Chicot the Jester Part 129

"Who told you I had been in the streets?"

"The dust on your clothes."

"M. de Monsoreau, have you another employment besides that of chief huntsman?"

"Yes, that of spy, monseigneur; all the world follow that calling now, more or less, and I, like the rest."

"And what does this profession bring you, monsieur?"

"Knowledge."

"It is curious."

"Very curious."

"Well, tell me what you have to say."

"I came for that."

"You permit me to sit down?" said the duke.

"No irony, monseigneur, towards an old and faithful servant, who comes at this hour and in this state to do you a service.

If I sat down, on my honor, it was because I could not stand."

"A service! to do me a service?"

"Yes."

"Speak, then."

"Monseigneur, I come on the part of a great prince."

"From the king?"

"No; M. le Duc de Guise."

"Ah! that is quite a different thing. Approach, and speak low."

CHAPTER Lx.x.xI.

HOW M. LE DUC D'ANJOU SIGNED, AND AFTER HAVING SIGNED, SPOKE.

There was a moment's silence. Then the duke said: "Well, M. le Comte, what have you to say to me from the Duc de Guise?"

"Much, monseigneur."

"They have written to you?"

"No; the duke writes no more since that strange disappearance of Nicholas David. They have come to Paris."

"MM. de Guise are at Paris?"

"Yes, monseigneur."

"I have not seen them."

"They are too prudent to expose themselves or your highness to any risk."

"And I was not told!"

"I tell you now."

"What have they come for?"

"They come, monseigneur, to the rendezvous you gave them."

"That I gave them!"

"Doubtless; on the day when your highness was arrested you received a letter from M. de Guise, and replied to it verbally, through me, that they were to come to Paris from the thirty-first of May to the second of June. It is now the thirty-first of May, and if your highness has forgotten them, they have not forgotten you."

Francois grew pale. So many events had pa.s.sed since, that he had forgotten the rendezvous. "It is true," said he, at length, "but the relations which then existed between us exist no longer."

"If that be so, monseigneur, you would do well to tell them, for I believe they think differently."

"How so?"

"You, perhaps, think yourself free as regards them, but they feel bound to you."

"A snare, my dear comte, in which a man does not let himself be taken twice."

"And where was monseigneur taken in a snare?"

"Where? at the Louvre, mordieu."

"Was it the fault of MM. de Guise?"

"I do not say so, but they never a.s.sisted me to escape."

"It would have been difficult; they were flying themselves."

"It is true."

"But when you were in Anjou, did they not charge me to tell you that you could always count on them, as they on you, and that the day you marched on Paris, they would do the same?"

"It is true, but I did not march on Paris."