The Huguenot Part 54

The other boats came in rapidly with the returning tide; and as soon as their keels touched the sand, and a few words had been spoken to ascertain that all was right and understood, the Count turned and said,--

"Now, gentlemen."

There were some twenty or thirty yards of shallow water between the sands and the boats, and Albert of Morseiul raised Clemence in his arms, and carried her to the edge of the first. Neither of them spoke a word; but as leaning over, he placed her in the boat, she felt his arms clasp more tightly round her, and his lips were pressed upon hers.

"The Almighty bless thee!" and "G.o.d protect and deliver you!" was all that was said on either side; and the Count turned back to the sh.o.r.e.

One by one the different officers advanced to him in silence, and grasped his hand before they proceeded to the boats. When they were all in, and the boats began to push off, the Count pulled off his hat, and stood bareheaded, looking up to Heaven. But at that moment a loud shout burst from the soldiery, of "The Count, the Count, they have forgotten the Count!"

But the Count of Morseiul turned round towards them, and said aloud, in his usual calm, firm tone: "They have not forgotten me, my friends.

It was you that were mistaken when you thought that I had forgotten you. I remain to meet my fate, whatever it may be."

A number of men in the ranks instantly threw down their muskets, and rushing forward, clasped his knees, beseeching him to go. But he waved his hand, saying gently, "It is in vain, my friends! My determination has been taken for many days. Go back to your ranks, my good fellows, go back to your ranks! I will but see the boats safe, and then join you, to surrender the village and lay down our arms."

The Count then turned again to the sea, and watched the four boats row onward from the sh.o.r.e. They reached the vessels in safety in a few minutes; in a few minutes more the boats belonging to the village began to row back empty. After a little pause some more canva.s.s was seen displayed upon the yards of the vessels. They began to move; they sailed out of the harbour; and, after gazing down upon the sand fixedly and intently while one might count a hundred, the Count of Morseiul, feeling himself solitary, turned, gave the word of command, and marched the men back into the village. He entered immediately into the room where the Chevalier d'Evran lay, and although by this time all the princ.i.p.al officers of the royalist force were there, with several other persons, amongst whom was his own servant Riquet, he walked silently up to the head of the corpse, and gazed for several minutes on the dead man's face. Then lifting the cold hand, he pressed it affectionately in his.

"G.o.d receive thee, Louis! G.o.d receive thee!" he said, and his eyes filled with the first tears that they had shed that day.

"I see no use now, Sir," he continued, turning to the officer who had taken the command of the royal forces, "I see no use of delaying any longer the surrender of the village. I am ready in person to give it up to you this moment, and also to surrender my sword. The only favour I have to ask is, that you will make it known to his Majesty that I had no share in the event by which my unhappy friend here fell. The shot which slew him was intended for me, as you are doubtless aware."

"Perfectly," replied the commander; "and I have already sent off a despatch to the King, giving him an account of the events of this morning; and I myself, joined with all the officers here present, have not failed to testify our sense of the n.o.ble, upright, and disinterested conduct of the Count of Morseiul. I would fain speak with him a word alone, however," and he drew him aside to the window.

"Count," he said, "I shall not demand your sword, nor in any way affect your liberty, if you will promise to go to Paris immediately, and surrender yourself there. If you would take my advice, you would go at once to the King, and cast yourself at his feet. Ask for no audience, but seek admission to him at some public moment If fortune favours you, which I trust it will, you may have an opportunity of explaining to his Majesty many things that have probably been misrepresented."

"I shall certainly follow your advice," said the Count, "since you put it in my power to do so."

"Ah, gentlemen," cried Riquet, who had been listening unperceived to all they said. "If the poor Chevalier had lived, the Count would have been quite safe, for he had the means of proving that the Count saved the King's life not long ago, of which his Majesty knows nothing. I heard the man Herval make his confession to the Chevalier with my own ears; but he could not take it down, for the man died before pen and ink could do their work."

"That is unfortunate, indeed," said the commander; "but still you can give your testimony of the facts, my good friend."

"Bless you, Sir," replied Riquet, "they will never believe any thing I can say."

"I fear not, indeed," replied the Count. "Besides, Sir, my good friend Riquet, if he went to Paris, would have so much to confess on his own account, that they would not mind what he said in regard to the confessions of others."

"Unfortunately, too," said the commander, "all the papers of Hatreaumont, if I remember right, were ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. Such was the sentence of the court, I know, and it must have been executed long ago. However, Count, the plan that I have proposed is still the best. Speed to Paris with what haste you may; cast yourself upon the King's mercy; tell him all and every thing, if he will permit you to do so, and engage all your friends to support your cause at the same moment. Take your way at once into Brittany,"

he added, dropping his voice, "and from thence to Paris; for I very much fear that the result would be fatal if you were to fall into the hands of the intendant of Poitou. He is exasperated to the highest degree. You have surrendered at discretion, taken with arms in your hand. He has already broken on the wheel two or three under the same circ.u.mstances; and I dare not deal with him in the same way that the Chevalier d'Evran did, for I have not sufficient power."

The Count thanked him for his advice, and followed it; and, as we must not pause upon such circ.u.mstances as the surrender of the village, we shall let that event be supposed to have taken place; and in our next chapter shall, if possible, pursue this sad history to its conclusion.

CHAPTER XV.

THE END.

It was in the great reception room at Versailles, an hour after the King had held the council, which failed not to meet every day. His mood was neither more nor less severe than ordinary; for if, on the one hand, events had taken place which had given him pleasure, other events had reached his ears from the south of France, which showed him, notwithstanding all Louvois's efforts to conceal the extent of the evil, that serious disturbances in the Cevennes, and other parts of France, near the mouth of the Rhone, were likely to follow the measures which had been adopted against the Protestants.

Louvois himself was present, and in no very placable mood, the King having replied to him more than once during the morning haughtily and angrily, and repressed the insolence by which his demeanour was sometimes characterised, with that severe dignity which the minister was very willing to see exercised towards any one but himself.

Louis, who was dressed in the most sumptuous manner, held in his hand a roll of papers, which had been given him just before his entrance into the chamber; but he did not read them, and merely turned them round and round from time to time, as if he were handling a truncheon.

Many eyes were fixed upon him, and various were the hopes and fears which the aspect of that one man created in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those who surrounded him. All, however, were silent at that moment, for an event was about to take place highly flattering to the pride of the ostentatious King of France, and the eyes of all were fixed upon the doors at the end of the hall.

At length they opened, and a fine looking middle-aged man, dressed in a robe of red velvet, followed by four others in black velvet, was led into the apartment and approached the King. He bowed low and reverently, and then addressed the French sovereign without embarra.s.sment, and with apparent ease, a.s.suring the monarch in vague, but still flattering terms, that the republic of Genoa, of which he was Doge, had entertained nothing, throughout the course of events lately pa.s.sed, but profound respect for the crown of France.

Somewhat to the left of the King, amongst the mult.i.tude of French princes and officers, appeared one or two groups, consisting of the amba.s.sadors from different barbaric nations; and, while the Doge of Genoa spoke, offering excuses for the conduct of the state he ruled, the eye of Louis glanced from time to time to the Indian envoys in their gorgeous apparel, as they eagerly asked questions of their interpreter, and were told that it was the prince of an independent state come to humble himself before the mighty monarch that he had offended. When the audience of the Doge of Genoa was over, and he withdrew, a mult.i.tude of the courtiers followed, so that the audience hall was nearly clear, and the King paused for a moment, talking over the Doge's demeanour to those who surrounded him, and apparently about to retire immediately. He had taken a step forward, indeed, to do so, when the Prince de Marsillac, who certainly dared to press the King upon disagreeable subjects, when no one else would run the risk, advanced, and, bowing low, pointed to the papers in the King's hand.

"I ventured, Sire," he said, "before your Majesty came here, to present to you those papers which you promised to look at."

The King's brow instantly darkened. "I see at once, Prince," he said, "that they refer to the Count of Morseiul, a rebel, as I am informed, taken with arms in his hand, in regard to whom the laws of the land must have their course."

The Prince was somewhat abashed, and hesitated; but another gentleman stepped forward with stern and somewhat harsh features, but with a n.o.ble air and look that bespoke fearless sincerity.

"What is it, Montausier?" said the King, sharply addressing that celebrated n.o.bleman, who is supposed to have been represented by Moliere under the character of the misanthrope.

"Merely to say, Sire," replied the Duke in a firm, strong tone of voice, "that some one has falsified the truth to your Majesty. My nephew, in command of the troops to whom the Count surrendered, informs me that he was not taken with arms in his hand, as you have said; but, on the contrary, (and here lies a great difference,) surrendered voluntarily, when, according to the truce of five hours granted to the Huguenots by the Chevalier d'Evran, he had every opportunity of escaping to England had he so pleased, as all the rest of the leaders on that occasion did."

"How is this, Sir?" demanded the King, turning to Louvois. "I speak from your statements, and I hope you have not made me speak falsely."

"Sire," replied Louvois, with a look of effrontery, "I have just heard that what the Duke says is the case; but I judged that all such points could naturally be investigated at the Count's trial."

The King seemed struck with this observation; but Montausier instantly replied--"Monsieur de Louvois, if his Majesty will permit me to tell you so, you have been, for the first time in your life, sadly tardy in receiving information; for my nephew informs me that he gave you intelligence of this fact no less than three days ago; and, in the next place, you are very well aware of what you have not thought fit to say, that by investigating such things at a trial, you would directly frustrate the express object for which the Count de Morseiul surrendered himself when he might have escaped, which was to cast himself at the King's feet, and explain to him the strange and extraordinary misconception by which he was cast into rebellion, and to prove that as soon as ever he discovered the mistake which had been committed, he had expressed himself ready to surrender, and trust to the King's clemency, which is as great a quality as his justice."

Louvois's face had grown fiery red. "Expressed his readiness to surrender!" cried he with a scoff. "Did he not fight two battles after that?"

"How, Sir?" exclaimed the King. "I had understood from you that no battles had been fought at all. Mere skirmishes you said--affairs of posts--that the insurrection was nothing but the revolt of a few peasants."

Louvois stammered forth some excuse about the numbers being insignificant, and the whole business crushed within nine days after the Chevalier d'Evran took the command; but the King turned away angrily, saying, "Monsieur de Louvois, no more interruption. I find in my middle age, as I found in my youth, that a king must see with his own eyes. Now, Marsillac, what is it you wish? What is it you desire of me, Montausier?"

"For my part, Sire," replied the Prince de Marsillac, "I only desire that your Majesty should run your eyes over those papers. They are very brief, and to the point; and every fact that is therein stated I can a.s.sure you can be proved on indisputable authority."

"And I," said the Duke of Montausier, "have only to beg that your Majesty would see and hear the Count of Morseiul. From him, as every man here present knows, you will hear the pure and simple truth, which is a thing that happens to your Majesty perhaps once in five or six years, and will do you good."

The King smiled, and turned his eyes upon the papers; and when he had read them nearly through, he smiled again, even more gaily than before.

"It turns out, gentlemen," he said, "that an affair has happened to me which I fancy happens to us all more than once in our lives. I have been completely cheated by a valet. I remember giving the villain the paper well, out of which it seems he manufactured a free pardon for his master. At all events, this frees the Count from the charge of base ingrat.i.tude which has been heavily urged against him. Your statement of his willing surrender, Montausier, greatly diminishes his actual and undoubted crime; and as I have complied with the request of the Prince de Marsillac, and looked at the papers, I must not refuse you yours. Either to-day, if the Count have arrived, or to-morrow, I will hear his story from his own lips."

"Sire," replied the Duke of Montausier, "I have been daring enough to receive him in my apartments."

The cloud came slightly again over Louis's countenance; but though he replied with dignified gravity, yet it was not with anger. "You have done wrong," he said; "but since it is so, call him to my presence.

All you ladies and gentlemen around shall judge if I deal harshly with him."

There was a pretty girl standing not far from the King, and close between her own mother and the interpreter of the amba.s.sadors from Siam. We have spoken of her before, under the name of Annette de Marville; and while she had remained in that spot, her eyes had more than once involuntarily filled with tears. She was timid and retiring in her nature; and as the Duke of Montausier turned away to obey the King, every one was surprised to hear her voice raised sufficiently loud to reach even the ear of Louis himself, saying to the interpreter, "Tell them that they are now going to see how magnanimously the King will pardon one who has offended him."

The King looked another way; but it was evident to those who were accustomed to watch his countenance, that he connected the words he had just heard with the humiliation he had inflicted on the Doge of Genoa, and that the contrast struck and pleased him not a little.

In a very short time, before this impression had at all faded away, the door again opened, and the Duke of Montausier re-entered with the Count of Morseiul. The latter was pale, but perfectly firm and composed. He did not wear his sword, but he carried it sheathed in his hand, and advancing directly towards Louis, he bent one knee before the King, at the same time laying down the weapon at the monarch's feet.