Chapter V: Part 5

The writer whom we have before us is a striking instance of literary tastes being irresistibly borne down by the craving after active life, and, perhaps, a strong impulse of ambition. The present work is sufficient to testify that, however vivid his imagination, his patience is still greater. We know him to be one of those who abhor rest, who court fatigue, to whom the utmost drudgery becomes welcome when invested with the interest of an immediate practical purpose. To one of such a stamp, literature could only prove a sort of apprenticeship to cultivate and develope his mind, not to determine his career. And so it has been. It was in vain that nature placed the pencil in his hand; she could not win him to the repose of the artist; his spirit was already pledged to a life of action, of toil, of hope, of enterprise. All along he has chosen the path of forensic ambition, nor, when most exerting his fancy, has he ever swerved from the goal. May success await him in his laborious course! May he be landed high and dry upon the envied eminences of social life! But--by Jupiter!--if nature had given _us_ the pencil of the artist, we would not have let go our hold, though the seals of office were ten times as large and ten times as brilliant as they are, and were dangled before us within arm's-reach. You might have lifted us softly and gently, and placed us as with a mother's arms, even upon the broad woolsack, we would not have dropped that pencil. No; we would have said to the boisterous prosperities of life--Here is that which will make station indifferent; if to food and raiment men must needs add the charms of variety, here is that which will gild even obscurity with an assured and tranquil pride!

As we have intimated, we do not feel disposed to blame our author that he speaks often of his "glorious," his "noble" profession. The golden hue of sunrise is rightly cast upon the pinnacles and towers of that city the traveller is toiling to reach. What narrow and squalid streets, what blind alleys, what there is of filth and ruin in the great capital of intelligence, he may find out afterwards for himself. There was a time when we, too, were younger than we are, and saw the proud city at the same advantageous distance, when, dazzled by the view of its more conspicuous ornaments, we might have been tempted to make the same exclamations, and to use the same flattering phraseology. At that time, if any one had thrown a shadow of moral blame on the very principle and universal practice of the profession of advocacy, we should have indignantly repelled the accusation, we should have rushed to its defence, perhaps we even did attempt to throw our little shield before its huge and very vulnerable body. But now--when some years have rolled over our heads, and we have learned to think more calmly, if not more wisely--when we have caught a glimpse of the men who fill high places, and stood near enough to discover that they were of earth's common mould--when the actual din of forensic oratory, deafening and monotonous, has rung in our ears, and we have sat and watched the solemn juggle, and the stale hypocrisy with which that legal strife called a trial is conducted--now, if any teacher of ethics should denounce the demoralizing principle of advocacy--the principle we mean of contending for any client, or any cause, that craves fee in hand--we should no longer be eager to thrust ourselves between him and the object of his indignation; we should let his wrath take its course; we should listen with patience, with neutrality, perhaps with secret satisfaction at his attack. What, after all, is to be said in answer to the reproach which every simple-minded man must make--not against this or that member of the profession, because an individual is always considered blameless who only adopts the customs of his country--but against the whole profession, the principle and theory of its action, this arguing for A or B, for Yes or No, as they first come, without the least regard for justice or for truth?

It is well known what Paley has said in its defence. "There are falsehoods," he writes in his chapter on Lies, "which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal; as, 1. when no one is deceived--which is the case in parables, fables, novels, jests, tales to create mirth, ludicrous embellishments of a story, where the declared design of the speaker is not to inform but to divert; compliments in the subscription of a letter, a servant's denying his master, a prisoner pleading not guilty, _and an advocate asserting the justice, or his belief of the justice, of his client's cause_. In such instances no confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed; no promise to speak the truth is violated, because none was given or understood to be given."

Ay, but the advocate _does_ strive to be believed--does labour to deceive. His very object is to gain credit for his assertion, whether contrary or not to his sense of truth. He stands there, it is true, in the character of advocate, subject to whatever suspicion you may attach to that character; but all his ability is employed to overcome that suspicion, and compel you to credit him. "Confidence is not reposed;" not readily it may be; he labours, therefore, the more assiduously to win it. How can he avail himself of the plea here offered for him? How can he place himself in the sane category with the portly merchant who signs himself "your humble servant," and would indeed be strangely surprised if you took him at his word? Or with the obedient valet who denies his master with the customary, "not at home?" No man uses language with a more evident desire to obtain our conviction than the advocate.

There is another so-called _theory_ of advocacy, which we will state in the words of Bishop Warburton. In his _Divine Legation_, vol. i. p. 397, he says, speaking of Cicero--"As an orator, he was an advocate for his client, or, more properly, _personated him_. Here, then, without question, he was to feign and dissimulate his own opinions, and speak those of his client. And though some of those who call themselves casuists, have held it unlawful for an advocate to defend what he thinks an ill cause, yet I apprehend it to be the natural right of every member of society, whether accusing or accused, to speak freely and fully for himself. And if, either by a legal or natural incapacity, this cannot be done _in person_, to have a _proxy_ provided or allowed by the state to do for him what he cannot or may not do for himself. I apprehend that all states have done it, and that every advocate is such a proxy."

This explanation goes far. Of a certainty, every man has a right to approach a court of justice with such plea, or such demand, as the law gives him. For his ultimate aims, for his moral purposes in so doing, he alone is responsible. We do not desire the barrister so to prejudge the cause of the litigant as to decide whether or not he ought, as a moral man, to carry it into a court of justice. Let his plea, or his demand, be laid before the tribunal of his country, and as he cannot, in the complicated state of our jurisprudence, do this for himself, it is right and equitable that there should be professional men whose function it is to do this for him. But it follows not that the professional man is to pledge his own personal convictions in every case he undertakes. _Let him speak in the name of his client_, let him limit himself to the office of interpreter, where his own convictions do not allow him to be the zealous advocate. The state ought to give to every man free access to a court of justice, and to all the armoury of the law; how he uses the weapons he finds there, he must account to God and his own conscience, and the moral judgment of society; but the state is not to give to every rogue the benefit of the apparent convictions in his favour, of a learned and honorable gentleman. If the barrister speaks, and is understood to speak, as from his client, and not from his own conviction, the indiscriminate advocacy of causes which the administration of justice requires, is reconcilable with the manifest claims of morality. But not otherwise. To lend out the zeal of truth to varnish every cause, is what no system of jurisprudence demands, and what no system of ethics can tolerate. Yet this is what is done.

If a conveyancer is instructed to draw a will which appears to him unjust, he must feel some pain in so doing; but it is not a pain of conscience, for it is not his office to compel people to make equitable wills. It is an office which, at the distance he stands from the parties, and with his limited knowledge of their character and mutual relationships, he could not possibly undertake; he would be a mere disturber of the peace of society if he attempted to regulate the morality of all the conveyances and testaments that he drew. It would indeed be a doctrine destructive of all order, and of the very machinery of society, that would, as a general rule, impose upon men of profession, or of trade, the responsibilities which lie, in the first instance, upon the consciences of their clients. A man could not sell a piece of whipcord from his shop, without having an assurance from the customer that he was not buying it to strangle his wife withal. The conveyancer, therefore, quietly pursues his instructions, and draws the will. In the like manner, if a barrister is instructed to plead the statute of limitations to a debt, it is no concern of his if the client is not acting in a conscientious manner in taking advantage of the statute. The law gives him this plea, and it is not for the jurist to debar him the use of it. He presents it, therefore, to the court. But if, not content with pleading the statute of limitations for a client who employs the law to escape from a moral obligation, he labours to convince the jury that, in availing himself of this plea, his client is acting in a very honourable, or at least in no blamable manner; if, by an artful colouring of the facts, or by insinuations against other parties, he contrives to lead the culprit in triumph through the court, then we say that a baseness is committed by the advocate, for which there is no excuse, in the constitution of courts of justice, nor in the subtleties of casuistry.

Those who have expatiated on the duty of the barrister to _do all_ for his client, be that client whom he may, have generally taken care to place before us the cases of political prosecution, where the advocate appears to act a brave and generous part in opposing the government and the legal officers of the crown. By dexterously keeping the small cases in view while they were enlarging on the broad principle of indiscriminate advocacy, they have often contrived to give to this principle itself an air of generosity; as if the barrister were performing a noble self-sacrifice, were devoting himself in a quite heroic manner, by giving himself, head and heart, voice and intelligence, to the first distressed applicant for his aid. It is only by referring to the political nature of the occasion on which it was delivered, that we can account for the following splendid exaggeration of Lord Brougham's upon this subject:--

"An advocate, by the sacred duty which he owes his client, knows, in the discharge of that office, but one person in the world, that client and none other. To save that client by all expedient means--to protect that client at all hazards and costs to all others, and among others to himself--is the highest and most unquestioned of his duties; and he must not regard the alarm, the suffering, the torment, the destruction, which he may bring upon any other. Nay, separating even the duties of a patriot from those of an advocate, and casting them, if need be, to the wind, he must go on, reckless of the consequences, if his fate it should unhappily be to involve his country in confusion for his client's protection."

This piece of eloquent absurdity was delivered on the trial of Queen Caroline, and the speaker was playing the advocate at the time he delivered it. But Lord Brougham would not surely speak or write in the same strain upon other and more ordinary occasions--if, for instance, the client, for whom the country was to be involved in confusion, was a railway company![15]

Every man has something to be said for him in the way of defence or palliation; we have no objection to every man having his advocate in Westminster Hall; but we are persuaded that public opinion is far too indulgent to this "glorious and noble" profession, when it permits its members, speaking as from their own conviction, to sport with truth to any extent that may be serviceable to their clients. A more temperate zeal, which should not overstep what the interest of justice demands, would indeed be less munificently rewarded; but, in every other respect, it would be a clear gain both to the cause of public morality and the administration of the laws.

But that which, perhaps, more frequently calls up a feeling of pain and humiliation in the barrister, is that for which he is not at all responsible; namely, the nature of those _legal_ weapons the employment of which his client has a right to demand of him. The rules of _pleading_ and of _evidence_ have been lately much simplified and improved, and they will, year after year, be still further improved; but they still furnish the willing or the unwilling advocate with abundant obstructions to the fair investigation of truth. Speaking of pleading, Mr Warren has very truly said, in a passage we have already quoted--"It is continually a matter of serious difficulty to refer a particular combination of facts to their appropriate legal category; and, if the wrong one should be selected, substantial justice is sacrificed before arbitrary legal technicality." A glance at these "legal categories" will fully bear out the statement which our author has here so temperately made. Let us open the justly lauded book of Mr Stephen, "On the Principles of Pleading"--a work which every man, lawyer or not, who receives a gratification from clear and logical statements, may take pleasure in perusing. We extract the following account of _personal actions_:--

"Of personal actions, the most common are the following--Debt, covenant, detinue, trespass, trespass on the case, replevin.

"The action of _debt_ lies where a party claims the recovery of a debt, _i. e._ a liquidated or certain sum of money alleged to be due to him.

"The action of _covenant_ lies where a party claims damages for a breach of covenant, _i. e. of a promise under seal_.

"The action of _detinue_ lies where the party claims the specific recovery of goods and chattels, or deeds and writings detained from him.

"The action of _trespass_ lies where a party claims damages for a trespass against him. A trespass is an injury _committed with violence_."

Having described these, the author comes to one which requires to have its history told before it can be rendered intelligible. This is still not unfrequently the case in our law; instead of a definition founded on the nature of things, and growing out of the science itself of jurisprudence, we are presented with a narrative to tell us how the matter came about.

"The action of _trespass on the case_ lies where a party sues for damages for any wrong or cause of complaint to which covenant or trespass will not apply. This action originated in the power given by the statute of Westminster 2, to the clerks of the chancery to frame new writs _in consimili casu_ with writs already known.... Such being the nature of the action, it comprises, of course, many different species. There are two, however, of more frequent use than any other species of trespass on the case, or, perhaps than any other form of action whatever. These are Assumpsit and Trover.

"The action of _assumpsit_ lies where a party claims damages for breach of simple contract, _i. e. a promise not under seal_."

The action of _trover_ differs from _detinue_ inasmuch as the party claims _damages_, not the recovery of the identical goods and chattels. With the action of _replevin_ we will not trouble our readers, to whom we ought, perhaps, to apologise for entering thus far into legal technicalities.

But now, reflect a moment on this classification. A promise under seal must assuredly require a different proof from a promise not under seal; but what end is answered by calling one an action of _covenant_ and the other an action of _assumpsit_? Or what good result can arise from limiting the definition of _debt_ to the claim of a sum certain? Who sees not what a snare may be here laid for the feet of unwary suitors? The names of _trover_, _detinue_, _trespass_, give no information to the defendant; the substantial cause of action is stated in the declaration, and these names are mere useless additions. Yet the right name must be chosen, or it is fatal to the suit. If _trespass_ be adopted instead of _trespass on the case_, the error is fatal; and yet mark how lucid, how intelligible, how satisfactory is the classification designated by these terms of art.

Trespass is the proper form of action when the injury has been committed _with violence_ This looks sufficiently distinct. But then the violence may be either _actual_ or _implied_; and the law will imply violence wherever the injury is _direct_, and the property injured of a _tangible_ nature. In the most stealthy, peaceable entrance upon another man's land, the law implies violence. What, therefore, may or may not be said, in the usual phrase, to be done _vi et armis_, remains to be known, by no means from the nature of the facts themselves, but from arbitrary decisions of courts. To make out a class of actions as those committed with violence, and then to imply violence where in reality there is none, is first to make and then unmake the distinction. And yet, as some distinction is, for the embarrassment of suitors, to be retained, this implication of violence is restricted to cases where the injury is _direct_ and not _consequential_; and what shall be denominated a direct and what a consequential injury, is again a matter of no small difficulty. Moreover, in order to sustain trespass, the property injured must be of a _corporeal_ nature. It would be a sad solecism in the eye of the law to allow a man to bring trespass on account of his _tithes_--this being, according to definition, an _incorporeal_ property, and from its nature, therefore, not subject to violence.

This barbarous nomenclature of actions might be swept away at once with considerable advantage. If the plaintiff "complaining" of the defendant, proceeded at once to a brief statement of his cause of action, this would answer all the purposes of pleading. It was said by the commissioners in the third report on the common law, that an abolition of these distinctions would entail "much uncertainty on the right of action." With utmost deference to the commissioners, this is a very strange assertion. These categories are known only to the lawyers; and surely a student of the law cannot be at a loss to distinguish the substantial ground of action from a mere formulary of pleading. A layman may often imagine he has a right of action where he has none. Did the commissioners mean gravely to assert that these categories, of which he knows nothing--or whether he knows them or not--could enlighten him as to the redress he is entitled to in a court of justice?

It is, however, in the inexhaustible armoury of quibble and objection which the law of _evidence_ supplies him with that the generous advocate must feel the greatest amount of embarrassment and repugnance. It is his office to stand at the door of testimony, and thrust back every witness, and reject every document, he can, upon pleas which, whatever their original ground or design, he very well knows do not impeach the real value of the evidence rejected. But into this topic we must not enter. It is not our present object to write upon the reform of the laws. The subject would lead us much too far.

One general remark only we will venture to make. Neither in nor out of the profession must men yet be impatient with the frequent changes that our laws undergo. Though, in common with our author, we estimate highly a settled state of things, and have to deprecate the rashness of some too hasty legislators, we cannot yet "lay aside the knife." They are very inconvenient these partial changes, but there is no other mode of proceeding. Whilst we are living in the very city which we have to improve, and in great part to rebuild, what else can we do but pull down here and there a street at a time, and reconstruct it on a better plan? It is miserable work this pulling down. One is blinded by dust--one loses one's way; all seems ruin and confusion. But the new street rises--the rubbish is removed--the dust is laid; one finds one's way again, and finds it twice as short as before. It is only by successive changes of this kind that the great city of our jurisprudence can be adapted to the wants of its multiplied and changed inhabitants.

We ought perhaps to mention, that Mr Warren has been discreetly silent on some of the topics to which we have ventured to allude. He has very wisely avoided all questions of casuistry; and we trust that, in our glances on the moral position of the bar, we shall not be thought to have manifested any want of respect for a learned body, the members of which, in their individual character, stand as high in our estimation as those of any body whatever, and which, as a whole, presents a greater array of talent than in any other denomination of men could be met with. We revert once more to Mr Warren's very useful, able, and praiseworthy publication to wish him success, not only in this undertaking, which may be already said to be crowned with success, but in the still greater and more laborious enterprise which he has on foot, and which this specimen of his legal authorship shows him fully competent to achieve.

MARGARET OF VALOIS.

On the eighteenth day of August 1572, a great festival was held in the palace of the Louvre. It was to celebrate the nuptials of Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois.

This alliance between the chief of the Protestant party in France, and the sister of Charles IX. and daughter of Catharine of Medicis, perplexed, and in some degree alarmed, the Catholics, whilst it filled the Huguenots with joy and exultation. The king had declared that he knew and made no difference between Romanist and Calvinist--that all were alike his subjects, and equally beloved by him. He caressed the throng of Huguenot nobles and gentlemen whom the marriage had attracted to the court, was affectionate to his new brother-in-law, friendly with the prince of Conde, almost respectful to the venerable Admiral de Coligny, to whom he proposed to confide the command of an army in a projected war with Spain. The chiefs of the Catholic party were not behind-hand in following the example set them by Charles. Catharine of Medicis was all smiles and affability; the Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III., received graciously the compliments paid him by the Huguenots themselves on his successes at Jarnac and Moncontour, battles which he had won before he was eighteen years old; Henry of Guise, whose reputation as a leader already, at the age of two-and-twenty, almost equalled that of his great father, was courteous and friendly to those whose deadly foe he had so lately been. The Duke of Mayenne and the Admiral, the Guise and the Conde, were seen riding, conversing, and making parties of pleasure together. It was the lion lying down with the lamb.

On the twenty-second of August, four days after the marriage, in which the Huguenots saw a guarantee of the peaceful exercise of their religion, the Admiral de Coligny was passing through the street of St Germain l'Auxerrois, when he was shot at and wounded by a captain of _petardiers_, one Maurevel, who went by the name of _Le Tueur du Roi_, literally, the King's Killer. At midnight on the twenty-fourth of August, the tocsin sounded, and the massacre of St Bartholomew began.

It is at this stirring period of French history, abounding in horrors and bloodshed, and in plots and intrigues, both political and amorous, that M. Alexandre Dumas commences one of his most recently published romances. Beginning with the marriage of Henry and Margaret, he narrates, in his spirited and attractive style, various episodes, real and imaginary, of the great massacre, from the first fury of which, Henry himself, doomed to death by the remorseless Catherine of Medicis, was only saved by his own caution, by the indecision of Charles IX., and the energy of Margaret of Valois. The marriage between the King of France's sister and the King of Navarre, was merely one of _convenance_, agreed to by Henry for the sake of his fellow Protestants, and used by Catherine and Charles as a lure to bring "those of the religion," as they were called, to Paris, there to be slaughtered unsuspecting, and defenceless. Margaret, then scarcely twenty years of age, had already made herself talked of by her intrigues; Henry, who was a few months younger, but who, even at that early period of his life, possessed a large share of the shrewdness and prudence for which his countrymen, the Bearnese, have at all times been noted, was, at the very time of his marriage, deeply in love with the Baroness de Sauve, one of Catharine de Medicis' ladies, by whom he was in his turn beloved. But although little affection existed between the royal pair, the strong links of interest and ambition bound them together; and no sooner were they married than they entered into a treaty of political alliance, to which, for some time, both steadily and truly adhered.

On the night of the St Bartholomew, a Huguenot gentleman, the Count Lerac de la Mole, who has arrived that day at Paris with important letters for the King of Navarre, seeks refuge in the apartments of the latter from the assassins who pursue and have already wounded him. Unacquainted, however, with the Louvre, he mistakes the door, and enters the apartment of the Queen of Navarre, who, seized with pity, and struck also by the youth and elegance of the fugitive, gives him shelter, and herself dresses his wounds, employing in his behalf the surgical skill which she has acquired from the celebrated Ambrose Pare, whose pupil she had been. One of the most furious of La Mole's pursuers is a Piedmontese gentleman, Count Hannibal de Coconnas, who has also arrived that day in the capital, and put up at the same hotel as La Mole. When the latter is rescued by Margaret, Coconnas wanders through Paris, killing all the Huguenots he can find--such, at least, as will defend themselves. In a lonely part of the town he is overpowered by numbers, and is rescued from imminent peril by the Duke of Guise's sister-in-law, the Duchess of Nevers, that golden-haired, emerald-eyed dame, of whom Ronsard sang--

"La Duchesse de Nevers
Aux yeux verts,
Qui sous leur paupiere blonde,
Lancent sur nous plus d'eclairs
Que ne font vingt Jupiters
Dans les airs
Lorsque la tempete gronde."

To cut the story short, La Mole falls violently in love with Margaret, Coconnas does the same with the duchess; and these four personages play important parts in the ensuing narrative, which extends over a space of nearly two years, and into which the author, according to his custom, introduces a vast array of characters, for the most part historical, all spiritedly drawn and well sustained. M. Dumas may, in various respects, be held up as an example to our history spoilers, self-styled writers of historical romance, on this side the Channel. One does not find him profaning public edifices by causing all sorts of absurdities to pass, and of twaddle to be spoken, within their precincts; neither does he make his kings and beggars, high-born dames and private soldiers, use the very same language, all equally tame, colourless, and devoid of character. The spirited and varied dialogue in which his romances abound, illustrates and brings out the qualities and characteristics of his actors, and is not used for the sole purpose of making a chapter out of what would be better told in a page. In many instances, indeed, it would be difficult for him to tell his story, by the barest narrative, in fewer words than he does by pithy and pointed dialogue.

As the sole means of placing his life in comparative safety, Henry abjures the Protestant faith, and remains in a sort of honourable captivity at the court of France, suspected by Charles and detested by Catharine, to whom Rene the Florentine, her astrologer and poisoner, has predicted that the now powerless prince of Navarre shall one day reign over France. Some days have passed, the massacres have nearly ceased, and the body of Admiral de Coligny, discovered amongst a heap of slain, has been suspended to the gibbet at Montfaucon. Charles IX., always greedy of spectacles of blood, proposes to pay a visit to the corpse of his dead enemy, whom had called his father, and affectionately embraced, upon their last meeting previous to the attempted assassination of the admiral by Maurevel, an attempt instigated by Charles himself. We will give the account of this visit in the words of M. Dumas.

It was two in the afternoon, when a long train of cavaliers and ladies, glittering with gold and jewels, appeared in the Rue St Denis, displaying itself in the sun between the sombre lines of houses, like some huge reptile with sparkling scales. Nothing that exists at the present day can give an adequate idea of the splendour of this spectacle. The rich silken costumes, of the most brilliant colours, which were in vogue during the reign of Francis I., had not yet been replaced by the dark and graceless attire that became the fashion in Henry III.'s time. The costume of the reign of Charles IX. was perhaps less rich, but more elegant than that of the preceding epoch.

In the rear, and on either side of this magnificent procession, came the pages, esquires, gentlemen of low degree, dogs and horses, giving the royal train the appearance of a small army. The cavalcade was followed by a vast number of the populace.

That morning, in presence of Catharine and the Duke of Guise, and of Henry of Navarre, Charles the Ninth had spoken, as if it were quite a natural thing, of going to visit the gibbet at Montfaucon, or, in other words, the mutilated body of the admiral, which was suspended from it. Henry's first impulse had been to make an excuse for not joining the party. Catharine was looking out for this, and at the very first word that he uttered expressive of his repugnance, she exchanged a glance and a smile with the Duke of Guise. Henry, whom nothing escaped, caught both smile and glance, underwent them, and hastened to correct his blunder.

"After all," said he, "why should I not go? I am a Catholic, and owe as much to my new religion." Then addressing himself to the king:--"Your majesty may reckon upon me," said he; "I shall always be happy to accompany you wherever you go."

In the whole procession, no one attracted so much curiosity and attention as this king without a kingdom, this Huguenot who had become Catholic. His long and strongly marked features, his somewhat common _tournure_, his familiarity with his inferiors--a familiarity which was to be attributed to the habits of his youth, and which he carried almost too far for a king--caused him to be at once recognised by the spectators, some of whom called out to him--"To mass, Henriot, to mass!"

To which Henry replied.

"I was there yesterday, I have been there to-day, I shall go again to-morrow. _Ventre-saint-gris!_ I think that is enough."

As for Margaret, she was on horseback--so beautiful, so fresh and elegant, that there was a perfect chorus of admiration around her, some few notes of which, however, were addressed to her companion and intimate friend, the Duchess of Nevers, who had just joined her, and whose snow-white steed, as if proud of its lovely burden, tossed its head, and neighed exultingly.

"Well, duchess," said the Queen of Navarre, "have you anything new to tell me?"

"Nothing, madam, I believe," replied Henriette. Then, in a lower tone, she added--"And the Huguenot, what is become of him?"

"He is in safety," replied Margaret. "And your Piedmontese hero? Where is he?"

"He insisted upon being one of the party, and is riding M. de Nevers' charger, a horse as big as an elephant. He is a superb cavalier. I allowed him to come, because I thought that your Huguenot protege would be still confined to his room, and that consequently there could be no risk of their meeting."

"_Ma foi!_" replied Margaret, smiling, "if he were here, I do not think there would be much danger of a single combat. The Huguenot is very handsome, but nothing else--a dove, and not an eagle; he may coo, but he will not bite. After all," added she, with a slight elevation of her shoulders, "we perhaps take him for a Huguenot, whilst he is only a Brahmin, and his religion may forbid his shedding blood. But see there, duchess--there is one of your gentlemen, who will assuredly be ridden over."

"Ah! it is my hero," cried the duchess; "look, look!"

It was Coconnas, who had left his place in the procession in order to get nearer to the Duchess of Nevers; but, at the very moment that he was crossing the sort of boulevard separating the street of St Denis from the faubourg of the same name, a cavalier belonging to the suite of the Duke of Alencon, who had just come up, was run away with by his horse; and, being unable immediately to check the animal, came full tilt against Coconnas. The Piedmontese reeled in his saddle, and his hat fell off. He caught it in his hand, and turned furiously upon the person by whom he had been so rudely, although accidentally, assailed.

"Good heavens!" said Margaret, in a whisper to her friend, "it is Monsieur de la Mole!"

"That pale, handsome young man?" cried the duchess.

"Yes; he who so nearly upset your Piedmontese."

"Oh!" exclaimed the duchess, "something terrible will happen! They recognise each other."

They had done so. Coconnas dropped the bridle of his horse in surprise at meeting with his former acquaintance, whom he fully believed he had killed, or at any rate disabled for a long time to come. As to La Mole, when he recognised Coconnas, a flush of anger overspread his pallid countenance. For a few seconds, the two men remained gazing at each other with looks which made Margaret and the duchess tremble. Then La Mole, glancing around him, and understanding, doubtless, that the place was not a fit one for an explanation, spurred his horse, and rejoined the Duke of Alencon. Coconnas remained for a moment stationary, twisting his mustache till he brought the corner of it nearly into his eye, and then moved onwards.

"Ha!" exclaimed Margaret, with mingled scorn and vexation; "I was not mistaken then. Oh, this time it is too bad!" And she bit her lips in anger.

"He is very handsome," said the duchess, in a tone of commiseration.

Just at this moment the Duke of Alencon took his place behind the king and the queen-mother; so that his gentlemen, in order to follow him, had to pass Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers. As La Mole went by, he removed his hat, bowed low to the queen, and remained bareheaded, waiting till her majesty should honour him with a look. But Margaret turned her head proudly away. La Mole doubtless understood the scornful expression of her features; his pale face became livid, and he grasped his horse's mane as if to save himself from falling.

"Look at him, cruel that you are," said Henriette to the Queen; "he is going to faint."

"Good," said Margaret, with a smile of immense contempt. "Have you no salts to offer him?"

Madame de Nevers was mistaken. La Mole recovered himself, and took his place behind the Duke of Alencon.

The royal party continued to advance, and presently came in sight of the gallows at Montfaucon. The King and Catharine of Medicis were followed by the Dukes of Anjou and Alencon, the King of Navarre, the Duke of Guise, and their gentlemen; then came Margaret, the Duchess of Nevers, and the ladies, composing what was called the Queen's flying squadron; finally, the pages, esquires, lackeys, and the people--in all, ten thousand souls. The guards, who marched in front, placed themselves in a large circle round the enclosure in which stood the gibbet; and on their approach, the ravens that had perched upon the instrument of death flew away with hoarse and dismal croakings. To the principal gallows was hanging a shapeless mass, a blackened corpse, covered with mud and coagulated blood. It was suspended by the feet, for the head was wanting. In place of the latter, the ingenuity of the people had substituted a bundle of straw, with a mask fixed upon it; and in the mouth of the mask some scoffer, acquainted with the admiral's habits, had placed a toothpick.

It was a sad and strange sight to behold all these elegant cavaliers and beautiful women passing, like one of the processions which Goya has painted, under the blackened skeletons and tall grim gibbets. The greater the mirth of the visitors, the more striking was the contrast with the mournful silence and cold insensibility of the corpses which were its object. Many of the party supported with difficulty this horrible spectacle; and Henry of Navarre especially, in spite of his powers of dissimulation and habitual command over himself, was at last unable to bear it longer. He took, as a pretext, the stench emitted by these human remains; and approaching Charles, who, with Catharine of Medicis, had paused before the body of the admiral--

"Sire," said he, "does not your Majesty find that the smell of this poor corpse is too noxious to be longer endured?"

"Ha! think you so, Harry?" cried Charles, whose eyes were sparkling with a ferocious joy.

"Yes, sire."

"Then I am not of your opinion. _The body of a dead enemy always smells well._"

"By my faith! sire," said Monsieur de Tavannes, "your Majesty should have invited Pierre Ronsard to accompany us on this little visit to the admiral; he would have made an impromptu epitaph on old Gaspard."

"That will I make," said Charles. And after a moments reflection, "Listen, gentlemen," said he--

"Ci-git, mais c'est mal entendu,
Pour lui le mot est trop honnete,
Ici l'amiral est pendu,
Par les pieds, a faute de tete."

"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Catholic gentlemen with one voice, whilst the converted Huguenots there present maintained a gloomy silence. As to Henry, he was talking to Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers, and pretended not to hear.

"Come, sir," said Catharine, who, in spite of the perfumes with which she was covered, began to have enough of this tainted atmosphere--"Come, sir," said she to the king, "the best of friends must part. Let us bid adieu to the admiral, and return to Paris."

And bowing her head ironically to the corpse by way of a farewell, she turned her horse and regained the road, whilst her suite filed past the body of Coligny. The crowd followed the cavalcade, and ten minutes after the king's departure, no one remained near the mutilated body of the admiral.

When we say no one, we make a mistake. A gentleman, mounted on a black horse, and who, probably, during the stay of the king, had been unable to contemplate the disfigured corpse sufficiently at his ease, lingered behind, and was amusing himself by examining, in all their details, the chains, irons, stone pillars, in short, the whole paraphernalia of the gibbet, which, no doubt, appeared to him, who had been but a few days at Paris, and was not aware of the perfection to which all things are brought in the metropolis, a paragon of hideous ingenuity. This person was our friend Coconnas. A woman's quick eye had in vain sought him through the ranks of the cavalcade. Monsieur de Coconnas remained in admiration before the masterpiece of Enguerrand de Marigny.

But the woman in question was not the only person who sought Coconnas. A cavalier, remarkable for his white satin doublet, and the elegance of his plume, after looking before him, and on either side, had at last looked back and perceived the tall form of the Piedmontese, and the gigantic profile of his horse, sharply defined against the evening sky, now reddened by the last rays of the setting sun. Then the gentleman in the white satin doublet left the road which the cavalcade was following, struck into a side path, and describing a curve, returned towards the gibbet. He had scarcely done this, when the Duchess of Nevers approached the Queen of Navarre, and said--

"We were mistaken, Margaret, for the Piedmontese has remained behind, and Monsieur de la Mole has followed him."

"_Mordi!_" cried Margaret laughing, "is it so? I confess that I shall not be sorry to have to alter my opinion."

She then looked round, and saw La Mole returning towards the gallows.

It was now the turn of the two princesses to quit the cavalcade. The moment was favourable for so doing, for they were just crossing a road bordered by high hedges, by following which they would get to within thirty paces of the gibbet. Madame de Nevers said a word to the captain of her guards, Margaret made a sign to Gillonne, her tirewoman and confidant; and these four persons took the cross road, and hastened to place themselves in ambuscade behind some bushes near the spot they were desirous of observing. There they dismounted, and the captain held the horses, whilst the three ladies found a pleasant seat upon the close fresh turf, with which the place was overgrown. An opening in the bushes enabled them to observe the smallest details of what was passing.

La Mole had completed his circuit, and, walking up behind Coconnas, he stretched out his hand and touched him on the shoulder. The Piedmontese turned his head.

"Oh!" said he, "it was no dream then. You are still alive?"

"Yes, sir," replied La Mole, "I am still alive. It is not your fault, but such is the case."

"_Mordieu!_ I recognise you perfectly," said Coconnas, "in spite of your pale cheeks. You were redder than that the last time I saw you."

"And I recognise you also," said La Mole, "in spite of that yellow cut across your face. You were paler than you are now when I gave it to you."

Coconnas bit his lips, but continued in the same ironical tone.

"It is curious, is it not, Monsieur de la Mole, particularly for a Huguenot, to see the admiral hung up to that iron hook?"

"Count," said La Mole with a bow, "I am no longer a Huguenot, I have the honour to be a Catholic."

"Bah!" cried Coconnas, bursting into a laugh, "You are converted? How very sly of you!"

"Sir," replied La Mole, with the same serious politeness, "I made a vow to become a Catholic if I escaped the massacre."

"It was a very prudent vow," returned the Piedmontese, "and I congratulate you on it; is it the only one you made?"

"No, sir, I made one other," replied La Mole, patting his horse with his usual deliberate grace.

"And it was----" enquired Coconnas.

"To hang you up yonder, to that little hook which seems to be waiting for you, just below Monsieur de Coligny."

"What!" cried Coconnas, "all alive, just as I am?"

"No, sir; after passing my sword through your body."

Coconnas became purple, and his grey eye flashed fire.

"Really," said he, with a sneer; "to yonder rail? You are not quite tall enough for that, my little gentleman."

"Then I will get upon your horse," replied La Mole. "Ah! you think, my dear M. Hannibal de Coconnas, that you may assassinate people with impunity under the loyal and honourable pretext of being a hundred to one. Not so. A day comes when every man finds his man, and for you that day is come now. I am almost tempted to break your ugly head with a pistol shot; but pshaw! I should perhaps miss you, for my hand still shakes with the wounds you so treacherously gave me.

"My ugly head!" roared Coconnas, throwing himself off his horse. "On foot! Monsieur le Compte--out with your blade!" And he drew his sword.

"I think your Huguenot called him ugly," whispered the Duchess of Nevers to Margaret. "Do you find him so?"

"He is charming," cried Margaret laughing, "and Monsieur de la Mole's anger renders him unjust. But hush! let us observe them."

La Mole got off his horse with as much deliberation as Coconnas had shown haste, drew his sword, and put himself on guard.

"Ah!" cried he, as he extended his arm.

"Oh!" exclaimed Coconnas, as he stretched out his.

Both, it will be remembered, were wounded in the shoulder, and a sudden movement still caused them acute suffering. A stifled laugh was audible from behind the trees. The princesses had been unable to restrain it when they saw the two champions rubbing their shoulders and grimacing with pain. The laughed reached the ears of La Mole and Coconnas, who had been hitherto unaware of the presence of witnesses, but who now, on looking round, perceived the ladies. La Mole again put himself on guard, steady as an automaton, and Coconnas, as their swords crossed, uttered an energetic _Mordieu!_

"_Ah ca!_" exclaimed Margaret, "they are in earnest, and will kill one another if we do not prevent it. This is going too far. Stop, gentlemen, I entreat you."

"Let them go on," said Henriette, who, having already seen Coconnas make head successfully against three antagonists at once, trusted that he would have at least as easy a bargain of La Mole.

At the first clash of the steel, the combatants became silent. They were neither of them confident in their strength, and, at each pass or parry, their imperfectly healed wounds caused them sharp pain. Nevertheless, with fixed and ardent eye, his lips slightly parted, his teeth firmly-set, La Mole advanced with short steady steps upon his adversary; who, perceiving that he had to do with a master of fence, retreated--gradually, it is true, but still retreated. In this manner they reached the edge of the moat, or dry ditch, on the other side of which the spectators had stationed themselves. There, as if he had only retired with the view of getting nearer to the duchess, Coconnas stopped, and made a rapid thrust. At the same instant a sanguine spot, which grew each second larger, appeared upon the white satin of La Mole's doublet.

"Courage!" cried the Duchess of Nevers.

"Poor La Mole!" exclaimed Margaret, with a cry of sorrow.

La Mole heard the exclamation, threw one expressive glance to the queen, and making a skilful feint, followed it up by a pass of lightning swiftness. This time both the women shrieked. The point of La Mole's rapier had appeared, crimson with blood, behind the back of Coconnas.

Neither of the combatants fell; they remained on their feet, staring at each other, each of them feeling that at the first movement he made he should lose his balance. At last the Piedmontese, more dangerously wounded than his antagonist, and feeling that his strength was ebbing away with his blood, threw himself forward upon La Mole, and seized hill with one arm, whilst with the other hand he felt for his dagger. La Mole mustered all his remaining strength, raised his hand, and struck Coconnas on the forehead with his sword-hilt. Coconnas fell, but in falling he dragged his adversary after him, and both rolled into the ditch. Then Margaret and the Duchess of Nevers, seeing that although, apparently dying, they still sought to finish each other, sprang forward, preceded by the captain of the guards. But before they reached the wounded men, the eyes of the latter closed, their grasp was loosened, and, letting fall their weapons, they stretched themselves out stiff and convulsed. A pool of blood had already formed itself around them.

"Oh! brave, brave La Mole!" exclaimed Margaret, unable to repress her admiration. "How can I forgive myself for having suspected you?" And her eyes filled with tears.

"Alas! alas!" cried the duchess, sobbing violently. "Say, madam, did you ever see such intrepid champions?"

"_Tudieu!_--What hard knocks!" exclaimed the captain, trying to stanch the blood that flowed from the wounds. "Hola! you who are coming, come more quickly."

A man, seated on the front of a sort of cart painted of a red colour, was seen slowly approaching.

"Hola!" repeated the captain, "will you come, then, when you are called? Do you not see that these gentlemen are in want of assistance?"

The man in the cart, whose appearance was in the highest degree coarse and repulsive, stopped his horse, got down, and stepped over the two bodies.

"These are pretty wounds," said he, "but I make better ones."

"Who, then, are you?" said Margaret, experiencing, in spite of herself, a vague and unconquerable sensation of terror.

"Madam," replied the man, bowing to the ground, "I an Maitre Caboche, executioner of the city of Paris; and I am come to suspend to this gibbet some companions for the admiral."

"And I am the Queen of Navarre; throw out your dead bodies, place our horses' clothes in your cart, and bring these two gentlemen carefully to the Louvre."