The Works of Honore de Balzac Part 5

Thus the four men were representative of the faith of the people, the intellect of eloquence, the arm of the soldier, and Royalty cast into the shade.

"You will hear what we require of you," the minister went on, after allowing a pause for the young man's astonishment. "To the end that you may make no mistakes, we are compelled to initiate you into the most important secrets of the Reformation."

The Prince and la Renaudie a.s.sented by a gesture, when the minister ceased speaking, to allow the Prince to say something if he should wish it. Like all men of rank engaged in conspiracies, who make it a principle not to appear before some critical moment, the Prince kept silence. Not from cowardice: at such junctures he was the soul of the scheme, shrank from no danger, and risked his head; but with a sort of royal dignity, he left the explanation of the enterprise to the preacher, and was content to study the new instrument he was compelled to make use of.

"My son," said Chaudieu in Huguenot phraseology, "we are about to fight the first battle against the Roman wh.o.r.e. In a few days our soldiers must perish at the stake, or the Guises must be dead. So, ere long, the King and the two Queens will be in our power. This is the first appeal to arms by our religion in France, and France will not lay them down till she has conquered--it is of the nation that I speak, and not of the kingdom. Most of the n.o.bles of the kingdom see what the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duke his brother are driving at. Under pretence of defending the Catholic faith, the House of Lorraine claims the Crown of France as its inheritance. It leans on the Church, and has made it a formidable ally; the monks are its supporters, its acolytes and spies. It a.s.serts itself as a protector of the throne it hopes to usurp, of the Valois whom it hopes to destroy.

"We have decided to rise up in arms, and it is because the liberties of the people are threatened as well as the interests of the n.o.bility. We must stifle in its infancy a faction as atrocious as that of the Bourguignons, who of old put Paris and France to fire and sword. A Louis XI. was needed to end the quarrel between the Burgundians and the Crown, but now a Prince of Conde will prevent the Lorraines from going too far. This is not a civil war; it is a duel between the Guises and the Reformation--a duel to the death! We will see their heads low, or they shall crush ours!"

"Well spoken!" said the Prince.

"In these circ.u.mstances, Christophe," la Renaudie put in, "we must neglect no means of strengthening our party--for there is a party on the side of the Reformation, the party of offended rights, of the n.o.bles who are sacrificed to the Guises, of the old army leaders so shamefully tricked at Fontainebleau, whence the Cardinal banished them by erecting gibbets to hang those who should ask the King for the price of their outfit and arrears of pay."

"Yes, my son," said Chaudieu, seeing some signs of terror in Christophe, "that is what requires us to triumph by fighting instead of triumphing by conviction, and martyrdom. The Queen-mother is ready to enter into our views; not that she is prepared to abjure the Catholic faith--she has not got so far as that, but she may perhaps be driven to it by our success. Be that as it may, humiliated and desperate as she is at seeing the power she had hoped to wield at the King's death in the grasp of the Guises, and alarmed by the influence exerted by the young Queen Marie, who is their niece and partisan, Queen Catherine will be inclined to lend her support to the princes and n.o.bles who are about to strike a blow for her deliverance.

At this moment, though apparently devoted to the Guises, she hates them, longs for their ruin, and will make use of us to oppose them; but Monseigneur can make use of her to oppose all the others. The Queen-mother will consent to all we propose. We have the Connetable on our side--Monseigneur has just seen him at Chantilly, but he will not stir without orders from his superiors. Being Monseigneur's uncle, he will not leave us in the lurch, and our generous Prince will not hesitate to rush into danger to enlist Anne de Montmorency.

"Everything is ready; and we have cast our eyes on you to communicate to Queen Catherine our treaty of alliance, our schemes for edicts, and the basis of the new rule. The Court is at Blois. Many of our friends are there; but those are our future chiefs--and, like Monseigneur," and he bowed to the Prince, "they must never be suspected; we must sacrifice ourselves for them. The Queen-mother and our friends are under such close espionage, that it is impossible to communicate with them through any one who is known, or of any consequence. Such a person would at once be suspected, and would never be admitted to speak with Madame Catherine. G.o.d should indeed give us at this moment the shepherd David with his sling to attack Goliath de Guise. Your father--a good Catholic, more's the pity--is furrier to the two Queens; he always has some garment or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g in hand for them; persuade him to send you to the Court. You will arouse no suspicions, and will not compromise Queen Catherine. Any one of our leaders might lose his head for an imprudence which should give rise to a suspicion of the Queen-mother's connivance with us. But where a man of importance, once caught out, gives a clue to suspicions, a n.o.body like you escapes scot-free.--You see! The Guises have so many spies, that nowhere but in the middle of the river can we talk without fear. So you, my son, are like a man on guard, doomed to die at his post. Understand, if you are taken, you are abandoned by us all. If need be, we shall cast opprobrium and disgrace on you. If we shall be forced to it, we should declare that you were a creature of the Guises whom they sent to play a part to implicate us. So what we ask of you is entire self-sacrifice.

"If you perish," said the Prince de Conde, "I pledge my word as a gentleman that your family shall be a sacred trust to the House of Navarre; I will bear it in my heart and serve it in every way."

"That word, my Lord, is enough," replied Christophe, forgetting that this leader of faction was a Gascon. "We live in times when every man, prince or citizen, must do his duty."

"That is a true Huguenot! If all our men were like him," said la Renaudie, laying his hand on Christophe's shoulder, "we should have won by to-morrow."

"Young man," said the Prince, "I meant to show you that while Chaudieu preaches and the gentleman bears arms, the prince fights. Thus, in so fierce a game every stake has its value."

"Listen," said la Renaudie; "I will not give you the papers till we reach Beaugency, for we must run no risks on the road. You will find me on the quay there; my face, voice, and clothes will be so different, that you may not recognize me. But I will say to you, 'Are you a _Guepin_?' and you must reply, 'At your service.'--As to the manner of proceeding, I will tell you.

You will find a horse at _la Pinte fleurie_, near Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. Ask there for Jean le Breton, who will take you to the stable and mount you on a nag of mine known to cover thirty leagues in eight hours. Leave Paris by the Bussy Gate. Breton has a pa.s.s for me; take it for yourself and be off, riding round outside the towns. You should reach Orleans by daybreak."

"And the horse?" asked Lecamus.

"He will hold out till you get to Orleans," replied la Renaudie. "Leave him outside the suburb of Bannier, for the gates are well guarded; we must not arouse suspicion. You, my friend, must play your part well. You must make up any story that may seem to you best to enable you to go to the third house on your left on entering Orleans; it is that of one Tourillon, a glover. Knock three raps on the door and call out, 'In the service of Messieurs de Guise!' The man affects to be a fanatical _Guisard_; we four only know that he is on our side. He will find you a boatman, such another as himself of course, but devoted to our cause. Go down to the river at once, get into a boat painted green with a white border. You ought to be at Beaugency by noonday to-morrow. There I will put you in the way of getting a boat to carry you down to Blois without running any danger. Our enemies the Guises do not command the Loire, only the river-ports.

"You may thus see the Queen in the course of to-morrow or of the next day."

"Your words are graven here," said Christophe, touching his forehead.

Chaudieu embraced his son with religious fervency; he was proud of him.

"The Lord protect you!" he said, pointing to the sunset which crimsoned the old roofs covered with shingles, and shot fiery gleams among the forest of beams round which the waters foamed.

"You are of the stock of old Jacques Bonhomme," said la Renaudie to Christophe, wringing his hand.

"We shall meet again, _Monsieur_," said the Prince, with a gesture of infinite graciousness, almost of friendliness.

With a stroke of the oar, la Renaudie carried the young conspirator back to the steps leading up to the house, and the boat vanished at once under the arches of the Pont au Change.

Christophe shook the iron gate that closed the entrance from the river-side and called out; Mademoiselle Lecamus heard him, opened one of the windows of the back-shop, and asked how he came there. Christophe replied that he was half-frozen, and that she must first let him in.

"Young master," said la Bourguignonne, "you went out by the street door and come in by the river-gate? Your father will be in a pretty rage."

Christophe, bewildered by the secret conference which had brought him into contact with the Prince de Conde, la Renaudie, and Chaudieu, and even more agitated by the expected turmoil of an imminent civil war, made no reply; he hurried up from the kitchen to the back-shop. There, on seeing him, his mother, who was a bigoted old Catholic, could not contain herself.

"I will wager," she broke out, "that the three men you were talking to were ref----"

"Silence, wife," said the prudent old man, whose white head was bent over a book. "Now, my lazy oafs," he went on to three boys who had long since finished supper, "what are you waiting for to take you to bed? It is eight o'clock. You must be up by five in the morning. And first you have the President de Thou's robes and cap to carry home. Go all three together, and carry sticks and rapiers. If you meet any more ne'er-do-weels of your own kidney, at any rate there will be three of you."

"And are we to carry the ermine surcoat ordered by the young Queen, which is to be delivered at the Hotel de Soissons, from whence there is an express to Blois and to the Queen-mother?" asked one of the lads.

"No," said the Syndic; "Queen Catherine's account amounts to three thousand crowns, and I must get the money. I think I will go to Blois myself."

"I should not think of allowing you, at your age, father, and in such times as these, to expose yourself on the high-roads. I am two-and-twenty; you may send me on this errand," said Christophe, with an eye on a box which he had no doubt contained the surcoat.

"Are you glued to the bench?" cried the old man to the apprentices, who hastily took up their rapiers and capes, and Monsieur de Thou's fur gown.

This ill.u.s.trious man was to be received on the morrow by the Parlement as their President; he had just signed the death-warrant of the Councillor du Bourg, and was fated, before the year was out, to sit in judgment on the Prince de Conde.

"La Bourguignonne," said the old man, "go and ask my neighbor Lallier if he will sup with us this evening, furnishing the wine; we will give the meal.--And, above all, tell him to bring his daughter."

The Syndic of the Guild of Furriers was a handsome old man of sixty, with white hair and a broad high forehead. As furrier to the Court for forty years past, he had witnessed all the revolutions in the reign of Francis I., and had retained his royal patent in spite of feminine rivalries. He had seen the arrival at Court of Catherine de' Medici, then but just fifteen; he had seen her succ.u.mb to the d.u.c.h.esse d'Etampes, her father-in-law's mistress, and to the d.u.c.h.esse de Valentinois, mistress to the late King, her husband. But through all these changes the furrier had got into no difficulties, though the Court purveyors often fell into disgrace with the ladies they served. His prudence was as great as his wealth. He maintained an att.i.tude of excessive humility. Pride had never caught him in its snares. The man was so modest, so meek, so obliging, so poor--at Court and in the presence of queens, princesses, and favorites--that his servility had saved his shop-sign.

Such a line of policy betrayed, of course, a cunning and clear-sighted man.

Humble as he was to the outer world, at home he was a despot. He was the unquestioned master in his own house. He was highly respected by his fellow merchants and derived immense consideration from his long tenure of the first place in business. Indeed, he was gladly helpful to others; and among the services he had done, the most important perhaps was the support he had long afforded to the most famous surgeon of the sixteenth century--Ambroise Pare, who owed it to Lecamus that he could pursue his studies. In all the disputes that arose between the merchants of the guild, Lecamus was for conciliatory measures. Thus general esteem had confirmed his supremacy among his equals, while his a.s.sumed character had preserved him the favor of the Court.

Having, for political reasons, manoeuvred in his parish for the glory of his trade, he did what was needful to keep himself in a sufficient odor of sanct.i.ty with the priest of the Church of Saint-Pierre aux Boeufs, who regarded him as one of the men most devoted in all Paris to the Catholic faith. Consequently, when the States-General were convoked, Lecamus was unanimously elected to represent the third estate by the influence of the priests, which was at that time enormous in Paris.

This old man was one of those deep and silent ambitious men who for fifty years are submissive to everybody in turn, creeping up from place to place, no one knowing how, till they are seen peacefully seated in a position which no one, not even the boldest, would have dared to admit was the goal of his ambition at the beginning of his life--so long was the climb, so many gulfs were there to leap, into which he might fall! Lecamus, who had hidden away a large fortune, would run no risks, and was planning a splendid future for his son. Instead of that personal ambition which often sacrifices the future to the present, he had family ambition, a feeling that seems lost in these days, smothered by the stupid regulation of inheritance by law. Lecamus foresaw himself President of the Paris Parlement in the person of his grandson.

Christophe, the G.o.dson of the great historian de Thou, had received an excellent education, but it had led him to scepticism and inquiry, which indeed were increasing apace among the students and Faculties of the University. Christophe was at present studying for the bar, the first step to a judgeship. The old furrier pretended to be undecided as to his son's career; sometimes he would make Christophe his successor, and sometimes he would have him a pleader; but in his heart he longed to see this son in the seat of a Councillor of the Parlement. The furrier longed to place the house of Lecamus on a par with the old and honored families of Paris citizens which had produced a Pasquier, a Mole, a Miron, a Seguier, Lamoignon, du Tillet, Lecoigneux, Lescalopier, the Goix, the Arnaulds,--all the famous sheriffs and high-provosts of corporations who had rallied to defend the throne.

To the end that Christophe might in that day do credit to his rank, he wanted him to marry the daughter of the richest goldsmith in the Cite, his neighbor Lallier, whose nephew, at a later day, presented the keys of Paris to Henry IV. The most deeply rooted purpose in the good man's heart was to spend half his own fortune and half of Lallier's in the purchase of a lordly estate, a long and difficult matter in those days.

But he was too deep a schemer, and knew the times too well, to overlook the great movements that were being hatched; he saw plainly, and saw truly, when he looked forward to the division of the kingdom into two camps. The useless executions on the Place de l'Estrapade, that of Henri II.'s tailor, and that, still more recent, of the Councillor Anne du Bourg, besides the connivance of the reigning favorite in the time of Francis I., and of many n.o.bles now, at the progress of reform, all were alarming indications. The furrier was determined, come what might, to remain faithful to the Church, the Monarchy, and the Parlement, but he was secretly well content that his son should join the Reformation. He knew that he had wealth enough to ransom Christophe if the lad should ever compromise himself seriously; and then, if France should turn Calvinist, his son could save the family in any furious outbreaks in the capital such as the citizens could vividly remember, and as would recur again and again through four reigns.

Like Louis XI., the old furrier never confessed these thoughts even to himself; his cunning completely deceived his wife and his son. For many a day this solemn personage had been the recognized head of the most populous quarter of Paris--the heart of the city--bearing the t.i.tle of _Quartenier_, which became notorious fifteen years later. Clothed in cloth, like every prudent citizen who obeyed the sumptuary laws, Master Lecamus--the Sieur Lecamus, a t.i.tle he held in virtue of an edict of Charles V. permitting the citizens of Paris to purchase _Seigneuries_, and their wives to a.s.sume the fine t.i.tle of _demoiselle_ or mistress--wore no gold chain, no silk; only a stout doublet with large b.u.t.tons of blackened silver, wrinkled hose drawn up above his knee, and leather shoes with buckles. His shirt, of fine linen, was pulled out, in the fashion of the time, into full puffs through his half-b.u.t.toned waistcoat and slashed trunks.

Though the full light of the lamp fell on the old man's broad and handsome head, Christophe had no inkling of the thoughts hidden behind that rich Dutch-looking complexion; still he understood that his old father meant to take some advantage of his affection for pretty Babette Lallier. And Christophe, as a man who had laid his own schemes, smiled sadly when he heard the invitation sent to his fair mistress.

As soon as la Bourguignonne and the apprentices were gone, old Lecamus looked at his wife with an expression that fully showed his firm and resolute temper.

"You will never rest till you have got the boy hanged with your d.a.m.ned tongue!" said he in stern tones.

"I would rather see him hanged, but saved, than alive and a Huguenot," was the gloomy reply. "To think that the child I bore within me for nine months should not be a good Catholic, but hanker after the heresies of Colas--that he must spend all eternity in h.e.l.l----" and she began to cry.

"You old fool!" said the furrier, "then give him a chance of life, if only to convert him! Why, you said a thing, before the apprentices, which might set our house on fire, and roast us all in it like fleas in straw."

The mother crossed herself, but said nothing.