Book: An Enemy To The King

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"Queen Catherine?" I exclaimed, incredulously, half refusing to see, in
that placid matron, the ceaseless plotter, the woman accused of poisoning
and all manner of bloodshed, whom the name represented.

"Catherine de Medici," said De Rilly, evidently finding it a pleasure to
instruct a newcomer as to the personages and mysteries of the court. "She
who preserves the royal power in France at this moment."

"She does not look as I have imagined her," I said.

"One would not suppose," said De Rilly, "that behind that serene
countenance goes on the mental activity necessary to keep the throne in
possession of her favorite son, who spends fortunes on his minions, taxes
his subjects to the utmost, and disgusts them with his eccentric piety
and peculiar vices."

"Dare one say such things in the very palace of that King?"

"Why not say what every one knows? It is what people say in hidden
places that is dangerous."

"I wonder what is passing in the Queen-mother's mind at this moment," I
said, as Catherine turned into the corridor leading to Anjou's
apartments.

In the light of subsequent events, I can now give a better answer to that
query than De Rilly, himself, could have given then. Catherine had to use
her wits to check the deep designs of Henri, Duke of Guise, who was
biding his time to claim the throne as the descendant of Charlemagne, and
was as beloved of the populace as Henri III. was odious to it. Thanks to
the rebellion of Huguenots and malcontents, Guise had been kept too busy
in the field to prosecute his political designs. As head of the Catholic
party, and heir to his father's great military reputation, he could not,
consistently, avoid the duties assigned him by the crown. That these
duties might not cease, Catherine found it to her interest that rebellion
should continue indefinitely. The Huguenot party, in its turn, was kept
by the Guise or Catholic party from assaults on the crown. In fine, while
both great factions were occupied with each other, neither could threaten
the King. This discord, on which she relied to keep her unpopular son
safe on his throne, was fomented by her in secret ways. She shifted from
side to side, as circumstances required. The parties must be maintained,
in order that discontent might vent itself in factional contest, and not
against the King. The King must belong to neither party, in order not to
be of the party that might be ultimately defeated; yet he must belong to
both parties, in order to be of the party that might ultimately triumph.
To the maintainance of this impossible situation was the genius of
Catherine de Medici successfully devoted for many years of universal
discontent and bloodshed.

Now the Duke of Guise had found a way to turn these circumstances to
account. Since the King of France could not hold down the Huguenots, the
Holy Catholic League, composed of Catholics of every class throughout the
most of France, would undertake the task. He foresaw that he, as leader
of the League, would earn from the Catholics a gratitude that would make
him the most powerful man in the kingdom. Catherine, too, saw this. To
neutralize this move, she caused the King to endorse the League and
appoint himself its head. The Huguenots must not take this as a step
against them; on the contrary, they must be led to regard it as a shrewd
measure to restrain the League. The King's first official edicts, after
assuming the leadership of the League, seemed to warrant this view. So
the King, in a final struggle against the Guise elements, might still
rely on the aid of the Huguenots. But the King still remained outside of
the League, although nominally its chief. Catherine saw that it was not
to be deluded from its real purpose. The only thing to do was to
conciliate the Duke of Guise into waiting. There was little likelihood of
either of her sons attaining middle age. The Duke of Guise, a splendid
specimen of physical manhood, would doubtless outlive them; he might be
induced to wait for their deaths. The rightful successor to the throne
would then be Henri of Navarre, head of the Bourbon family. But he was a
Huguenot; therefore Catherine affected to the Duke of Guise a great
desire that he should succeed her sons. The existing peace allowed the
Duke of Guise the leisure in which to be dangerous; so every means to
keep him quiet was taken.

Some of these things De Rilly told me, as we stood in the embrasure of a
window in the gallery, while Catherine visited her son, Anjou,--whose
discontent at court complicated the situation, for he might, at any time,
leave Paris and lead the Huguenots and malcontents in a rebellion which
would further discredit her family with the people, demonstrate anew the
King's incompetence, and give the League an opportunity.

"And does the Duke of Guise allow himself to be cajoled?" I asked De
Rilly.

"Who knows? He is a cautious man, anxious to make no false step. They
say he would be willing to wait for the death of the King, but that he is
ever being urged to immediate action by De Noyard."

"De Noyard?"

"One of Guise's followers; an obscure gentleman of very great virtue, who
has recently become Guise's most valued counsellor. He keeps Guise on his
guard against Catherine's wiles, they say, and discourages Guise's amour
with her daughter, Marguerite, which Catherine has an interest in
maintaining. Nobody is more _de trop_ to Catherine just at present, I
hear, than this same Philippe de Noyard. Ah! there he is now,--in the
courtyard, the tallest of the gentlemen who have just dismounted, and are
coming in this direction, with the Duke of Guise."

I looked out of the window, and at once recognized the Duke of Guise by
the great height of his slender but strong figure, the splendid bearing,
the fine oval face, with its small mustache, slight fringe of beard, and
its scar, and the truly manly and magnificent manner, of which report had
told us. He wore a doublet of cloth of silver, a black cloak of velvet,
and a black hat with the Lorraine cross on its front. The tallest man in
his following--Philippe de Noyard, of whom De Rilly had just been
speaking--was the gentleman whom I had met on the road to Paris, and who
had refused to fight me after resenting my opinion of the Duke of Guise.

He must have arrived in Paris close behind me.

I was watching Guise and his gentlemen as they crossed the court to enter
the palace, when suddenly I heard behind me the voice that had lingered
in my ears all the previous night. I turned hastily around, and saw a
group of Catherine's ladies, who stood around a fireplace, not having
followed the Queen-mother to Anjou's apartments.

"Who is the lady leaning against the tapestry?" I quickly asked De Rilly.

"The one with the indolent attitude, and the mocking smile?"

"Yes, the very beautiful one, with the big gray eyes. By heaven, her eyes
rival those of Marguerite, herself!"

"That is Mlle. d'Arency, a new recruit to Catherine's Flying Squadron."

Her face more than carried out the promise given by her chin and mouth.
It expressed to the eye all that the voice expressed to the ear.

She had not seen me yet. I had almost made up my mind to go boldly over
to her, when the Duke of Guise and his gentlemen entered the gallery. At
the same instant, Catherine reappeared on the arm of the Duke of Anjou.
The latter resigned her to the Duke of Guise, and went back to his
apartment, whereupon Catherine and Guise started for the further end of
the gallery, as if for private conversation. His manner was courteous,
but cold; hers calm and amiable.

"Ah, see!" whispered De Rilly to me. "What did I tell you?"

Catherine had cast a glance towards Guise's gentlemen. De Noyard, grave
and reserved, stood a little apart from the others. For an instant, a
look of profound displeasure, a deeply sinister look, interrupted the
composure of Catherine's features.

"You see that M. de Noyard does not have the effect on the Queen-mother
that a rose in her path would have," remarked De Rilly.

He did not notice what followed. But I observed it, although not till
long afterward did I see its significance. It was a mere exchange of
glances, and little did I read in it the secret which was destined to
have so vast an effect on my own life, to give my whole career its
course. It was no more than this: Catherine turned her glance, quickly,
from De Noyard to Mlle. d'Arency, who had already been observing her.
Mlle. d'Arency gave, in reply, an almost imperceptible smile of
understanding; then Catherine and Guise passed on.

Two looks, enduring not a moment; yet, had I known what was behind them,
my life would assuredly have run an entirely different course.

The gentlemen of the Duke of Guise now joined Catherine's ladies at the
fireplace. For a time, Mlle. d'Arency was thus lost to my sight; then the
group opened, and I saw her resting her great eyes, smilingly, on the
face of De Noyard, who was talking to her in a low tone, his gaze fixed
upon her with an expression of wistful adoration.

"The devil!" I muttered. "That man loves her."

"My faith!" said De Rilly, "one would think he was treading on your toes
in doing so; yet you do not even know her."

"She is the woman I have chosen to be in love with, nevertheless," I
said.

It seemed as if the Duke of Guise had come to the Louvre solely for a
word with the Queen-mother, for now he took his departure, followed by
his suite, while Catherine went to her own apartments. As De Noyard
passed out, he saw me. His face showed that he recognized me, and that he
wondered what I was doing in the palace. There was nothing of offence in
his look, only a slight curiosity.

De Rilly now expressed an intention of going out to take the air, but I
preferred to stay where I was; for Mile. d'Arency had remained in the
gallery, with some other of Catherine's ladies. So the loquacious equerry
went without me.

I formed a bold resolution. Quelling the trepidation that came with it, I
strode quickly over to Mlle. d'Arency, who still stood against the
tapestry as if she had been a figure in it but had come to life and
stepped out into the apartment.

Her large eyes fell on me, and opened slightly wider, showing at once
recognition and a not unpleasant surprise. I bowed very low, partly to
conceal the flush that I felt mounting to my face.

"Pardon me, Mile. d'Arency," I said, in a voice as steady as I could make
it. Then I looked at her and saw her features assuming an expression of
such coldness and astonishment that for some time neither my tongue nor
my mind could continue the speech, nor could I move a step in retreat.
All the while she kept her eyes upon me.

I drew a deep breath at last, and said in desperation:

"Doubtless I ought not to address you, being unknown to you, but if you
will permit me, I will go and bring M. de Rilly, who will present me."

Her face softened somewhat, and she looked amused. "You seem quite able
to present yourself," she said.

I was immensely relieved at this melting of the ice, just when I was
beginning to feel that I was becoming a spectacle.

"I am Ernanton de Launay, Sieur de la Tournoire," I said, and to fill up
the embarrassing pause that followed, I added, "and, being a Huguenot, I
am a nobody in Paris,--in fact, a mere volunteer in the French Guards."

"Well, Monsieur Guardsman, what do you wish to say to me?"

She was now in quite a pleasant, quizzical mood.

"I trust you do not expect me to say it in one word," I answered; and
then I lowered my voice, "or in a single interview."

"It does not matter how many interviews it requires, if it is
interesting," she answered nonchalantly.

"Alas!" I said. "I fear it is a story which many others have told you."

"An old story may seem new, when it comes from new lips."

"And when it is new to the lips that tell it, as mine is. Actually, I
have never before made a confession of love."

"Am I to understand that you are about to make one now?"

"Have I not already made it?" I said.

We now stood quite apart from all others in the gallery, unnoticed by
them; and our voices had fallen almost to a whisper.

She smiled, as if refusing to take my words seriously.

"If you have waited so long before making any confession of love
whatever," she said, "you have certainly made up for the delay by the
speed which you use in making your first."

"On the contrary, I have had my confession ready for a long time, as my
love has existed for a long time. I waited only to meet its object,--the
woman of whom I had formed the ideal in my mind."

She looked as if about to burst into a laugh; but she changed her mind,
and regarded me with a look of inquiry, as if she would read my heart.
The smile was still on her lips, yet she spoke gravely when she said:

"Monsieur, I cannot make you out. If you are as sincere as you are
original,--but I must go to the Queen-mother now. To-morrow afternoon, I
shall walk in the gardens of the Tuileries, if the weather is clear."

"But one moment, I beg! M. de Noyard,--he is in love with you, is he
not?"

Her face again took on its mocking look. "I have not asked him," she said
lightly. Then she regarded me with a new and peculiar expression, as if
some daring idea had come into her mind, some project which had to be
meditated upon before it might be safely breathed.

"You look at me strangely, mademoiselle."

"Oh, I merely wonder at your curiosity in regard to M. de Noyard."

"My curiosity is not in regard to his feelings, but in regard to yours."

"Monsieur," she said, with a very captivating air of reproach, "have I
not told you that I shall walk in the gardens of the Tuileries to-morrow
afternoon?"

And she glided away, leaving behind her the most delighted and conceited
young man, at that moment, in France.




CHAPTER III.

THE STRANGE REQUEST OF MLLE. D'ARENCY


I was disappointed in the interview that I had with Mlle. d'Arency in
the gardens of the Tuileries, the next day. I saw her for only a few
minutes, and then within sight of other of Catherine's ladies. Although
I lost nothing of the ground I had taken, neither did I gain anything
further. Afterward, at court receptions and _fêtes_, and, sometimes, in
the palace galleries, when she was off duty, I contrived to meet her.
She neither gave me opportunities nor avoided me. All the progress that
I made was in the measure of my infatuation for her. When I begged for a
meeting at which we might not be surrounded by half the court, she
smiled, and found some reason to prevent any such interview in the near
future. So, if I had carried things very far at our first meeting in the
Louvre, I now paid for my exceptional fortune by my inability to carry
them a step further.

Thus matters went for several days, during which the assertion of De
Rilly was proven true,--that my duties as a member of the French Guards
would leave me some time for pleasure. Thanks to De Quelus, and to his
enemy, Bussy d'Amboise, I made acquaintances both in the King's following
and in that of the King's brother, the Duke of Anjou. De Rilly made me
known to many who belonged to neither camp, and were none the worse for
that. Our company lodged in the Faubourg St. Honore, but I led the life
of a gentleman of pleasure, when off duty, and, as such, I had a private
lodging within the town, near the Louvre, more pretentious than the
whitewashed chamber in the Rue St. Denis. I drank often in cabarets,
became something of a swaggerer, and something of a fop,--though never
descending to the womanishness of the King's minions,--and did not allow
my great love affair, which I never mentioned save in terms of mystery,
to hinder me from the enjoyment of lesser amours of transient duration.
At this time everybody was talking of the feud between the King's
favorites and the followers of the Duke of Anjou. The King's minions
openly ridiculed Anjou for his ungainliness, which was all the greater
for his look of settled discontent and resentment. His faithful and
pugnacious Bussy retaliated by having his pages dress like the King's
minions,--with doublets of cloth of gold, stiff ruffs, and great
plumes,--and so attend him at the Twelfth Day _fêtes_. The minions, in
their turn, sought revenge on Bussy by attacking him, on the following
night, while he was returning from the Louvre to his lodgings. He eluded
them, and the next morning he accused M. de Grammont of having led the
ambuscade. De Quelus then proposed that all the King's gentlemen should
meet all those of the Duke in a grand encounter to the death. The Duke's
followers gladly accepted the challenge. Three hundred men on each side
would have fought, had not the King resolutely forbidden the duel. De
Quelus, that night, led a number of gentlemen in an attack on Bussy's
lodgings. Bussy and his followers made a stout resistance, the tumult
becoming so great that the Marechal de Montmorency called out the Scotch
Guard to clear the street in front of Bussy's house; and it was time.
Several gentlemen and servants were lying in their blood; and some of
these died of their wounds.

It was openly known, about the court, that the Duke of Anjou held the
King to be privy to these attacks on Bussy, and was frightfully enraged
thereby; and that the King, in constant fear of the Duke's departure to
join the Huguenots,--which event would show the King's inability to
prevent sedition even in the royal family, and would give the Guise party
another pretext to complain of his incompetence,--would forcibly obstruct
the Duke's going.

It was this state of affairs that made Catherine de Medici again take up
her abode in the Louvre, that she might be on the ground in the event of
a family outbreak, which was little less probable to occur at night than
in the daytime. She had lately lived part of the time in her new palace
of the Tuileries, and part of the time in her Hotel des Filles Repenties,
holding her council in either of these places, and going to the Louvre
daily for the signature of the King to the documents of her own
fabrication. At this time, Mlle. d'Arency was one of the ladies of the
Queen-mother's bedchamber, and so slept in the Louvre. What should I be
but such a fool as, when off duty, to pass certain hours of the night in
gazing up at the window of my lady's chamber, as if I were a lover in an
Italian novel! Again I must beg you to remember that I was only
twenty-one, and full of the most fantastic ideas. I had undertaken an
epic love affair, and I would omit none of the picturesque details that
example warranted.

Going, one evening in February, to take up my post opposite the Louvre, I
suddenly encountered a gentleman attended by two valets with torches. I
recognized him as De Noyard, who had twice or thrice seen me about the
palaces, but had never spoken to me. I was therefore surprised when, on
this occasion, he stopped and said to me, in a low and polite tone:

"Monsieur, I have seen you, once or twice, talking with M. Bussy
d'Amboise, and I believe that, if you are not one of his intimates, you,
at least, wish him no harm."

"You are right, monsieur," I said, quite mystified.

"I am no friend of his," continued M. de Noyard, in his cold,
dispassionate tone, "but he is a brave man, who fights openly, and, so
far, he is to be commended. I believe he will soon return from the
Tuileries, where he has been exercising one of the horses of the Duke of
Anjou. I have just come from there myself. On the way, I espied, without
seeming to see them, a number of the gentlemen of the King waiting behind
the pillars of the house with a colonnade, near the Porte St. Honore."

"One can guess what that means."

"So I thought. As for me, I have more important matters in view than
interfering with the quarrels of young hot-heads; but I think that there
is yet time for Bussy d'Amboise to be warned, before he starts to return
from the Tuileries."

"M. de Noyard, I thank you," I said, with a bow of genuine respect, and
in a moment I was hastening along the Rue St. Honore.

I understood, of course, the real reasons why De Noyard himself had not
gone back to warn Bussy. Firstly, those in ambush would probably have
noticed his turning back, suspected his purpose, and taken means to
defeat it. Secondly, he was a man from whom Bussy would have accepted
neither warning nor assistance; yet he was not pleased that any brave man
should be taken by surprise, and he gave me credit for a similar feeling.
I could not but like him, despite my hidden suspicion that there was
something between Mlle. d'Arency and him.

I approached the house with the colonnade, feigning carelessness, as if I
were returning to my military quarters in the faubourg. The Porte St.
Honore was still open, although the time set for its closing was past.

Suddenly a mounted figure appeared in the gateway, which, notwithstanding
the dusk, I knew, by the way the rider sat his horse, to be that of
Bussy. I was too late to warn him; I could only give my aid.

Three figures rushed out from beneath the supported upper story of the
house, and made for Bussy with drawn swords. With a loud oath he reined
back his horse on its haunches, and drew his own weapon, with which he
swept aside the two points presented at him from the left. One of the
three assailants had planted himself in front of the horse, to catch its
bridle, but saw himself now threatened by Bussy's sword, which moved with
the swiftness of lightning. This man thereupon fell back, but stood ready
to obstruct the forward movement of the horse, while one of the other
two ran around to Bussy's right, so that the rider might be attacked,
simultaneously on both sides.

This much I had time to see before drawing my sword and running up to
attack the man on the horseman's left, whom I suddenly recognized as De
Quelus. At the same instant I had a vague impression of a fourth
swordsman rushing out from the colonnade, and, before I could attain my
object, I felt a heavy blow at the base of my skull, which seemed
almost to separate my head from my neck, and I fell forward, into
darkness and oblivion.

I suppose that the man, running to intercept me, had found a thrust less
practicable than a blow with the hilt of a dagger.

When I again knew that I was alive, I turned over and sat up. Several
men--bourgeois, vagabonds, menials, and such--were standing around,
looking down at me and talking of the affray. I looked for Bussy and De
Quelus, but did not see either. At a little distance away was another
group, and people walked from that group to mine, and _vice versa._

"Where is M. Bussy?" I asked.

"Oho, this one is all right!" cried one, who might have been a clerk or a
student; "he asks questions. You wish to know about Bussy, eh? You ought
to have seen him gallop from the field without a scratch, while his
enemies pulled themselves together and took to their heels."

"What is that, over there?" I inquired, rising to my feet, and
discovering that I was not badly hurt.

"A dead man who was as much alive as any of us before he ran to help M.
Bussy. It is always the outside man who gets the worst of it, merely for
trying to be useful. There come the soldiers of the watch, after the
fight is over."

I walked over to the other group and knelt by the body on the ground. It
was that of a gentleman whom I had sometimes seen in Bussy's company. He
was indeed dead. The blood was already thickening about the hole that a
sword had made in his doublet.

The next day the whole court was talking of the wrath of the Duke of
Anjou at this assault upon his first gentleman-in-waiting. I was ashamed
of having profited by the influence of De Quelus, who, I found, had not
recognized me on the previous evening. Anjou's rage continued deep. He
showed it by absenting himself from the wedding of Saint-Luc, one of De
Quelus's companions in the King's favor and in the attack on Bussy.
Catherine, knowing how the King's authority was weakened by the squabbles
between him and his brother, took the Duke out to Vincennes for a walk in
the park and a dinner at the château, that his temper might cool. She
persuaded him to show a conciliatory spirit and attend the marriage ball
to be held that night in the great hall of the Louvre. This was more than
she could persuade Marguerite to do, who accompanied mother and son to
Vincennes, sharing the feelings of the Duke for three reasons,--her love
for him, her hatred for her brother, the King, and her friendship for
Bussy d'Amboise. It would have been well had the Duke been, like his
sister, proof against his mother's persuasion. For, when he arrived at
the ball, he was received by the King's gentlemen with derisive looks,
and one of them, smiling insolently in the Duke's piggish, pockmarked
face, said, "Doubtless you have come so late because the night is most
favorable to your appearance."

Suppose yourself in the Duke's place, and imagine his resentment. He
turned white and left the ball. Catherine must have had to use her utmost
powers to keep peace in the royal family the next day.

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