THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
smiled, for so many and such serious events had occurred since he last played with the King that he would not have been astonished to learn that the King had changed his habitual companions at the game.
“I shall go there,” said Henry, with a smile.
“Come,” cried the duke.
“Are you going away?” inquired Marguerite.
“Yes, sister!”
“Are you in great haste?”
“In great haste.”
“Might I venture to detain you for a few minutes?”
Such a request was so unusual coming from Marguerite that her brother looked at her while her color came and went.
“What can she be going to say to him?” thought Henry, no less surprised than the duke himself.
Marguerite, as if she had guessed her husband’s thought, turned toward him.
“Sire,” said she, with a charming smile, “you may go back to his majesty if it seem good to you, for the secret which I am going to reveal to my brother is already known to you, for the reason that the request which I made you yesterday in regard to this secret was as good as refused by your majesty. I should not wish, therefore,” continued Marguerite, “to weary your majesty a second time by expressing in your presence a wish which seemed to be disagreeable.”
“What do you mean?” asked François, looking at both of them with astonishment.
“Aha!” exclaimed Henry, flushing, with indignation, “I know what you mean, madame. In truth, I regret that I am not free. But if I cannot offer Monsieur de la Mole such hospitality as would be equivalent to an assurance, I cannot do less than to recommend to my brother D’Alençon the person in whom you feel such a lively interest. Perhaps,” he added, in order to give still more emphasis to the words italicized, “perhaps my brother will discover some way whereby you will be permitted to keep Monsieur de la Mole here near you — that would be better than anything else, would it not, madame?”
“Come, come!” said Marguerite to herself, “the two together will do what neither of them would do individually.”
And she opened the closet door and invited the wounded young man to come forth, saying to Henry as she did so:
“Your majesty must now explain to my brother why we are interested in Monsieur de la Mole.”
Henry, caught in the snare, briefly related to M. d’Alençon, half a Protestant for the sake of opposition, as he himself was partly a Catholic from prudence, the arrival of Monsieur de la Mole at Paris, and how the young man had been severely wounded while bringing to him a letter from M. d’Auriac.
When the duke turned round, La Mole had come out from the closet and was standing before him.
François, at the sight of him, so handsome, so pale, and consequently doubly captivating by reason of his good looks and his pallor, felt a new sense of distrust spring up in the depths of his soul. Marguerite held him both through jealousy and through pride.
“Brother,” said Marguerite, “I will engage that this young gentleman will be useful to whoever may employ him. Should you accept his services, he will obtain a powerful protector, and you, a devoted servitor. In such times as the present, brother,” continued she, “we cannot be too well surrounded by devoted friends; more especially,” added she, lowering her voice so as to be heard by no one but the duke, “when one is ambitious, and has the misfortune to be only third in the succession to the throne.”
Then she put her finger on her lip, to intimate to François that in spite of the initiation she still kept secret an important part of her idea.
“Perhaps,” she added, “you may differ from Henry, in considering it not befitting that this young gentleman should remain so immediately in the vicinity of my apartments.”
“Sister,” replied François, eagerly, “if it meet your wishes, Monsieur de la Mole shall, in half an hour, be installed in my quarters, where, I think, he can have no cause to fear any danger. Let him love me and I will love him.”
François was untruthful, for already in the very depths of his heart he detested La Mole.
“Well, well! So then I was not mistaken,” said Marguerite to herself, seeing the King of Navarre’s scowling face. “Ah, I see that to lead you two, one must lead the other.”
Then finishing her thought:
“There! ‘then you are doing well, Marguerite,’ Henriette would say.”
In fact, half an hour later La Mole, having been solemnly catechised by Marguerite, kissed the hem of her gown and with an agility remarkable in a wounded man was mounting the stairs that led to the Duc d’Alençon’s quarters.
Two or three days passed, during which the excellent understanding between Henry and his wife seemed to grow more and more firmly established.
Henry had obtained permission not to make a public renunciation of his religion; but he had formally recanted in the presence of the king’s confessor, and every morning he listened to the mass performed at the Louvre. At night he made a show of going to his wife’s rooms, entered by the principal door, talked a few minutes with her, and then took his departure by the small secret door, and went up to Madame de Sauve, who had duly informed him of the queen mother’s visit as well as the unquestionable danger which threatened him. Warned on both sides, Henry redoubled his watchfulness against the queen mother and felt all distrust of her because little by little her face began to unbend, and one morning Henry detected a friendly smile on her bloodless lips. That day he had the greatest difficulty to bring himself to eat anything else than eggs cooked by himself or to drink anything else than water which his own eyes had seen dipped up from the Seine.
The massacres were still going on, but nevertheless were diminishing in violence. There had been such a wholesale butchery of the Huguenots that their number was greatly reduced. The larger part were dead; many had fled; a few had remained in concealment. Occasionally a great outcry arose in one district or another; it meant that one of these was discovered. Then the execution was either private or public according as the victim was driven into a corner or could escape. In such circumstances it furnished great amusement for the neighborhood where the affair took place; for instead of growing calmer as their enemies were annihilated, the Catholics grew more and more ferocious; the fewer the remaining victims, the more bloodthirsty they seemed in their persecution of the rest.
Charles IX. had taken great pleasure in hunting the Huguenots, and when he could no longer continue the chase himself he took delight in the noise of others hunting them.
One day, returning from playing at mall, which with tennis and hunting were his favorite amusements, he went to his mother’s apartments in high spirits, followed by his usual train of courtiers.
“Mother,” he said, embracing the Florentine, who, observing his joy, was already trying to detect its cause; “mother, good news! Mort de tous les diables! Do you know that the admiral’s illustrious carcass which it was said was lost has been found?”
“Aha!” said Catharine.
“Oh, heavens! yes. You thought as I did, mother, the dogs had eaten a wedding dinner off him, but it was not so. My people, my dear people, my good people, had a clever idea and have hung the admiral up at the gibbet of Montfaucon.
“Du haut en bas Gaspard on a jété, Et puis de bas en haut on l’a monté.”3
“Well!” said Catharine.
“Well, good mother,” replied Charles IX., “I have a strong desire to see him again, dear old man, now I know he is really dead. It is very fine weather and everything seems to be blooming today. The air is full of life and perfume, and I feel better than I ever did. If you like,