking the woodland silence.
Mademoiselle had a fan, with which and an air of convent coquetry she
occasionally shaded her eyes.  The King carried his hat in his hand.
It was such an adventure as he loved, with all his heart; and I stood a
little way off, smiling, and thinking grimly of M. de Perrot.

On a sudden, hearing a step behind me, I turned, and saw a young man in
a riding-dress come quickly through an opening in the yew hedge.  As I
turned, he stopped; his jaw fell, and he stood rooted to the ground,
gazing at the two on the terrace, while his face, which a moment before
had worn an air of pleased expectancy, grew on a sudden dark with
passion, and put on such a look as made me move towards him.  Before I
reached him, However, M. de Perrot himself appeared at his side.  The
young man flashed round on him.  "MON DIEU, sir!"  he cried, in a voice
choked with anger; "I see it all now!  I understand why I was carried
away to Marly!  I--but it shall not be!  I swear it shall not!"

Between him and me--for, needless to say, I, too, understood all--M. de
Perrot was awkwardly placed.  But he showed the presence of mind of the
old courtier.  "Silence, sir!"  He exclaimed imperatively.  "Do you not
see M. de Rosny?  Go to him at once and pay your respects to him, and
request him to honour you with his protection.  Or--I see that you are
overcome by the honour which the King does us.  Go, first, and change
your dress.  Go, boy!"

The lad retired sullenly, and M. de Perrot, free to deal with me alone,
approached me, smiling assiduously, and trying hard to hide some
consciousness and a little shame under a mask of cordiality.  "A
thousand pardons, M. de Rosny," he cried with effusion, "for an absence
quite unpardonable.  But I so little expected to see his Majesty after
what you said, and--"

"Are in no hurry to interrupt him now you are here," I replied bluntly,
determined that, whoever he deceived, he should not flatter himself he
deceived me.  "Pooh, man!  I am not a fool," I continued.

"What is this?"  he cried, with a desperate attempt to keep up the
farce.  "I don't understand you!"

"No, the shoe is on the other foot--I understand you," I replied drily.
"Chut, man!"  I continued, "you don't make a cats-paw of me.  I see the
game.  You are for sitting in Madame de Sourdis' seat, and giving your
son a Hat, and your groom a Comptrollership, and your niece a--"

"Hush, hush, M. de Rosny," he muttered, turning white and red, and
wiping his brow with his kerchief.  "MON DIEU!  your words might--"

"If overheard, make things very unpleasant for M. de Perrot," I said.

"And M. de Rosny?"

I shrugged my shoulders contemptuously.  "Tush, man!"  I said. "Do you
think that I sit in no safer seat than that?"

"Ah!  But when Madame de Beaufort is Queen?"  he said slily.

"If she ever is," I replied, affecting greater confidence than I at
that time felt.

"Well, to be sure," he said slowly, "if she ever is."  And he looked
towards the King and his companion, who were still chatting gaily.
Then he stole a crafty glance at me.  "Do you wish her to be?"  he
muttered.

"Queen?"  I said, "God forbid!"

"It would be a disgrace to France?"  he whispered; and he laid his hand
on my arm, and looked eagerly into my face.

"Yes," I said.

"A blot on his fame?"

I nodded.

"A--a slur on a score of noble families?"

I could not deny it.

"Then--is it not worth while to avoid all that?"  he murmured, his face
pale, and his small eyes glued to mine.  "Is it not worth a
little--sacrifice, M. de Rosny?"

"And risk?"  I said.  "Possibly."

While the words were still on my lips, something stirred close to us,
behind the yew hedge beside which we were standing.  Perrot darted in a
moment to the opening, and I after him.  We were just in time to catch
a glimpse of a figure disappearing round the corner of the house.
"Well," I said grimly, "what about being overheard now?"

M. de Perrot wiped his face.  "Thank Heaven!"  he said, "it was only my
son.  Now let me explain to you--"

But our hasty movement had caught the King's eye, and he came towards
us, covering himself as he approached.  I had now an opportunity of
learning whether the girl was, in fact, as innocent as she seemed, and
as every particular of our reception had declared her; and I watched
her closely when Perrot's mode of address betrayed the King's identity.
Suffice it that the vivid blush which on the instant suffused her face,
and the lively emotion which almost overcame her, left me in no doubt.
With a charming air of bashfulness, and just so much timid awkwardness
as rendered her doubly bewitching, she tried to kneel and kiss the
King's hand.  He would not permit this, however, but saluted her cheek.

"It seems that you were right, sire," she murmured, curtseying in a
pretty confusion, "The princess was not awake."

Henry laughed gaily.  "Come now; tell me frankly, Mademoiselle," he
said.  "For whom did you take me?"

"Not for the King, sire," she answered, with a gleam of roguishness.
"You told me that the King was a good man, whose benevolent impulses
were constantly checked--"

"Ah!"

"By M. de Rosny, his Minister."

The outburst of laughter which greeted this apprised her that she was
again at fault; and Henry, who liked nothing better than such
mystifications, introducing me by my proper name, we diverted ourselves
for some minutes with her alarm and excuses.  After that it was time to
take leave, if we would sup at home and the King would not be missed;
and accordingly, but not without some further badinage, in which
Mademoiselle de Brut displayed wit equal to her beauty, and an
agreeable refinement not always found with either, we departed.

It should be clearly understood at this point, that, notwithstanding
all I have set down, I was fully determined (in accordance with a rule
I have constantly followed, and would enjoin on all who do not desire
to find themselves one day saddled with an ugly name) to have no part
in the affair; and this though the advantage of altering the King's
intentions towards Madame de Beaufort was never more vividly present to
my mind.  As we rode, indeed, he put several questions concerning the
Baron, and his family, and connections; and, falling into a reverie,
and smiling a good deal at his thoughts, left me in no doubt as to the
impression made upon him.  But being engaged at the time with the
Spanish treaty, and resolved, as I have said, to steer a course
uninfluenced by such intrigues, I did not let my mind dwell upon the
matter; nor gave it, indeed, a second thought until the next afternoon,
when, sitting at an open window of my lodging, I heard a voice in the
street ask where the Duchess de Beaufort had her apartment.

The voice struck a chord in my memory, and I looked out.  The man who
had put the question, and who was now being directed on his way--by
Maignan, my equerry, as it chanced had his back to me, and I could see
only that he was young, shabbily dressed, and with the air of a workman
carried a small frail of tools on his shoulder.  But presently, in the
act of thanking Maignan, he turned so that I saw his face, and with
that it flashed upon me in a moment who he was.

Accustomed to follow a train of thought quickly, and to act; on its
conclusion with energy, I had Maignan called and furnished with his
instructions before the man had gone twenty paces; and within the
minute I had the satisfaction of seeing the two return together.  As
they passed under the window I heard my servant explaining with the
utmost naturalness that he had misunderstood the stranger, and that
this was Madame de Beaufort's; after which scarce a minute elapsed
before the door of my room opened, and he appeared ushering in young
Perrot!

Or so it seemed to me; and the start of surprise and consternation
which escaped the stranger when he first saw me confirmed me in the
impression.  But a moment later I doubted; so natural was the posture
into which the man fell, and so stupid the look of inquiry which he
turned first on me and then on Maignan.  As he stood before me,
shifting his feet and staring about him in vacant wonder, I began to
think that I had made a mistake; and, clearly, either I had done so or
this young man was possessed of talents and a power of controlling his
features beyond the ordinary.  He unslung his tools, and saluting me
abjectly waited in silence.  After a moment's thought, I asked him
peremptorily what was his errand with the Duchess de Beaufort.

"To show her a watch, your excellency," he stammered, his mouth open,
his eyes staring.  I could detect no flaw in his acting.

"What are you, then?"  I said.

"A clockmaker, my lord."

"Has Madame sent for you?"

"No, my lord," he stuttered, trembling.

"Do you want to sell her the watch?"

He muttered that he did; and that he meant no harm by it.

"Show it to me, then," I said curtly.

He grew red at that, and seemed for an instant not to understand. But
on my repeating the order he thrust his hand into his breast, and
producing a parcel began to unfasten it.  This he did so slowly that I
was soon for thinking that there was no watch in it; but in the end he
found one and handed it to me.

"You did not make this," I said, opening it.

"No, my lord," he answered; "it is German, and old."

I saw that it was of excellent workmanship, and I was about to hand it
back to him, almost persuaded that I had made a mistake, when in a
second my doubts were solved.  Engraved on the thick end of the egg,
and partly erased by wear, was a dog's head, which I knew to be the
crest of the Perrots.

"So," I said, preparing to return it to him, "you are a clockmaker?"

"Yes, your excellency," he muttered.  And I thought that I caught the
sound of a sigh of relief.

I gave the watch to Maignan to hand to him.  "Very well," I said. "I
have need of one.  The clock in the next room--a gift from his
Majesty--is out of order, and at a standstill.  You can go and attend
to it; and see that you do so skilfully.  And do you, Maignan," I
continued with meaning, "go with him.  When he has made the clock go,
let him go; and not before, or you answer for it.  You understand,
sirrah?"

Maignan saluted obsequiously, and in a moment hurried young Perrot from
the room; leaving me to congratulate myself on the strange and
fortuitous circumstance that had thrown him in my way, and enabled me
to guard against a RENCONTRE that might have had the most embarassing
consequences.

It required no great sagacity to foresee the next move; and I was not
surprised when, about an hour later, I heard a clatter of hoofs
outside, and a voice inquiring hurriedly for the Marquis de Rosny.  One
of my people announced M. de Perrot, and I bade them admit him.  In a
twinkling he came up, pale with heat, and covered with dust, his eyes
almost starting from his head and his cheeks trembling with agitation.
Almost before the door was shut, he cried out that we were undone.

I was willing to divert myself with him for a time, and I pretended to
know nothing.  "What?"  I said, rising.  "Has the King met with an
accident?"

"Worse!  worse!"  he cried, waving his hat with a gesture of despair.
"My son--you saw my son yesterday?"

"Yes," I said.

"He overheard us!"

"Not us," I said drily.  "You.  But what then, M. de Perrot?  You are
master in your own house."

"But he is not in my house," he wailed.  "He has gone!  Fled! Decamped!
I had words with him this morning, you understand."

"About your niece?"

M. de Perrot's face took a delicate shade of red, and he nodded; he
could not speak.  He seemed for an instant in danger of some kind of
fit.  Then he found his voice again.  "The fool prated of love!  Of
love!"  he said with such a look--like that of a dying fowl--that I
could have laughed aloud.  "And when I bade him remember his duty he
threatened me.  He, that unnatural boy, threatened to betray me, to
ruin me, to go to Madame de Beaufort and tell her all--all, you
understand.  And I doing so much, and making such sacrifices for him!"

"Yes," I said, "I see that.  And what did you do?"

"I broke my cane on his back," M. de Perrot answered with unction, "and
locked him in his room.  But what is the use?  The boy has no natural
feelings!"

"He got out through the window?"

Perrot nodded; and being at leisure, now that he had explained his
woes, to feel their full depth, shed actual tears of rage and terror;
now moaning that Madame would never forgive him, and that if he escaped
the Bastille he would lose all his employments and be the
laughing-stock of the Court; and now striving to show that his peril
was mine, and that it was to my interest to help him.

I allowed him to go on in this strain for some time, and then, having
sufficiently diverted myself with his forebodings, I bade him in an
altered voice to take courage.  "For I think I know," I said, "where
your son is."

"At Madame's?"  he groaned.

"No; here," I said.

"MON DIEU!  Where?"  he cried.  And he sprang up, startled out of his
lamentations.

"Here; in my lodging," I answered.

"My son is here?"  he said.

"In the next room," I replied, smiling indulgently at his astonishment,
which was only less amusing than his terror.  "I have but to touch this
bell, and Maignan will bring him to you."

Full of wonder and admiration, he implored me to ring and have him
brought immediately; since until he had set eyes on him he could not
feel safe.  Accordingly I rang my hand-bell, and Maignan opened the
door.  "The clockmaker," I said nodding.

He looked at me stupidly.  "The clock-maker, your excellency?"

"Yes; bring him in," I said.

"But--he has gone!"  he exclaimed.

"Gone?" I cried, scarcely able to believe my ears.  "Gone, sirrah!  and
I told you to detain him!"

"Until he had mended the clock, my lord," Maignan stammered, quite out
of countenance.  "But he set it going half-an-hour ago; and I let him
go, according to your order."

It is in the face of such CONTRETEMPS as these that the low-bred man
betrays himself.  Yet such was my chagrin on this occasion, and so
sudden the shock, that it was all I could do to maintain my SANGFROID,
and, dismissing Maignan with a look, be content to punish M. de Perrot
with a sneer.  "I did not know that your son was a tradesman," I said.
He wrung his hands.  "He has low tastes," he cried.  "He always had.
He has amused himself that way, And now by this time he is with Madame
de Beaufort and we are undone!"

"Not we," I answered curtly; "speak for yourself, M. de Perrot."

But though, having no mind to appear in his eyes dependent on Madame's
favour or caprice, I thus checked his familiarity, I am free to confess
that my calmness was partly assumed; and that, though I knew my
position to be unassailable--based as it was on solid services rendered
to the King, my master, and on the familiar affection with which he
honoured me through so many years--I could not view the prospect of a
fresh collision with Madame without some misgiving.  Having gained the
mastery in the two quarrels we had had, I was the less inclined to
excite her to fresh intrigues; and as unwilling to give the King reason
to think that we could not live at peace.  Accordingly, after a
moment's consideration, I told Perrot that, rather than he should
suffer, I would go to Madame de Beaufort myself, and give such
explanations as would place another complexion on the matter.

He overwhelmed me with thanks, and, besides, to show his gratitude--for
he was still on thorns, picturing her wrath and resentment he insisted
on accompanying me to the Cloitre de St. Germain, where Madame had her
apartment.  By the way, he asked me what I should say to her.

"Whatever will get you out of the scrape," I answered curtly.

"Then anything!"  he cried with fervour.  "Anything, my dear friend.
Oh, that unnatural boy!"

"I suppose that the girl is as big a fool?"  I said.

"Bigger!  bigger!"  he answered.  "I don't know where she learned such
things!"

"She prated of love, too, then?"

"To be sure," he groaned, "and without a sou of DOT!"

"Well, well," I said, "here we are.  I will do what I can."

Fortunately the King was not there, and Madame would receive me. I
thought, indeed, that her doors flew open with suspicious speed, and
that way was made for me more easily than usual; and I soon found that
I was not wrong in the inference I drew from these facts.  For when I
entered her chamber that remarkable woman, who, whatever her enemies
may say, combined with her beauty a very uncommon degree of sense and
discretion, met me with a low courtesy and a smile of derision.  "So,"
she said, "M. de Rosny, not satisfied with furnishing me with evidence,
gives me proof."

"How, Madame?"  I said; though I well understood.

"By his presence here," she answered.  "An hour ago," she continued,
"the King was with me.  I had not then the slightest ground to expect
this honour, or I am sure that his Majesty would have stayed to share
it.  But I have since seen reason to expect it, and you observe that I
am not unprepared."

She spoke with a sparkling eye, and an expression of the most lively
resentment; so that, had M. de Perrot been in my place I think that he
would have shed more tears.  I was myself somewhat dashed, though I
knew the prudence that governed her in her most impetuous sallies;
still, to avoid the risk of hearing things which we might both
afterwards wish unsaid, I came to the point. "I fear that I have timed
my visit ill, Madame," I said.  "You have some complaint against me."

"Only that you are like the others," she answered with a fine contempt.
"You profess one thing and do another."

"As for example?"

"For example!"  she replied, with a scornful laugh.  "How many times
have you told me that you left women, and intrigues in which women had
part, on one side?"

I bowed.

"And now I find you--you and that Perrot, that creature!--intriguing
against me; intriguing with some country chit to--"

"Madame!"  I said, cutting her short with a show of temper, "where did
you get this?"

"Do you deny it?"  she cried, looking so beautiful in her anger that I
thought I had never seen her to such advantage.  "Do you deny that you
took the King there?"

"No.  Certainly I took the King there."

"To Perrot's?  You admit it?"

"Certainly," I said, "for a purpose."

"A purpose!"  she cried with withering scorn.  "Was it not that the
King might see that girl?"

"Yes," I replied patiently, "it was."

She stared at me.  "And you can tell me that to my face!"  she said.

"I see no reason why I should not, Madame," I replied easily--"I cannot
conceive why you should object to the union--and many why you should
desire to see two people happy.  Otherwise, if I had had any idea, even
the slightest, that the matter was obnoxious to you, I would not have
engaged in it."

"But--what was your purpose then?"  she muttered, in a different tone.

"To obtain the King's good word with M. de Perrot to permit the
marriage of his son with his niece; who is, unfortunately, without a
portion."

Madame uttered a low exclamation, and her eyes wandering from me, she
took up--as if her thoughts strayed also--a small ornament; from the
table beside her.  "Ah!"  she said, looking at it closely.  "But
Perrot's son did he know of this?"

"No," I answered, smiling.  "But I have heard that women can love as
well as men, Madame.  And sometimes ingenuously."

I heard her draw a sigh of relief, and I knew that if I had not
persuaded her I had accomplished much.  I was not surprised when,
laying down the ornament with which she had been toying, she turned on
me one of those rare smiles to which the King could refuse nothing; and
wherein wit, tenderness, and gaiety were so happily blended that no
conceivable beauty of feature, uninspired by sensibility, could vie
with them.  "Good friend, I have sinned," she said.  "But I am a woman,
and I love.  Pardon me. As for your PROTEGEE, from this moment she is
mine also.  I will speak to the King this evening; and if he does not
at once," Madame continued, with a gleam of archness that showed me
that she was not yet free from suspicion, "issue his commands to M. de
Perrot, I shall know what to think; and his Majesty will suffer!"

I thanked her profusely, and in fitting terms.  Then, after a word or
two about some assignments for the expenses of her household, in
settling which there had been delay--a matter wherein, also, I
contrived to do her pleasure and the King's service no wrong--I very
willingly took my leave, and, calling my people, started homewards on
foot.  I had not gone twenty paces, however, before M. de Perrot, whose
impatience had chained him to the spot, crossed the street and joined
himself to me.  "My dear friend," he cried, embracing me fervently, "is
all well?"

"Yes," I said.

"She is appeased?"

"Absolutely."

He heaved a deep sigh of relief, and, almost crying in his joy, began
to thank me, with all the extravagance of phrase and gesture to which
men of his mean spirit are prone.  Through all I heard him silently,
and with secret amusement, knowing that the end was not yet.  At length
he asked me what explanation I had given.

"The only explanation possible," I answered bluntly.  "I had to combat
Madame's jealousy.  I did it in the only way in which it could be done:
by stating that your niece loved your son, and by imploring her good
word on their behalf."

He sprang a pace from me with a cry of rage and astonishment. "You did
that?"  he screamed.

"Softly, softly, M. de Perrot," I said, in a voice which brought him
somewhat to his senses.  "Certainly I did.  You bade me say whatever
was necessary, and I did so.  No more.  If you wish, however," I added
grimly, "to explain to Madame that--"

But with a wail of lamentation he rushed from me, and in a moment was
lost in the darkness; leaving me to smile at this odd termination of an
intrigue that, but for a lad's adroitness, might have altered the
fortunes not of M. de Perrot only but of the King my master and of
France.




II.

THE TENNIS BALLS.


A few weeks before the death of the Duchess of Beaufort, on Easter Eve,
1599, made so great a change in the relations of all at Court that
"Sourdis mourning" came to be a phrase for grief, genuine because
interested, an affair that might have had a serious issue began,
imperceptibly at the time, in the veriest trifle.

One day, while the King was still absent from Paris, I had a mind to
play tennis, and for that purpose summoned La Trape, who had the charge
of my balls, and sometimes, in the absence of better company, played
with me.  Of late the balls he bought had given me small satisfaction,
and I bade him bring me the bag, that I might choose the best.  He did
so, and I had not handled half-a-dozen before I found one, and later
three others, so much more neatly sewn than the rest, and in all points
so superior, that even an untrained eye could not fail to detect the
difference.

"Look, man!"  I said, holding out one of these for his inspection.
"These are balls; the rest are rubbish.  Cannot you see the difference?
Where did you buy these?  At Constant's?"

He muttered, "No, my lord," and looked confused.

This roused my curiosity.  "Where, then?"  I said sharply.

"Of a man who was at the gate yesterday."

"Oh!"  I said.  "Selling tennis balls?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Some rogue of a marker," I exclaimed, "from whom you bought filched
goods!  Who was it, man?"

"I don't know his name," La Trape answered.  "He was a Spaniard."

"Well?"

"Who wanted to have an audience of your excellency."

"Ho!"  I said drily.  "Now I understand.  Bring me your book. Or, tell
me, what have you charged me for these balls?"

"Two francs," he muttered reluctantly.

"And never gave a sou, I'll swear!"  I retorted.  "You took the poor
devil's balls, and left him at the gate!  Ay, it is rogues like you get
me a bad name!"  I continued, affecting more anger than I felt--for, in
truth, I was rather pleased with my quickness in discovering the cheat.
"You steal and I bear the blame, and pay to boot!  Off with you and
find the fellow, and bring him to me, or it will be the worse for you!"

Glad to escape so easily, La Trape ran to the gate; but he failed to
find his friend, and two or three days elapsed before I thought again
of the matter, such petty rogueries being ingrained in a great man's
VALETAILLE, and being no more to be removed than the hairs from a man's
arm.  At the end of that time La Trape came to me, bringing the
Spaniard; who had appeared again at the gate.  The stranger proved to
be a small, slight man, pale and yet brown, with quick-glancing eyes.
His dress was decent, but very poor, with more than one rent neatly
darned.  He made me a profound reverence, and stood waiting, with his
cap in his hand, to be addressed; but, with all his humility, I did not
fail to detect an easiness of deportment and a propriety that did not
seem absolutely strange since he was a Spaniard, but which struck me,
nevertheless, as requiring some explanation.  I asked him, civilly, who
he was.  He answered that his name was Diego.

"You speak French?"

"I am of Guipuzcoa, my lord," he answered, "where we sometimes speak
three tongues."

"That is true," I said.  "And it is your trade to make tennis balls?"

"No, my lord; to use them," he answered with a certain dignity.

"You are a player, then?"

"If it please your excellency."

"Where have you played?"

"At Madrid, where I was the keeper of the Duke of Segovia's court; and
at Toledo, where I frequently had the honour of playing against M. de
Montserrat."

"You are a good player?"

"If your excellency," he answered impulsively, "will give me an
opportunity--"

"Softly, softly," I said, somewhat taken aback by his earnestness.
"Granted that you are a player, you seem to have played to small
purpose.. Why are you here, my friend, and not in Madrid?"

He drew up his sleeves, and showed me that his wrists were deeply
scarred.

I shrugged my shoulders.  "You have been in the hands of the Holy
Brotherhood?"  I said.

"No, my lord," he answered bitterly.  "Of the Holy Inquisition."

"You are a Protestant?"

He bowed.

On that I fell to considering him with more attention, but at the same
time with some distrust; reflecting that he was a Spaniard, and
recalling the numberless plots against his Majesty of which that nation
had been guilty.  Still, if his tale were true he deserved support;
with a view therefore to testing this I questioned him farther, and
learned that he had for a long time disguised his opinions, until,
opening them in an easy moment to a fellow servant, he found himself
upon the first occasion of quarrel betrayed to the Fathers.  After
suffering much, and giving himself up for lost in their dungeons, he
made his escape in a manner sufficiently remarkable, if I might believe
his story.  In the prison with him lay a Moor, for whose exchange
against a Christian taken by the Sallee pirates an order came down.  It
arrived in the evening; the Moor was to be removed in the morning.  An
hour after the arrival of the news, however, and when the two had just
been locked up for the night, the Moor, overcome with excess of joy,
suddenly expired.  At first the Spaniard was for giving the alarm; but,
being an ingenious fellow, in a few minutes he summoned all his wits
together and made a plan.  Contriving to blacken his face and hands
with charcoal he changed clothes with the corpse, and muffling himself
up after the fashion of the Moors in a cold climate he succeeded in the
early morning in passing out in his place.  Those who had charge of him
had no reason to expect an escape, and once on the road he had little
difficulty in getting away, and eventually reached France after a
succession of narrow chances.

All this the man told me so simply that I knew not which to admire
more, the daring of his device--since for a white man to pass for a
brown is beyond the common scope of such disguises--or his present
modesty in relating it.  However, neither of these things seemed to my
mind a good reason for disbelief.  As to the one, I considered that an
impostor would have put forward something more simple; and as to the
other, I have all my life long observed that those who have had strange
experiences tell them in a very ordinary way.  Besides, I had fresh in
my mind the diverting escape of the Duke of Nemours from Lyons, which I
have elsewhere related.  On the other hand, and despite all these
things, the story might be false; so with a view to testing one part of
it, at least, I bade him come and play with me that afternoon.

"My lord," he said bluntly, "I had rather not.  For if I defeat your
excellency, I may defeat also your good intentions.  And if I permit
you to win, I shall seem to be an impostor."

Somewhat surprised by his forethought, I reassured him on this point;
and his game, which proved to be one of remarkable strength and
finesse, and fairly on an equality, as it seemed to me, with that of
the best French players, persuaded me that at any rate the first part
of his tale was true.  Accordingly I made him a present, and, in
addition, bade Maignan pay him a small allowance for a while.  For this
he showed his gratitude by attaching himself to my household; and as it
was the fashion at that time to keep tennis masters of this class, I
found it occasionally amusing to pit him against other well-known
players. In the course of a few weeks he gained me great credit; and
though I am not so foolish as to attach importance to such trifles,
but, on the contrary, think an old soldier who stood fast at Coutras,
or even a clerk who has served the King honestly--if such a prodigy
there be--more deserving than these professors, still I do not err on
the other side; but count him a fool who, because he has solid cause to
value himself, disdains the ECLAT which the attachment of such persons
gives him in the public eye.

The man went by the name of Diego the Spaniard, and his story, which
gradually became known, together with the excellence of his play, made
him so much the fashion that more than one tried to detach him from my
service.  The King heard of him, and would have played with him, but
the sudden death of Madame de Beaufort, which occurred soon afterwards,
threw the Court into mourning; and for a while, in pursuing the
negotiations for the King's divorce, and in conducting a correspondence
of the most delicate character with the Queen, I lost sight of my
player--insomuch, that I scarcely knew whether he still formed part of
my suite or not.

My attention was presently recalled to him, however, in a rather
remarkable manner.  One morning Don Antonio d'Evora, Secretary to the
Spanish Embassy, and a brother of that d'Evora who commanded the
Spanish Foot at Paris in '94, called on me at the Arsenal, to which I
had just removed, and desired to see me.  I bade them admit him; but as
my secretaries were at the time at work with me, I left them and
received him in the garden--supposing that he wished to speak to me,
about the affair of Saluces, and preferring, like the King my master,
to talk of matters of State in the open air.

However, I was mistaken.  Don Antonio said nothing about Savoy, but
after the usual preliminaries, which a Spaniard never omits, plunged
into a long harangue upon the comity which, now that peace reigned,
should exist between the two nations.  For some time I waited patiently
to learn what he would be at; but he seemed to be lost in his own
eloquence, and at last I took him up.

"All this is very well, M. d'Evora," I said.  "I quite agree with you
that the times are changed, that amity is not the same thing as war,
and that a grain of sand in the eye is unpleasant," for he had said all
of these things.  "But I fail, being a plain man and no diplomatist, to
see what you want me to do."

"It is the smallest matter," he said, waving his hand gracefully.

"And yet," I retorted, "you seem to find a difficulty in coming at it."

"As you do at the grain of sand in the eye," he answered wittily.
"After all, however, in what you say, M. de Rosny, there is some truth.
I feel that I am, on delicate ground; but I am sure that you will
pardon me.  You have in your suite a certain Diego."

"It may be so," I said, masking my surprise, and affecting indifference.

"A tennis-player."

I shrugged my shoulders.  "The man is known," I said.

"A Protestant?"

"It is not impossible."

"And a subject of the King, my master.  A man," Don Antonio continued,
with increasing stiffness, "in fine, M. de Rosny, who, after committing
various offences, murdered his comrade in prison, and, escaping in his
clothes, took refuge in this country."

I shrugged my shoulders again.

"I have no knowledge of that," I said coldly.

"No, or I am sure that you would not harbour the fellow," the secretary
answered.  "Now that you do know it, however, I take it for granted
that you will dismiss him?  If you held any but the great place you do
hold, M. de Rosny, it would be different; but all the world see who
follow you, and this man's presence stains you, and is an offence to my
master."

"Softly, softly, M. d'Evora," I said, with a little warmth.  "You go
too fast.  Let me tell you first, that, for my honour, I take care of
it myself; and, secondly, for your master, I do not allow even my own
to meddle with my household."

"But, my lord," he said pompously, "the King of Spain--"

"Is the King of Spain," I answered, cutting him short without much
ceremony.  "But in the Arsenal of Paris, which, for the present, is my
house, I am king.  And I brook no usurpers, M. d'Evora."

He assented to that with a constrained smile.

"Then I can say no more," he answered.  "I have warned you that the man
is a rogue.  If you will still entertain him, I wash my hands of it.
But I fear the consequences, M. de Rosny, and, frankly, it lessens my
opinion of your sagacity."

Thereat I bowed in my turn, and after the exchange of some civilities
he took his leave.  Considering his application after he was gone, I
confess that I found nothing surprising in it; and had it come from a
man whom I held in greater respect I might have complied with it in an
indirect fashion.  But though it might have led me under some
circumstances to discard Diego, naturally, since it confirmed his story
in some points, and proved besides that he was not a persona grata at
the Spanish Embassy, it did not lead me to value him less.  And as
within the week he was so fortunate as to defeat La Varenne's champion
in a great match at the Louvre, and won also a match, at M. de
Montpensier's which put fifty crowns into my pocket, I thought less and
less of d'Evora's remonstrance; until the king's return put it quite
out of my head.  The entanglement with Mademoiselle d'Entragues, which
was destined to be the most fatal of all Henry's attachments, was then
in the forming; and the king plunged into every kind of amusement with
fresh zest.  The very day after his return he matched his marker, a
rogue, but an excellent player, against my man; and laid me twenty
crowns on the event, the match to be played on the following Saturday
after a dinner which M. de Lude was giving in honour of the lady.

On the Thursday, however, who should come in to me, while I was sitting
alone after supper, but Maignan:  who, closing the door and dismissing
the page who waited there, told me with a very long face and an air of
vast importance that he had discovered something.

"Something?"  I said, being inclined at the moment to be merry. "What?
A plot to reduce your perquisites, you rascal?"

"No, my lord," he answered stoutly.  "But to tap your excellency's
secrets."

"Indeed," I said pleasantly, not believing a word of it.  "And who is
to hang?"

"The Spaniard," he answered in a low voice.

That sobered me, by putting the matter in a new light; and I sat a
moment looking at him and reviewing Diego's story, which assumed on the
instant an aspect so uncommon and almost incredible that I wondered how
I had ever allowed it to pass. But when I proceeded from this to the
substance of Maignan's charge I found an IMPASSE in this direction
also, and I smiled. "So it is Diego, is it?"  I said.  "You think that
he is a spy?"

Maignan nodded.

"Then, tell me," I asked, "what opportunity has he of learning more
than all the world knows?  He has not been in my apartments since I
engaged him.  He has seen none of my papers.  The youngest footboy
could tell all he has learned."

"True, my lord," Maignan answered slowly; "but--"

"Well?"

"I saw him this evening, talking with a Priest in the Rue Petits Pois;
and he calls himself a Protestant."

"Ah!  You are sure that the man was a priest?"

"I know him."

"For whom?"

"One of the chaplains at the Spanish Embassy."

It was natural that after this I should take a more serious view of the
matter; and I did so.  But my former difficulty still remained, for,
assuming this to be a cunning plot, and d'Evora's application to me a
ruse to throw me off my guard, I could not see where their advantage
lay; since the Spaniard's occupation was not of a nature to give him
the entry to my confidence or the chance of ransacking my papers.  I
questioned Maignan further, therefore, but without result.  He had seen
the two together in a secret kind of way, viewing them himself from the
window of a house where he had an assignation.  He had not been near
enough to hear what they said, but he was sure that no quarrel took
place between them, and equally certain that it was no chance meeting
that brought them together.

Infected by his assurance, I could still see no issue; and no object in
such an intrigue.  And in the end I contented myself with bidding him
watch the Spaniard closely, and report to me the following evening;
adding that he might confide the matter to La Trape, who was a supple
fellow, and of the two the easier companion.

Accordingly, next evening Maignan again appeared, this time with a face
even longer; so that at first I supposed him to have discovered a plot
worse than Chastel's; but it turned out that he had discovered nothing.
The Spaniard had spent the morning in lounging and the afternoon in
practice at the Louvre, and from first to last had conducted himself in
the most innocent manner possible.  On this I rallied Maignan on his
mare's nest, and was inclined to dismiss the matter as such; still,
before doing so, I thought I would see La Trape, and dismissing Maignan
I sent for him.

When he was come, "Well," I said, "have you anything to say?"

"One little thing only, your excellency," he answered slyly, "and of no
importance."

"But you did not tell it to Maignan?"

"No, my Lord," he replied, his face relaxing in a cunning smile.

"Well?"

"Once to-day I saw Diego where he should not have been."

"Where?"

"In the King's dressing-room at the tennis-court."

"You saw him there?"

"I saw him coming out," he answered.

It may be imagined how I felt on hearing this; for although I might
have thought nothing of the matter before my suspicions were
aroused--since any man might visit such a place out of curiosity--now,
my mind being disturbed, I was quick to conceive the worst, and saw
with horror my beloved master already destroyed through my
carelessness.  I questioned La Trape in a fury, but could learn nothing
more.  He had seen the man slip out, and that was all.

"But did you not go in yourself?"  I said, restraining my impatience
with difficulty.

"Afterwards?  Yes, my lord."

"And made no discovery?"

He shook his head.

"Was anything prepared for his Majesty?"

"There was sherbet; and some water."

"You tried them?"

La Trape grinned.  "No, my lord," he said.  "But I gave some to
Maignan."

"Not explaining?"

"No, my lord."

"You sacrilegious rascal!"  I cried, amused in spite of my anxiety.
"And he was none the worse?"

"No, my lord."

Not satisfied yet, I continued to press him, but with so little success
that I still found myself unable to decide whether the Spaniard had
wandered in innocently or to explore his ground. In the end, therefore,
I made up my mind to see things for myself; and early next morning, at
an hour when I was not likely to be observed, I went out by a back
door, and with my face muffled and no other attendance than Maignan and
La Trape, went to the tennis-court and examined the dressing-room.

This was a small closet on the first floor, of a size to hold two or
three persons, and with a casement through which the King, if he wished
to be private, might watch the game.  Its sole furniture consisted of a
little table with a mirror, a seat for his Majesty, and a couple of
stools, so that it offered small scope for investigation.  True, the
stale sherbet and the water were still there, the carafes standing on
the table beside an empty comfit box, and a few toilet necessaries; and
it will be believed that I lost no time in examining them.  But I made
no discovery, and when I had passed my eye over everything else that
the room contained, and noticed nothing that seemed in the slightest
degree suspicious, I found myself completely at a loss. I went to the
window, and for a moment looked idly into the court.

But neither did any light come thence, and I had turned again and was
about to leave, when my eye alighted on a certain thing and I stopped.

"What is that?"  I said.  It was a thin case, book-shaped, of Genoa
velvet, somewhat worn.

"Plaister," Maignan, who was waiting at the door, answered.  "His
Majesty's hand is not well yet, and as your excellency knows, he--"

"Silence, fool!"  I cried, and I stood rooted to the spot, overwhelmed
by the conviction that I held the clue to the mystery, and so shaken by
the horror which that conviction naturally brought with it that I could
not move a finger.  A design so fiendish and monstrous as that which I
suspected might rouse the dullest sensibilities, in a case where it
threatened the meanest; but being aimed in this at the King, my master,
from whom I had received so many benefits, and on whose life the
well-being of all depended, it goaded me to the warmest resentment.  I
looked round the tennis-court--which, empty, shadowy and silent, seemed
a fit place for such horrors--with rage and repulsion; apprehending in
a moment of sad presage all the accursed strokes of an enemy whom
nothing could propitiate, and who, sooner or later, must set all my
care at nought, and take from France her greatest benefactor.

But, it will be said, I had no proof, only a conjecture; and this is
true, but of it hereafter.  Suffice it that, as soon as I had swallowed
my indignation, I took all the precautions affection could suggest or
duty enjoin, omitting nothing; and then, confiding the matter to no one
the two men who were with me excepted--I prepared to observe the issue
with gloomy satisfaction.

The match was to take place at three in the afternoon.  A little after
that hour, I arrived at the tennis-court, attended by La Font and other
gentlemen, and M. l'Huillier, the councillor, who had dined with me.
L'Huillier's business had detained me somewhat, and the men had begun;
but as I had anticipated this, I had begged my good friend De Vic to
have an eye to my interests. The King, who was in the gallery, had with
him M. de Montpensier, the Comte de Lude, Vitry, Varennes, and the
Florentine Ambassador, with Sancy and some others.  Mademoiselle
d'Entragues and two ladies had taken possession of his closet, and from
the casement were pouring forth a perpetual fire of badinage and BONS
MOTS.  The tennis-court, in a word, presented as different an aspect as
possible from that which it had worn in the morning. The sharp crack of
the ball, as it bounded from side to side, was almost lost in the crisp
laughter and babel of voices; which as I entered rose into a perfect
uproar, Mademoiselle having just flung a whole lapful of roses across
the court in return for some witticism.  These falling short of the
gallery had lighted on the head of the astonished Diego, causing a
temporary cessation of play, during which I took my seat.

Madame de Lude's saucy eye picked me out in a moment.  "Oh, the grave
man!"  she cried.  "Crown him, too, with roses."

"As they crowned the skull at the feast, madame?"  I answered, saluting
her gallantly.

"No, but as the man whom the King delighteth to honour," she answered,
making a face at me.  "Ha!  ha!  I am not afraid!  I am not afraid!  I
am not afraid!"

There was a good deal of laughter at this.  "What shall I do to her, M.
de Rosny?"  Mademoiselle cried out, coming to my rescue.

"If you will have the goodness to kiss her, mademoiselle," I answered,
"I will consider it an advance, and as one of the council of the King's
finances, my credit should be good for the re--"

"Thank you!"  the King cried, nimbly cutting me short.  "But as my
finances seem to be the security, faith, I will see to the repayment
myself!  Let them start again; but I am afraid that my twenty crowns
are yours, Grand Master; your man is in fine play."

I looked into the court.  Diego, lithe and sinewy, with his cropped
black hair, high colour, and quick shallow eyes, bounded here and
there, swift and active as a panther.  Seeing him thus, with his heart
in his returns, I could not but doubt; more, as the game proceeded,
amid the laughter and jests and witty sallies of the courtiers, I felt
the doubt grow; the riddle became each minute more abstruse, the man
more mysterious.  But that was of no moment now.

A little after four o'clock the match ended in my favour; on which the
King, tired of inaction, sprang up, and declaring that he would try
Diego's strength himself, entered the court.  I followed, with Vitry
and others, and several strokes which had been made were tested and
discussed.  Presently, the King going to talk with Mademoiselle at her
window, I remarked the Spaniard and Maignan, with the King's marker,
and one or two others waiting at the further door.  Almost at the same
moment I observed a sudden movement among them, and voices raised
higher than was decent, and I called out sharply to know what it was.

"An accident, my lord," one of the men answered respectfully.

"It is nothing," another muttered.  "Maignan was playing tricks, your
excellency, and cut Diego's hand a little; that is all."

"Cut his hand now!"  I exclaimed angrily "And the King about to play
with him.  Let me see it!"

Diego sulkily held up his hand, and I saw a cut, ugly but of no
importance.

"Pooh!"  I said; "it is nothing.  Get some plaister.  Here, you," I
continued wrathfully, turning to Maignan, "since you have done the
mischief, booby, you must repair it.  Get some plaister, do you hear?
He cannot play in that state."

Diego muttered something, and Maignan that he had not got any; but
before I could answer that he must get some, La Trape thrust his may to
the front, and producing a small piece from his pocket, proceeded with
a droll air of extreme carefulness to treat the hand.  The other knaves
fell into the joke, and the Spaniard had no option but to submit;
though his scowling face showed that he bore Maignan no good-will, and
that but for my presence he might not have been so complaisant.  La
Trape was bringing his surgery to an end by demanding a fee, in the
most comical manner possible, when the King returned to our part of the
court.  "What is it?"  he said.  "Is anything the matter?"

"No, sire," I said.  "My man has cut his hand a little, but it is
nothing."

"Can he play?"  Henry asked with his accustomed good-nature.

"Oh, yes, sire," I answered.  "I have bound it up with a strip of
plaister from the case in your Majesty's closet."

"He has not lost blood?"

"No, sire."

And he had not.  But it was small wonder that the King asked; small
wonder, for the man's face had changed in the last ten seconds to a
strange leaden colour; a terror like that of a wild beast that sees
itself trapped had leapt into his eyes.  He shot a furtive glance round
him, and I saw him slide his hand behind him.  But I was prepared for
that, and as the King moved off a space I slipped to the man's side, as
if to give him some directions about his game.

"Listen," I said, in a voice heard only by him; "take the dressing off
your hand, and I have you broken on the wheel.  You understand?  Now
play."

Assuring myself that he did understand, and that Maignan and La Trape
were at hand if he should attempt anything, I went back to my place,
and sitting down by De Vic began to watch that strange game; while
Mademoiselle's laughter and Madame de Lude's gibes floated across the
court, and mingled with the eager applause and more dexterous
criticisms of the courtiers.  The light was beginning to sink, and for
this reason, perhaps, no one perceived the Spaniard's pallor; but De
Vic, after a rally or two, remarked that he was not playing his full
strength.

"Wise man!"  he added.

"Yes," I said.  "Who plays well against kings plays ill."

De Vic laughed.  "How he sweats!"  he said, "and he never turned a hair
when he played Colet.  I suppose he is nervous."

"Probably," I said.

And so they chattered and laughed--chattered and laughed, seeing an
ordinary game between the King and a marker; while I, for whom the
court had grown sombre as a dungeon, saw a villain struggling in his
own toils, livid with the fear of death, and tortured by horrible
apprehensions.  Use and habit were still so powerful with the man that
he played on mechanically with his hands, but his eyes every now and
then sought mine with the look of the trapped beast; and on these
occasions I could see his lips move in prayer or cursing.  The sweat
poured down his face as he moved to and fro, and I, fancied that his
features were beginning to twitch.  Presently--I have said that the
light was failing, so that it was not in my imagination only that the
court was sombre--the King held his ball.  "My friend, your man is not
well," he said, turning to me.

"It is nothing, sire; the honour you do him makes him nervous," I
answered.  "Play up, sirrah," I continued; "you make too good a
courtier."

Mademoiselle d'Entragues clapped her hands and laughed at the hit; and
I saw Diego glare at her with an indescribable look, in which hatred
and despair and a horror of reproach were so nicely mingled with
something as exceptional as his position, that the whole baffled words.
Doubtless the gibes and laughter he heard, the trifling that went on
round him, the very game in which he was engaged, and from which he
dared not draw back, seemed in his eyes the most appalling mockery; but
ignorant who were in the secret, unable to guess how his diabolical
plot had been discovered, uncertain even whether the whole were not a
concerted piece, he went on playing his part mechanically; with
starting eyes and labouring chest, and lips that, twitching and
working, lost colour each minute.  At length he missed a stroke, and
staggering leaned against the wall, his-face livid and ghastly. The
King took the alarm at that, and cried out that something was wrong.
Those who were sitting rose.  I nodded to Maignan to go to the man.

"It is a fit," I said.  "He is subject to them, and doubtless the
excitement--but I am sorry that it has spoiled your Majesty's game.

"It has not," Henry answered kindly.  "The light is gone.  But have him
looked to, will you, my friend?  If La Riviere were here he might do
something for him."

While he spoke, the servants had gathered round the man, but with the
timidity which characterises that class in such emergencies, they would
not touch him.  As I crossed the court, and they made way for me, the
Spaniard, who was still standing, though in a strange and distorted
fashion, turned his bloodshot eyes on me.

"A priest!"  he muttered, framing the words with difficulty, "a priest!"

I directed Maignan to fetch one.  "And do you," I continued to the
other servants, "take him into a room somewhere."

They obeyed, reluctantly.  As they carried him out, the King, content
with my statement, was giving his hand to Mademoiselle to descend the
stairs; and neither he nor any, save the two men in my confidence, had
the slightest suspicion that aught was the matter beyond a natural
illness.  But I shuddered when I considered how narrow had been the
King's escape, how trifling the circumstance which had led to
suspicion, how fortuitous the inspiration by which I had chanced on
discovery.  The delay of a single day, the occurrence of the slightest
mishap, might have been fatal not to him only but to the best interests
of France; which his death at a time when he was still childless must
have plunged into the most melancholy of wars.

Of the wretched Spaniard I need say little more.  Caught in his own
snare, he was no sooner withdrawn from the court than he fell into
violent convulsions, which held him until midnight when he died with
symptoms and under circumstances so nearly resembling those which had
attended the death of Madame de Beaufort at Easter, that I have several
times dwelt on the strange coincidence, and striven to find the
connecting link.  But I never hit on it; and the King's death, and that
unexplained tendency to imitate great crimes under which the vulgar
labour, prevailed with me to keep the matter secret.  Nay, as I
believed that d'Evora had played the part of an unconscious tool, and
as a hint pressed home sufficed to procure the withdrawal of the
chaplain whom Maignan had named, I did not think it necessary to
disclose the matter even to the King my master.




III.

TWO MAYORS OF BOTTITORT.


Believing that I have now set down all those particulars of the treaty
with Epernon and the consequent pacification of Brittany in the year
1598 which it will be of advantage to the public to know, that it may
the better distinguish in the future those who have selfishly
impoverished the State from those who, in its behalf, have incurred
obloquy and high looks, I proceed next to the events which followed the
King's return to Paris.

But, first, and by way of sampling the diverting episodes that will
occur from time to time in the most laborious existence, and for the
moment reduce the minister to the level of the man, I am tempted to
narrate an adventure that befell me on my return, between Rennes and
Vitre; when the King having preceded me at speed under the pretext of
urgency, but really that he might avoid the prolix addresses that
awaited him in every town, I found myself no more minded to suffer.
Having sacrificed my ease, therefore, in two of the more important
places, and come within as many stages of Vitre, I determined also on a
holiday. Accordingly, directing my baggage and the numerous escort and
suite that attended me to the full tale of four-score horses--to keep
the high road, I struck myself into a byway, intending to seek
hospitality for the night at a house of M. de Laval's; and on the
second evening to render myself with a good grace to the eulogia and
tedious mercies of the Vitre townsfolk.

I kept with me only La Font and two servants.  The day was fine, and
the air brisk; the country open, affording many distant prospects which
the sun rendered cheerful.  We rode for some time, therefore, with the
gaiety of schoolboys released from their tasks, and dining at noon in
the lee of one of the great boulders that there dot the plain, took
pleasure in applying to the life of courts every evil epithet that came
to mind.  For a little time afterwards we rode as cheerfully; but about
three in the afternoon the sky became overcast, and almost at the same
moment we discovered that we had strayed from the track.  The country
in that district resembles the more western parts of Brittany, in
consisting of huge tracts of bog and moorland strewn with rocks and
covered with gorse; which present a cheerful aspect in sunshine, but
are savage and barren to a degree when viewed through sheets of rain or
under a sombre sky.

The position, therefore, was not without its discomforts.  I had taken
care to choose a servant who was familiar with the country, but his
knowledge seemed now at fault.  However, under his direction we
retraced our steps, but still without regaining the road; and as a
small rain presently began to fall and the day to decline, the
landscape which in the morning had flaunted a wild and rugged beauty,
changed to a brown and dreary waste set here and there with ghost-like
stones.  Once astray on this, we found our path beset with sloughs and
morasses; among which we saw every prospect of passing the night, when
La Font espied at a little distance a wind-swept wood that, clothing a
low shoulder of the moor, promised at least a change and shelter.  We
made towards it, and discovered not only all that we had expected to
see, but a path and a guide.

The latter was as much surprised to see us as we to see her, for when
we came upon her she was sitting on the bank beside the path weeping
bitterly.  On hearing us, however, she sprang up and discovered the
form of a young girl, bare-foot and bareheaded, wearing only a short
ragged frock of homespun.  Nevertheless, her face was neither stupid
nor uncomely; and though, at the first alarm, supposing us to be either
robbers or hobgoblins--of which last the people of that country are
peculiarly fearful--she made as if she would escape across the moor,
she stopped as soon as she heard my voice.  I asked her gently where we
were.

At first she did not understand, but the servant who had played the
guide so ill, speaking to her in the PATOIS of the country, she
answered that we were near St. Brieuc, a hamlet not far from Bottitort,
and considerably off our road.  Asked how far it was to Bottitort, she
answered--between two and three leagues, and an indifferent road.

We could ride the distance in a couple of hours, and there remained
almost as much daylight.  But the horses were tired, so, resigning
myself to the prospect of some discomfort, I asked her if there was an
inn at St. Brieuc.

"A poor place for your honours," she answered, staring at us in
innocent wonder, the forgotten tears not dry on her cheeks.

"Never mind; take us to it," I answered.

She turned at the word and tripped on before us.  I bade the servant
ask her, as we went, why she had been crying, and learned through him
that she had been to her uncle's two leagues away to borrow money for
her mother; that the uncle would not lend it, and that now they would
be turned out of their house; that her father was lately dead, and that
her mother kept the inn, and owed the money for meal and cider.

"At least, she says that she does not owe it," the man corrected
himself, "for her father paid as usual at Corpus Christi; but after his
death M. Grabot said that he had not paid, and--"

"M. Grabot?"  I said.  "Who is he?"

"The Mayor of Bottitort."

"The creditor?"

"Yes."

"And how much is owing?"  I asked.

"Nothing, she says."

"But how much does he say?"

"Twenty crowns."

Doubtless some will view my conduct on this occasion with surprise; and
wonder why I troubled myself with inquiries so minute upon a matter so
mean.  But these do not consider that ministers are the King's eyes;
and that in a State no class is so unimportant that it can be safely
overlooked.  Moreover, as the settlement of the finances was one of the
objects of my stay in those parts--and I seldom had the opportunity of
checking the statements made to me by the farmers and lessees of the
taxes, the receivers, gatherers, and, in a word, all the corrupt class
that imparts such views of a province as suit its interests--I was glad
to learn anything that threw light on the real condition of the
country:  the more, as I had to receive at Vitre a deputation of the
notables and officials of the district.

Accordingly, I continued to put questions to her until, crossing a
ridge, we came at last within sight of the inn, a lonely house of
stone, standing in the hollow of the moor and sheltered on one side by
a few gnarled trees that took off in a degree from the bleakness of its
aspect.  The house was of one story only, with a window on either side
of the door, and no other appeared in sight; but a little smoke rising
from the chimney seemed to promise a better reception than the desolate
landscape and the girl's scanty dress had led us to expect.

As we drew nearer, however, a thing happened so remarkable as to draw
our attention in a moment from all these points, and bring us, gaping,
to a standstill.  The shutters of the two windows were suddenly closed
before our eyes with a clap that came sharply on the wind.  Then, in a
twinkling, one window flew open again and a man, seemingly naked,
bounded from it, fled with inconceivable rapidity across the front of
the house and vanished through the other window, which opened to
receive him.  He had scarcely gained that shelter before a coal-black
figure followed him, leaping out of the one window and in at the other
with the same astonishing swiftness--a swiftness which was so great
that before any of us could utter more than an exclamation, the two
figures appeared again round the corner of the house, in the same
order, but this time with so small an interval that the fugitive barely
saved himself through the window.  Once more, while we stared in
stupefaction, they flashed out and in; and this time it seemed to me
that as they vanished the black spectre seized its victim.

When I say that all this time the two figures uttered no sound, that
there was no other living being in sight, and that on every side of the
solitary house the moor, growing each minute more eerie as the day
waned, spread to the horizon, the more superstitious among us may be
pardoned if they gave way to their fears.  La Font was the first to
speak.

"MON DIEU!"  he cried--while the girl moaned in terror, the Breton
crossed himself, and La Trape looked uncomfortable--"the place is
bewitched!"

"Nonsense!"  I said.  "Who is in the house, girl?"

"Only my mother," she wailed.  "Oh, my poor mother!"

I silenced her, scolding them all for fools, and her first; and La
Font, recovering himself, did the same.  But this was the year of that
strange appearance of the spectre horseman at Fontainebleau of which so
much has been said; and my servants, when we had approached the house a
little nearer, and it still remained silent and, as it were, dead to
the eye, would go no farther, but stood in sheer terror and permitted
me to go on alone with La Font.  I confess that the loneliness of the
house, and the dreary waste that surrounded it (which seemed to exclude
the idea of trickery) were not without their effect on my spirits; and
that as I dismounted and approached the door, I felt a kind of chill
not remarkable under the circumstances.

But the courage of the gentleman differs from that of the vulgar in
that he fears yet goes; and I lifted the latch, and entered boldly.
The scene which met my eyes inside was sufficiently commonplace to
reassure me.  At the farther end of a long bare room, draughty,
half-lighted, and having an earthen floor, yet possessing that air of
homeliness which a wood fire never fails to impart, sat a single
traveller; who had drawn his small table under the open chimney, and
there, with his feet almost in the fire, was partaking of a poor meal
of black bread and onions.  He was a tall, spare man, with sloping
shoulders and a long sour face, of which, as I entered, he gave me the
full benefit.

I looked round the room, but look as I might I could see no one else,
nor anything that explained what we had witnessed and I accosted the
man civilly, wishing him good evening.  He made an answer, but
indistinctly, and, this done, went on with his meal like one who viewed
our arrival with little pleasure; while I, puzzled and astonished by
the ordinary look of things and the stillness of the house, affected to
warm my feet at the logs.  At length, espying no signs of disturbance
anywhere, I asked him if he was alone.

"I was, sir," he answered gravely.

I was going on to tell him, though reluctantly, what we had seen
outside, and to question him upon it, when on a sudden, before I could
speak again, he leaned towards me and accosted me with startling
abruptness.  "Sir," he said, "I should like to have your opinion of
Louis Eleven."

I stared at him in the most perfect astonishment; and was for a moment
so completely taken aback that I mechanically repeated his words.  For
answer, he did so also.

"The Eleventh Louis?"  I said.

"Yes," he rejoined, turning his pale visage full upon me.  "What is
your opinion of him, sir?  He was a man?"

"Well," I said, shrugging my shoulders, "I take that for granted."  I
began to think that the traveller was demented.

"And a king?"

"Yes, I suppose so," I answered contemptuously.  "I never heard it
doubted."

He leaned towards me, and spoke with the most eager impressiveness.  "A
man--and a king!"  he said.  "Yet neither a manly king, nor a kingly
man!  You take me?"

"Yes," I said impatiently.  "I see what you mean.

"Neither a kingly man, nor a manly king!"  he repeated with solemn
gusto.  "You take me clearly, I think?"

I had no stomach for further fooleries, and I was about to answer him
with some sharpness--though I could not for the life of me tell whether
he was mad or an eccentric when a harsh voice shrieked in my ear,
"Bob!"  and in a twinkling a red figure appeared bounding and whirling
in the middle of the kitchen; now springing into the air until its head
touched the rafters, now eddying round and round the floor in the
giddiest gyrations.  At the first glance, startled by the voice in my
ear, I recoiled; but a second disclosing what it was, and the secret of
our alarm outside, I masked my movement; and when the man brought his
performance to a sudden stop, and falling on one knee in an attitude of
exaggerated respect held out his cap, I was ready for him.

"Why, you knave," I said, "you should be whipped, not rewarded. Who
gave you leave to play pranks on travellers?"

He looked at me with a droll smile on his round merry face, which at
its gravest was a thing to laugh at.  "Let him whip who is scared," he
said, with roguish impudence.  "Or if there is to be whipping, my lord,
whip Louis XI."

Thus reminded, I turned to the solemn traveller; but my eyes had no
sooner met his than he twisted his visage into so wry a smile--if smile
it could be called--that wherever there was a horse collar he must have
won the prize.  To hide my amusement, I asked them what they were.
"Mountebanks?"  I said curtly.

"Your lordship has pricked the garter offhand," the merry man answered
cheerfully.  "You see before you the renowned Pierre Paladin
VOILA!--and Philibert Le Grand!  of the Breton fairs, monsieur."

"But why this foolery--here?"  I said.

"We took you for another, monsieur," he answered.

"Whom you intended to frighten?"

"Precisely, your grace."

"Well, you are nice rogues," I said, looking at him.

"So is he," he answered, undaunted.

I left the matter there for a moment, while I summoned La Font and the
servants; whose rage, when, entering a-tiptoe and with some misgiving,
they discovered how they had been deceived, and by whom, was scarcely
to be restrained even by my presence. However, aided by Philibert's
comicalities, I presently secured a truce, and the two strollers
vacating in my honour the table by the fire--though they had not the
slightest notion who I was we were soon on terms.  I had taken the
precaution to bring a meal with me, and while La Trape and his
companion unpacked it, and I dried my riding boots, I asked the players
who it was they had meant to frighten.

They were not very willing to tell me, but at length confessed, to my
astonishment, that it was M. Grabot.

"Grabot--Grabot!"  I said, striving to recollect where I had heard the
name.  "The Mayor of Bottitort?"

The solemn man made an atrocious grimace.  Then, "Yes, monsieur, the
Mayor of Bottitort," he said frankly.  "A year ago he put Philibert in
the stocks for a riddle; that is his affair.  And the woman of this
house has more than once befriended me, and he is for turning her out
for a debt she does not owe; and that is my affair.  However, your
lordship's arrival has saved him for this time."

"You expected him here this evening, then?"

"He is coming," he answered, with more than his usual gloom.  "He
passed this way this morning, and announced that on his return he
should spend the night here.  We found the goodwife all of a tremble
when we arrived.  He is a hard man, monsieur," the mountebank continued
bitterly.  "She cried after him that she hoped that God would change
his heart, but he only answered that even if St. Brieuc changed his
body--you know the legend, monseigneur, doubtless--he should be here."

"And here he is," the other, who had been looking out of one of the
windows, cried.  "I see his lanthorn coming down the hill. And by St.
Brieuc, I have it!  I have it," the droll continued, suddenly spinning
round in a wild dance of triumph on the floor, and then as suddenly
stopping and falling into an attitude before us.  "Monsieur, if you
will help us, I have the richest jest ever played.  Pierre, listen.
You, gentlemen all, listen!  We will pretend that he is changed.  He is
a pompous man; he thinks the Mayor of Bottitort equal to the Saint
Pere.  Well, Pierre shall be M. Grabot, Mayor of Bottitort.  You,
monsieur, that we may give him enough of mayors, shall be the Mayor of
Gol, and I will be the Mayor of St. Just.  This gentleman shall swear
to us, so shall the servants.  For him, he does not exist.  Oh, we will
punish him finely."

"But," I said, astounded by the very audacity of the rogue's
proposition, "you do not flatter yourself that you will deceive him?"

"We shall, monsieur, if you will help," he answered confidently. "I
will be warrant for it we shall."

The thing had little of dignity in it, and I wonder now that I
complied; but I have always shared with the King, my master, a taste
for drolleries of the kind suggested; while nothing that I had as yet
heard of this Grabot was of a nature to induce me to spare him.  Seeing
that La Font was tickled with the idea, and that the servants were
a-grin, and the more eager to trick others as they had just been
tricked themselves, I was tempted to consent.

After this, the preparations took not a minute.  Philibert covered his
fool's clothes with a cloak, and their table was drawn nearer to the
fire, so as, with mine, to take up the whole hearth.  La Trape fell
into an attitude behind me; and the Breton, adopting a refinement
suggested at the last moment, was sent out to intercept Grabot before
he entered, and tell him that the inn was full, and that he had better
pass on.

The knave did his business so well that Grabot, being just such a man
as the stroller had described to us, the altercation on the threshold
was of itself the most amusing thing in the world. "Who?"  we heard a
loud, coarse voice exclaim.  "Who d'ye say are here, man?"

"The Mayor of Bottitort."

"MILLE DIABLES!"

"The Mayor of Bottitort and the Mayors of Gol and St. Just," the
servant repeated as if he noticed nothing amiss.

"That is a lie!"  the new comer replied, with a snort of triumph, "and
an impudent one.  But you have got the wrong sow by the ear this time."

"Why, man," a third voice, somewhat nasal and rustical, struck in,
"don't you know the Mayor of Bottitort?"

"I should," my Breton answered bluntly, and making, as we guessed, a
stand before them.  "For I am his servant, and he is this moment at his
meat."

"The Mayor of Bottitort?"

"Yes."

"M. Grabot?"

"Yes."

"And you are his servant?"

"I have thought so for some time," the Breton answered contemptuously.

The Mayor fairly roared in his indignation.  "You--his servant! The
Mayor of Bottitort's?"  he cried in a voice of thunder. "I'll tell you
what you are; you are a liar!--a liar, man, that is what you are!  Why,
you fool, I am the Mayor of Bottitort myself. Now, do you see how you
have wasted yourself?  Out of my way!  Jehan, follow me in.  I shall
look into this.  There is some knavery here, but if Simon Grabot cannot
get to the bottom of it the Mayor of Bottitort will.  Follow me, I say.
My servant indeed?  Come, come!"

And, still grumbling, he flung open the door, which the Breton had left
ajar, and stalked in upon us, fuming and blowing out his cheeks for all
the world like a bantam cock with its feathers erect.  He was a short,
pursy man; with a short nose, a wide face, and small eyes.  But had he
been Caesar and Alexander rolled into one, he could not have crossed
the threshold with a more tremendous assumption of dignity.  Once
inside, he stood and glared at us, somewhat taken aback, I think, for
the moment by our numbers; but recovering himself almost immediately,
he strutted towards us, and, without uncovering or saluting us, he
asked in a deep voice who was responsible for the man outside.

"I am," the graver mountebank answered, looking at the stranger with a
sober air of surprise.  "He is my servant."

"Ah!"  the Mayor exclaimed, with a withering glance.  "And who, may I
ask, are you?"

"You may ask, certainly," the player answered drily.  "But until you
take off your hat I shall not answer."

The Mayor gasped at this rebuff, and turned, if it were possible, a
shade redder; but he uncovered.

"Now I do not mind telling you," Pierre continued, with a mild dignity
admirably assumed, "that I am Simon Grabot, and have the honour to be
Mayor of Bottitort."

"You!"

"Yes, monsieur, I; though perhaps unworthy."

I looked to see an explosion, but the Mayor was too far gone. "Why, you
swindling impostor," he said, with something that was almost admiration
in his tone.  "You are the very prince of cheats!  The king of
cozeners!  But for all that, let me tell you, you have chosen the wrong
ROLE this time.  For I--I, sir, am the Mayor of Bottitort, the very man
whose name you have taken!"

Pierre stared at him in composed silence, which his comrade was the
first to break.  "Is he mad?"  he said in a low voice.

The grave man shook his head.

The Mayor heard and saw; and getting no other answer, began to tremble
between passion and a natural, though ill-defined, misgiving, which the
silent gaze of so large a party--for we all looked at him
compassionately--was well calculated to produce. "Mad?"  he cried.
"No, but some one is, Sir," he continued, turning to La Font with a
gesture in which appeal and impatience were curiously blended, "Do you
know this man?"

"M. Grabot?  Certainly," he answered, without blushing.  "And have
these ten years."

"And you say that he is M. Grabot?"  the poor Mayor retorted, his jaw
falling ludicrously.

"Certainly.  Who should he be?"

The Mayor looked round him, sudden beads of sweat on his brow. "MON
DIEU!" he cried.  "You are all in it.  Here, you, do you know this
person?"

La Trape, to whom he addressed himself, shrugged his shoulders. "I
should," he said.  "The Mayor is pretty well known about here."

"The Mayor?"

"Ay."

"But I am the Mayor--I," Grabot answered eagerly, tapping himself on
the breast in the most absurd manner.  "Don't you know me, my friend?"

"I never saw you before, to my knowledge," the rascal answered
contemptuously; "and I know this country pretty well.  I should think
that you have been crossing St. Brieuc's brook, and forgotten to say
your--"

"Hush!"  the stout player interposed with some sharpness.  "Let him
alone.  LE BON DIEU knows that such a thing may happen to the best of
us."

The Mayor clapped his hand to his head.  "Sir," he said almost humbly,
addressing the last speaker, "I seem to know your voice. Your name, if
you please?"

"Fracasse," he answered pleasantly.  "I am Mayor of Gol."

"You--Fracasse, Mayor of Gol?"  Grabot exclaimed between rage and
terror.  "But Fracasse is a tall man.  I know him as well as I know my
brother."

The pseudo-Fracasse smiled, but did not contradict him.

The Mayor wiped the moisture from his brow.  He had all the
characteristics of an obstinate man; but if there is one thing which I
have found in a long career more true than another, it is that no one
can resist the statements of his fellows.  So much, I verily believe,
is this the case, that if ten men maintain black to be white, the
eleventh will presently be brought into their opinion.  Besides, the
Mayor had a currish side.  He looked piteously from one to another of
us, his cheeks seemed to grow in a moment pale and flabby, and he was
on the point of whimpering, when at the last moment he bethought him of
his servant, and turned to him in a spurt of sudden thankfulness.
"Why, Jehan, man, I had forgotten you," he said.  "Are these men mad,
or am I?"

But Jehan, a simple rustic, was in a state of ludicrous bewilderment.
"Dol, master, I don't know," he stuttered, rubbing his head.

"But I am myself," the Mayor cried, in a most ridiculous tone of
remonstrance.

"Dol, and I don't know," the man whimpered.  "I do believe that there
is a change in you.  I never saw you look the like before. And I never
said any PATER either.  Holy saints!"  the poor fool continued
piteously, "I wish I were at home.  And there, for all I know, my wife
has got another man."

He began to blubber at this; which to us was the most ludicrous
thought, so that it was all we could do to restrain our laughter. But
the Mayor saw things in another light.  Shaken by our steady
persistence in our story, and astounded by our want of respect, the
defection of his follower utterly cowed him.  After staring wildly
about him for a moment, he fairly turned tail, and sat down on an old
box by the door, where with his hands on his knees, he looked out
before him with such an expression of chap-fallen bewilderment as
nearly discovered our plot by throwing us into fits of laughter.

Still he was not persuaded; for, from time to time, he roused himself,
and lifting his head cast suspicious glances at our party.  But the two
strollers, who were now in their element, played their parts with so
much craft and delicacy, and with such an infinity of humour besides,
that everything he overheard plunged him deeper in the slough.  They
knew something of local affairs, and called one another Mayor very
naturally; and mentioning their wives, let drop other scraps of
information that, catching his ear, made the wretched man every now and
then sit up as if a wasp had stung him.  One story in particular which
the false Mayor told--and which, it appeared, was to the knowledge of
all the country round the real Mayor's stock anecdote--had an absurd
effect upon him.  He straightened himself, listened as if his life
depended upon it, and when he heard the well-known ending, uttered,
doubtless, in something of his old tone, he collapsed into himself like
a man who had no longer faith in anything.

Presently, however, an effort of common-sense would again disperse the
fog.  He would raise his head, his eye grow bright, something of his
old pugnacity would come back to him.  He would appear--this more than
once--to be on the point of rising to challenge us.  But these
occasions were as skilfully met as they were easily detected; and as
the rogues had invariably some stroke in reserve that in a twinkling
flung him back into his old state of dazed bewilderment, while it
well-nigh killed us with stifled mirth, they only gave ever new point
to the jest.

This, to be brief, was carried on until I retired; and probably the two
strollers would have kept it up longer if the ludicrous doubt whether
he was himself, which they had lodged in the Mayor's mind, had not at
last spurred him to action.  An hour before midnight, feeling it rankle
intolerably, I suppose, he sprang up on a sudden, dragged the door
open, darted out with the air of a madman, and in a moment was lost in
the darkness of the moor.

When I rose in the morning, therefore, I found him gone, the strollers
looking glum, and the good-wife and her girl between tears and
reproaches.  I could not but feel, on my part, that I had somewhat
stooped in the night's diversion; but before I had time to reflect much
on that an unexpected trait in the strollers' conduct reconciled me to
this odd experience.  They proposed to leave when I did; but a little
before the start they came to me, and set before me very ingenuously
that the woman of the house might suffer through our jest; if I would
help her therefore, they would subscribe two crowns so that she might
have a substantial sum to offer on account of her debt.  As I took this
to be the greater part of their capital, and judged for other reasons
that the offer was genuine, I received it in the best part, and found
their good-nature no less pleasant than their foolery.  I handed over
three crowns for our share, and on that we parted; they set out with
their bundles strapped to their backs, and I waited somewhat
impatiently for La Trape and the Breton to bring round the horses.

Before these appeared, however, La Font, who was at the door, cried out
that the two players were coming hack; and going to the window I saw
with astonishment a whole troop, some mounted and some on foot,
hurrying down the hill after them.  For a moment I felt some alarm,
supposing it to be a scheme of Epernon's to seize my person; and I
cursed the imprudence which had led me to expose myself in this
solitary place.  But a second glance showing me that the Mayor of
Bottitort was among the foremost, I repented almost as seriously of the
unlucky trifling that had landed me in this foolish plight.

I even debated whether I should mount and, if it were possible, get
clear before they arrived; but the rueful faces of the two players as
they appeared breathless in the doorway, and the liking I had taken for
the rascals, decided me to stand my ground "What is it?"  I said.

"The Mayor, monsieur," Philibert answered, while Pierre pursed up his
lips with gloomy gravity.  "I fear it will not stop at the stocks this
time," the rogue continued with a grimace.

His comrade muttered something about a rod and a fool's back; but M.
Grabot's entrance cut his witticism short.  The Mayor, between shame
and rage, and the gratification of his revenge, was almost bursting,
and the moment he caught sight of us opened fire. "All, M. de Gol; we
have them all!"  he cried exultingly.  "Now they shall smart for it!
Depend upon it, it is some deep-laid scheme of that party.  I have said
so."

But the Mayor of Gol, a stout, big, placid man, looked at us
doubtfully.  "Well," he said, "I know these two; they are strolling
mountebanks, honest knaves enough but always in some mischief."

"What, strolling clowns?"  M. Grabot rejoined, his face falling.

"Ay, and you may depend upon it it is some joke of theirs," his friend
answered, his eyes twinkling.  "I begin to think that you would have
done better if you had waited a little before bringing M. le Comte into
the matter."

"Ah, but there are these two," M. Grabot cried, as he recovered from
the momentary panic into which the other's words had thrown him.
"Depend upon it they are the chief movers.  What else but treason could
they mean by asserting that one of them was Mayor of Bottitort?  By
denying my title?  By setting up other officers than those to whom his
Gracious Majesty has delegated his authority?"

"Umph!"  his brother Mayor said, "I don't know these gentlemen."

"No!"  his companion cried in triumph.  "But I intend to know them; and
to know a good deal about them.  Guard the window there," he continued
fussily.  "Where is my clerk?  Is M. de Laval coming?"

Two or three cried obsequiously that he had crossed the hill; and would
arrive immediately.

Hearing this, and thinking it more becoming not to enter into an
altercation, I kept my seat and the scornful silence I had hitherto
maintained.  The two Mayors had brought with them a posse of
busybodies--huissiers, constables, tip-staves, and the like; and these
all gaped upon us as if they saw before them the most notable traitors
of the age.  The women of the house wept in a corner, and the strollers
shrugged their shoulders and strove to appear at their ease.  But the
only person who felt the indifference which they assumed was La Font;
who, obnoxious to none of the annoyances which I foresaw, could hardly
restrain his mirth at the DENOUEMENT which he anticipated.

Meanwhile the Mayor, foreseeing a very different issue, stood blowing
out his cheeks and fixing us with his little eyes with an expression of
dignity that would have pleased me vastly if I had been free to enjoy
it.  But the reflection that Laval's presence, which would cut the knot
of our difficulties, would also place me at the mercy of his wit, did
not enable me to contemplate it with entire indifference.

By-and-by we heard him dismount, and a moment later he came in with a
gentleman and two or three armed servants.  He did not at once see me,
but as the crowd made way for him he addressed himself sharply to M.
Grabot.  "Well, have you got them?"  he said.

"Certainly, M. le Comte."

"Oh!  very well.  Now for the particulars, then.  You must state your
charge quickly, for I have to be in Vitre to-day."

"He alleged that he had been appointed Mayor of Bottitort," Grabot
answered pompously.

"Umph!  I don't know?"  M. de Laval muttered, looking round with a
frown of discontent.  "I hope that you have not brought me hither on a
fool's errand.  Which one?"

"That one," the Mayor said, pointing to the solemn man, whose gravity
and depression were now something preternatural.

"Oh!"  M. de Laval grumbled.  "But that is not all, I suppose. What of
the others?"

M. Grabot pointed to me.  "That one," he said--

He got no farther; for M. de Laval, springing forward, seized my hand
and saluted me warmly.  "Why, your excellency," he cried, in a tone of
boundless surprise, "what are you doing in this GALERE! All last
evening I waited for you, at my house, and now--"

"Here I am," I answered jocularly, "in charge it seems, M. le Comte!"

"MON DIEU!"  he cried.  "I don't understand it!"

I shrugged my shoulders.  "Don't ask me," I said.  "Perhaps your friend
the Mayor call tell you."

"But, Monsieur, I do not understand," the Mayor answered piteously, his
mouth agape with horror, his fat cheeks turning in a moment all
colours.  "This gentleman, whom you seem to know, Monsieur le Comte--"

"Is the Marquis de Rosny, President of the Council, blockhead!" Laval
cried irately.  "You madman!  you idiot!"  he continued, as light broke
in upon him, and he saw that it was indeed on a fool's errand that he
had been roused so early.  "Is this your conspiracy?  Have you dared to
bring me here--"

But I thought that it was time to interfere.  "The truth is," I said,
"that M. Grabot here is not so much to blame.  He was the victim of a
trick which these rascals played on him; and in an idle moment I let it
go on.  That is the whole secret.  However, I forgive him for his
officiousness since it brings us together, and I shall now have the
pleasure of your company to Vitre."

Laval assented heartily to this, and I did not think fit to tell him
more, nor did he inquire; the Mayor's stupidity passing current for
all.  For M. Grabot himself, I think that I never saw a man more
completely confounded.  He stood staring with his mouth open; and, as
much deserted as the statesman who has fallen from office, had not the
least credit even with his own sycophants, who to a man deserted him
and flocked about the Mayor of Gol.  Though I had no reason to pity
him, and, indeed, thought him well punished, I took the opportunity of
saying a word to him before I mounted; which, though it was only a hint
that he should deal gently with the woman of the house, was received
with servility equal to the arrogance he had before displayed; and I
doubt not it had all the effect I desired.  For the strollers, I did
not forget them, but bade them hasten to Vitre, where I would see a
performance.  They did so, and hitting the fancy of Zamet, who chanced
to be still there, and who thought that he saw profit in them, they
came on his invitation to Paris, where they took the Court by storm.
So that an episode trifling in itself, and such as on my part requires
some apology, had for them consequences of no little importance.




IV.

LA TOUSSAINT.


Towards the autumn of 1601, when the affair of M. de Biron, which was
so soon to fill the mouths of the vulgar, was already much in the minds
of those whom the King honoured with his confidence, I was one day
leaving the hall at the Arsenal, after giving audience to such as
wished to see me, when Maignan came after me and detained me; reporting
that a gentleman who had attended early, but had later gone into the
garden, was still in waiting. While Maignan was still speaking the
stranger himself came up, with some show of haste but none of
embarrassment; and, in answer to my salutation and inquiry what I could
do for him, handed me a letter.  He had the air of a man not twenty,
his dress was a trifle rustic; but his strong and handsome figure set
off a face that would have been pleasing but for a something fierce in
the aspect of his eyes.  Assured that I did not know him, I broke the
seal of his letter and found that it was from my old flame Madame de
Bray, who, as Mademoiselle de St. Mesmin, had come so near to being my
wife; as will be remembered by those who have read the early part of
these memoirs.

The young man proved to be her brother, whom she commended to my good
offices, the impoverishment of the family being so great that she could
compass no more regular method of introducing him to the world, though
the house of St. Mesmin is truly respectable and, like my own, allied
to several of the first consequence. Madame de Bray recalled our old
TENDRESSE to my mind, and conjured me so movingly by it--and by the
regard which her family had always entertained for me--that I could not
dismiss the application with the hundred others of like tenor that at
that time came to me with each year.  That I might do nothing in the
dark, however, I invited the young fellow to walk with me in the
garden, and divined, even before he spoke, from the absence of timidity
in his manner, that he was something out of the common. "So you have
come to Paris to make your fortune?"  I said.

"Yes, sir," he answered.

"And what are the tools with which you propose to do it?"  I continued,
between jest and earnest.

"That letter, sir," he answered simply; "and, failing that, two horses,
two suits of clothes, and two hundred crowns."

"You think that those will suffice?"  I said, laughing.

"With this, sir," he answered, touching his sword; "and a good courage."

I could not but stand amazed at his coolness; for he spoke to me as
simply as to a brother, and looked about him with as much or as little
curiosity as Guise or Montpensier.  It was evident that he thought a
St. Mesmin equal to any man under the King; and that of all the St.
Mesmins he did not value himself least.

"Well," I said, after considering him, "I do not think that I can help
you much immediately.  I should be glad to know, however, what plans
you have formed for yourself."

"Frankly, sir," he said, "I thought of this as I travelled; and I
decided that fortune can be won by three things--by gold, by steel, and
by love.  The first I have not, and for the last I have a better use.
Only the second is left.  I shall be Crillon."

I looked at him in astonishment; for the assurance of his manner
exceeded that of his words.  But I did not betray the feeling. "Crillon
was one in a million," I said drily.

"So am I," he answered.

I confess that the audacity of this reply silenced me.  I reflected
that the young man who--brought up in the depths of the country, and
without experience, training or fashion--could so speak in the face of
Paris was so far out of the common that I hesitated to dash his hopes
in the contemptuous way which seemed most natural.  I was content to
remind him that Crillon had lived in times of continual war, whereas
now we were at peace; and, bidding him come to me in a week, I hinted
that in Paris his crowns would find more frequent opportunities of
leaving his pockets than his sword its sheath.

He parted from me with this, seeming perfectly satisfied with his
reception; and marched away with the port of a man who expected
adventures at every corner, and was prepared to make the most of them.
Apparently he did not take my hint greatly to heart, however; for when
I next met him, within the week, he was fashionably dressed, his hair
in the mode, and his company as noble as himself.  I made him a sign to
stop, and he came to speak to me.

"How many crowns are left?"  I said jocularly.

"Fifty," he answered, with perfect readiness.

"What!"  I said, pointing to his equipment with something of the
indignation I felt, "has this cost the balance?

"No," he answered.  "On the contrary, I have paid three months' rent in
advance and a month's board at Zaton's; I have added two suits to my
wardrobe, and I have lost fifty crowns on the dice."

"You promise well!"  I said.

He shrugged his shoulders quite in the fashionable manner. "Always
courage!"  he said; and he went on, smiling.

I was walking at the time with M. de Saintonge, and he muttered, with a
sneer, that it was not difficult to see the end, or that within the
year the young braggart would sink to be a gaming-house bully.  I said
nothing, but I confess that I thought otherwise; the lad's disposition
of his money and his provision for the future seeming to me so
remarkable as to set him above ordinary rules.

From this time I began to watch his career with interest, and I was not
surprised when, in less than a month, something fell out that led the
whole court to regard him with a mixture of amusement and expectancy.

One evening, after leaving the King's closet, I happened to pass
through the east gallery at the Louvre, which served at that time as
the outer antechamber, and was the common resort as well of all those
idlers who, with some pretensions to fashion, lacked the ENTREE, as of
many who with greater claims preferred to be at their ease.  My passage
for a moment stilled the babel which prevailed.  But I had no sooner
reached the farther door than the noise broke out again; and this with
so sudden a fury, the tumult being augmented by the crashing fall of a
table, as caused me at the last moment to stand and turn.  A dozen
voices crying simultaneously, "Have a care!"  and "Not here!  not
here!"  and all looking the same way, I was able to detect the three
principals in the FRACAS.  They were no other than M. de St. Mesmin,
Barradas--a low fellow, still remembered, who was already what
Saintonge had prophesied that the former would become--and young St.
Germain, the eldest son of M. de Clan.

I rather guessed than heard the cause of the quarrel, and that St.
Mesmin, putting into words what many had known for years and some made
their advantage of, had accused Barradas of cheating. The latter's fury
was, of course, proportioned to his guilt; an instant challenge while I
looked was his natural answer.  This, as he was a consummate swordsman,
and had long earned his living as much by fear as by fraud, should have
been enough to stay the greediest stomach; but St. Mesmin was not
content.  Treating the knave, the word once passed, as so much dirt, he
transferred his attack to St. Germain, and called on him to return the
money he had won by betting on Barradas.

St. Germain, a young spark as proud and headstrong as St. Mesmin
himself, and possessed of friends equal to his expectations, flung back
a haughty refusal.  He had the advantage in station and popularity; and
by far the larger number of those present sided with him.  I lingered a
moment in curiosity, looking to see the accuser with all his boldness
give way before the almost unanimous expression of disapproval.  But my
former judgment of him had been correctly formed; so far from being
browbeaten or depressed by his position, he repeated the demand with a
stubborn persistence that marvellously reminded me of Crillon; and
continued to reiterate it until all, except St. Germain himself, were
silent.  "You must return my money!"  he kept on saying monotonously.
"You must return my money.  This man cheated, and you won my money.
You must pay or fight."

"With a dead man?"  St. Germain replied, gibing at him.

"No, with me."

"Barradas will spit you!"  The other scoffed.  "Go and order your
coffin, and do not trouble me."

"I shall trouble you.  If you did not know that he cheated, pay; and if
you did know, fight."

"I know?"  St. Germain retorted fiercely.  "You madman!  Do you mean to
say that I knew that he cheated?"

"I mean what I say!"  St. Mesmin returned stolidly.  "You have won my
money.  You must return it.  If you will not return it, you must fight."

I should have heard more, but at that moment the main door opened, and
two or three gentlemen who had been with the King came out.  Not
wishing to be seen watching the brawl, I moved away and descended the
stairs; and Varenne overtaking me a moment later, and entering on the
Biron affair--of which I had just been discussing the latest
developments with the King--I forgot St. Mesmin for the time, and only
recalled him next morning when Saintonge, being announced, came into my
room in a state of great excitement, and almost with his first sentence
brought out his name.

"Barradas has not killed him then?"  I said, reproaching myself in a
degree for my forgetfulness.

"No!  He, Barradas!"  Saintonge answered.

"No?"  I exclaimed.

"Yes!"  he said.  "I tell you, M. le Marquis, he is a devil of a
fellow--a devil of a fellow!  He fought, I am told, just like Crillon;
rushed in on that rascal and fairly beat down his guard, and had him
pinned to the ground before he knew that they had crossed swords!"

"Well," I said, "there is one scoundrel the less.  That is all."

"Ah, but that is not all!"  my visitor replied more seriously. "It
should be, but it is not; and it is for that reason I am come to you.
You know St. Germain?"

"I know that his father and you are--well, that you take opposite
sides," I said smiling.

"That is pretty well known," he answered coldly.  "Anyway, this lad is
to fight St. Germain to-morrow; and now I hear that M. de Clan, St.
Germain's father, is for shutting him up.  Getting a LETTRE DE CACHET
or anything else you please, and away with him."

"What!  St. Germain?"  I said.

"No!"  M. de Saintonge answered, prolonging the sound to the utmost.
"St. Mesmin!"

"Oh," I said, "I see."

"Yes," the Marquis retorted pettishly, "but I don't.  I don't see.  And
I beg to remind you, M. de Rosny, that this lad is my wife's second
cousin through her step-father, and that I shall resent any
interference with him.  I have spent enough and done enough in the
King's service to have my wishes respected in a small matter such as
this; and I shall regard any severity exercised towards my kinsman as a
direct offence to myself. Whereas M. de Clan, who will doubtless be
here in a few minutes, is--"

"But stop," I said, interrupting him, "I heard you speaking of this
young fellow the other day.  You did not tell me then that he was your
kinsman."

"Nevertheless he is; my wife's second cousin," he answered with heat.

"And you wish him to--"

"Be let alone!"  he replied interrupting me in his turn more harshly
than I approved.  "I wish him to be let alone.  If he will fight St.
Germain, and kill or be killed, is that the King's affair that he need
interfere?  I ask for no interference," M. de Saintonge continued
bitterly, "only for fair play and no favour. And for M. de Clan who is
a Republican at heart, and a Bironist, and has never done anything but
thwart the King, for him to come now, and--faugh!  it makes me sick."

"Yes," I said drily; "I see."

"You understand me?"

"Yes," I said, "I think so."

"Very well," he replied haughtily--he had gradually wrought himself
into a passion; "be good enough to bear my request in mind then; and my
services also.  I ask no more, M. de Rosny, than is due to me and to
the King's honour."

And with that, and scarcely an expression of civility, he left me.
Some may wonder, I know, that, having in the Edict of Blois, which
forbade duelling and made it a capital offence, an answer to convince
even his arrogance, I did not use this weapon; but, as a fact, the
edict was not published until the following June, when, partly in
consequence of this affair and at my instance, the King put it forth.

Saintonge could scarcely have cleared the gates before his prediction
was fulfilled.  His enemy arrived hot foot, and entered to me with a
mien so much lowered by anxiety and trouble that I hardly knew him for
the man who had a hundred times rebuffed me, and whom the King's offers
had found consistently obdurate.  All I had ever known of M. de Clan
heightened his present humility and strengthened his appeal; so that I
felt pity for him proportioned not only to his age and necessity, but
to the depth of his fall.  Saintonge had rightly anticipated his
request; the first, he said, with a trace of his old pride, that he had
made to the King in eleven years:  his son, his only son and only
child--the single heir of his name!  He stopped there and looked at me;
his eyes bright, his lips trembling and moving without sound, his hands
fumbling on his knees.

"But," I said, "your son wishes to fight, M. de Clan?"

He nodded.

"And you cannot hinder him?"

He shrugged his shoulders grimly.  "No," he said; "he is a St. Germain."

"Well, that is just my case," I answered.  "You see this young fellow
St. Mesmin was commended to me, and is, in a manner, of my household;
and that is a fatal objection.  I cannot possibly act against him in
the manner you propose.  You must see that; and for my wishes, he
respects them less than your son regards yours."

M. de Clan rose, trembling a little on his legs, and glaring at me out
of his fierce old eyes.  "Very well," he said, "it is as much as I
expected.  Times are changed--and faiths--since the King of Navarre
slept under the same bush with Antoine St. Germain on the night before
Cahors!  I wish you good-day, M. le Marquis."

I need not say that my sympathies were with him, and that I would have
helped him if I could; but in accordance with the maxim which I have
elsewhere explained, that he who places any consideration before the
King's service is not fit to conduct it, I did not see my way to thwart
M. de Saintonge in a matter so small.  And the end justified my
inaction; for the duel, taking place that evening, resulted in nothing
worse than a serious, but not dangerous, wound which St. Mesmin,
fighting with the same fury as in the morning, contrived to inflict on
his opponent.

For some weeks after this I saw little of the young firebrand, though
from time to time he attended my receptions and invariably behaved to
me with a modesty which proved that he placed some bounds to his
presumption.  I heard, moreover, that M. de Saintonge, in
acknowledgment of the triumph over the St. Germains which he had
afforded him, had taken him up; and that the connection between the
families being publicly avowed, the two were much together.

Judge of my surprise, therefore, when one day a little before
Christmas, M. de Saintonge sought me at the Arsenal during the
preparation of the plays and interludes--which were held there that
year--and, drawing me aside into the garden, broke into a furious
tirade against the young fellow.

"But," I said, in immense astonishment, "what is this?  I thought that
he was a young man quite to your mind; and--"

"He is mad!"  he answered.

"Mad?"  I said.

"Yes, mad!"  he repeated, striking the ground violently with his cane.
"Stark mad, M. de Rosny.  He does not know himself!  What do you
think--but it is inconceivable.  He proposes to marry my daughter!
This penniless adventurer honours Mademoiselle de Saintonge by
proposing for her!"

"Pheugh!"  I said.  "That is serious."

"He--he!  I don't think I shall ever get over it!"  he answered.

"He has, of course, seen Mademoiselle?"

M. de Saintonge nodded.

"At your house, doubtless?"

"Of course!"  he replied, with a snap of rage.

"Then I am afraid it is serious," I said.

He stared at me, and for an instant I thought that he was going to
quarrel with me.  Then he asked me why.

I was not sorry to have this opportunity of at once increasing his
uneasiness, and requiting his arrogance.  "Because," I said, "this
young man appears to me to be very much out of the common. Hitherto,
whatever he has said he would do, he has done.  You remember Crillon?
Well, I trace a likeness.  St. Mesmin has much of his headlong temper
and savage determination.  If you will take my advice, you will proceed
with caution."

M. de Saintonge, receiving an answer so little to his mind, was almost
bursting with rage.  "Proceed with caution!"  he cried. "You talk as if
the thing could be entertained, or as if I had cause to fear the
coxcomb!  On the contrary, I intend to teach him a lesson a little
confinement will cool his temper.  You must give me a letter, my
friend, and we will clap him in the Bastille for a month or two."

"Impossible," I said firmly.  "Quite impossible, M. le Marquis."

M. de Saintonge looked at me, frowning.  "How?"  he said arrogantly.
"Have my services earned no better answer than that?"

"You forget," I replied.  "Let me remind you that less than a month ago
you asked me not to interfere with St. Mesmin; and at your instance I
refused to accede to M. de Clan's request that I would confine him.
You were then all for non-interference, M. de Saintonge, and I cannot
blow hot and cold.  Besides, to be plain with you," I continued, "even
if that were not the case, this young fellow is in a manner under my
protection; which renders it impossible for me to move against him.  If
you like, however, I will speak to him."

"Speak to him!"  M. de Saintonge cried.  He was breathless with rage.
He could say no more.  It may be imagined how unpalatable my answer was
to him.

But I was not disposed to endure his presumption and ill-temper beyond
a certain point; and feeling no sympathy with him in a difficulty which
he had brought upon himself by his spitefulness, I answered him
roundly.  "Yes," I said, "I will speak to him, if you please.  But not
otherwise.  I can assure you, I should not do it for everyone."

But M. de Saintonge's chagrin and rage at finding himself thus
rebuffed, in a quarter where his haughty temper had led him to expect
an easy compliance, would not allow him to stoop to my offer.  He flung
away with expressions of the utmost resentment, and even in the hearing
of my servants uttered so many foolish and violent things against me,
that had my discretion been no greater than his I must have taken
notice of them.  As, however, I had other and more important affairs
upon my hands, and it has never been my practice to humour such
hot-heads by placing myself on a level with them, I was content to
leave his punishment to St. Mesmin; assured that in him M. Saintonge
would find an opponent more courageous and not less stubborn than
himself.

The event bore me out, for within a week M. de St. Mesmin's pretensions
to the hand of Mademoiselle de Saintonge shared with the Biron affair
the attention of all Paris.  The young lady, whose reputation and the
care which had been spent on her breeding, no less than her gifts of
person and character, deserved a better fate, attained in a moment a
notoriety far from enviable; rumour's hundred tongues alleging, and
probably with truth--for what father can vie with a gallant in a
maiden's eyes?--that her inclinations were all on the side of the
pretender.  At any rate, St. Mesmin had credit for them; there was talk
of stolen meetings and a bribed waiting-woman; and though such tales
were probably as false as those who gave them currency were fair, they
obtained credence with the thoughtless, and being repeated from one to
another, in time reached her father's ears, and contributed with St.
Mesmin's persecution to render him almost beside himself.

Doubtless with a man of less dogged character, or one more amenable to
reason, the Marquis would have known how to deal; but the success which
had hitherto rewarded St. Mesmin's course of action had confirmed the
young man in his belief that everything was to be won by courage; so
that the more the Marquis blustered and threatened the more persistent
the suitor showed himself. Wherever Mademoiselle's presence was to be
expected, St. Mesmin appeared, dressed in the extreme of the fashion
and wearing either a favour made of her colours or a glove which he
asserted that she had given him.  Throwing himself in her road on every
occasion, he expressed his passion by the most extravagant looks and
gestures; and protected from the shafts of ridicule alike by his
self-esteem and his prowess, did a hundred things that rendered her
conspicuous and must have covered another than himself with
inextinguishable laughter.

In these circumstances M. de Saintonge began to find that the darts
which glanced off his opponent's armour were making him their butt; and
that he, who had valued himself all his life on a stately dignity and a
pride:  almost Spanish, was rapidly becoming the laughing-stock of the
Court.  His rage may be better imagined than described, and doubtless
his daughter did not go unscathed. But the ordinary contemptuous
refusal which would have sent another suitor about his business was of
no avail here; he had no son, while St. Mesmin's recklessness rendered
the boldest unwilling to engage him.  Saintonge found himself therefore
at his wits' end, and in this emergency bethought him again of a LETTRE
DE CACHET.  But the King proved as obdurate as his minister; partly in
accordance with a promise he had made me about a year before that he
would not commonly grant what I had denied, and partly because Biron's
affair had now reached a stage in which Saintonge's aid was no longer
of importance.

Thus repulsed, the Marquis made up his mind to carry his daughter into
the country; but St. Mesmin meeting this with the confident assertion
that he would abduct her within a week, wherever she was confined,
Saintonge, desperate as a baited bull, and trembling with rage--for the
threat was uttered at Zamet's and was repeated everywhere--avowed
equally publicly that since the King would give him no satisfaction he
would take the law into his own hands, and serve this impudent braggart
as Guise served St. Megrin.  As M. le Marquis maintained a considerable
household, including some who would not stick at a trifle, it was
thought likely enough that he would carry out his threat; especially as
the provocation seemed to many to justify it.  St. Mesmin was warned,
therefore; but his reckless character was so well known that odds were
freely given that he would be caught tripping some night--and for the
last time.

At this juncture, however, an unexpected ally, and one whose appearance
increased Saintonge's rage to an intolerable extent, took up St.
Mesmin's quarrel.  This was young St. Germain, who, quitting his
chamber, was to be seen everywhere on his antagonist's arm.  The old
feud between the Saint Germains and Saintonges aggravated the new; and
more than one brawl took place in the streets between the two parties.
St. Germain never moved without four armed servants; he placed others
at his friend's disposal; and wherever he went he loudly proclaimed
what he would do if a hair of St. Mesmin's head were injured.

This seemed to place an effectual check on M. de Saintonge's purpose;
and my surprise was great when, about a week later, the younger St.
Germain burst in upon me one morning, with his face inflamed with anger
and his dress in disorder; and proclaimed, before I could rise or
speak, that St. Mesmin had been murdered.

"How?"  I said, somewhat startled.  "And when?"

"By M. de Saintonge!  Last night!"  he answered furiously.  "But I will
have justice; I will have justice, M. de Rosny, or the King--"

I checked him as sternly as my surprise would let me; and when I had a
little abashed him--which was not easy, for his temper vied in
stubbornness with St. Mesmin's--I learned the particulars. About ten
o'clock on the previous night St. Mesmin had received a note, and, in
spite of the remonstrances of his servants, had gone out alone.  He had
not returned nor been seen since, and his friends feared the worst.

"But on what grounds?"  I said, astonished to find that that was all.

"What!"  St. Germain cried, flaring up again.  "Do you ask on what
grounds?  When M. de Saintonge has told a hundred what he would do to
him!  What he would do--do, I say?  What he has done!"

"Pooh!"  I said.  "It is some assignation, and the rogue is late in
returning."

"An assignation, yes," St. Germain retorted; "but one from which he
will not return."

"Well, if he does not, go to the Chevalier du Guet," I answered, waving
him off.  "Go!  do you hear?  I am busy," I continued. "Do you think
that I am keeper of all the young sparks that bay the moon under the
citizens' windows?  Be off, sir!"

He went reluctantly, muttering vengeance; and I, after rating Maignan
soundly for admitting him, returned to my work, supposing that before
night I should hear of St. Mesmin's safety.  But the matter took
another turn, for while I was at dinner the Captain of the Watch came
to speak to me.  St. Mesmin's cap had been found in a bye-street near
the river, in a place where there were marks of a struggle; and his
friends were furious.  High words had already passed between the two
factions, St. Germain openly accusing Saintonge of the murder; plainly,
unless something were done at once, a bloody fray was imminent.

"What do you think yourself, M. le Marchand?"  I said, when I had heard
him out.

He shrugged his shoulders.  "What can I think, your Excellency?" he
said.  "What else was to be expected?"

"You take it for granted that M. de Saintonge is guilty?"

"The young man is gone," he answered pithily.

In spite of this, I thought the conclusion hasty, and contented myself
with bidding him see St. Germain and charge him to be quiet; promising
that, if necessary, the matter should be investigated and justice done.
I still had good hopes that St. Mesmin's return would clear up the
affair, and the whole turn out to be a freak on his part; but within a
few hours tidings that Saintonge had taken steps to strengthen his
house and was lying at home, refusing to show himself, placed a
different and more serious aspect on the mystery.  Before noon next day
M. de Clan, whose interference surprised me not a little, was with me
to support his son's petition; and at the King's LEVEE next day St.
Germain accused his enemy to the King's face, and caused an angry and
indecent scene in the chamber.

When a man is in trouble foes spring up, as the moisture rises through
the stones before a thaw.  I doubt if M. de Saintonge was not more
completely surprised than any by the stir which ensued, and which was
not confined to the St. Germains' friends, though they headed the
accusers.  All whom he had ever offended, and all who had ever offended
him, clamoured for justice; while St. Mesmin's faults being forgotten
and only his merits remembered, there were few who did not bow to the
general indignation, which the young and gallant, who saw that at any
moment his fate might be theirs, did all in their power to foment.
Finally, the arrival of St. Mesmin the father, who came up almost
broken-hearted, and would have flung himself at the King's feet on the
first opportunity, roused the storm to the wildest pitch; so that, in
the fear lest M. de Biron's friends should attempt something under
cover of it, I saw the King and gave him my advice.  This was to summon
Saintonge, the St. Germains, and old St. Mesmin to his presence and
effect a reconciliation; or, failing that, to refer the matter to the
Parliament.

He agreed with me and chose to receive them next day at the Arsenal.  I
communicated his commands, and at the hour named we met, the King
attended by Roquelaure and myself.  But if I had flattered myself that
the King's presence would secure a degree of moderation and
reasonableness I was soon undeceived; for though M. de St. Mesmin had
only his trembling head and his tears to urge, Clan and his son fell
upon Saintonge with so much violence--to which he responded by a fierce
and resentful sullenness equally dangerous--that I feared that blows
would be struck even before the King's face.  Lest this should happen
and the worst traditions of old days of disorder be renewed, I
interposed and managed at length to procure silence.

"For shame, gentlemen, for shame!"  the King said, gnawing his
moustachios after a fashion he had when in doubt.  "I take Heaven to
witness that I cannot say who is right!  But this brawling does no
good.  The one fact we have is that St. Mesmin has disappeared."

"Yes, sire; and that M. de Saintonge predicted his disappearance," St.
Germain cried, impulsively.  "To the day and almost to the hour."

"I gather, de Saintonge," the King said, turning to him, mildly, "that
you did use some expressions of that kind."

"Yes, sire, and did nothing upon them," he answered resentfully. But he
trembled as he spoke.  He was an older man than his antagonist, and the
latter's violence shook him.

"But does M. de Saintonge deny," St. Germain broke out afresh before
the King could speak, "that my friend had made him a proposal for his
daughter?  and that he rejected it?"

"I deny nothing!"  Saintonge cried, fierce and trembling as a baited
animal.  "For that matter, I would to Heaven he had had her!"  he
continued bitterly.

"Ay, so you say now," the irrepressible St. Germain retorted, "when you
know that he is dead!"

"I do not know that he is dead," Saintonge answered.  "And, for that
matter, if he were alive and here now he should have her.  I am tired;
I have suffered enough."

"What!  Do you tell the King," the young fellow replied incredulously,
"that if St. Mesmin were here you would give him your daughter?"

"I do--I do!"  the other exclaimed passionately.  "To be rid of him,
and you, and all your crew!"

"Tut, tut!"  the King said.  "Whatever betides, I will answer for it,
you shall have protection and justice, M. de Saintonge.  And do you,
young sir, be silent.  Be silent, do you hear!  We have had too much
noise introduced into this already."

He proceeded then to ask certain details, and particularly the hour at
which St. Mesmin had been last seen.  Notwithstanding that these facts
were in the main matters of common agreement, some wrangling took place
over them; which was only brought to an end at last in a manner
sufficiently startling.  The King with his usual thoughtfulness had
bidden St. Mesmin be seated.  On a sudden the old man rose; I heard him
utter a cry of amazement, and following the direction of his eyes I
looked towards the door.  There stood his son!

At an appearance so unexpected a dozen exclamations filled the air; but
to describe the scene which ensued or the various emotions that were
evinced by this or that person, as surprise or interest or affection
moved them, were a task on which I am not inclined to enter.  Suffice
it that the foremost and the loudest in these expressions of admiration
was young St. Germain; and that the King, after glancing from face to
face in puzzled perplexity, began to make a shrewd guess at the truth.

"This is a very timely return, M. de St. Mesmin," he said drily.

"Yes, sire," the young impertinent answered, not a whit abashed.

"Very timely, indeed."

"Yes, sire.  And the more as St. Germain tells me that M. de Saintonge
in his clemency has reconsidered my claims; and has undertaken to use
that influence with Mademoiselle which--"

But on that word M. de Saintonge, comprehending the RUSE by which he
had been overcome, cut him short; crying out in a rage that he would
see him in perdition first.  However, we all immediately took the
Marquis in hand, and made it our business to reconcile him to the
notion; the King even making a special appeal to him, and promising
that St. Mesmin should never want his good offices. Under this
pressure, and confronted by his solemn undertaking, Saintonge at last
and with reluctance gave way.  At the King's instance, he formally gave
his consent to a match which effectually secured St. Mesmin's fortunes,
and was as much above anything the young fellow could reasonably expect
as his audacity and coolness exceeded the common conceit of courtiers.

Many must still remember St. Mesmin; though an attack of the small-pox,
which disfigured him beyond the ordinary, led him to leave Paris soon
after his marriage.  He was concerned, I believe, in the late
ill-advised rising in the Vivarais; and at that time his wife still
lived.  But for some years past I have not heard his name, and only now
recall it as that of one whose adventures, thrust on my attention,
formed an amusing interlude in the more serious cares which now demand
our notice.




V.

THE LOST CIPHER.


I might spend many hours in describing the impression which this great
Sovereign made upon my mind; but if the part which she took in the
conversation I have detailed does not sufficiently exhibit those
qualities of will and intellect which made her the worthy compeer of
the King my master, I should labour in vain. Moreover, my stay in her
neighbourhood, though Raleigh and Griffin showed me every civility, was
short.  An hour after taking leave of her, on the 15th of August, 1601,
I sailed from Dover, and crossing to Calais without mishap anticipated
with pleasure the King's satisfaction when he should hear the result of
my mission, and learn from my mouth the just and friendly sentiments
which Queen Elizabeth entertained towards him.

Unfortunately I was not able to impart these on the instant. During my
absence a trifling matter had carried the King to Dieppe, whence his
anxiety on the queen's account, who was shortly to be brought to bed,
led him to take the road to Paris. He sent word to me to follow him,
but necessarily some days elapsed before we met; an opportunity of
which his enemies and mine were quick to take advantage, and that so
insidiously and with so much success as to imperil not my reputation
only but his happiness.

The time at their disposal was increased by the fact; that when I
reached the Arsenal I found the Louvre vacant, the queen, who lay at
Fontainebleau, having summoned the King thither.  Ferret, his
secretary, however, awaited me with a letter, in which Henry, after
expressing his desire to see we, bade me nevertheless stay in Paris a
day to transact some business.  "Then," he continued, "come to me, my
friend, and we will discuss the matter of which you know.  In the
meantime send me your papers by Ferret, who will give you a receipt for
them."

Suspecting no danger in a course which was usual enough, I hastened to
comply.  Summoning Maignan, who, whenever I travelled, carried my
portfolio, I unlocked it, and emptying the papers in a mass on the
table, handed them in detail to Ferret. Presently, to my astonishment,
I found that one, and this the most important, was missing.  I went
over the papers again, and again, and yet again.  Still it was not to
be found.

It will be remembered that whenever I travelled on a mission of
importance I wrote my despatches in one of three modes, according as
they were of little, great, or the first importance; in ordinary
characters that is, in a cipher to which the council possessed the key,
or in a cipher to which only the King and I held keys.  This last, as
it was seldom used, was rarely changed; but it was my duty, on my
return from each mission, immediately to remit my key to the King, who
deposited it in a safe place until another occasion for its use arose.

It was this key which was missing.  I had been accustomed to carry it
in the portfolio with the other papers; but in a sealed envelope which
I broke and again sealed with my own signet whenever I had occasion to
use the cipher.  I had last seen the envelope at Calais, when I handed
the portfolio to Maignan before beginning my journey to Paris; the
portfolio had not since been opened, yet the sealed packet was missing.

More than a little uneasy, I recalled Maignan, who had withdrawn after
delivering up his charge, "You rascal!"  I said with some heat.  "Has
this been out of your custody?"

"The bag?"  he answered, looking at it.  Then his face changed. "You
have cut your finger, my lord," he said.

I had cut it slightly in unbuckling the portfolio, and a drop or two of
blood had fallen on the papers.  But his reference to it at this
moment, when my mind was full of my loss, angered me, and even awoke my
suspicions.  "Silence!"  I said, "and answer me. Have you let this bag
out of your possession?"  This time he replied straightforwardly that
he had not.

"Nor unlocked it?"

"I have no key, your excellency."

That was true; and as I had at bottom the utmost confidence in his
fidelity, I pursued the inquiry no farther in that direction, but made
a third search among the papers.  This also failing to bring the packet
to light, and Ferret being in haste to be gone, I was obliged for the
moment to put up with the loss, and draw what comfort I could from the
reflection that, no despatch in the missing cipher was extant.  Whoever
had stolen it, therefore, another could be substituted for it and no
one the worse.  Still I was unwilling that the King should hear of the
mischance from a stranger, and be led to think me careless; and I bade
Ferret be silent about it unless Henry missed the packet, which might
not happen before my arrival.

When the secretary, who readily assented, had given me his receipt and
was gone, I questioned Maignan afresh and more closely, but with no
result.  He had not seen me place the packet in the portfolio at
Calais, and that I had done so I could vouch only my own memory, which
I knew to be fallible.  In the meantime, though the mischance annoyed
me, I attached no great importance to it; but anticipating that a word
of explanation would satisfy the King, and a new cipher dispose of
other difficulties, I dismissed the matter from my mind.

Twenty-four hours later, however, I was rudely awakened.  A courier
arrived from Henry, and surprising me in the midst of my last
preparations at the Arsenal, handed me an order to attend his Majesty;
an order couched in the most absolute and peremptory terms, and lacking
all those friendly expressions which the King never failed to use when
he wrote to me.  A missive so brief and so formal--and so needless, for
I was on the point of starting--had not reached me for years; and
coming at this moment when I had no reason to expect a reverse of
fortune, it had all the effect of a thunder-bolt in a clear sky.  I
stood stunned, the words which I was dictating to my secretary dying on
my lips. For I knew the King too well, and had experienced his kindness
too lately to attribute the harshness of the order to chance or
forgetfulness; and assured in a moment that I stood face to face with a
grave crisis, I found myself hard put to it to hide my feelings from
those about me.

Nevertheless, I did so with all effort; and, sending for the courier
asked him with an assumption of carelessness what was the latest news
at Court.  His answer, in a measure, calmed my fears, though it could
not remove them.  He reported that the queen had been taken ill or so
the rumour went.

"Suddenly?"  I said.

"This morning," he answered.

"The King was with her?"

"Yes, your excellency."

"Had he left her long when he sent this letter?"

"It came from her chamber, your excellency."

"But--did you understand that her Majesty was in danger?"  I urged.

As to that, however, the man could not say anything; and I was left to
nurse my conjectures during the long ride to Fontainebleau, where we
arrived in the cool of the evening, the last stage through the forest
awakening memories of past pleasure that combated in vain the disorder
and apprehension which held my spirits.  Dismounting in the dusk at the
door of my apartments, I found a fresh surprise awaiting me in the
shape of M. de Concini, the Italian; who advancing to meet me before my
foot was out of the stirrup, announced that he came from the King, who
desired my instant attendance in the queen's closet.

Knowing Concini to be one of those whose influence with her Majesty had
more than once tempted the King to the most violent measures against
her--from which I had with difficulty dissuaded him--I augured the
worst from the choice of such a messenger; and wounded alike in my
pride and the affection in which I held the King, could scarcely find
words in which to ask him if the queen was ill.

"Indisposed, my lord," he replied carelessly.  And he began to whistle.

I told him that I would remove my boots and brush off the dust, and in
five minutes be at his service.

"Pardon me," he said, "my orders are strict; and they are to request
you to attend his Majesty immediately.  He expected you an hour ago."

I was thunderstruck at this--at the message, and at the man's manner;
and for a moment I could scarcely restrain my indignation.  Fortunately
the habit of self-control came to my aid in time, and I reflected that
an altercation with such a person could only lower my dignity.  I
contented myself, therefore, with signifying my assent by a nod, and
without more ado followed him towards the queen's apartments.

In the ante-chamber were several persons, who as I passed saluted me
with an air of shyness and incertitude which was enough of itself to
put me on my guard.  Concini attended me to the door of the chamber;
there he fell back, and Mademoiselle Galigai, who was in waiting,
announced me.  I entered, assuming a serene countenance, and found the
King and queen together, no other person being present.  The queen was
lying at length on a couch, while Henry, seated on a stool at her feet,
seemed to be engaged in soothing and reassuring her.  On my entrance,
he broke off and rose to his feet.

"Here he is at last," he said, barely looking at me.  "Now, if you
will, dear heart ask him your questions.  I have had no communication
with him, as you know, for I have been with you since morning."

The queen, whose face was flushed with fever, made a fretful movement
but did not answer.

"Do you wish me to ask him?"  Henry said with admirable patience.

"If you think it is worth while," she muttered, turning sullenly and
eyeing me from the middle of her pillows with disdain and ill-temper.

"I will, then," he answered, and he turned to me.  "M. de Rosny," he
said in a formal tone, which even without the unaccustomed monsieur cut
me to the heart, "be good enough to tell the queen how the key to my
secret cipher, which I entrusted to you, has come to be in Madame de
Verneuil's possession."

I looked at him in the profoundest astonishment, and for a moment
remained silent, trying to collect my thoughts under this unexpected
blow.  The queen saw my hesitation and laughed spitefully.  "I am
afraid, sire," she said, "that you have overrated this gentleman's
ingenuity, though doubtless it has been much exercised in your service."

Henry's face grew red with vexation.  "Speak, man!"  he cried. "How
came she by it?"

"Madame de Verneuil?"  I said.

The queen laughed again.  "Had you not better take him out first, sir,"
she said scornfully, "and tell him what to say?"

"'Fore God, madame," the King cried passionately, "you try me too far!
Have I not told you a hundred times, and sworn to you, that I did not
give Madame de Verneuil this key?"

"If you did not give her that," the queen muttered sullenly, picking at
the silken coverlet which lay on her feet, "you have given her all
else.  You cannot deny it."

Henry let a gesture of despair escape him.  "Are we to go back to
that?"  he said.  Then turning to me, "Tell her," he said between his
teeth; "and tell me.  VENTRE SAINT GRIS--are you dumb, man?"

Discerning nothing for it at the moment save to bow before this storm,
which had arisen so suddenly, and from a quarter the least expected, I
hastened to comply.  I had not proceeded far with my story,
however--which fell short, of course, of explaining how the key came to
be in Madame de Verneuil's hands--before I saw that it won no credence
with the queen, but rather confirmed her in her belief that the King
had given to another what he had denied to her.  And more; I saw that
in proportion as the tale failed to convince her, it excited the King's
wrath and disappointment.  He several times cut me short with
expressions of the utmost impatience, and at last, when I came to a
lame conclusion--since I could explain nothing except that the key was
gone--he could restrain himself no longer.  In a tone in which he had
never addressed me before, he asked me why I had not, on the instant,
communicated the loss to him; and when I would have defended myself by
adducing the reason I have given above, overwhelmed me with abuse and
reproaches, which, as they were uttered in the queen's presence, and
would be repeated, I knew, to the Concinis and Galigais of her suite,
who had no occasion to love me, carried a double sting.

Nevertheless, for a time, and until he had somewhat worn himself out, I
let Henry proceed.  Then, taking advantage of the first pause, I
interposed.  Reminding him that he had never had cause to accuse me of
carelessness before, I recalled the twenty-two years during which I had
served him faithfully, and the enmities I had incurred for his sake;
and having by these means placed the discussion on a more equal
footing, I descended again to particulars, and asked respectfully if I
might know on whose authority Madame de Verneuil was said to have the
cipher.

"On her own!"  the queen cried hysterically.  "Don't try to deceive
me,--for it will be in vain.  I know she has it; and if the King did
not give it to her, who did?"

"That is the question, madam," I said.

"It is one easily answered," she retorted.  "If you do not know, ask
her."

"But, perhaps, madam, she will not answer," I ventured.

"Then command her to answer in the King's name!"  the queen replied,
her cheeks burning with fever.  "And if she will not, then has the King
no prisons--no fetters smooth enough for those dainty ankles?"

This was a home question, and Henry, who never showed to less advantage
than when he stood between two women, cast a sheepish glance at me.
Unfortunately the queen caught the look, which was not intended for
her; and on the instant it awoke all her former suspicions.  Supposing
that she had discovered our collusion, she flung herself back with a
cry of rage, and bursting into a passion of tears, gave way to frantic
reproaches, wailing and throwing herself about with a violence which
could not but injure one in her condition.

The King stared at her for a moment in sheer dismay.  Then his chagrin
turned to anger; which, as he dared not vent it on her, took my
direction.  He pointed impetuously to the door.  "Begone, sir!"  he
said in a passion, and with the utmost harshness.  "You have done
mischief enough here.  God grant that we see the end of it!  Go--go!"
he continued, quite beside himself with fury. "Send Galigai here, and
do you go to your lodging until you hear from me!"

Overwhelmed and almost stupefied by the catastrophe, I found my way out
I hardly knew how, and sending in the woman, made my escape from the
ante-chamber.  But hasten as I might, my disorder, patent to a hundred
curious eyes, betrayed me; and, if it did not disclose as much as I
feared or the inquisitive desired, told more than any had looked to
learn.  Within an hour it was known at Nemours that his Majesty had
dismissed me with high words--some said with a blow; and half a dozen
couriers were on the road to Paris with the news.

In my place some might have given up all for lost; but in addition to a
sense of rectitude, and the consciousness of desert, I had to support
me an intimate knowledge of the King's temper; which, though I had
never suffered from it to this extent before, I knew to be on occasion
as hot as his anger was short lived, and his disposition generous.  I
had hopes, therefore--although I saw dull faces enough among my suite,
and some pale ones--that the King's repentance would overtake his
anger, and its consequences outstrip any that might flow from his
wrath. But though I was not altogether at fault in this, I failed to
take in to account one thing--I mean Henry's anxiety on the queen's
account, her condition, and his desire to have an heir; which so
affected the issue, that instead of fulfilling my expectations the
event left me more despondent than before.  The King wrote, indeed, and
within the hour, and his letter was in form an apology.  But it was so
lacking in graciousness; so stiff, though it began "My good friend
Rosny," and so insincere, though it referred to my past services, that
when I had read it I stood awhile gazing at it, afraid to turn lest De
Vic and Varennes, who had brought it, should read my disappointment in
my face.

For I could not hide from myself that the gist of the letter lay, not
in the expressions of regret which opened it, but in the complaint
which closed it; wherein the King sullenly excused his outbreak on the
ground of the magnitude of the interests which my carelessness had
endangered and the opening to harass the queen which I had heedlessly
given.  "This cipher," he said, "has long been a whim with my wife,
from whom, for good reasons well known to you and connected with the
Grand Duke's Court, I have thought fit to withhold it.  Now nothing
will persuade her that I have not granted to another what I refused
her.  I tremble, my friend, lest you be found to have done more ill to
France in a moment of carelessness than all your services have done
good."

It was not difficult to find a threat underlying these words, nor to
discern that if the queen's fancy remained unshaken, and ill came of
it, the King would hardly forgive me.  Recognising this, and that I was
face to face with a crisis from which I could not escape but by the use
of my utmost powers, I assumed a serious and thoughtful air; and
without affecting to disguise the fact that the King was displeased
with me, dismissed the envoys with a few civil speeches, in which I did
not fail to speak of his Majesty in terms that even malevolence could
not twist to my disadvantage.

When they were gone, doubtless to tell Henry how I had taken it, I sat
down to supper with La Font, Boisrueil, and two or three gentlemen of
my suite; and, without appearing too cheerful, contrived to eat with my
usual appetite.  Afterwards I withdrew in the ordinary course to my
chamber, and being now at liberty to look the situation in the face,
found it as serious as I had feared.  The falling man has few friends;
he must act quickly if he would retain any.  I was not slow in deciding
that my sole chance of an honourable escape lay in discovering--and
that within a few hours--who stole the cipher and conveyed it to Madame
de Verneuil; and in placing before the queen such evidence of this as
must convince her.

By way of beginning, I summoned Maignan and put him through a severe
examination.  Later, I sent for the rest of my household--such, I mean,
as had accompanied me--and ranging them against the walls of my
chamber, took a flambeau in my hand and went the round of them,
questioning each, and marking his air and aspect as he answered.  But
with no result; so that after following some clues to no purpose, and
suspecting several persons who cleared themselves on the spot, I became
assured that the chain must be taken up at the other end, and the first
link found among Madame de Verneuil's following.

By this time it was nearly midnight, and my people were dropping with
fatigue.  Nevertheless, a sense of the desperate nature of the case
animating them, they formed themselves voluntarily into a kind of
council, all feeling their probity attacked; in which various modes of
forcing the secret from those who held it were proposed--Maignan's
suggestions being especially violent. Doubting, however, whether Madame
had more than one confidante, I secretly made up my mind to a course
which none dared to suggest; and then dismissing all to bed, kept only
Maignan to lie in my chamber, that if any points occurred to me in the
night I might question him on them.

At four o'clock I called him, and bade him go out quietly and saddle
two horses.  This done, I slipped out myself without arousing anyone,
and mounting at the stables, took the Orleans road through the forest.
My plan was to strike at the head, and surprising Madame de Verneuil
while the event; still hung uncertain, to wrest the secret from her by
trick or threat.  The enterprise was desperate, for I knew the
stubbornness and arrogance of the woman, and the inveterate enmity
which she entertained towards me, more particularly since the King's
marriage.  But in a dangerous case any remedy is welcome.

I reached Malesherbes, where Madame was residing with her parents, a
little before seven o'clock, and riding without disguise to the chateau
demanded to see her.  She was not yet risen, and the servants, whom my
appearance threw into the utmost confusion, objected this to me; but I
knew that the excuse was no real one, and answered roughly that I came
from the King, and must see her.  This opened all doors, and in a
moment I found myself in her chamber.  She was sitting up in bed,
clothed in an elegant nightrail, and seemed in no wise surprised to see
me.  On the contrary, she greeted me with a smile and a taunting word;
and omitted nothing that might evince her disdain or hurt my dignity.
She let me advance without offering me a chair; and when, after
saluting her, I looked about for one, I found that all the seats except
one very low stool had been removed from the room.

This was so like her that it did not astonish me, and I baffled her
malice by leaning against the wall.  "This is no ordinary honour--from
M. de Rosny!"  she said, flouting me with her eyes.

"I come on no ordinary mission, madame," I said as gravely as I could.

"Mercy!"  she exclaimed in a mocking tone.  "I should have put on new
ribbons, I suppose!"

"From the King, madame," I continued, not allowing myself to be moved,
"to inquire how you obtained possession of his cipher."

She laughed loudly.  "Good, simple King," she said, "to ask what he
knows already!"

"He does not know, madame," I answered severely.

"What?"  she cried, in affected surprise.  "When he gave it to me
himself!"

"He did not, madame."

"He did, sir!"  she retorted, firing up.  "Or if he did not, prove
it--prove it!  And, by the way," she continued, lowering her voice
again, and reverting to her former tone of spiteful badinage, "how is
the dear queen?  I heard that she was indisposed yesterday, and kept
the King in attendance all day. So unfortunate, you know, just at this
time."  And her eyes twinkled with malicious amusement.

"Madame," I said, "may I speak plainly to you?"

"I never heard that you could speak otherwise," she answered quickly.
"Even his friends never called M. de Rosny a wit; but only a plain,
rough man who served our royal turn well enough in rough times; but is
now growing--"

"Madame!"

"A trifle exigeant and superfluous."

After that, I saw that it was war to the knife between us; and I asked
her in very plain terms If she were not afraid of the queen's enmity,
that she dared thus to flaunt the King's favours before her.

"No more than I am afraid of yours," she answered hardily.

"But if the King is disappointed in his hopes?"

"You may suffer; very probably will," she answered, slowly and smiling,
"not I.  Besides, sir--my child was born dead.  He bore that very well."

"Yet, believe me, madame, you run some risk."

"In keeping what the King has given me?"  she answered, raising her
eyebrows.

"No!  In keeping what the King has not given you!"  I answered sternly.
"Whereas, what do you gain?"

"Well," she replied, raising herself in the bed, while her eyes
sparkled and her colour rose, "if you like, I will tell you. This
pleasure, for one thing--the pleasure of seeing you there, awkward,
booted, stained, and standing, waiting my will.  That--which perhaps
you call a petty thing--I gain first of all.  Then I gain your ruin, M.
de Rosny; I plant a sting in that woman's breast; and for his Majesty,
he has made his bed and may lie on it."

"Have a care, madame!"  I cried, bursting with indignation at a speech
so shameless and disloyal.  "You are playing a dangerous game, I warn
you!"

"And what game have you played?"  she replied, transported on a sudden
with equal passion.  "Who was it tore up the promise of marriage which
the King gave me?  Who was it prevented me being Queen of France?  Who
was it hurried on the match with this tradeswoman, so that the King
found himself wedded, before he knew it?  Who was it--but enough;
enough!"  she cried, interrupting herself with a gesture full of rage.
"You have ruined me, you and your queen between you, and I will ruin
you!"

"On the contrary, madame," I answered, collecting myself for a last
effort, and speaking with all the severity which a just indignation
inspired, "I have not ruined you.  But if you do not tell me that which
I am here to learn--I will!"

She laughed out loud.  "Oh, you simpleton!"  she said.  "And you call
yourself a statesman!  Do you not see that if I do not tell it, you are
disgraced yourself and powerless, and can do me no harm?  Tell it you?
When I have you all on the hip--you, the King, the queen!  Not for a
million crowns, M. de Rosny!"

"And that is your answer, madame?"  I said, choking with rage. It had
been long since any had dared so to beard me.

"Yes," she replied stoutly; "it is!  Or, stay; you shall not go
empty-handed."  And thrusting her arm under the pillow she drew out,
after a moment's search, a small packet, which she held out towards me.
"Take it!"  she said, with a taunting laugh.  "It has served my turn.
What the King gave me, I give you."

Seeing that it was the missing key to the cipher, I swallowed my rage
and took it; and being assured by this time that I could effect nothing
by staying longer, but should only expose myself to fresh insults, I
turned on my heel, with rudeness equal to her own, and, without taking
leave of her, flung the door open and went out.  I heard her throw
herself back with a shrill laugh of triumph.  But as, the moment the
door fell to behind me, my thoughts began to cast about for another way
of escape--this failing--I took little heed of her, and less of the
derisive looks to which the household, quickly taking the cue, treated
me as I passed.  I flung myself into the saddle and galloped off,
followed by Maignan, who presently, to my surprise, blurted out a
clumsy word of congratulation.

I turned on him in amazement, and, swearing at him, asked him what he
meant.

"You have got it," he said timidly, pointing to the packet which I
mechanically held in my hand.

"And to what purpose?"  I cried, glad of this opportunity of unloading
some of my wrath.  "I want, not the paper, but the secret, fool!  You
may have the paper for yourself if you will tell me how Madame got it."

Nevertheless, his words led me to look at the packet.  I opened it,
and, having satisfied myself that it contained the original and not a
copy, was putting it up again when my eyes fell on a small spot of
blood which marked one corner of the cover.  It was not larger than a
grain of corn, but it awoke, first, a vague association and then a
memory, which as I rode grew stronger and more definite, until, on a
sudden, discovery flashed upon me--and the truth.  I remembered where I
had seen spots of blood before--on the papers I had handed to Ferret
and remembered, too, where that blood had come from.  I looked at the
cut now, and, finding it nearly healed, sprang in my saddle.  Of a
certainty this paper had gone through my hands that day!  It had been
among the others; therefore it must have been passed to Ferret inside
another when I first opened the bag!  The rogue, getting it and seeing
his opportunity, and that I did not suspect, had doubtless secreted it,
probably while I was attending to my hand.

I had not suspected him before, because I had ticked off the earlier
papers as I handed them to him; and had searched only among the rest
and in the bag for the missing one.  Now I wondered that I had not done
so, and seen the truth from the beginning; and in my impatience I found
the leagues through the forest, though the sun was not yet high and the
trees sheltered us, the longest I had ridden in my life.  When the
roofs of the chateau at length appeared before us, I could scarcely
keep my pace within bounds.  Reflecting how Madame de Verneuil had
over-reached herself, and how, by indulging in that last stroke of
arrogance, she had placed the secret in my hands, I had much ado to
refrain from going to the King booted and unwashed as I was; and though
I had not eaten since the previous evening.  However, the habit of
propriety, which no man may lightly neglect, came to my aid.  I made my
toilet, and, having broken my fast standing, hastened to the Court.  On
the way I learned that the King was in the queen's garden, and,
directing my steps thither, found him walking with my colleagues,
Villeroy and Sillery, in the little avenue which leads to the garden of
the Conciergerie.  A number of the courtiers were standing on the low
terrace watching them, while a second group lounged about the queen's
staircase.  Full of the news which I had for the King, I crossed the
terrace; taking no particular heed of anyone, but greeting such as came
in my way in my usual fashion.  At the edge of the terrace I paused a
moment before descending the three steps; and at the same moment, as it
happened, Henry looked up, and our eyes met.  On the instant he averted
his gaze, and, turning on his heel in a marked way, retired slowly to
the farther end of the walk.

The action was so deliberate that I could not doubt he meant to slight
me; and I paused where I was, divided between grief and indignation, a
mark for all those glances and whispered gibes in which courtiers
indulge on such occasions.  The slight was not rendered less serious by
the fact that the King was walking with my two colleagues; so that I
alone seemed to be out of his confidence, as one soon to be out of his
councils also.

I perceived all this, and was not blind to the sneering smiles which
were exchanged behind my back; but I affected to see nothing, and to be
absorbed in sudden thought.  In a minute or two the King turned and
came back towards me; and again, as if he could not restrain his
curiosity, looked up so that our eyes met. This time I thought that he
would beckon me to him, satisfied with the lengths to which he had
already carried his displeasure. But he turned again, with a light
laugh.

At this a courtier, one of Sillery's creatures, who had presumed on the
occasion so far as to come to my elbow, thought that he might safely
amuse himself with me.  "I am afraid that the King grows older, M. de
Rosny," he said, smirking at his companions. "His sight seems to be
failing."

"It should not be neglected then," I said grimly.  "I will tell him
presently what you say."

He fell back, looking foolish at that, at the very moment that Henry,
having taken another turn, dismissed Villeroy, who, wiser than the
puppy at my elbow, greeted me with particular civility as he passed.
Freed from him, Henry stood a moment hesitating. He told me afterwards
that he had not turned from me a yard before his heart smote him; and
that but for a mischievous curiosity to see how I should take it, he
would not have carried the matter so far.  Be that as it may--and I do
not doubt this, any more than I ever doubted the reality of the
affection in which he held me--on a sudden he raised his hand and
beckoned to me.

I went down to him gravely, and not hurriedly.  He looked at me with
some signs of confusion in his face.  "You are late this morning," he
said.

"I have been on your Majesty's business," I answered.

"I do not doubt that," he replied querulously, his eyes wandering.  "I
am not--I am troubled this morning."  And after a fashion he had when
he was not at his ease, he ground his heel into the soil and looked
down at the mark.  "The queen is not well.  Sillery has seen her, and
will tell you so."

M. de Sillery, whose constant opposition to me at the council-board I
have elsewhere described, began to affirm it.  I let him go on for a
little time, and then interrupted him brusquely.  "I think it was you,"
I said, "who nominated Ferret to be one of the King's clerks."

"Ferret?"  he exclaimed, reddening at my tone, while the King, who knew
me well, pricked up his ears.

"Yes," I said; "Ferret."

"And if so?"  Sillery asked, haughtily.  "What do you mean?"

"Only this," I said.  "That if his Majesty will summon him to the
queen's closet, without warning or delay, and ask him in her presence
how much Madame de Verneuil gave him for the King's cipher, her
Majesty, I think, will learn something which she wishes to know."

"What?"  the King cried.  "You have discovered it?  But he gave you a
receipt for the papers he took."

"For the papers he took with my knowledge--yes, sire."

"The rogue!"  Sillery exclaimed viciously.  "I will go and fetch him."

"Not so--with your Majesty's leave," I said, interposing quickly. "M.
de Sillery may say too much or too little.  Let a lackey take a
message, bidding him go to the queen's closet, and he will suspect
nothing."

The King assented, and bade me go and give the order.  When I returned,
he asked me anxiously if I felt sure that the man would confess.

"Yes, if you pretend to know all, sire," I answered.  "He will think
that Madame has betrayed him."

"Very well," Henry said.  "Then let us go."

But I declined to be present; partly on the ground that if I were there
the queen might suspect me of inspiring the man, and partly because I
thought that the rogue would entertain a more confident hope of pardon,
and be more likely to confess, if he saw the King alone.  I contrived
to keep Sillery also; and Henry giving the word, as he mounted the
steps, that he should be back presently, the whole Court remained in a
state of suspense, aware that something was in progress but in doubt
what, and unable to decide whether I were again in favour or now on my
trial.

Sillery remained talking to me, principally on English matters, until
the dinner hour; which came and went, neglected by all.  At length,
when the curiosity of the mass of courtiers, who did not dare to
interrupt us, had been raised by delay to an almost intolerable pitch,
the King returned, with signs of disorder in his bearing; and, crossing
the terrace in half a dozen strides, drew me hastily, along with
Sillery, into the grove of white mulberry trees.  There we were no
sooner hidden in part, though not completely, than he threw his arms
about me and embraced me with the warmest expressions.  "Ah, my
friend," he said, putting me from him at last, "what shall I say to
you?"

"The queen is satisfied, sire?"

"Perfectly; and desires to be commended to you."

"He confessed, then?"

Henry nodded, with a look in his face that I did not understand. "Yes,"
he said, "fully.  It was as you thought, my friend.  God have mercy
upon him!"

I started.  "What?"  I said.  "Has he--"

The King nodded, and could not repress a shudder.  "Yes," he said; "but
not, thank Heaven, until he had left the closet.  He had something
about him."

Sillery began anxiously to clear himself; but the King, with his usual
good nature, stopped him, and bade us all go and dine, saying that we
must be famished.  He ended by directing me to be back in an hour,
since his own appetite was spoiled.  "And bring with you all your
patience," he added, "for I have a hundred questions to ask you.  We
will walk towards Avon, and I will show you the surprise which I am
preparing for the queen."

Alas, I would I could say that all ended there.  But the rancour of
which Madame de Verneuil had given token in her interview with me was
rather aggravated than lessened by the failure of her plot and the
death of her tool.  It proved to be impenetrable by all the kindnesses
which the King lavished upon her; neither the legitimation of the child
which she soon afterwards bore, nor the clemency which the
King--against the advice of his wisest ministers extended to her
brother Auvergne, availing to expel it from her breast.  How far she or
that ill-omened family were privy to the accursed crime which, nine
years later, palsied France on the threshold of undreamed-of glories, I
will not take on myself to say; for suspicion is not proof.  But
history, of which my beloved master must ever form so great a part,
will lay the blame where it should rest.




VI.

THE MAN OF MONCEAUX.


In the month of August of this year the King found some alleviation of
the growing uneasiness which his passion for Madame de Conde occasioned
him in a visit to Monceaux, where he spent two weeks in such diversions
as the place afforded.  He invited me to accompany him, but on my
representing that I could not there--so easily as in my own closet,
where I had all the materials within reach--prepare the report which he
had commanded me to draw up, he directed me to remain in Paris until it
was ready, and then to join him.

This report which he was having written, not only for his own
satisfaction but for the information of his heir, took the form of a
recital of all the causes and events, spread over many years, which had
induced him to take in hand the Great Design; together with a succinct
account of the munitions and treasures which he had prepared to carry
it out.  As it included many things which were unknown beyond the
council, and some which he shared only with me--and as, in particular,
it enumerated the various secret alliances and agreements which he had
made with the princes of North Germany, whom a premature discovery must
place at the Emperor's mercy--it was necessary that I should draw up
the whole with my own hand, and with the utmost care and precaution.
This I did; and that nothing might be wanting to a memorial which I
regarded with justice as the most important of the many State papers
which it had fallen to my lot; to prepare, I spent seven days in
incessant labour upon it.  It was not, therefore, until the third week
in August:  that I was free to travel to Monceaux.

I found my quarters assigned to me in a pavilion called the Garden
House; and, arriving at supper time, sat down with my household with
more haste and less ceremony than was my wont. The same state of things
prevailed, I suppose, in the kitchen; for we had not been seated half
an hour when a great hubbub arose in the house, and the servants
rushing in cried out that a fire had broken out below, and that the
house was in danger of burning.

In such emergencies I take it to be the duty of a man of standing to
bear himself with as much dignity as is consistent with vigour; and
neither to allow himself to be carried away by the outcry and disorder
of the crowd, nor to omit any direction that may avail.  On this
occasion, however, my first thought was given to the memorial I had
prepared for the King; which I remembered had been taken with other
books and papers to a room over the kitchen.  I lost not a moment,
therefore, in sending Maignan for it; nor until I held it safely in my
hand did I feel myself at liberty to think of the house.  When I did, I
found that the alarm exceeded the danger; a few buckets of water
extinguished a beam in the chimney which had caught fire, and in a few
moments we were able to resume the meal with the added vivacity which
such an event gave to the conversation.  It has never been my custom to
encourage too great freedom at my table; but as the company consisted,
with a single exception, of my household, and as this person--a
Monsieur de Vilain, a young gentleman, the cousin of one of my wife's
maids-of-honour--showed himself possessed of modesty as well as wit, I
thought that the time excused a little relaxation.

This was the cause of the misfortune which followed, and bade fair to
place me in a position of as great difficulty as I have ever known;
for, having in my good humour dismissed the servants, I continued to
talk for an hour or more with Vilain and some of my gentlemen; the
result being that I so far forgot myself, when I rose, as to leave the
report where I had laid it on the table. In the passage I met a man
whom the King had sent to inquire about the fire; and thus reminded of
the papers I turned back to the room; greatly vexed with myself for
negligence which in a subordinate I should have severely rebuked, but
never doubting that I should find the packet where I had left it.

To my chagrin the paper was gone.  Still I could not believe that it
had been stolen, and supposing that Maignan or one of my household had
seen it and taken it to my closet, I repaired thither in haste.  I
found Maignan already there, with M. Boisrueil, one of my gentlemen,
who was waiting to ask a favour; but they knew nothing of the report,
and though I sent them down forthwith, with directions to make strict
but quiet inquiry, they returned at the end of half an hour with long
faces and no news.

Then I grew seriously alarmed; and reflecting on the many important
secrets which the memorial contained, whereof a disclosure must spoil
plans so long and sedulously prepared, I found myself brought on a
sudden face to face with disaster.  I could not imagine how the King,
who had again and again urged on me the utmost precaution, would take
such a catastrophe; nor how I should make it known to him.  For a
moment, therefore, while I listened to the tale, I felt the hair rise
on my head and a shiver descend my back; nor was it without an uncommon
effort that I retained my coolness and composure.

Plainly no steps in such a position could be too stringent.  I sent
Maignan with an order to close all the doors and let no one pass out.
Then I made sure that none of the servants had entered the room,
between the time of my rising and return; and this narrowed the tale of
those who could have taken the packet to eleven, that being the number
of persons who had sat down with me.  But having followed the matter so
far, I came face to face with this difficulty:  that all the eleven
were, with one exception, in my service and in various ways pledged to
my interests, so that I could not conceive even the possibility of a
betrayal by them in a matter so important.

I confess, at this, the perspiration rose upon my brow; for the paper
was gone.  Still, there remained one stranger; and though it seemed
scarcely less difficult to suspect him, since he could have no
knowledge of the importance of the document, and could not have
anticipated that I should leave it in his power, I found in that the
only likely solution.  He was one of the Vilains of Pareil by Monceaux,
his father living on the edge of the park, little more than a thousand
yards from the chateau; and I knew no harm of him.  Still, I knew
little; and for that reason was forward to believe that there, rather
than in my own household, lay the key to the enigma.

My suspicions were not lessened when I discovered that he alone of the
party at table had left the house before the doors were closed; and for
a moment I was inclined to have him followed and seized.  But I could
scarcely take a step so decisive without provoking inquiry; and I dared
not at this stage let the King know of my negligence.  I found myself,
therefore, brought up short, in a state of exasperation and doubt
difficult to describe; and the most minute search within the house and
the closest examination of all concerned failing to provide the
slightest clue, I had no alternative but to pass the night in that
condition.

On the morrow a third search seeming still the only resource, and
proving as futile as the others, I ordered La Trape and two or three in
whom I placed the greatest confidence to watch their fellows, and
report anything in their bearing or manner that seemed to be out of the
ordinary course; while I myself went to wait; on the King, and parry
his demand for the memorial as well as I could.  This it was necessary
to do without provoking curiosity; and as the lapse of each minute made
the pursuit of the paper less hopeful and its recovery a thing to pray
for rather than expect, it will be believed that I soon found the
aspect of civility which I was obliged to wear so great a trial of my
patience, that I made an excuse and retired early to my lodging.

Here my wife, who shared my anxiety, met me with a face full of
meaning.  I cried out to know if they had found the paper.

"No," she answered; "but if you will come into your closet I will tell
you what I have learned."

I went in with her, and she told me briefly that the manner of
Mademoiselle de Mars, one of her maids, had struck her as suspicious.
The girl had begun to cry while reading to her; and when questioned had
been able to give no explanation of her trouble.

"She is Vilain's cousin?"  I said.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Bring her to me," I said.  "Bring her to me without the delay of an
instant."

My wife hastened to comply; and whatever had been the girl's state
earlier, before the fright of this hasty summons had upset her, her
agitation when thus confronted with me gave me, before a word was
spoken, the highest hopes that I had here the key to the mystery.  I
judged that it might be necessary to frighten her still more, and I
started by taking a harsh tone with her; but before I had said many
words she obviated the necessity of this by falling at my wife's feet
and protesting that she would tell all.

"Then speak quickly, wench!"  I said.  "You know where the paper is."

"I know who has it!"  she answered, in a voice choked with sobs.

"Who?"

"My cousin, M. de Vilain."

"Ha!  and has taken it to his house?"

But she seemed for a moment unable to answer this; her distress being
such that my wife had to fetch a vial of pungent salts to restore her
before she could say more.  At length she found voice to tell us that
M. de Vilain had taken the paper, and was this evening to hand it to an
agent of the Spanish ambassador.

"But, girl," I said sternly, "how do you know this?"

Then she confessed that the cousin was also the lover, and had before
employed her to disclose what went on in my household, and anything of
value that could be discovered there.  Doubtless the girl, for whom my
wife, in spite of her occasional fits of reserve and temper,
entertained no little liking, enjoyed many opportunities of prying; and
would have continued still to serve him had not this last piece of
villainy, with the stir which it caused in the house and the rigorous
punishment to be expected in the event of discovery, proved too much
for her nerves.  Hence this burst of confession; which once allowed to
flow, ran on almost against her will.  Nor did I let her pause to
consider the full meaning of what she was saying until I had learned
that Vilain was to meet the ambassador's agent an hour after sunset at
the east end of a clump of trees which stood in the park; and being
situate between his, Vilain's, residence and the chateau, formed a
convenient place for such a transaction.

"He will have it about him?"  I said.

She sobbed a moment, but presently confessed.  "Yes; or it will be in
the hollow of the most easterly tree.  He was to leave it there, if the
agent could not keep the appointment."

"Good!"  I said; and then, having assured myself by one or two
questions of that, of which her state of distress and agitation left me
in little doubt--namely, that she was telling the truth--I committed
her to my wife's care; bidding the Duchess lock her up in a safe place
upstairs, and treat her to bread and water until I had taken the steps
necessary to prove the fact, and secure the paper.

After this--but I should be tedious were I to describe the alternations
of hope and fear in which I passed the period of suspense.  Suffice it
that I informed no one, not even Maignan, of what I had discovered, but
allowed those in the secret of the loss still to pursue their efforts;
while I, by again attending the Court, endeavoured at once to mitigate
the King's impatience and persuade the world that all was well.  A
little before the appointed time, however I made a pretext to rise from
supper, and quietly calling out Boisrueil, bade him bring four of the
men, armed, and Maignan and La Trape.  With this small body I made my
way out by a private door, and crossed the park to the place
Mademoiselle had, indicated.

Happily, night had already begun to close in, and the rendezvous was at
the farther side of the clump of trees.  Favoured by these
circumstances, we were able to pass round the thicket--some on one side
and some on the other---without noise or disturbance; and fortunate
enough, having arrived at the place, to discover a man walking uneasily
up and down on the very spot where we expected to find him.  The
evening was so far advanced that it was not possible to be sure that
the man was Vilain; but as all depended on seizing him before he had
any communication with the Spanish agent, I gave the signal, and two of
my men, springing on him from either side, in a moment bore him to the
ground and secured him.

He proved to be Vilain, so that, when he was brought face to face with
me, I was much less surprised than he affected to be.  He played the
part of an ignorant so well, indeed, that, for a moment, I was
staggered by his show of astonishment, and by the earnestness with
which he denounced the outrage; nor could Maignan find anything on him.
But, a moment later, remembering the girl's words, I strode to the
nearest tree, and, groping about it, in a twinkling unearthed the paper
from a little hollow in the trunk that seemed to have been made to
receive it.  I need not say with what relief I found the seals
unbroken; nor with what indignation I turned on the villain thus
convicted of an act of treachery towards the King only less black than
the sin against hospitality of which he had been guilty in my house.
But the discovery I had made seemed enough of itself to overwhelm him;
for, after standing apparently stunned while I spoke, he jerked himself
suddenly out of his captors' hands, and made a desperate attempt to
escape.  Finding this hopeless, and being seized again before he had
gone four paces, he shouted, at the top of his voice:  "Back!  back!
Go back!"

We looked about, somewhat startled, and Boisrueil, with presence of
mind, ran into the darkness to see if he could detect the person
addressed; but though he thought that he saw the skirt of a flying
cloak disappear in the gloom, he was not sure; and I, having no mind to
be mixed up with the ambassador, called him back.  I asked Vilain to
whom he had called, but the young man, turning sullen, would answer
nothing except that he knew naught of the paper.  I thought it best,
therefore, to conduct him at once to my lodgings, whither it will be
believed that I returned with a lighter heart than I had gone out.  It
was, indeed, a providential escape.

How to punish the traitor was another matter, for I could scarcely do
so adequately without betraying my negligence.  I determined to sleep
on this, however, and, for the night, directed him to be locked into a
chamber in the south-west turret, with a Swiss to guard the door; my
intention being to interrogate him farther on the morrow.  However,
Henry sent for me so early that I was forced to postpone my
examination; and, being detained by him until evening, I thought it
best to tell him, before I left, what had happened.

He heard the story with a look of incredulity, which, little by little,
gave way to a broad smile.  "Well," he said, "Grand Master, never chide
me again!  I have heard that Homer sometimes nods; but if I were to
tell this to Sillery or Villeroy, they would not believe me."

"They would believe anything that your Majesty told them," I said.
"But you will not tell them this?"

"No," he said kindly, "I will not; and there is my hand on it. For the
matter of that, if it had happened to them, they would not have told
me."

"And perhaps been the wiser for that," I said.

"Don't believe it," he answered.  "But now, what of this young Vilain?
You have him safe?"

"Yes, sire."

"The girl is one degree worse; she betrays both sides to save her skin."

"Still, I promised--"

"Oh, she must go," Henry said.  "I quite understand.  But for him--we
had better have no scandal.  Keep him until to-morrow, and I will see
his father, and have him sent out of the country."

"And he will go scot free," I said, bluntly, "when a rope and the
nearest tree--"

"Yes, my friend," Henry answered with a dry smile; "but that should
have been done last night.  As it is, he is your guest and we must give
an account of him.  But first drain him dry. Frighten him, as you
please, and get all out of him; then I wish them joy of him.  Faugh!
and he a young man!  I would not be his father for two such crowns as
mine!"

As I returned to my lodgings I thought over these words; and I fell to
wondering by what stages Vilain had sunk so low. Occasionally admitted
to my table, he had always borne himself with a modesty and discretion
that had not failed to prepossess me; indeed, the longer I considered
the King's saying, the greater was the surprise I felt at this
DENOUEMENT; which left me in doubt whether my dullness exceeded my
negligence or the young man's parts surpassed his wickedness.

A few questions, I thought, might resolve this; but having been
detained by the King until supper-time, I postponed the interview until
I rose.  Then bidding them bring in the prisoner, I assumed my harshest
aspect and prepared to blast him by discovering all his vileness to his
face.

But when I had waited a little, only Maignan came in, with an air of
consternation that brought me to my feet.  "Why, man, what is it?"  I
cried.

"The prisoner," he faltered.  "If your excellency pleases--"

"I do not please!"  I said sternly, believing that I knew what had
happened.  "Is he dead?"

"No, your excellency; but, he has escaped."

"Escaped?  From that room?"

Maignan nodded.

"Then, PAR DIEU!"  I replied, "the man who was on guard shall suffer in
his place!  Escaped?  How could he escape except by treachery?  Where
was the guard?"

"He was there, excellency.  And he says that no one passed him."

"Yet the man is gone?"

"The room is empty."

"But the window--the window, fool, is fifty feet from the ground!"  I
said.  "And not so much footing outside as would hold a crow!"

Maignan shrugged his shoulders, and in a rage I bade him follow me, and
went myself to view the place; to which a number of my people had
already flocked with lights, so that I found some difficulty in
mounting the staircase.  A very brief inspection, however, sufficed to
confirm my first impression that Vilain could have escaped by the door
only; for the window, though it lacked bars and boasted a tiny balcony,
hung over fifty feet of sheer depth, so that evasion that way seemed in
the absence of ladder or rope purely impossible.  This being clear, I
ordered the Swiss to be seized; and as he could give no explanation of
the escape, and still persisted that he was as much in the dark as
anyone, I declared that I would make an example of him, and hang him
unless the prisoner was recaptured within three days.

I did not really propose to do this, but in my irritation I spoke so
roundly that my people believed me; even Boisrueil, who presently came
to intercede for the culprit, who, it seemed, was a favourite.  "As for
Vilain," he continued; "you can catch him whenever you please."

"Then catch him before the end of three days," I answered obstinately,
"and the man lives."

The truth was that Vilain's escape placed me in a position of some
discomfort; for though, on the one hand, I had no particular desire to
get him again into my hands, seeing that the King could effect as much
by a word to his father as I had proposed to do while I held him safe;
on the other hand, the evasion placed me very peculiarly in regard to
the King himself, who was inclined to think me ill or suddenly grown
careless.  Some of the facts, too, were leaking out, and provoking
smiles among the more knowing, and a hint here and there; the result of
all being that, unable to pursue the matter farther in Vilain's case, I
hardened my heart and persisted that the Swiss should pay the penalty.

This obstinacy on my part had an unforeseen issue.  On the evening of
the second day, a little before supper-time, my wife came to me, and
announced that a young lady had waited on her with a tale so remarkable
that she craved leave to bring her to me that I might hear it.

"What is it?"  I said impatiently.

"It is about M. Vilain," my wife answered, her face still wearing all
the marks of lively astonishment.

"Ha!"  I exclaimed.  "I will see her then.  But it is not that baggage
who--"

"No," my wife answered.  "It is another."

"One of your maids?"

"No, a stranger."

"Well, bring her," I said shortly.

She went, and quickly returned with a young lady, whose face and modest
bearing were known to me, though I could not, at the moment, recall her
name.  This was the less remarkable as I am not prone to look much in
maids' faces, leaving that to younger men; and Mademoiselle de
Figeac's, though beautiful, was disfigured on this occasion by the
marked distress under which she was labouring.  Accustomed as I was to
the visits of persons of all classes and characters who came to me
daily with petitions, I should have been disposed to cut her short, but
for my wife's intimation that her errand had to do with the matter
which annoyed me.  This, as well as a trifle of curiosity--from which
none are quite free--inclined me to be patient; and I asked her what
she would have with me.

"Justice, M. le Duc," she answered simply.  "I have heard that you are
seeking M. de Vilain, and that one of your people is lying under
sentence for complicity in his escape."

"That is true, mademoiselle," I said.  "If you can tell me--"

"I can tell you how he escaped, and by whose aid," she answered.

It is my custom to betray no astonishment, even when I am astonished.
"Do so," I said.

"He escaped through the window," she answered firmly, "by my brother's
aid."

"Your brother's?"  I exclaimed, amazed at her audacity.  "I do not
remember him."

"He is only thirteen years old."

I could hide my astonishment no longer.  "You must be mad, girl!" I
said, "mad!  You do not know what you are saying!  The window of the
room in which Vilain was confined is fifty feet from the ground, and
you say that your brother, a boy of thirteen, contrived his escape?"

"Yes, M. de Sully," she answered.  "And the man who is about to suffer
is innocent."

"How was it done, then?"  I asked, not knowing what to think of her
persistence.

"My brother was flying a kite that day," she answered.  "He had been
doing so for a week or more, and everyone was accustomed to seeing him
here.  After sunset, the wind being favourable, he came under M. de
Vilain's window, and, when it was nearly dark, and the servants and
household were at supper, he guided the kite against the balcony
outside the window."

"But a man cannot descend by a kite-string!"

"My brother had a knotted rope, which M. de Vilain drew up," she
answered simply; "and afterwards, when he had descended, disengaged."

I looked at her in profound amazement.

"Your brother acted on instructions?"  I said at last.

"On mine," she answered.

"You avow that?"

"I am here to do so," she replied, her face white and red by turns, but
her eyes continuing to meet mine.

"This is a very serious matter," I said.  "Are you aware, mademoiselle,
why M. Vilain was arrested, and of what he is accused?"

"Perfectly," she answered; "and that he is innocent.  More!"  she
continued, clasping her hands, and looking at me bravely, "I am willing
both to tell you where he is, and to bring him, if you please, into
your presence."

I stared at her.  "You will bring him here?"  I said.

"Within five minutes," she answered, "if you will first hear me."

"What are you to him?"  I said.

She blushed vividly.  "I shall be his wife or no one's," she said; and
she looked a moment at my wife.

"Well, say what you have to say!"  I cried roughly.

"This paper, which it is alleged that he stole--it was not found on
him; but in the hollow of a tree."

"Within three paces of him!  And what was he doing there?"

"He came to meet me," she answered, her voice trembling slightly. "He
could have told you so, but he would not shame me."

"This is true?"  I said, eyeing her closely.

"I swear it!"  she answered, clasping her hands.  And then, with a
sudden flash of rage, "Will the other woman swear to her tale?" she
cried.

"Ha!"  I said, "what other woman?"

"The woman who sent you to that place," she answered.  "He would not
tell me her name, or I would go to her now and wring the truth from
her.  But he confessed to me that he had let a woman into the secret of
our meeting; and this is her work."

I stood a moment pondering, with my eyes on the girl's excited face,
and my thoughts, following this new clue through the maze of recent
events; wherein I could not fail to see that it led to a very different
conclusion from that at which I had arrived.  If Vilain had been
foolish enough to wind up his love-passages with Mademoiselle de Mars
by confiding to her his passion for the Figeac, and even the place and
time at which the latter was so imprudent as to meet him, I could fancy
the deserted mistress laying this plot; and first placing the packet
where we found it, and then punishing her lover by laying the theft at
his door. True, he might be guilty; and it might be only confession and
betrayal on which jealousy had thrust her.  But the longer I considered
the whole of the circumstances, as well as the young man's character,
and the lengths to which I knew a woman's passion would carry her, the
more probable seemed the explanation I had just received.

Nevertheless, I did not at once express my opinion; but veiling the
chagrin I naturally felt at the simple part I had been led to play--in
the event I now thought probable--I sharply ordered Mademoiselle de
Figeac to retire into the next room; and then I requested my wife to
fetch her maid.

Mademoiselle de Mars had been three days in solitary confinement, and
might be taken to have repented of her rash accusation were it
baseless.  I counted somewhat on this; and more on the effect of so
sudden a summons to my presence.  But at first sight it seemed that I
did so without cause.  Instead of the agitation which she had displayed
when brought before me to confess, she now showed herself quiet and
even sullen; nor did the gleam of passion, which I thought that I
discerned smouldering in her dark eyes, seem to promise either weakness
or repentance.  However, I had too often observed the power of the
unknown over a guilty conscience to despair of eliciting the truth.

"I want to ask you two or three questions," I said civilly. "First, was
M. de Vilain with you when you placed the paper in the hollow of the
tree?  Or were you alone?"

I saw her eyelids quiver as with sudden fear, and her voice shook as
she stammered, "When I placed the paper?"

"Yes," I said, "when you placed the paper.  I have reason to know that
you did it.  I wish to learn whether he was present, or you did it
merely under his orders?"

She looked at me, her face a shade paler, and I do not doubt that her
mind was on the rack to divine how much I knew, and how far she might
deny and how far confess.  My tone seemed to encourage frankness,
however, and in a moment she said, "I placed it under his directions."

"Yes," I said drily, my last doubt resolved by the admission; "but that
being so, why did Vilain go to the spot?"

She grew still a shade paler, but in a moment she answered, "To meet
the agent."

"Then why did you place the paper in the tree?"

She saw the difficulty in which she had placed herself, and for an
instant she stared at me with the look of a wild animal caught in a
trap.  Then, "In case the agent was late," she muttered.

"But since Vilain had to go to the spot, why did he not deposit the
paper in the tree himself?  Why did he send you to the place
beforehand?  Why did--" and then I broke off and cried harshly, "Shall
I tell you why?  Shall I tell you why, you false jade?"

She cowered away from me at the words, and stood terror-stricken,
gazing at me like one fascinated.  But she did not answer.

"Because," I cried, "your story is a tissue of lies!  Because it was
you, and you only, who stole this paper!  Because--Down on your knees!
down on your knees!"  I thundered, "and confess! Confess, or I will
have you whipped at the cart's tail, like the false witness you are!"

She threw herself down shrieking, and caught my wife by the skirts, and
in a breath had said all I wanted; and more than enough to show me that
I had suspected Vilain without cause, and both played the simpleton
myself and harried my household to distraction.

So far good.  I could arrange matters with Vilain, and probably avoid
publicity.  But what was now to be done with her?

In the case of a man I should have thought no punishment too severe,
and the utmost rigour of the law too tender for such perfidy; but as
she was a woman, and young, and under my wife's protection, I
hesitated.  Finally, the Duchess interceding, I leaned to the side of
that mercy which the girl had not shown to her lover; and thought her
sufficiently punished, at the moment by the presence of Mademoiselle de
Figeac whom I called into the room to witness her humiliation, and in
the future by dismissal from my household.  As this imported banishment
to her father's country-house, where her mother, a sh

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