Chicot the Jester Part 101

"You saw Henri of Navarre in Paris?"

"Yes."

"You saw my mortal enemy here, and did not tell me?"

"I am not a spy. Then there are the Guises; 20,000 or 25,000 men under the orders of the Duc de Guise will make up altogether a nice little army."

"But Henri of Navarre and the Duc de Guise are enemies."

"Which will not prevent them from uniting against you; they will be free to fight with each other when they have conquered you."

"You are right, Chicot, and my mother is right. I will call the Swiss."

"Oh, yes! Quelus has got them."

"My guards, then."

"Schomberg has them."

"My household at least."

"They have gone with Maugiron."

"Without my orders?"

"And when do you ever give orders, except, perhaps, to flagellate either your own skin, or that of others?--But about government.--Bah!

allow me to observe that you have been a long time finding out that you rank seventh or eighth in this kingdom."

"Here they are!" cried the king, as three cavaliers approached, followed by a crowd of men on foot and on horseback.

"Schomberg! Quelus! come here," cried the king. They approached.

"I have been seeking you, and waiting for you impatiently. What have you done? Do not go away again without my permission."

"There is no more need," said Maugiron, who now approached, "since all is finished."

"All is finished?"

"Heaven be praised," said D'Epernon, appearing all at once, no one knew from whence.

"Then you have killed them?" cried the king; "well, at least the dead do not return."

"Oh! we had not that trouble; the cowards ran away, we had scarcely time to cross our swords with them."

Henri grew pale. "With whom?" said he.

"With Antragues?"

"On the contrary, he killed a lackey of Quelus's."

"Oh!" murmured the king, "here is a civil war lighted up."

Quelus started. "It is true," said he.

"Ah," said Chicot. "You begin to perceive it, do you?"

"But, M. Chicot, you cried with us, 'Death to the Angevins!'"

"Oh! that is a different thing; I am a fool, and you are clever men."

"Come, peace, gentlemen; we shall have enough of war soon."

"What are your majesty's orders?"

"That you employ the same ardor in calming the people as you have done in exciting them, and that you bring back all the Swiss, my guards, and my household, and have the doors of the Louvre closed, so that perhaps tomorrow the bourgeois may take the whole thing for a sortie of drunken people."

The young men went off, and Henri returned to his mother.

"Well," said she, "what has pa.s.sed?"

"All you foresaw, mother."

"They have escaped?"

"Alas! yes."

"What else?"

"Is not that enough?"

"The city?"

"Is in tumult; but that is not what disquiets me."

"No, it is the provinces."

"Which will revolt."

"What shall you do?"

"I see but one thing."

"What is that?"

"To withdraw the army from La Charite, and march on Anjou."

"And M. de Guise?"

"Oh, I will arrest him if necessary."