The Huguenot Part 42

"Good morning, Monsieur de Morseiul," he said; "I have got some good news for you, which perhaps you do not expect."

He fixed his eyes scrutinisingly upon the Count's face, but all was calm. "Here is an order for your liberation," he continued, "which, doubtless, you will be glad to hear."

"Most glad," exclaimed the Count; "for, to say the truth, I am growing both sick and weary of this imprisonment, especially as I know that I have done nothing to deserve it."

"That is better than being imprisoned knowing you have done something to deserve it," said Besmaux. "However, here is the order; and though it is not exactly in accurate form, I must obey, I suppose, and set you at liberty, for here is the King's handwriting in every line."

"That you must judge of yourself, Monsieur de Besmaux," replied the Count. "But I hope, of course, that you will not detain me any longer than is necessary."

"No, no," said Besmaux; "I must obey the order, for it is in the King's hand distinctly. Here are all the things that were upon your person, Monsieur de Morseiul. Be so good as to break the seal yourself, examine them, and give me an acknowledgment--as is usual here--that they have been returned to you. There is the ordinary form; you have nothing to do but to sign it."

The Count did as he was required to do, and the governor then restored to him his sword, saying, "There is your sword, Monsieur le Comte. It is customary to give some little acknowledgment to the turnkeys if you think fit; and now, Monsieur le Comte, you are free. Will you do me the honour of supping with me again to-night?"

"I fear not to-night, Monsieur de Besmaux; some other time I will have that pleasure. But, of course, after this unexpected and sudden enlargement, there is much to be done."

"Of course," replied the governor; "you will have to thank the King, and Monsieur de Louvois, and all that. Some other time then be it. It is strange they have sent no carriage or horse for you. Perhaps you would like to wait till they arrive?"

"Oh, no," replied the Count. "Freedom before every thing, Monsieur de Besmaux. By your permission I will send for the apparel I have left in my chamber. But now, to set my foot beyond the drawbridge is my great ambition."

"We will conduct you so far," replied Besmaux, and led the way towards the gate. The drawbridge was lowered, the gates opened, and the Count, distributing the greater part of the money which had been restored to him amongst the turnkeys, turned and took leave of the governor, and issued forth from the Bastille. He remarked, however, that Besmaux, with the major of the prison, and two or three others, remained upon the bridge, as if they felt some suspicion, and were watching his farther proceedings. He, accordingly, rendered his pace somewhat slow, and turned towards his own hotel in Paris, while two or three boys, who hung about the gates of the Bastille, followed, importunately looking up in his face. He pa.s.sed along two streets before he could get rid of them, but then, suddenly turning up one of the narrow lanes of the city, he made the best of his way to the little inn, or rather public house, which Jerome Riquet had pointed out to him in his letter, where a bright golden c.o.c.k, somewhat larger than life, stood out into the street from a pole thrust into the front of the house.

Before he turned in he looked down the street towards the Bastille, but saw no cause for suspicion, and entered the narrow entrance. As was not uncommon in such houses at that time, no door on either hand gave admission to the rooms of the inn till the visiter had threaded half way through the small ill-lighted pa.s.sage. At length, however, doors appeared, and the sound of a footstep instantly called out a stout, jovial-looking personage, with a considerable nose and abundance of cheek and stomach, who, without saying any thing, merely planted himself directly in the Count's way.

"Are you the landlord?" demanded the Count.

"Yes, Sir," replied the cabaretier, much more laconically than might have been expected from his appearance. "Who are you?"

"I am Monsieur du Sac," replied the Count.

"Oh, oh!" cried the host, laying his forefinger on the side of his face. "If you are Monsieur du Sac, your horse will be ready in a crack. But you had better come into the stable; there are people drinking in the hall."

The Count followed him without saying any more, and found three horses standing ready saddled, and wanting only the girths tightened, and the bridles in their mouths. The centre one he instantly recognised as one of his own finest horses, famous for its great strength and courage.

The other two were powerful animals, but of a different breed; and the Count was somewhat surprised when the landlord ordered a stable boy, who was found waiting, to make haste and girth them all up. The boy began with the farther horse; but the landlord then exclaimed, "No, no, the gentleman's first, the others will do after;" and in a moment the Count's horse was ready to set out.

"Better go by the back gate, Sir," said the host; "then if you follow round by the gardens of the convent of St. Mary, up the little lane to the left, you will come into the road again, where all is clear.

Where's the bottle, boy, I told you to have ready? Monsieur du Sac will want a draught before he goes." A large bottle was instantly produced from a nook in the stable, and a tumbler full of excellent wine poured out. The Count took it, and drank, for excitement had made him thirsty, and he might well want that support, which the juice of the grape or any other thing could afford, when he reflected that the die was now cast; that he had been liberated from prison, as he could not doubt by some counterfeit order; and that he was flying from the court of France, certainly never to return, unless it were as a captive brought back probably to death.

The blow being struck, however, he was not a man to feel regret or hesitation, and there was something in the sensation of being at liberty, of having cast off the dark load of imprisonment, which was in itself inspiring. He sprang upon his horse then with joyful speed, cast the landlord one of the few gold pieces that remained in his purse, and while the boy held open the back gates of the inn court, he rode out once more free to turn his steps whithersoever he would. That part of the city was not unknown to him, and pa.s.sing round the gardens, and through the narrow lanes which at that time were intermingled with the Faubourg St. Antoine, he entered the high road again just where the town ended, and the country began; and putting his horse into a quick pace, made the best of his way onward toward Poitou.

As he now went forth he looked not back, and he had gone on for five or six miles, when the belief that he heard the feet of horses following fast made him pause and turn. He was not mistaken in the supposition. There were two hors.e.m.e.n on the road, about five or six hundred yards behind him; but they slackened their pace as soon as he paused; and remembering the words written by Jerome Riquet, that he would find friends upon the road, he thought it better not to inquire into the matter any further, but make the most of his time, and go on.

He thus proceeded without drawing a rein for about five and thirty miles, the men who were behind him still keeping him in sight, but never approaching nearer than a certain distance.

The road which he had chosen was that of Orleans, though not the most direct; but by taking it, he avoided all that part of the country through which he was most likely to be pursued if his flight were speedily discovered. At length, in the neighbourhood of the little town of Angerville, a man appeared on horseback at the turning of one of the roads. He was evidently waiting for some one, and rode up to the Count as soon as ever he appeared, saying merely, "Monsieur du Sac."

"The same," replied the Count; and the man immediately said, "This way, then, Sir."

The Count followed without any reply, and the man rode on at a quick pace for the distance of fully three miles further. The hors.e.m.e.n turned as the Count had turned, but the road had become tortuous, and they were soon lost to his sight. At length, however, the high stone walls, overtopped with trees, and partly covered with ivy, which usually surrounded the park of an old French chateau, appeared, and making a circuit round three sides of this enclosure, the Count and his guide came suddenly to the large iron gates, which gave admission to a paved court leading to another set of gates, with a green esplanade and a terrace above; while the whole was crowned by a heavy ma.s.s of stonework, referable to no sort of architecture but itself.

Round these courts were various small buildings, scarcely fitted indeed for human habitation, but appropriated to gardeners and gatekeepers, and other personages of the kind; and from one of these, as soon as the Count appeared, instantly rushed forth Jerome Riquet himself, kissing his master's hand with sincere joy and affection, which was not at all decreased by a consciousness that his liberation had been effected by the skill, genius, and intrigue of the said Jerome Riquet himself.

"Dismount, my Lord, in all safety," he said; "we have taken measures to insure that you should not be traced. Refreshments of every kind are ready for you; and if you so please, you can take a comfortable night's repose before you go on."

"That were scarcely prudent, Riquet," replied the Count; "but I will at all events pause for a time, and you can tell me all that has happened. First, whose dwelling is this?"

"The house of good Monsieur Perault at Angerville," replied the valet.

"He has been dead for about two months, and his old maitre d'hotel, being a friend of mine, and still in the family, gave me the keys of the chateau to be your first resting place."

On entering the chateau, Albert of Morseiul found it completely thronged with his own servants; and the joyful faces that crowded round, some in smiles and some in tears, to see their young lord liberated, was not a little sweet to his heart. Some balm, indeed, was necessary to heal old wounds, before new ones were inflicted; and, though Riquet moved through the a.s.sembled attendants with the conscious dignity of one who had conferred the benefit in which they rejoiced, yet he hastened to lead his young lord on, and to have the room cleared, having much indeed to tell. His tale was painful to the Count in many respects; but, being given by s.n.a.t.c.hes, as the various questions of his master elicited one fact after another, we will attempt to put it in more continuous form, and somewhat shorter language, taking it up at events which, though long past, were now first explained.

From an accidental reference to the Count's journey from Morseiul to Poitiers, Riquet was led to declare the whole facts in regard to the commission which had been given by the King to Pelisson and St. Helie.

The insatiable spirit of curiosity by which Maitre Jerome was possessed, never let him rest till he had made the unhappy Cure of Guadrieul declare, by a man[oe]uvre before related, what was in the sheepskin bag he carried; and, as soon as the valet heard that it was a commission from the King, his curiosity was still more strongly excited to ascertain the precise contents. For the purpose of so doing, he attached himself firmly to the Cure during the rest of the evening, made him smoke manifold pipes, induced him to eat every promotive of drinking that he could lay his hands upon, plied him with wine, and then when half besotted, ventured to insinuate a wish to peep into the bag. The Cure, however, was firm to his trust even in the midst of drunkenness; he would peep into the bag with curious longings himself, but he would allow no one else to do so, and Riquet had no resource but to finish what he had so well commenced by a bottle of heady Burgundy in addition, which left the poor priest but strength enough to roll away to his chamber, and, conscious that he was burthened with matters which he was incompetent to defend, to lock the door tight behind him before he sunk insensible on his bed. He forgot, however, one thing, which it is as well for every one to remember; namely, that chambers have windows as well as doors; and Jerome Riquet, whose genius for running along house gutters was not less than his other high qualities, found not the slightest difficulty of effecting an entrance, and spending three or four hours in the examination of the sheepskin bag and its contents. With as much skill as if he had been brought up in the French post-office of that day, he opened the royal packet without even breaking the seals, and only inflicting a very slight and accidental tear on one part of the envelope, which the keen eyes of Pelisson had afterwards discovered.

As soon as he saw the nature of the King's commission, Riquet,--who was no friend to persecution of any kind, and who well knew that all his master's plans would be frustrated, and the whole province of Poitou thrown into confusion if such a commission were opened on the first a.s.sembling of the states,--determined to do away with it altogether, and subst.i.tute an old pack of cards which he happened to have in his valise in place of that important doc.u.ment. He then proceeded to examine minutely and accurately the contents of the Cure's trunk mail, and more from a species of jocose malice than any thing else, he tore off a piece of the King's commission which could do no harm to any one, and folded it round the old tobacco box, which he had found wrapped up in a piece of paper very similar amongst the goods and chattels of the priest.

Besides this adventure, he had various others to detail to the Count, with the most important of which: namely, his interview with the King and Louvois at Versailles, the reader is already acquainted. But he went on from that point to relate, that, lingering about in the neighbourhood of the King's apartments, he had heard the order for his master's arrest given to Monsieur de Cantal. He flew home with all speed, but on arriving at the Count's hotel found that he had already gone to the palace, and that his arrest was certain.

His next question to himself was how he might best serve him under such circ.u.mstances; and, habituated from the very infancy of his valethood to travesty himself in all sorts of disguises, he determined instantly on a.s.suming the character of an Exempt of one of the courts of law, as affording the greatest probability of answering his purpose. He felt a degree of enjoyment and excitement in every species of trick of the kind which carried him through, when the least timidity or hesitation would have frustrated his whole plans. The fact is, that although it may seem a contradiction in terms, yet Maitre Jerome was never so much in his own character as when he was personating somebody else.

The result of his acting on this occasion we already know, as far as the Count was concerned; but the moment that he had seen him lodged in the Bastille, the valet, calculating that his frolic might render Versailles a dangerous neighbourhood, retired to the Count's hotel in Paris, where a part of his apparel was still to be found, compounded rapidly the sympathetic ink from one of the many receipts stored up in his brain, and then flew with a handkerchief, properly prepared, to Clemence de Marly, whom he found alone with the Chevalier d'Evran. As his master had not made him acquainted with the occasional feelings of jealousy which he had experienced towards that gentleman, Jerome believed he had fallen upon the two persons from whom, out of all the world, his master would be most delighted to hear. The whole facts of the Count's arrest then were detailed and discussed, and the words written, which, as we have seen, were received by Albert of Morseuil in prison.

Afraid to go back to Versailles, Riquet hastened away into Poitou leaving to Clemence de Marly and the Chevalier d'Evran the task of liberating his lord, of which they seemed to entertain considerable hopes. On his return, however, he found, first, that all his fellow-servants having been faithful to him, the investigations regarding the appearance of the Exempt had ended in nothing being discovered, except that somebody had profanely personated one of those awful personages; and, secondly, that the Count was not only still in durance, but that little, if any, progress had been made towards effecting his liberation. The Duc de Rouvre, who seemed to be restored to the King's favour, was now a guest at the palace of Versailles: with Clemence de Marly the valet could not obtain an interview, though he daily saw her in company with the Chevalier d'Evran, and the report began to be revived that the King intended to bestow her hand upon that gentleman, who was now in exceedingly high favour with the monarch.

A scheme now took possession of the mind of Riquet, which only suggested itself in utter despair of any other plan succeeding; and as, to use his own expression, the very attempt, if frustrated, would bring his head under the axe, he acknowledged to his lord that he had hesitated and trembled even while he prepared every thing for its execution. He went down once more into Poitou; he communicated with all the friends and most favoured va.s.sals of his master; he obtained money and means for carrying every part of his scheme into effect, as soon as his lord should be liberated from the Bastille, and for securing his escape into Poitou, where a choice of plans remained before him, of which we shall have to speak hereafter.

The great point, however, was to enable the Count to make his exit from the prison, and it was at this that the heart of Jerome Riquet failed. His was one of those far-seeing geniuses that never forget, in any situation, to obtain, from the circ.u.mstances of the present, any thing which may be, however remotely, advantageous in the future. Upon this principle he had acted in his conference with the King, and without any definite and immediate object but that of obtaining pardon for himself for past offences, he had induced the monarch, we must remember, to give him a doc.u.ment, of which he now proposed to take advantage. By a chemical process, very easily effected, he completely took out the ink in those parts of the doc.u.ment where his own name was written, and then, with slow and minute labour, subst.i.tuted the name of his master in the place, imitating, even to the slightest stroke, the writing of the King. The date underwent the same change to suit his purpose, so that a complete pardon, in what appeared the undoubted hand of the King himself, was prepared for the Count de Morseiul.

This step having been taken, Riquet contemplated his work with pride, but fear, and the matter remained there for the whole day: but by the next morning he had become habituated to daring; and, resolved to make the doc.u.ment complete, he spent eight hours in forging, underneath, an order, in due form, for the Count's liberation; and the most practised eye could have scarcely found any difference between the lines there written and those of the King himself. In all probability, if Riquet could have obtained a sc.r.a.p of Louvois' writing he would have added the countersign of the minister, but, as that was not to be had, he again laid the paper by, and was seized with some degree of panic at what he had done.

He had brought up, however, from Poitou, his lord's intendant, and several others of his confidential servants and attendants, promising them, with the utmost conceit and self-confidence, to set the Count at liberty. They now pressed him to fulfil his design, and while he hesitated, with some degree of tremour, the note which the old English officer had conveyed to him was put into his hands, and decided him at once. He entrusted the forged order to a person whom he could fully rely upon to deliver it at the gates of the Bastille, stationed his relays upon the road, and prepared every thing for his master's escape.

Such was the account which he gave to his young lord, as he sat in the chateau of Angerville, and though he did not exactly express all that he had heard in regard to Clemence de Marly and the Chevalier d'Evran, he told quite enough to renew feelings in the bosom of the Count which he had struggled against long and eagerly.

"Who were the men," demanded the Count, "that followed me on horseback?"

"Both of them, Sir," replied the man, "were persons who would have delayed any pursuit of you at the peril of their own lives. One of them was your own man, Martin, whom you saved from being hung for a spy, by the night attack you made upon the Prince of Orange's quarters. The other, Sir, was poor Paul Virlay, who came up with the intendant of his own accord, with his heart well nigh broken, and with all the courage of despair about him."

"Poor Paul Virlay!" exclaimed the Count--"his heart well nigh broken!

Why, what has happened to him, Jerome? I left him in health and in happiness."

"Ay, Sir," replied the man, "but things have changed since then. Two h.e.l.lish priests--I've a great mind to become a Huguenot myself--got hold of his little girl, and got her to say, or at least swore that she said, she would renounce her father's religion. He was furious; and her mother, who had been ill for some days, grew worse, and took to her bed. The girl said she never had said so; the priests said she had, and brought a witness; and they seized her in her father's own house, and carried her away to a convent. He was out when it happened, and when he came back he found his wife dying and his child gone. The mother died two days after; and Paul, poor fellow, whose brain was quite turned, was away for three days with his large sledgehammer with him, which n.o.body but himself could wield. Every body said that he was gone to seek after the priests, to dash their brains out with the hammer, but they heard of it, and escaped out of the province; and at the end of three days he came back quite calm and cool, but every body saw that his heart was broken. I saw him at Morseiul, poor fellow, and I have seldom seen so terrible a sight. The mayor, who has turned Catholic, you know, Sir, asked him if he had gone after the priests, to which he said 'No;' but every one thinks that he did."

While Riquet was telling this tale the Count had placed his hands before his eyes, and it was evident that he trembled violently, moved by terrible and strongly conflicting feelings, the fiery struggle of which might well have such an influence on his corporeal frame. He rose from his seat slowly, however, when the man had done, and walked up and down the room more than once with a stern heavy step. At length, turning to Riquet again, he demanded,

"And in what state is the province?"

"Why, almost in a state of revolt, Sir," replied Riquet. "As far as I can hear, there are as many as a couple of thousand men in arms in different places. It is true they are doing no great things; that the intendant of the province, sometimes with the Bishop, sometimes with the Abbe St. Helie, marches. .h.i.ther and thither with a large body of troops, and puts down the revolt here, or puts down the revolt there.

Till he hears that it has broken out in another place, he remains where it last appeared, quartering his soldiers upon the inhabitants, and, in the order of the day, allowing them _to do every thing but kill_. Then he drives the people by thousands at a time to the churches of our religion, makes them take the ma.s.s, and breaks a few of them on the wheel when they spit the host out of their mouths. He then writes up to the King that he has made wonderful conversions; but before his letter can well reach Paris he is obliged to march to another part of the province, to put down the insurrection there, and to make converts, and break on the wheel as before."

"Say no more, say no more," cried the Count. "Oh, G.o.d! wilt thou suffer this to go on?"