The Huguenot Part 34

The King read the paper over, paused for a moment, as if he yet hesitated whether he should give it or not, and then with a sort of half smile, and a look expressive of something between carelessness and magnanimity, he held it out to the valet, who seized it and kissed it repeatedly. Then standing up before the monarch, he said,--

"Now, Sire, safe in your Majesty's protection, I am ready and capable of answering distinctly and clearly any thing that you may ask me."

The King took the paper up again, into which he had looked to ascertain the various denominations of Maitre Riquet, and then recommenced his questions as follows, returning in the first place to the one which Riquet had left unanswered, "Who and what are the people who are driving, or are likely to drive, your master to remain obstinate in heresy."

"Please your Majesty," replied Riquet, "the princ.i.p.al persons are, a very reverend and respectable gentleman, called the Abbe de St. Helie; also, the intendant of the province of Poitou, our reverend father the Bishop of Poitiers, Monsieur de Louvois, and I am not very sure that good Monsieur de Rouvre himself has not a part."

The King gazed at the bold speaker for a moment or two, as if doubtful of his real intention; asking of himself whether the man spoke sincerely and simply, or whether a daring jest, or a still more impudent sarcasm, lay concealed in the words he used. The man's previous terror, however, and the air of perfect unconsciousness of offence with which he spoke, did much to convince Louis that he had no double meaning. His tone, however, was sharp and angry, as he asked, "How now, Sir? How can some of the best and wisest, the most prudent and the most zealous men in the realm, drive any heretic to refuse obstinately the cup of salvation offered to him? I trust, you mean no offence, sirrah!"

Jerome Riquet's countenance instantly fell, and with a thousand lamentations and professions of profound respect for Louvois and St.

Helie, and every one whom the King might trust and favour, he declared, that his only meaning was, that he believed his master and a great many other Protestants would have been converted long ago, if they had been led rather than driven. He added, that he had heard the young Count and the old one too say a thousand times, that some of the gentlemen he mentioned had done as much to prevent the Protestants from returning to the mother church, as Monsieur Bossuet had done to bring them back to it.

Louis paused and thought, and had not his prepossessions been so complete as they were, the plain truth which the valet told him might not have been unproductive of fruit. As it was it went in some degree to effect the real object which Riquet had in view; namely, to impress the King with a notion, that there was a great probability of the young Count being recalled to the bosom of the Catholic church, provided the means employed were gentleness and persuasion.

It is very seldom, indeed, in this life, that we meet with any thing like pure and unmixed motives, and such were certainly not to be expected in the bosom of Jerome Riquet. His first object and design was certainly to serve his master; but, in so serving him, he had an eye to gratifications of his own also; for to his feelings and disposition Versailles was a much pleasanter place than Morseiul, Paris a more agreeable land than Poitou. He used to declare, that he was fond of the country, but liked it paved; that his avenues should always be houses, and his flocks and herds wear coats and petticoats.

He naturally calculated, then, that if the King undertook the task of converting the young Count by gentle and quiet means, he would not fail to keep him in the delightful sojourning place of Versailles, while he, Jerome Riquet, amongst all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of bra.s.s and marble, which were gathered together in the gardens, might play the part of Proteus, and take a thousand shapes, as might suit his versatile genius.

The King thought over the reply of Riquet for some moments, somewhat struck by hearing that the arguments which the Protestants held amongst themselves were exactly similar to those which they had often put forth in addressing him. So much skill, however, had been employed by his council and advisers to open wide before him the path of error, and to close up the narrow footway of truth, that even when any one pulled away the brambles and briars with which the latter had been blocked up, and showed him that there was really another path, he refused to follow it, and chose the wider and more travelled road.

Thus his conclusion was, after those few minutes' thought,--

"This is all very well, and very specious; but as we do not trust to a sick man to point out the remedies that will cure him, so must we not trust to these Huguenots to point out what would be the best means of converting them. However, Master Jerome Riquet, it is not in regard to opinions that I sent for you, I want to hear facts, if you please. Now tell me: do you remember, upon a certain occasion, a proclamation having been sent down to be read in the town of Morseiul, the King's officers having been insulted, and, I believe, pelted with stones, and the proclamation torn down?"

"No, Sire," replied Riquet boldly, for he was telling a lie, and therefore spoke confidently. "I remember my master going out in haste one day to prevent, he said, any bad conduct on the part of the people, and I remember hearing that he had caused the proclamation to be made himself in the market-place, in spite of some riotous folk, who would willingly have opposed it."

"High time that such folk should be put down," said the King. "These are the peaceable and obedient subjects, which the advocates of the Huguenots would fain persuade me that they are. But one question more on this head: did you see the young Count of Morseuil cause the gates of the town to be shut in the face of my officers, or did you hear that he had done so, upon good authority?"

"No, Sire, I neither heard nor saw it," replied Riquet; "and, for myself, I was safely in the castle during the whole day."

"Do you remember," continued the King, looking at the paper, "having carried notes or letters from your master to different Protestant gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Poitiers, calling upon them to a.s.semble and meet him at the house of another Huguenot, named M. de Corvoie?"

"No, Sire, oh no!" replied the man. "While we were at Poitiers, I only carried one note, and that was to the saddle-maker, who in repadding one of my lord's saddles, had done it so as to gall the horse's back."

"Sir, you are lying," said the King sternly.

Riquet once more cast himself upon his knees before the monarch, clasping his hands and exclaiming, "May I lose your Majesty's favour for ever, if I am not telling you the exact truth. Let any one who dares to say that I carried any other note than that which I have mentioned be confronted with me this moment, and I will prove, that he is shamefully deceiving your Majesty, for no other note did I carry, no, not even a love letter. Otherwise, I could and would, not only tell your Majesty the fact, but every word that the notes contained."

"This is very extraordinary," said the King, "and I shall take care to inquire into it."

"I trust your Majesty will," replied the man boldly, for it may be recollected that he had not carried any note, but had been merely charged with a message to M. de Corvoie: "I trust that your Majesty will; for I a.s.sure you, on the faith of a valet de chambre, that no such transaction ever occurred. Did not they want to charge me--the very men who I dare say have brought this accusation--did they not want to charge me with having abstracted your Majesty's commission to Messieurs St. Helie and Pelisson, and with having placed a pack of cards in its stead; and were they not brought to shame by its being found out, that they themselves had done it, by fragments of the commission being found in one of their valises, wrapped like a dirty rag about an old tobacco box?"

"How is this? How is this?" exclaimed the King. "I heard that the commission had been abstracted, but I heard not this result--fragments of the commission wrapping a tobacco box found in their own valises!"

"Ay, Sire," replied the man, "'tis all too true, for the examination was conducted in presence of Monsieur de Rouvre;" and with earnest volubility Maitre Jerome set to work, and, in his own particular manner, gave the monarch a long and detailed, but rapid account of what had taken place on the return of the Count de Morseiul to Poitiers, adding cunning commentaries in words, gesticulations, and grimaces, which scarcely left the King the power of retaining his due gravity, especially when Riquet personated to the life, the worthy Cure of Guadrieul, on the discovery of the paper in his valise.

While he was in the very act of making this detail, however, the door of the royal cabinet was opened, and a man of a harsh and disagreeable countenance, with a face somewhat red and blotched, but with great fire and intelligence in his eyes, entered the room, pausing for a single moment at the door, as if for permission.

"Come in, Monsieur de Louvois, come in," said the King. "This is Jerome Riquet, the valet of the Count de Morseiul, whom I told you I intended to examine. He puts a very different face upon several matters, however, from that which we expected to find," and the King briefly recapitulated to his famous minister the information he had received from Riquet, leaving out however the first part of the conversation between them, which contained matter that could not be very agreeable to the minister.

A somewhat sneering smile came upon Louvois' countenance as he listened; and he replied, "I am very happy to hear, Sire, that the Count de Morseiul is so good and faithful a servant to your Majesty.

May I be permitted to ask this worthy person a question or two in your presence?"

The King bowed his head, and the minister, turning to Riquet, went on: "Although we have much more reason to think favourably of your master," he said, "than we had at first, yet there is one point in regard to which, though he did not actually commit a fault, he greatly neglected his duty, at least, so we are led to believe. We are a.s.sured, that shortly before he came up to Versailles, a great meeting of Huguenots in the open air took place upon a wild moor, within the limits of the young Count's lands, which meeting, though held for the peaceful purpose, we are told, of merely preaching in the open air, terminated in bloodshed, and an attack upon a small body of the King's dragoons who were watching the proceedings."

Louvois' eye was fixed upon the valet all the time he spoke, and Jerome Riquet was making up his mind to deny steadily any knowledge of the transaction; but suddenly his whole views upon the subject were changed by the minister coming to the head and front of the Count's offence.

"Now," continued Louvois, "although there was certainly no law to compel the Count to be present on such an occasion, yet, when he knew that a meeting of this kind was about to take place on his own estates, and that dangerous consequences might ensue, he would but have shown his zeal and duty in the service of the King by going to the spot, and doing all that he could to make the proceedings tranquil and inoffensive."

"But the Count did go, Sir," exclaimed Riquet, "the Count did go, and I remember the fact of his going particularly."

"Are you ready to swear that he was there?" demanded Louvois.

"All I can say," replied the valet, "is, that he left home for the purpose of going there. I was not present myself, but I heard from every one else that he was."

"And pray at what hour did he return that night?" demanded Louvois, "for the events that I speak of did not take place till near nightfall, and if the Count had been there till the whole a.s.semblage had dispersed, a thousand to one no harm would have ensued."

"I cannot exactly tell at what hour he returned," said the valet, who was beginning to fancy that he was not exactly in the right road. "It was after nightfall, however."

"Recollect yourself," said Louvois, "was it nine, ten o'clock."

"It might be nearly ten," said the man.

"And, I think," said Louvois, his lip curling with a smile, bitter and fiend-like, "I think you were one of those, were you not, who went down on the following morning to the spot where the young Marquis de Hericourt had been murdered? Your name is amongst those who were seen there, so say no more. But now tell me, where is your master at this moment?"

Jerome Riquet smarted under a strong perception of having been outwitted; and the consequence was, that knowing, or at least believing, that when a man falls into one such piece of ill luck, it generally goes on, with a sort of run against him; he made up his mind to know as little as possible about any thing, for fear of falling into a new error, and replied to Louvois' question, that he could not tell.

"Is he in his hotel at Versailles, or not, Sir?" said the minister sternly; "endeavour to forget for once that you are professionally a liar, and give a straight-forward answer, for on your telling truth depends your immediate transmission to the Bastille or not. Was your master at home when you left the house, or out?"

"He was out then, Sir, certainly," replied Riquet.

"On horseback, or on foot?" demanded Louvois.

"On horseback," replied the man. "Now, answer me one other question,"

continued the minister. "Have you not been heard, this very morning, to tell the head groom to have horses ready to go to Paris?"

"Sir," said Jerome, with a look of impudent raillery that he dared not a.s.sume towards the King, but which nothing upon earth could have repressed in addressing Louvois at that moment, "Sir, I feel convinced that I must possess a valet de chambre without knowing it, for n.o.body on earth could repeat my words so accurately, unless I had some scoundrel of a valet to betray them as soon as they were spoken."

"Sir, your impudence shall have its just punishment," said Louvois, taking up a pen and dipping it in the ink, but the King waved his hand, saying, "Put down the pen, Monsieur de Louvois! You forget that you are in the King's cabinet and in his presence!--Riquet, you may retire."

Riquet did not need a second bidding, but, with a look of profound awe and reverence towards Louis, laid his hand upon his heart, lifted up his shoulders, like the jaws of a crocodile ready to swallow up his head, and bowing almost to the ground, walked backward out of the room. Louvois stood before the King, for an instant, with a look of angry mortification, which he suppressed with difficulty. Louis suffered him to remain thus, and, perhaps, did not enjoy a little the humiliation he had inflicted upon a man whom he, more than once in his life, declared to be perfectly insupportable, though he could not do without him. At length, however, he spoke in a grave but not an angry tone, saying,

"From the questions that you asked that man just now, Monsieur de Louvois, I am led to believe that you have received some fresh information regarding this young gentleman--this Count de Morseiul. My determination up to this moment, strengthened by the advice of Monsieur de Meaux, Monsieur Pelisson, and others, is simply this: to pursue to the utmost the means of persuasion and conciliation in order to induce him, by fair means, to return to the bosom of the Catholic church."

"Better, Sire," replied Louvois, "far better cut him off like a withered and corrupted branch, unfit to be grafted on that goodly tree."

"You know, Marquis," said the King, "that I am always amenable to reason. I have expressed the determination which I had taken under particular circ.u.mstances. If you have other circ.u.mstances to communicate to me which may make me alter that opinion, do so straight-forwardly. Kings are as liable to error as other men,--perhaps, indeed, more so; for they see truth at a distance, and require perspective gla.s.ses to examine it well, which are not always at hand. If I am wrong I am ready to change my resolution, though it is always a part of a king's duty to decide speedily when he can do it wisely."

"The simple fact, Sire," replied Louvois, with the mortification under which he still smarted affecting his tone of voice; "the simple fact is, as your Majesty must have divined from the answers that man gave me, I have now clear and distinct proof that this Count de Morseiul has, throughout the insignificant but annoying troubles occasioned by the Huguenots in Poitou, been the great fomenter of all their discontent, and their leader in actual insurrection. He was not only present at this preaching in the desert, as these fanatics call it, and led all the proceedings, by a speech upon the occasion highly insulting to your Majesty's authority and dignity; with all which your Majesty has already been made acquainted----"