Marguerite de Valois Part 50

To which Henry replied:

"I attended it yesterday, to-day, and I shall attend it again to-morrow.

_Ventre saint gris!_ surely that is sufficient."

Marguerite was on horseback--so lovely, so fresh, so elegant that admiration made a regular concert around her, though it must be confessed that a few notes of it were addressed to her companion, the d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers, who had just joined her on a white horse so proud of his burden that he kept tossing his head.

"Well, d.u.c.h.ess!" said the Queen of Navarre, "what is there new?"

"Why, madame," replied the d.u.c.h.ess, aloud, "I know of nothing."

Then in a lower tone:

"And what has become of the Huguenot?"

"I have found him a retreat almost safe," replied Marguerite. "And the wholesale a.s.sa.s.sin, what have you done with him?"

"He wished to take part in the festivity, and so we mounted him on Monsieur de Nevers' war-horse, a creature as big as an elephant. He is a fearful cavalier. I allowed him to be present at the ceremony to-day, as I felt that your Huguenot would be prudent enough to keep his chamber and that there was no fear of their meeting."

"Oh, faith!" replied Marguerite, smiling, "if he were here, and he is not here, I do not think a collision would take place. My Huguenot is remarkably handsome, but nothing more--a dove, and not a hawk; he coos, but does not bite. After all," she added, with a gesture impossible to describe, and shrugging her shoulders slightly, "after all, perhaps our King thought him a Huguenot while he is only a Brahmin, and his religion forbids him to shed blood."

"But where, pray, is the Duc d'Alencon?" inquired Henriette; "I do not see him."

"He will join us later; his eyes troubled him this morning and he was inclined not to come, but as it is known that because he holds a different opinion from Charles and his brother Henry he inclines toward the Huguenots, he became convinced that the King might put a bad interpretation on his absence and he changed his mind. There, hark!

people are gazing and shouting yonder; it must be that he is coming by the Porte Montmartre."

"You are right; 'tis he; I recognize him. How elegant he looks to-day,"

said Henriette. "For some time he has taken particular pains with his appearance; he must be in love. See how nice it is to be a prince of the blood, he gallops over every one, they all draw on one side."

"Yes," said Marguerite, laughing, "he will ride over us. For Heaven's sake draw your attendants to one side, d.u.c.h.ess, for there is one of them who will be killed if he does not give way."

"It is my hero!" cried the d.u.c.h.ess; "look, only look!"

Coconnas had left his place to approach the d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers, but just as his horse was crossing the kind of exterior boulevard which separates the street from the Faubourg Saint Denis, a cavalier of the Duc d'Alencon's suite, trying in vain to rein in his excited horse, dashed full against Coconnas. Coconnas, shaken by the collision, reeled on his colossal mount, his hat nearly fell off; he put it on more firmly and turned round furiously.

"Heavens!" said Marguerite, in a low tone, to her friend, "Monsieur de la Mole!"

"That handsome, pale young man?" exclaimed the d.u.c.h.ess, unable to repress her first impression.

"Yes, yes; the very one who nearly upset your Piedmontese."

"Oh," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "something terrible will happen! they look at each other--recollect each other!"

Coconnas had indeed recognized La Mole, and in his surprise dropped his bridle, for he believed he had killed his old companion, or at least put him _hors de combat_ for some time. La Mole had also recognized Coconnas, and he felt a fire mount up into his face. For some seconds, which sufficed for the expression of all the sentiments these two men harbored, they gazed at each other in a way which made the two women shudder.

After which, La Mole, having looked about him, and doubtless seeing that the place was ill chosen for an explanation, spurred his horse and rejoined the Duc d'Alencon. Coconnas remained stationary for a moment, twisting his mustache until the point almost entered his eye; then seeing La Mole dash off without a word, he did the same.

"Ah, ha!" said Marguerite, with pain and contempt, "so I was not mistaken--it is really too much;" and she bit her lips till the blood came.

"He is very handsome," added the d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers, with commiseration.

Just at this moment the Duc d'Alencon reached his place behind the King and the queen mother, so that his suite, in following him, were obliged to pa.s.s before Marguerite and the d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers. La Mole, as he rode before the two princesses, raised his hat, saluted the queen, and, bowing to his horse's neck, remained uncovered until her majesty should honor him with a look.

But Marguerite turned her head aside disdainfully.

La Mole, no doubt, comprehended the contemptuous expression of the queen's features, and from pale he became livid, and that he might not fall from his horse was compelled to hold on by the mane.

"Oh, oh!" said Henriette to the queen; "look, cruel that you are!--he is going to faint."

"Good," said the queen, with a cruel smile; "that is the only thing we need. Where are your salts?"

Madame de Nevers was mistaken. La Mole, with an effort, recovered himself, and sitting erect on his horse took his place in the Duc d'Alencon's suite.

Meantime they kept on their way and at length saw the lugubrious outline of the gibbet, erected and first used by Enguerrand de Marigny. Never before had it been so adorned.

The ushers and guards went forward and made a wide circle around the enclosure. As they drew near, the crows perched on the gibbet flew away with croakings of despair.

The gibbet erected at Montfaucon generally offered behind its posts a shelter for the dogs that gathered there attracted by frequent prey, and for philosophic bandits who came to ponder on the sad chances of fortune.

That day at Montfaucon there were apparently neither dogs nor bandits.

The ushers and guards had scared away the dogs together with the crows, and the bandits had mingled with the throng so as to make some of the lucky hits which are the more cheerful vicissitudes of their profession.

The procession moved forward; the King and Catharine arrived first, then came the Duc d'Anjou, Duc d'Alencon, the King of Navarre, Monsieur de Guise, and their followers, then Madame Marguerite, the d.u.c.h.esse de Nevers, and all the women who composed what was called the queen's flying squadron; then the pages, squires, attendants, and people--in all ten thousand persons.

From the princ.i.p.al gibbet hung a misshapen ma.s.s, a black corpse stained with coagulated blood and mud, whitened by layers of dust. The carca.s.s was headless, and it was hung by the legs, and the populace, ingenious as it always is, had replaced the head with a bunch of straw, to which was fastened a mask; and in the mouth of this mask some wag, knowing the admiral's habit, had introduced a toothpick.

At once appalling and singular was the spectacle of all these elegant lords and handsome ladies like a procession painted by Goya, riding along in the midst of those blackened carca.s.ses and gibbets, with their long lean arms.

The noisier the exultation of the spectators, the more strikingly it contrasted with the melancholy silence and cold insensibility of those corpses--objects of ridicule which made even the jesters shudder.

Many could scarcely endure this horrible spectacle, and by his pallor might be distinguished, in the centre of collected Huguenots, Henry, who, great as was his power of self-control and the degree of dissimulation conferred on him by Heaven, could no longer bear it.

He made as his excuse the strong stench which emanated from all those human remains, and going to Charles, who, with Catharine, had stopped in front of the admiral's dead body, he said:

"Sire, does not your Majesty find that this poor carca.s.s smells so strong that it is impossible to remain near it any longer?"

"Do you find it so, Harry?" inquired the King, his eyes sparkling with ferocious joy.

"Yes, sire."

"Well, then, I am not of your opinion; a dead enemy's corpse always smells sweet."

"Faith, sire," said Tavannes, "since your Majesty knew that we were going to make a little call on the admiral, you should have invited Pierre Ronsard, your teacher of poetry; he would have extemporized an epitaph for the old Gaspard."

"There is no need of him for that," said Charles IX., after an instant's thought:

_"Ci-git,--mais c'est mal entendu,_ _Pour lui le mot est trop honnete,--_ _Ici l'amiral est pendu_ _Par les pieds, a faute de tete."_[4]

"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Catholic gentlemen in unison, while the collected Huguenots scowled and kept silent, and Henry, as he was talking with Marguerite and Madame de Nevers, pretended not to have heard.