In Kings' Byways Part 22

"How are you going about it? Poison, the mistress says. And it is safest."

"Yes, she will have it so; but, if I had my way," the man continued hardily, "I would out one of these nights and cut the dogs' throats without more."

"You could never escape, Martin!" the girl cried, clasping her hands and rising in excitement. "It would be hopeless. It would be throwing away your own life. And besides, you promised me."

"Well, have it so. It is to be done your way, so there is an end," the man answered wearily. "It is more expensive, that is all. Give me my supper. The devil take the King, and Sully too! He will soon have them!"

Master Andrew rose on this, and I took his movement towards the door for a signal to us to retire. He came out presently, after bidding the two good night, and closed the door behind him. He found us standing in the street waiting for him, and forthwith he fell on his knees in the mud and looked up at me, the perspiration standing thick on his white face.

"My lord," he cried hoa.r.s.ely, "I have earned my pardon!"

"If you go on," I said encouragingly, "as you have begun, have no fear."

And I whistled up the Swiss, and bade Maignan go in with them and arrest the man and woman with as little disturbance as possible. While this was being done we waited without, keeping a sharp eye upon the informer, whose terror, I noted with suspicion, seemed to be increasing rather than diminishing. He did not try to escape, however, and Maignan presently came to tell us that he had executed the arrest without difficulty or resistance.

The importance of arriving at the truth before Epernon and the greater conspirators took the alarm was so vividly present to the minds both of the King and myself, that we decided to examine the prisoners in the house, rather than hazard the delay which the removal to a fit place must occasion. Accordingly taking the precaution to post Coquet in the street outside, and to plant a burly Swiss in the doorway, the King and I entered. I removed my mask, as I did so, being aware of the necessity of gaining the prisoners' confidence, but I begged the King to retain his. As I had expected, the man immediately recognized me, and fell on his knees. A nearer view confirmed the notion I had previously entertained that his features were familiar to me, but I could not remember his name. I thought this a good starting point for the examination; and bidding Maignan withdraw, I a.s.sumed an air of mildness, and asked the fellow his name.

"Martin only, please your lordship," he answered; adding "Once I sold you two dogs, sir, for the chase; and to your lady a lapdog called Ninette, no larger than her hand. 'Twas of three pounds weight and no more."

I remembered the knave then, as a well-known dog dealer, who had been much about the court in the reign of Henry the Third and later: and I saw at once how convenient a tool he might be made since he could be seen in converse with people of all ranks without arousing suspicion.

The man's face as he spoke expressed so much fear and surprise that I determined to try what I had often found successful in the case of greater criminals; to squeeze him for a confession, while still excited by his arrest, and before he had had time to consider what his chances of support at the hands of his confederates might be. I charged him therefore to tell the whole truth as he hoped for the King's mercy. He heard me, gazing at me piteously; but his only answer, to my surprise, was that he had nothing to confess. Nothing! nothing, as he hoped for mercy.

"Come! come!" I replied. "This will avail you nothing. If you do not speak quickly, and to the point, we shall find means to compel you. Who counselled you to attempt his Majesty's life?"

He stared at me, at that, so stupidly, and cried out with so real an appearance of horror, "How? I attempt the King's life? G.o.d forbid!" that I doubted we had before us a more dangerous rascal than I had thought; and I hastened to bring him to the point.

"What then--" I cried, frowning--"of the stuff Master La Riviere is to give you? To take the King's life? To-morrow night? Oh, we know something I a.s.sure you. Bethink you quickly, and find your tongue if you would have an easy death."

I expected to see his self-control break down at this proof of our knowledge. But he only stared at me with the same look of bewilderment, and I was about to bid them bring in the informer that I might see the two front to front, when the female prisoner who had hitherto stood beside him, weeping in such distress and terror as were to be expected in a woman of that cla.s.s, suddenly stopped her tears and lamentations.

It occurred to me that she might make a better witness. I turned to her, but when I would have questioned her, she broke on the instant into hysterics, screaming and laughing in the wildest manner.

From that, I remember, I learned nothing, though it greatly annoyed me.

But there was one present who did, and that was the King. He laid his hand on my shoulder, gripping it with a force, that I read as a command to be silent. "Where," he said to the man, "do you keep the King and Sully and The Duke, my friend?"

"The King and Sully--with his lordship's leave--" the man said quickly, but with a frightened glance at me--"are in the kennels at the back of the house; but it is not safe to go near them. The King is raving mad, and--and the other dog is sickening, I fear. The Duke we had to kill a month back. He brought the disease here, and I have had such losses through him as have nearly ruined me, please your lordship. And if the tale that we have got the madness among the dogs, goes about----"

"Get up! Get up, man!" cried the King. And tearing off his mask he stamped up and down the room, so torn by paroxysms of laughter that he choked himself whenever he attempted to speak. I too now saw the mistake, but I could not at first see it in the same light. Commanding my choler as well as I could, I ordered one of the Swiss to fetch in the innkeeper, but to admit no one else.

The knave fell on his knees as soon as he saw me, his cheeks shaking like a jelly. "Mercy! mercy!" was all he could say.

"You have dared to play with _me_?" I whispered. "With me? With me?"

"You bade me joke!" he sobbed. "You bade me joke!"

I was about to say that it would be his last joke in this world, for my anger was fully aroused, but the King intervened.

"Nay," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, "it has been the most glorious jest. He has joked indeed. I would not have missed it for a kingdom! Not for a kingdom! I command you, Sully, to forgive him."

On which his Majesty strictly charged the three that they should not, on peril of their lives, tell the story; his regard for me, when he had laughed to satiety, proving strong enough to overcome his love of the diverting. Nor to the best of my belief did they do so; being so shrewdly scared when they recognized the King that I think they never afterwards so much as spoke of the affair to one another. My master further gave me his promise that he would not disclose the matter even to Madame de Verneuil, or the Queen; and upon these representations he induced me freely to forgive the innkeeper. I may seem to have dwelt longer than I should on the amusing details of this conspiracy. But alas! in twenty-one years of power, I investigated many, and this one only--and one other--can I regard with satisfaction. The rest were so many warnings and predictions of the fate which, despite all my care and fidelity, was in store for the King, my master.

Such were the reasons, which would have led me had I followed the promptings of my own sagacity to oppose the return of the Jesuits. It remains for me to add that these arguments lost their weight when set in the balance against the safety of my beloved master. To this plea the King himself for once condescended, and found those who were most strenuous to dissuade him the least able to refute it; since the less a man loved the Jesuits, the more ready he was to allow that the King's life could not be safe while the edict against them remained in force.

The support which I gave to the King on this occasion exposed me to the utmost odium of my co-religionists, and was in later times ill-requited by the Order. But an incident which occurred while the matter was still in debate, and which I now for the first time make public, proved the wisdom of my conduct.

Fontainebleau was at this time in the hands of the builders, and the King had gone to spend his Easter at Chantilly, whither Mademoiselle d'Entragues had also repaired. During his absence I was seated one morning in my library at the a.r.s.enal, when I was informed that Father Cotton, he who at Nancy had presented the pet.i.tion of the Jesuits, and who was now in Paris pursuing that business under a safe conduct, craved leave to wait upon me. I was not surprised, for I had been before this of some service to him. The pages of the Court while loitering outside the Louvre, as their custom is, had insulted the father by shouting after him, "Old Wool! Old Cotton!" in imitation of the Paris street cry. For this the King at my instigation had caused them to be whipped. I supposed that the Jesuit desired to thank me for this support--given in truth out of regard to discipline rather than to him; and I bade them admit him.

His first words uttered before my secretaries retired, indicated that this was his errand; and for a few moments I listened to such statements, and myself made such answers as became our positions. Then, as he did not go, I conceived the notion that he had come with a further purpose; and his manner, which seemed strangely lacking in ease, considering that he was a man of skill and address, confirmed the notion. I waited therefore with patience, and presently he named his Majesty with some expressions of devotion to his person. "I trust," said he, "that the air of Fontainebleau agrees with him, M. de Rosny."

"You mean, good father, of Chantilly?" I answered. "He is there."

"Ay, to be sure!" he rejoined. "I had forgotten. He is, to be sure, at Chantilly."

He rose after that to depart, but was delayed by the raptures into which he fell on the subject of the fire, which the weather being cold for the time of year, I had caused to be lit. "It burns so brightly,"

said he, "that it must be of boxwood, M. de Rosny."

"Of boxwood?" I exclaimed, astonished.

"Ay, is it not?" he asked, looking at me with much simplicity.

"No!" I made answer rather peevishly. "Who ever heard of people burning boxwood in Paris, father? In the south, perhaps."

He apologized for his ignorance on the ground of his southern birth, and took his departure, leaving me in doubt as to the real purport of his visit. I was, indeed, more troubled by the uncertainty I felt than another less conversant with the methods of the Jesuits might have been; for I knew that it was their habit to drop a word where they dared not speak plainly, and I felt myself put on my mettle to interpret the father's hint. My perplexities were increased by the belief that he would not have intervened in a matter of small moment; hence the conviction grew upon me that while I stood idle before the hearth, the greatest interests might be at stake.

"Michel," I said at last, addressing the doyen of my secretaries, who chanced to be a Provencal "have you ever seen a boxwood fire?"

He replied respectfully, but with some show of surprise, that he had done so, but not often; adding that that wood was so valuable to the turner that few people were extravagant enough to use it for fuel. I a.s.sented, and felt the more certain that the Jesuit's remark held a meaning. The only other clue I had consisted in the mistake he had made as to the King's residence; and this might have dropped from him in inadvertence. Yet I was inclined to think it intentional; and I construed it as implying that the matter concerned the King personally.

Which the more alarmed me.

I pa.s.sed the day in great perplexity; but towards evening, acting on a sudden thought, I sent La Trape, my valet, a trusty fellow, who had saved my life at Villefranche, to the Three Pigeons, a large inn in the suburbs of Paris, at which travellers from north to south, who do not wish to enter the city, are accustomed to change horses. Acquitting himself of the commission with his usual adroitness, he returned with the news that a traveller of rank had pa.s.sed through three days before, having sent in advance to order relays there and at Essonnes. La Trape reported that the gentleman had remained in his coach, and that none of the servants of the inn had seen his face. "But he had companions?" I said. My mind had not failed to conceive a certain suspicion.

"Only one, your grace. The rest were servants."

"And that one?"

"A man in the yard fancied that he recognized M. de la Varenne."

"Ah!" I said. My agitation was indeed so great that, before giving reins to it, I bade La Trape withdraw. I could scarcely believe that, acquainted as the King was with the plots which the Catholics were daily aiming at his life; and possessing such powerful enemies among the great Protestants as Tremonelle and Bouillon--to say nothing of Mademoiselle d'Entragues' half-brother, the Count of Auvergne, who hated him--I say, I could hardly believe that with full knowledge of these facts his Majesty had been so fool-hardy as to travel without guards to Fontainebleau. And yet I now felt a certainty that this was the case.

The presence of La Varenne, the confidant of his intrigues, while it informed me of the cause of the journey, convinced me that his Majesty had given way to the sole weakness of his nature, and was bent on one of those adventures of gallantry which had been more becoming in the Prince of Bearn than in the King of France. Nor was I at a loss to guess the object of his pursuit. It had been lately whispered in the Court that the King had fallen in love with his mistress's younger sister, Susette d'Entragues; whose home at Malesherbes lay but three leagues from Fontainebleau, on the edge of the forest. This fact placed the King's imprudence in a stronger light; for he had scarcely in France a more dangerous enemy than her brother, Auvergne, nor had the immense sums which he had settled on the elder sister satisfied the avarice or conciliated the hostility of her father.

I saw that Father Cotton had known more than I had. But his motive in speaking I found less easy to divine. It might be a wish to baulk this new pa.s.sion through my interference, while he exposed me to the risk of his Majesty's anger. Or it might be the single desire to avert danger from the King's person. At any rate, constant to my rule of preferring, come what might, my master's interest to his favour, I sent for Maignan, my equerry, and bade him have an equipage ready at dawn.

At that hour, next morning, attended only by La Trape, with a groom, a page, and four Swiss, I started, giving out that I was bound for Sully to inspect that demesne, which had formerly been the property of my family, and of which the refusal had just been offered to me. Under cover of this destination, I was enabled to reach La Ferte Alais unsuspected. There, pretending that the motion of the coach fatigued me, I mounted the led horse, without which I never travelled, and bidding La Trape accompany me, I gave orders to the others to follow at their leisure to Pithiviers, where I proposed to stay the night.

La Ferte Alais, on the borders of the forest, is some five leagues westward of Fontainebleau and as far north of Malesherbes, with which it is connected by a high-road. Having disclosed my intentions to La Trape, I left this road and struck into a woodland path which promised to conduct us in the right direction. But the luxuriance of the undergrowth, and the huge chaos of grey rocks which c.u.mber that part of the forest, made it difficult to keep for any time in a straight line.

After being an hour in the saddle we concluded that we had lost our way, and were confirmed in this, on reaching a clearing. In place of the chateau we saw before us a small house, which La Trape presently recognized as an inn, situate about a league and a half on the Fontainebleau side of Malesherbes.

We had still ample time to reach the Chateau by nightfall, but before proceeding farther it was necessary that our horses should have rest.

Dismounting I bade La Trape see the sorrel well baited. The inn was a poor place; but having no choice, I entered it and found myself in a large room better furnished with company than accommodation. Three men, who appeared to be of those reckless blades who are commonly to be found in the inns on the outskirts of Paris, and who come not unfrequently to their ends at Montfaucon, were tippling and playing cards at a table near the door. They looked up on my entrance, but refrained from saluting me, which, as I was plainly dressed, and much travel-stained, was excusable. By the fire, partaking of a coa.r.s.e meal, sat a fourth man of so singular an appearance that I must needs describe him. He was of great height and extreme leanness, resembling a maypole rather than a man. His face matched his form, for it was long and meagre, and terminated in a small peaked beard, which like his hair and moustachios was as white as snow. With all this his eyes glowed with something of the fire of youth, and his brown complexion and sinewy hands seemed to indicate robust health. He wore garments which had once been fashionable, but now bore marks of much patching, and I remarked that the point of his sword, which, as he sat, trailed on the stones behind him, had worn its way through the scabbard. Notwithstanding these signs of poverty he saluted me with the ease of a gentleman, and bade me with some stiffness share his table and the fire. Accordingly I drew up, and called for a bottle of the best wine, being minded to divert myself with him.