THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
to him, can I betray him?”
“Betray him! In what are you betraying him? What has he confided to you? Is it not he who has betrayed you by giving your cloak and hat to De Mouy as a means of gaining him admittance to his apartments? You belong to him, you say! Were you not mine, my gentleman, before you were his? Has he given you a greater proof of friendship than the proof of love you have from me?”
La Mole arose, pale and completely overcome.
“Oh!” he murmured, “Coconnas was right, intrigue is enveloping me in its folds. It will suffocate me.”
“Well?” asked Marguerite.
“Well,” said La Mole, “this is my answer: it is said, and I heard it at the other end of France, where your illustrious name and your universal reputation for beauty touched my heart like a vague desire for the unknown — it is said that sometimes you love, but that your love is always fatal to those you love, so that death, jealous, no doubt, almost always removes your lovers.”
“La Mole!”
“Do not interrupt me, oh, my well-loved Margarita, for they add that you preserve the hearts of these faithful friends in gold boxes10, and that occasionally you bestow a melancholy thought, a pious glance on the sad remains. You sigh, my queen, your eyes droop; it is true. Well! make me the dearest and the happiest of your favorites. You have pierced the hearts of others, and you keep their hearts. You do more with me, you expose my head. Well, Marguerite, swear to me before the image of the God who has saved my life in this very place, swear to me, that if I die for you, as a sad presentiment tells me I shall do, swear to me that you will keep my head, which the hangman will separate from my body; and that you will sometimes press your lips to it. Swear, Marguerite, and the promise of such reward bestowed by my queen will make me silent, and, if necessary, a traitor and a coward; this is being wholly devoted, as your lover and your accomplice should be.”
“Oh! what ghastly foolishness, dear heart!” said Marguerite. “Oh! fatal thought, sweet love.”
“Swear”—
“Swear?”
“Yes, on this silver chest with its cross. Swear.”
“Well!” said Marguerite, “if — and God forbid! — your gloomy presentiment is realized, my fine gentleman, on this cross I swear to you that you shall be near me, living or dead, so long as I live; and if I am unable to rescue you from the peril which comes to you through me, through me alone, I will at least give to your poor soul the consolation for which you ask, and which you will so well have deserved.”
“One word more, Marguerite. I can die now. I shall not mind death; but I can live, too, for we may succeed. The King of Navarre, king, you may be queen, in which case he will take you away. This vow of separation between you will some day be broken, and will do away with ours. Now, Marguerite, my well-beloved Marguerite, with a word you have taken away my every fear of death; now with a word keep up my courage concerning life.”
“Oh, fear nothing, I am yours, body and soul!” cried Marguerite, again raising her hand to the cross on the little chest. “If I leave, you follow, and if the king refuses to take you, then I shall not go.”
“But you dare not resist!”
“My well-beloved Hyacinthe,” said Marguerite, “you do not know Henry. At present he is thinking of only one thing, that is, of being king. For this he would sacrifice everything he owns, and, still more, what he does not own. Now, adieu!”
“Madame,” said La Mole, smiling, “are you going to send me away?”
“It is late,” said Marguerite.
“No doubt; but where would you have me go? Monsieur de Mouy is in my room with Monsieur le Duc d’Alençon.”
“Ah! yes,” said Marguerite, with a beautiful smile. “Besides, I have still some things to tell you about this conspiracy.”
From that night La Mole was no longer an ordinary favorite. He well might carry his head high, for which, living or dead, so sweet a future was in store.
And yet at times his weary brow was bent, his cheek grew pale, and deep thoughts ploughed their furrows on the forehead of the young man, once so light-hearted, now so happy!
10. She was in the habit of carrying a large farthingale, containing pockets, in each of which she put a gold box in which was the heart of one of her dead lovers; for she was careful as they died to have their hearts embalmed. This farthingale hung every night from a hook which was secured by a padlock behind the headboard of her bed. (Tallemant Des Réaux, History of Marguerite of Valois.)
Chapter 27.
The Hand of God.
On leaving Madame de Sauve Henry had said to her:
“Go to bed, Charlotte. Pretend that you are very ill, and on no account see any one all day tomorrow.”
Charlotte obeyed without questioning the reason for this suggestion from the king. She was beginning to be accustomed to his eccentricities, as we should call them today, or to his whims as they were then called. Moreover, she knew that deep in his heart Henry hid secrets which he told to no one, in his mind plans which he feared to reveal even in his dreams; so that she carried out all his wishes, knowing that his most peculiar ideas had an object.
Whereupon that evening she complained to Dariole of great heaviness in her head, accompanied by dizziness. These were the symptoms which Henry had suggested to her to feign.
The following day she pretended that she wanted to rise, but scarcely had she put her foot on the floor when she said she felt a general debility, and went back to bed.
This indisposition, which Henry had already announced to the Duc d’Alençon, was the first news brought to Catharine when she calmly asked why La Sauve was not present as usual at her levee.
“She is ill!” replied Madame de Lorraine, who was there.
“Ill!” repeated Catharine, without a muscle of her face betraying the interest she took in the answer. “Some idle fatigue, perhaps.”
“No, madame,” replied the princess. “She complains of a severe headache and of weakness which prevents her from walking.” Catharine did not answer. But, to hide her joy, she turned to the window, and perceiving Henry, who was crossing the court after his conversation with De Mouy, she rose the better to see him. Driven by that conscience which, although invisible, always throbs in the deepest recesses of hearts most hardened to crime:
“Does not my son Henry seem paler than usual this morning?” she asked her captain of the guards.
There was nothing in the question. Henry was greatly troubled mentally; but physically he was very strong.
By degrees those usually present at the queen’s levee withdrew. Three or four intimate ones remained longer than the others, but Catharine impatiently dismissed them, saying that she wished to be alone. When the last courtier had gone Catharine closed the door and going to a secret closet hidden in one of the panels of her room she slid back a door in a groove of wood and took out a book, the worn leaves of which showed frequent use. Placing the volume on a table, she opened it to a book-mark, then resting her elbow on the table and her head on one hand:
“That is it,” murmured she, reading, “‘headache, general weakness, pain in the eyes, swelling of the palate.’ As yet they have mentioned only the pains in the head and weakness. But the other symptoms will not be slow in forthcoming.”
She continued:
“‘Then