Chapter XIII: Part II: The Secrets of the Ruggieri (2)

“_O coglione_! you pretend to be a soldier, and you fear death! Every business has its duties, and we have ours in making our fortune. By attaching ourselves to kings, the source of all temporal power which protects, elevates, and enriches families, we are forced to give them as devoted a love as that which burns in the hearts of martyrs toward heaven. We must suffer in their cause; when they sacrifice us to the interests of their throne we may perish, for we die as much for ourselves as for them, but our name and our families perish not. _Ecco_!”

“You are right as to yourself, Albert; for they have given you the ancient title and duchy of de Retz.”

“Now listen to me,” replied his brother. “The queen hopes much from the cleverness of the Ruggieri; she expects them to bring the king once more under her control. When Charles refused to use Rene’s perfumes any longer the wary woman knew at once on whom his suspicions really rested. But who can tell the schemes that are in his mind? Perhaps he is only hesitating as to what fate he shall give his mother; he hates her, you know. He said a few words about it to his wife; she repeated them to Madame de Fiesque, and Madame de Fiesque told the queen-mother. Since then the king has kept away from his wife.”

“The time has come,” said Charles de Gondi.

“To do what?” asked the marechal.

“To lay hold of the king’s mind,” replied the Grand-master, who, if he was not so much in the queen’s confidence as his brother, was by no means less clear-sighted.

“Charles, I have opened a great career to you,” said his brother gravely. “If you wish to be a duke also, be, as I am, the accomplice and cat’s-paw of our mistress; she is the strongest here, and she will continue in power. Madame de Sauves is on her side, and the king of Navarre and the Duc d’Alencon are still for Madame de Sauves. Catherine holds the pair in a leash under Charles IX., and she will hold them in future under Henri III. God grant that Henri may not prove ungrateful.”

“How so?”

“His mother is doing too much for him.”

“Hush! what noise is that I hear in the rue Saint-Honore?” cried the Grand-master. “Listen! there is some one at Rene’s door! Don’t you hear the footsteps of many men. Can they have arrested the Ruggieri?”

“Ah, _diavolo_! this is prudence indeed. The king has not shown his usual impetuosity. But where will they imprison them? Let us go down into the street and see.”

The two brothers reached the corner of the rue de l’Autruche just as the king was entering the house of his mistress, Marie Touchet. By the light of the torches which the concierge carried, they distinguished Tavannes and the two Ruggieri.

“Hey, Tavannes!” cried the grand-master, running after the king’s companion, who had turned and was making his way back to the Louvre, “What happened to you?”

“We fell into a nest of sorcerers and arrested two, compatriots of yours, who may perhaps be able to explain to the minds of French gentlemen how you, who are not Frenchmen, have managed to lay hands on two of the chief offices of the Crown,” replied Tavannes, half jesting, half in earnest.

“But the king?” inquired the Grand-master, who cared little for Tavanne’s enmity.

“He stays with his mistress.”

“We reached our present distinction through an absolute devotion to our masters,--a noble course, my dear Tavannes, which I see that you also have adopted,” replied Albert de Gondi.

The three courtiers walked on in silence. At the moment when they parted, on meeting their servants who then escorted them, two men glided swiftly along the walls of the rue de l’Autruche. These men were the king and the Comte de Solern, who soon reached the banks of the Seine, at a point where a boat and two rowers, carefully selected by de Solern, awaited them. In a very few moments they reached the other shore.

“My mother has not gone to bed,” cried the king. “She will see us; we chose a bad place for the interview.”

“She will think it a duel,” replied Solern; “and she cannot possibly distinguish who we are at this distance.”

“Well, let her see me!” exclaimed Charles IX. “I am resolved now!”

The king and his confidant sprang ashore and walked quickly in the direction of the Pre-aux-Clercs. When they reached it the Comte de Solern, preceding the king, met a man who was evidently on the watch, and with whom he exchanged a few words; the man then retired to a distance. Presently two other men, who seemed to be princes by the marks of respect which the first man paid to them, left the place where they were evidently hiding behind the broken fence of a field, and approached the king, to whom they bent the knee. But Charles IX. raised them before they touched the ground, saying:--

“No ceremony, we are all gentlemen here.”

A venerable old man, who might have been taken for the Chancelier de l’Hopital, had the latter not died in the preceding year, now joined the three gentlemen, all four walking rapidly so as to reach a spot where their conference could not be overheard by their attendants. The Comte de Solern followed at a slight distance to keep watch over the king. That faithful servant was filled with a distrust not shared by Charles IX., a man to whom life was now a burden. He was the only person on the king’s side who witnessed this mysterious conference, which presently became animated.

“Sire,” said one of the new-comers, “the Connetable de Montmorency, the closest friend of the king your father, agreed with the Marechal de Saint-Andre in declaring that Madame Catherine ought to be sewn up in a sack and flung into the river. If that had been done then, many worthy persons would still be alive.”

“I have enough executions on my conscience, monsieur,” replied the king.

“But, sire,” said the youngest of the four personages, “if you merely banish her, from the depths of her exile Queen Catherine will continue to stir up strife, and to find auxiliaries. We have everything to fear from the Guises, who, for the last nine years, have schemed for a vast Catholic alliance, in the secret of which your Majesty is not included; and it threatens your throne. This alliance was invented by Spain, which will never renounce its project of destroying the boundary of the Pyrenees. Sire, Calvinism will save France by setting up a moral barrier between her and a nation which covets the empire of the world. If the queen-mother is exiled, she will turn for help to Spain and to the Guises.”

“Gentlemen,” said the king, “know this, if by your help peace without distrust is once established, I will take upon myself the duty of making all subjects tremble. _Tete-Dieu_! it is time indeed for royalty to assert itself. My mother is right in that, at any rate. You ought to know that it is to your interest was well as mine, for your hands, your fortunes depend upon our throne. If religion is overthrown, the hands you allow to do it will be laid next upon the throne and then upon you. I no longer care to fight ideas with weapons that cannot touch them. Let us see now if Protestantism will make progress when left to itself; above all, I would like to see with whom and what the spirit of that faction will wrestle. The admiral, God rest his soul! was not my enemy; he swore to me to restrain the revolt within spiritual limits, and to leave the ruling of the kingdom to the monarch, his master, with submissive subjects. Gentlemen, if the matter be still within your power, set that example now; help your sovereign to put down a spirit of rebellion which takes tranquillity from each and all of us. War is depriving us of revenue; it is ruining the kingdom. I am weary of these constant troubles; so weary, that if it is absolutely necessary I will sacrifice my mother. Nay, I will go farther; I will keep an equal number of Protestants and Catholics about me, and I will hold the axe of Louis XI. above their heads to force them to be on good terms. If the Messieurs de Guise plot a Holy Alliance to attack our crown, the executioner shall begin with their heads. I see the miseries of my people, and I will make short work of the great lords who care little for consciences,--let them hold what opinions they like; what I want in future is submissive subjects, who will work, according to my will, for the prosperity of the State. Gentlemen, I give you ten days to negotiate with your friends, to break off your plots, and to return to me who will be your father. If you refuse you will see great changes. I shall use the mass of the people, who will rise at my voice against the lords. I will make myself a king who pacificates his kingdom by striking down those who are more powerful even than you, and who dare defy him. If the troops fail me, I have my brother of Spain, on whom I shall call to defend our menaced thrones, and if I lack a minister to carry out my will, he can lend me the Duke of Alba.”

“But in that case, sire, we should have Germans to oppose to your Spaniards,” said one of his hearers.

“Cousin,” replied Charles IX., coldly, “my wife’s name is Elizabeth of Austria; support might fail you on the German side. But, for Heaven’s sake, let us fight, if fight we must, alone, without the help of foreigners. You are the object of my mother’s hatred, and you stand near enough to me to be my second in the duel I am about to fight with her; well then, listen to what I now say. You seem to me so worthy of confidence that I offer you the post of _connetable_; _you_ will not betray me like the other.”

The prince to whom Charles IX. had addressed himself, struck his hand into that of the king, exclaiming:

“_Ventre-saint-gris_! brother; this is enough to make me forget many wrongs. But, sire, the head cannot march without the tail, and ours is a long tail to drag. Give me more than ten days; we want at least a month to make our friends hear reason. At the end of that time we shall be masters.”

“A month, so be it! My only negotiator will be Villeroy; trust no one else, no matter what is said to you.”

“One month,” echoed the other seigneurs, “that is sufficient.”

“Gentlemen, we are five,” said the king,--“five men of honor. If any betrayal takes place, we shall know on whom to avenge it.”

The three strangers kissed the hand of Charles IX. and took leave of him with every mark of the utmost respect. As the king recrossed the Seine, four o’clock was ringing from the clock-tower of the Louvre. Lights were on in the queen-mother’s room; she had not yet gone to bed.

“My mother is still on the watch,” said Charles to the Comte de Solern.

“She has her forge as you have yours,” remarked the German.

“Dear count, what do you think of a king who is reduced to become a conspirator?” said Charles IX., bitterly, after a pause.

“I think, sire, that if you would allow me to fling that woman into the river, as your young cousin said, France would soon be at peace.”

“What! a parricide in addition to the Saint-Bartholomew, count?” cried the king. “No, no! I will exile her. Once fallen, my mother will no longer have either servants or partisans.”

“Well, then, sire,” replied the Comte de Solern, “give me the order to arrest her at once and take her out of the kingdom; for to-morrow she will have forced you to change your mind.”

“Come to my forge,” said the king, “no one can overhear us there; besides, I don’t want my mother to suspect the capture of the Ruggieri. If she knows I am in my work-shop she’ll suppose nothing, and we can consult about the proper measures for her arrest.”

As the king entered a lower room of the palace, which he used for a workshop, he called his companion’s attention to the forge and his implements with a laugh.

“I don’t believe,” he said, “among all the kings that France will ever have, there’ll be another to take pleasure in such work as that. But when I am really king, I’ll forge no swords; they shall all go back into their scabbards.”

“Sire,” said the Comte de Solern, “the fatigues of tennis and hunting, your toil at this forge, and--if I may say it--love, are chariots which the devil is offering you to get the faster to Saint-Denis.”

“Solern,” said the king, in a piteous tone, “if you knew the fire they have put into my soul and body! nothing can quench it. Are you sure of the men who are guarding the Ruggieri?”

“As sure as of myself.”

“Very good; then, during this coming day I shall take my own course. Think of the proper means of making the arrest, and I will give you my final orders by five o’clock at Madame de Belleville’s.”

As the first rays of dawn were struggling with the lights of the workshop, Charles IX., left alone by the departure of the Comte de Solern, heard the door of the apartment turn on its hinges, and saw his mother standing within it in the dim light like a phantom. Though very nervous and impressible, the king did not quiver, albeit, under the circumstances in which he then stood, this apparition had a certain air of mystery and horror.

“Monsieur,” she said, “you are killing yourself.”

“I am fulfilling my horoscope,” he replied with a bitter smile. “But you, madame, you appear to be as early as I.”

“We have both been up all night, monsieur; but with very different intentions. While you have been conferring with your worst enemies in the open fields, concealing your acts from your mother, assisted by Tavannes and the Gondis, with whom you have been scouring the town, I have been reading despatches which contained the proofs of a terrible conspiracy in which your brother, the Duc d’Alencon, your brother-in-law, the king of Navarre, the Prince de Conde, and half the nobles of your kingdom are taking part. Their purpose is nothing less than to take the crown from your head and seize your person. Those gentlemen have already fifty thousand good troops behind them.”

“Bah!” exclaimed the king, incredulously.

“Your brother has turned Huguenot,” she continued.

“My brother! gone over to the Huguenots!” cried Charles, brandishing the piece of iron which he held in his hand.

“Yes; the Duc d’Alencon, Huguenot at heart, will soon be one before the eyes of the world. Your sister, the queen of Navarre, has almost ceased to love you; she cares more for the Duc d’Alencon; she cares of Bussy; and she loves that little La Mole.”

“What a heart!” exclaimed the king.

“That little La Mole,” went on the queen, “wishes to make himself a great man by giving France a king of his own stripe. He is promised, they say, the place of connetable.”

“Curse that Margot!” cried the king. “This is what comes of her marriage with a heretic.”

“Heretic or not is of no consequence; the trouble is that, in spite of my advice, you have brought the head of the younger branch too near the throne by that marriage, and Henri’s purpose is now to embroil you with the rest and make you kill one another. The house of Bourbon is the enemy of the house of Valois; remember that, monsieur. All younger branches should be kept in a state of poverty, for they are born conspirators. It is sheer folly to give them arms when they have none, or to leave them in possession of arms when they seize them. Let every younger son be made incapable of doing harm; that is the law of Crowns; the Sultans of Asia follow it. The proofs of this conspiracy are in my room upstairs, where I asked you to follow me last evening, when you bade me good-night; but instead of doing so, it seems you had other plans. I therefore waited for you. If we do not take the proper measures immediately you will meet the fate of Charles the Simple within a month.”

“A month!” exclaimed the king, thunderstruck at the coincidence of that period with the delay asked for by the princes themselves. “‘In a month we shall be masters,’” he added to himself, quoting their words. “Madame,” he said aloud, “what are your proofs?”

“They are unanswerable, monsieur; they come from my daughter Marguerite. Alarmed herself at the possibilities of such a combination, her love for the throne of the Valois has proved stronger, this time, than all her other loves. She asks, as the price of her revelations that nothing shall be done to La Mole; but the scoundrel seems to me a dangerous villain whom we had better be rid of, as well as the Comte de Coconnas, your brother d’Alencon’s right hand. As for the Prince de Conde, he consents to everything, provided I am thrown into the sea; perhaps that is the wedding present he gives me in return for the pretty wife I gave him! All this is a serious matter, monsieur. You talk of horoscopes! I know of the prediction which gives the throne of the Valois to the Bourbons, and if we do not take care it will be fulfilled. Do not be angry with your sister; she has behaved well in this affair. My son,” continued the queen, after a pause, giving a tone of tenderness to her words, “evil persons on the side of the Guises are trying to sow dissensions between you and me; and yet we are the only ones in the kingdom whose interests are absolutely identical. You blame me, I know, for the Saint-Bartholomew; you accuse me of having forced you into it. Catholicism, monsieur, must be the bond between France, Spain, and Italy, three countries which can, by skilful management, secretly planned, be united in course of time, under the house of Valois. Do not deprive yourself of such chances by loosing the cord which binds the three kingdoms in the bonds of a common faith. Why should not the Valois and the Medici carry out for their own glory the scheme of Charles the Fifth, whose head failed him? Let us fling off that race of Jeanne la Folle. The Medici, masters of Florence and of Rome, will force Italy to support your interests; they will guarantee you advantages by treaties of commerce and alliance which shall recognize your fiefs in Piedmont, the Milanais, and Naples, where you have rights. These, monsieur, are the reasons of the war to the death which we make against the Huguenots. Why do you force me to repeat these things? Charlemagne was wrong in advancing toward the north. France is a body whose heart is on the Gulf of Lyons, and its two arms over Spain and Italy. Therefore, she must rule the Mediterranean, that basket into which are poured all the riches of the Orient, now turned to the profit of those seigneurs of Venice, in the very teeth of Philip II. If the friendship of the Medici and your rights justify you in hoping for Italy, force, alliances, or a possible inheritance may give you Spain. Warn the house of Austria as to this,--that ambitious house to which the Guelphs sold Italy, and which is even now hankering after Spain. Though your wife is of that house, humble it! Clasp it so closely that you will smother it! _There_ are the enemies of your kingdom; thence comes help to the Reformers. Do not listen to those who find their profit in causing us to disagree, and who torment your life by making you believe I am your secret enemy. Have _I_ prevented you from having heirs? Why has your mistress given you a son, and your wife a daughter? Why have you not to-day three legitimate heirs to root out the hopes of these seditious persons? Is it I, monsieur, who am responsible for such failures? If you had an heir, would the Duc d’Alencon be now conspiring?”

As she ended these words, Catherine fixed upon her son the magnetic glance of a bird of prey upon its victim. The daughter of the Medici became magnificent; her real self shone upon her face, which, like that of a gambler over the green table, glittered with vast cupidities. Charles IX. saw no longer the mother of one man, but (as was said of her) the mother of armies and of empires,--_mater castrorum_. Catherine had now spread wide the wings of her genius, and boldly flown to the heights of the Medici and Valois policy, tracing once more the mighty plans which terrified in earlier days her husband Henri II., and which, transmitted by the genius of the Medici to Richelieu, remain in writing among the papers of the house of Bourbon. But Charles IX., hearing the unusual persuasions his mother was using, thought that there must be some necessity for them, and he began to ask himself what could be her motive. He dropped his eyes; he hesitated; his distrust was not lessened by her studied phrases. Catherine was amazed at the depths of suspicion she now beheld in her son’s heart.

“Well, monsieur,” she said, “do you not understand me? What are we, you and I, in comparison with the eternity of royal crowns? Do you suppose me to have other designs than those that ought to actuate all royal persons who inhabit the sphere where empires are ruled?”

“Madame, I will follow you to your cabinet; we must act--”

“Act!” cried Catherine; “let our enemies alone; let _them_ act; take them red-handed, and law and justice will deliver you from their assaults. For God’s sake, monsieur, show them good-will.”

The queen withdrew; the king remained alone for a few moments, for he was utterly overwhelmed.

“On which side is the trap?” thought he. “Which of the two--she or they--deceive me? What is my best policy? _Deus, discerne causam meam_!” he muttered with tears in his eyes. “Life is a burden to me! I prefer death, natural or violent, to these perpetual torments!” he cried presently, bringing down his hammer upon the anvil with such force that the vaults of the palace trembled.

“My God!” he said, as he went outside and looked up at the sky, “thou for whose holy religion I struggle, give me the light of thy countenance that I may penetrate the secrets of my mother’s heart while I question the Ruggieri.”

III. MARIE TOUCHET

The little house of Madame de Belleville, where Charles IX. had deposited his prisoners, was the last but one in the rue de l’Autruche on the side of the rue Saint-Honore. The street gate, flanked by two little brick pavilions, seemed very simple in those days, when gates and their accessories were so elaborately treated. It had two pilasters of stone cut in facets, and the coping represented a reclining woman holding a cornucopia. The gate itself, closed by enormous locks, had a wicket through which to examine those who asked admittance. In each pavilion lived a porter; for the king’s extremely capricious pleasure required a porter by day and by night. The house had a little courtyard, paved like those of Venice. At this period, before carriages were invented, ladies went about on horseback, or in litters, so that courtyards could be made magnificent without fear of injury from horses or carriages. This fact is always to be remembered as an explanation of the narrowness of streets, the small size of courtyards, and certain other details of the private dwellings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The house, of one story only above the ground-floor, was capped by a sculptured frieze, above which rose a roof with four sides, the peak being flattened to form a platform. Dormer windows were cut in this roof, with casings and pediments which the chisel of some great artist had covered with arabesques and dentils; each of the three windows on the main floor were equally beautiful in stone embroidery, which the brick of the walls showed off to great advantage. On the ground-floor, a double portico, very delicately decorated, led to the entrance door, which was covered with bosses cut with facets in the Venetian manner,--a style of decoration which was further carried on round the windows placed to right and left of the door.

A garden, carefully laid out in the fashion of the times and filled with choice flowers, occupied a space behind the house equal to that of the courtyard in front. A grape-vine draped its walls. In the centre of a grass plot rose a silver fir-tree. The flower-borders were separated from the grass by meandering paths which led to an arbor of clipped yews at the farther end of the little garden. The walls were covered with a mosaic of variously colored pebbles, coarse in design, it is true, but pleasing to the eye from the harmony of its tints with those of the flower-beds. The house had a carved balcony on the garden side, above the door, and also on the front toward the courtyard, and around the middle windows. On both sides of the house the ornamentation of the principal window, which projected some feet from the wall, rose to the frieze; so that it formed a little pavilion, hung there like a lantern. The casings of the other windows were inlaid on the stone with precious marbles.

In spite of the exquisite taste displayed in the little house, there was an air of melancholy about it. It was darkened by the buildings that surrounded it and by the roofs of the hotel d’Alencon which threw a heavy shadow over both court and garden; moreover, a deep silence reigned there. But this silence, these half-lights, this solitude, soothed a royal soul, which could there surrender itself to a single emotion, as in a cloister where men pray, or in some sheltered home wherein they love.

It is easy now to imagine the interior charm and choiceness of this haven, the sole spot in his kingdom where this dying Valois could pour out his soul, reveal his sufferings, exercise his taste for art, and give himself up to the poesy he loved,--pleasures denied him by the cares of a cruel royalty. Here, alone, were his great soul and his high intrinsic worth appreciated; here he could give himself up, for a few brief months, the last of his life, to the joys of fatherhood,--pleasures into which he flung himself with the frenzy that a sense of his coming and dreadful death impressed on all his actions.

In the afternoon of the day succeeding the night-scene we have just described, Marie Touchet was finishing her toilet in the oratory, which was the boudoir of those days. She was arranging the long curls of her beautiful black hair, blending them with the velvet of a new coif, and gazing intently into her mirror.

“It is nearly four o’clock; that interminable council must surely be over,” she thought to herself. “Jacob has returned from the Louvre; he says that everybody he saw was excited about the number of the councillors summoned and the length of the session. What can have happened? Is it some misfortune? Good God! surely _he_ knows how suspense wears out the soul! Perhaps he has gone a-hunting? If he is happy and amused, it is all right. When I see him gay, I forget all I have suffered.”

She drew her hands round her slender waist as if to smooth some trifling wrinkle in her gown, turning sideways to see if its folds fell properly, and as she did so, she caught sight of the king on the couch behind her. The carpet had so muffled the sound of his steps that he had slipped in softly without being heard.

“You frightened me!” she said, with a cry of surprise, which was quickly repressed.

“Were you thinking of me?” said the king.

“When do I not think of you?” she answered, sitting down beside him.

She took off his cap and cloak, passing her hands through his hair as though she combed it with her fingers. Charles let her do as she pleased, but made no answer. Surprised at this, Marie knelt down to study the pale face of her royal master, and then saw the signs of a dreadful weariness and a more consummate melancholy than any she had yet consoled. She repressed her tears and kept silence, that she might not irritate by mistaken words the sorrow which, as yet, she did not understand. In this she did as tender women do under like circumstances. She kissed that forehead, seamed with untimely wrinkles, and those livid cheeks, trying to convey to the worn-out soul the freshness of hers,--pouring her spirit into the sweet caresses which met with no response. Presently she raised her head to the level of the king’s, clasping him softly in her arms; then she lay still, her face hidden on that suffering breast, watching for the opportune moment to question his dejected mind.

“My Charlot,” she said at last, “will you not tell your poor, distressed Marie the troubles that cloud that precious brow, and whiten those beautiful red lips?”

“Except Charlemagne,” he said in a hollow voice, “all the kings of France named Charles have ended miserably.”

“Pooh!” she said, “look at Charles VIII.”

“That poor prince!” exclaimed the king. “In the flower of his age he struck his head against a low door at the chateau of Amboise, which he was having decorated, and died in horrible agony. It was his death which gave the crown to our family.”

“Charles VII. reconquered his kingdom.”

“Darling, he died” (the king lowered his voice) “of hunger; for he feared being poisoned by the dauphin, who had already caused the death of his beautiful Agnes. The father feared his son; to-day the son dreads his mother!”

“Why drag up the past?” she said hastily, remembering the dreadful life of Charles VI.

“Ah! sweetest, kings have no need to go to sorcerers to discover their coming fate; they need only turn to history. I am at this moment endeavoring to escape the fate of Charles the Simple, who was robbed of his crown, and died in prison after seven years’ captivity.”

“Charles V. conquered the English,” she cried triumphantly.

“No, not he, but du Guesclin. He himself, poisoned by Charles de Navarre, dragged out a wretched existence.”

“Well, Charles IV., then?”

“He married three times to obtain an heir, in spite of the masculine beauty of the children of Philippe le Bel. The first house of Valois ended with him, and the second is about to end in the same way. The queen has given me only a daughter, and I shall die without leaving her pregnant; for a long minority would be the greatest curse I could bequeath to the kingdom. Besides, if I had a son, would he live? The name of Charles is fatal; Charlemagne exhausted the luck of it. If I left a son I would tremble at the thought that he would be Charles X.”

“Who is it that wants to seize your crown?”

“My brother d’Alencon conspires against it. Enemies are all about me.”

“Monsieur,” said Marie, with a charming little pout, “do tell me something gayer.”

“Ah! my little jewel, my treasure, don’t call me ‘monsieur,’ even in jest; you remind me of my mother, who stabs me incessantly with that title, by which she seems to snatch away my crown. She says ‘my son’ to the Duc d’Anjou--I mean the king of Poland.”

“Sire,” exclaimed Marie, clasping her hands as though she were praying, “there is a kingdom where you are worshipped. Your Majesty fills it with his glory, his power; and there the word ‘monsieur,’ means ‘my beloved lord.’”

She unclasped her hands, and with a pretty gesture pointed to her heart. The words were so _musiques_ (to use a word of the times which depicted the melodies of love) that Charles IX. caught her round the waist with the nervous force that characterized him, and seated her on his knee, rubbing his forehead gently against the pretty curls so coquettishly arranged. Marie thought the moment favorable; she ventured a few kisses, which Charles allowed rather than accepted, then she said softly:--

“If my servants were not mistaken you were out all night in the streets, as in the days when you played the pranks of a younger son.”

“Yes,” replied the king, still lost in his own thoughts.

“Did you fight the watchman and frighten some of the burghers? Who are the men you brought here and locked up? They must be very criminal, as you won’t allow any communication with them. No girl was ever locked in as carefully, and they have not had a mouthful to eat since they came. The Germans whom Solern left to guard them won’t let any one go near the room. Is it a joke you are playing; or is it something serious?”

“Yes, you are right,” said the king, coming out of his reverie, “last night I did scour the roofs with Tavannes and the Gondis. I wanted to try my old follies with the old companions; but my legs were not what they once were; I did not dare leap the streets; though we did jump two alleys from one roof to the next. At the second, however, Tavannes and I, holding on to a chimney, agreed that we couldn’t do it again. If either of us had been alone we couldn’t have done it then.”

“I’ll wager that you sprang first.” The king smiled. “I know why you risk your life in that way.”

“And why, you little witch?”

“You are tired of life.”

“Ah, sorceress! But I am being hunted down by sorcery,” said the king, resuming his anxious look.

“My sorcery is love,” she replied, smiling. “Since the happy day when you first loved me, have I not always divined your thoughts? And--if you will let me speak the truth--the thoughts which torture you to-day are not worthy of a king.”

“Am I a king?” he said bitterly.

“Cannot you be one? What did Charles VII. do? He listened to his mistress, monseigneur, and he reconquered his kingdom, invaded by the English as yours is now by the enemies of our religion. Your last _coup d’Etat_ showed you the course you have to follow. Exterminate heresy.”

“You blamed the Saint-Bartholomew,” said Charles, “and now you--”

“That is over,” she said; “besides, I agree with Madame Catherine that it was better to do it yourselves than let the Guises do it.”

“Charles VII. had only men to fight; I am face to face with ideas,” resumed the king. “We can kill men, but we can’t kill words! The Emperor Charles V. gave up the attempt; his son Philip has spent his strength upon it; we shall all perish, we kings, in that struggle. On whom can I rely? To right, among the Catholics, I find the Guises, who are my enemies; to left, the Calvinists, who will never forgive me the death of my poor old Coligny, nor that bloody day in August; besides, they want to suppress the throne; and in front of me what have I?--my mother!”

“Arrest her; reign alone,” said Marie in a low voice, whispering in his ear.

“I meant to do so yesterday; to-day I no longer intend it. You speak of it rather coolly.”

“Between the daughter of an apothecary and that of a doctor there is no great difference,” replied Touchet, always ready to laugh at the false origin attributed to her.

The king frowned.

“Marie, don’t take such liberties. Catherine de’ Medici is my mother, and you ought to tremble lest--”

“What is it you fear?”

“Poison!” cried the king, beside himself.

“Poor child!” cried Marie, restraining her tears; for the sight of such strength united to such weakness touched her deeply. “Ah!” she continued, “you make me hate Madame Catherine, who has been so good to me; her kindness now seems perfidy. Why is she so kind to me, and bad to you? During my stay in Dauphine I heard many things about the beginning of your reign which you concealed from me; it seems to me that the queen, your mother, is the real cause of all your troubles.”

“In what way?” cried the king, deeply interested.

“Women whose souls and whose intentions are pure use virtue wherewith to rule the men they love; but women who do not seek good rule men through their evil instincts. Now, the queen made vices out of certain of your noblest qualities, and she taught you to believe that your worst inclinations were virtues. Was that the part of a mother? Be a tyrant like Louis XI.; inspire terror; imitate Philip II.; banish the Italians; drive out the Guises; confiscate the lands of the Calvinists. Out of this solitude you will rise a king; you will save the throne. The moment is propitious; your brother is in Poland.”

“We are two children at statecraft,” said Charles, bitterly; “we know nothing except how to love. Alas! my treasure, yesterday I, too, thought all these things; I dreamed of accomplishing great deeds--bah! my mother blew down my house of cards! From a distance we see great questions outlined like the summits of mountains, and it is easy to say: ‘I’ll make an end of Calvinism; I’ll bring those Guises to task; I’ll separate from the Court of Rome; I’ll rely upon my people, upon the burghers--’ ah! yes, from afar it all seems simple enough! but try to climb those mountains and the higher you go the more the difficulties appear. Calvinism, in itself, is the last thing the leaders of that party care for; and the Guises, those rabid Catholics, would be sorry indeed to see the Calvinists put down. Each side considers its own interests exclusively, and religious opinions are but a cloak for insatiable ambition. The party of Charles IX. is the feeblest of all. That of the king of Navarre, that of the king of Poland, that of the Duc d’Alencon, that of the Condes, that of the Guises, that of my mother, are all intriguing one against another, but they take no account of me, not even in my own council. My mother, in the midst of so many contending elements, is, nevertheless, the strongest among them; she has just proved to me the inanity of my plans. We are surrounded by rebellious subjects who defy the law. The axe of Louis XI. of which you speak, is lacking to us. Parliament would not condemn the Guises, nor the king of Navarre, nor the Condes, nor my brother. No! the courage to assassinate is needed; the throne will be forced to strike down those insolent men who suppress both law and justice; but where can we find the faithful arm? The council I held this morning has disgusted me with everything; treason everywhere; contending interests all about me. I am tired with the burden of my crown. I only want to die in peace.”

He dropped into a sort of gloomy somnolence.

“Disgusted with everything!” repeated Marie Touchet, sadly; but she did not disturb the black torpor of her lover.

Charles was the victim of a complete prostration of mind and body, produced by three things,--the exhaustion of all his faculties, aggravated by the disheartenment of realizing the extent of an evil; the recognized impossibility of surmounting his weakness; and the aspect of difficulties so great that genius itself would dread them. The king’s depression was in proportion to the courage and the loftiness of ideas to which he had risen during the last few months. In addition to this, an attack of nervous melancholy, caused by his malady, had seized him as he left the protracted council which had taken place in his private cabinet. Marie saw that he was in one of those crises when the least word, even of love, would be importunate and painful; so she remained kneeling quietly beside him, her head on his knee, the king’s hand buried in her hair, and he himself motionless, without a word, without a sigh, as still as Marie herself,--Charles IX. in the lethargy of impotence, Marie in the stupor of despair which comes to a loving woman when she perceives the boundaries at which love ends.

The lovers thus remained, in the deepest silence, during one of those terrible hours when all reflection wounds, when the clouds of an inward tempest veil even the memory of happiness. Marie believed that she herself was partly the cause of this frightful dejection. She asked herself, not without horror, if the excessive joys and the violent love which she had never yet found strength to resist, did not contribute to weaken the mind and body of the king. As she raised her eyes, bathed in tears, toward her lover, she saw the slow tears rolling down his pallid cheeks. This mark of the sympathy that united them so moved the king that he rushed from his depression like a spurred horse. He took Marie in his arms and placed her on the sofa.

“I will no longer be a king,” he cried. “I will be your lover, your lover only, wholly given up to that happiness. I will die happy, and not consumed by the cares and miseries of a throne.”

The tone of these words, the fire that shone in the half-extinct eyes of the king, gave Marie a terrible shock instead of happiness; she blamed her love as an accomplice in the malady of which the king was dying.

“Meanwhile you forget your prisoners,” she said, rising abruptly.

“Hey! what care I for them? I give them leave to kill me.”

“What! are they murderers?”

“Oh, don’t be frightened, little one; we hold them fast. Don’t think of them, but of me. Do you love me?”

“Sire!” she cried.

“Sire!” he repeated, sparks darting from his eyes, so violent was the rush of his anger at the untimely respect of his mistress. “You are in league with my mother.”

“O God!” cried Marie, looking at the picture above her _prie-dieu_ and turning toward it to say her prayer, “grant that he comprehend me!”

“Ah!” said the king suspiciously, “you have some wrong to me upon your conscience!” Then looking at her from between his arms, he plunged his eyes into hers. “I have heard some talk of the mad passion of a certain Entragues,” he went on wildly. “Ever since their grandfather, the soldier Balzac, married a viscontessa at Milan that family hold their heads too high.”

Marie looked at the king with so proud an air that he was ashamed. At that instant the cries of little Charles de Valois, who had just awakened, were heard in the next room. Marie ran to the door.

“Come in, Bourguignonne!” she said, taking the child from its nurse and carrying it to the king. “You are more of a child than he,” she cried, half angry, half appeased.

“He is beautiful!” said Charles IX., taking his son in his arms.

“I alone know how like he is to you,” said Marie; “already he has your smile and your gestures.”

“So tiny as that!” said the king, laughing at her.

“Oh, I know men don’t believe such things; but watch him, my Charlot, play with him. Look there! See! Am I not right?”

“True!” exclaimed the king, astonished by a motion of the child which seemed the very miniature of a gesture of his own.

“Ah, the pretty flower!” cried the mother. “Never shall he leave us! _He_ will never cause me grief.”

The king frolicked with his son; he tossed him in his arms, and kissed him passionately, talking the foolish, unmeaning talk, the pretty, baby language invented by nurses and mothers. His voice grew child-like. At last his forehead cleared, joy returned to his saddened face, and then, as Marie saw that he had forgotten his troubles, she laid her head upon his shoulder and whispered in his ear:--

“Won’t you tell me, Charlot, why you have made me keep murderers in my house? Who are these men, and what do you mean to do with them? In short, I want to know what you were doing on the roofs. I hope there was no woman in the business?”

“Then you love me as much as ever!” cried the king, meeting the clear, interrogatory glance that women know so well how to cast upon occasion.

“You doubted _me_,” she replied, as a tear shone on her beautiful eyelashes.

“There are women in my adventure,” said the king; “but they are sorceresses. How far had I told you?”

“You were on the roofs near by--what street was it?”

“Rue Saint-Honore, sweetest,” said the king, who seemed to have recovered himself. Collecting this thoughts, he began to explain to his mistress what had happened, as if to prepare her for a scene that was presently to take place in her presence.

“As I was passing through the street last night on a frolic,” he said, “I chanced to see a bright light from the dormer window of the house occupied by Rene, my mother’s glover and perfumer, and once yours. I have strong doubts about that man and what goes on in his house. If I am poisoned, the drug will come from there.”

“I shall dismiss him to-morrow.”

“Ah! so you kept him after I had given him up?” cried the king. “I thought my life was safe with you,” he added gloomily; “but no doubt death is following me even here.”

“But, my dearest, I have only just returned from Dauphine with our dauphin,” she said, smiling, “and Rene has supplied me with nothing since the death of the Queen of Navarre. Go on; you climbed to the roof of Rene’s house?”

IV. THE KING’S TALE

“Yes,” returned the king. “In a second I was there, followed by Tavannes, and then we clambered to a spot where I could see without being seen the interior of that devil’s kitchen, in which I beheld extraordinary things which inspired me to take certain measures. Did you ever notice the end of the roof of that cursed perfumer? The windows toward the street are always closed and dark, except the last, from which can be seen the hotel de Soissons and the observatory which my mother built for that astrologer, Cosmo Ruggiero. Under the roof are lodging-rooms and a gallery which have no windows except on the courtyard, so that in order to see what was going on within, it was necessary to go where no man before ever dreamed of climbing,--along the coping of a high wall which adjoins the roof of Rene’s house. The men who set up in that house the furnaces by which they distil death, reckoned on the cowardice of Parisians to save them from being overlooked; but they little thought of Charles de Valois! I crept along the coping until I came to a window, against the casing of which I was able to stand up straight with my arm round a carved monkey which ornamented it.”

“What did you see, dear heart?” said Marie, trembling.

“A den, where works of darkness were being done,” replied the king. “The first object on which my eyes lighted was a tall old man seated in a chair, with a magnificent white beard, like that of old l’Hopital, and dressed like him in a black velvet robe. On his broad forehead furrowed deep with wrinkles, on his crown of white hair, on his calm, attentive face, pale with toil and vigils, fell the concentrated rays of a lamp from which shone a vivid light. His attention was divided between an old manuscript, the parchment of which must have been centuries old, and two lighted furnaces on which heretical compounds were cooking. Neither the floor nor the ceiling of the laboratory could be seen, because of the myriads of hanging skeletons, bodies of animals, dried plants, minerals, and articles of all kinds that masked the walls; while on the floor were books, instruments for distilling, chests filled with utensils for magic and astrology; in one place I saw horoscopes and nativities, phials, wax-figures under spells, and possibly poisons. Tavannes and I were fascinated, I do assure you, by the sight of this devil’s-arsenal. Only to see it puts one under a spell, and if I had not been King of France, I might have been awed by it. ‘You can tremble for both of us,’ I whispered to Tavannes. But Tavannes’ eyes were already caught by the most mysterious feature of the scene. On a couch, near the old man, lay a girl of strangest beauty,--slender and long like a snake, white as ermine, livid as death, motionless as a statue. Perhaps it was a woman just taken from her grave, on whom they were trying experiments, for she seemed to wear a shroud; her eyes were fixed, and I could not see that she breathed. The old fellow paid no attention to her. I looked at him so intently that, after a while, his soul seemed to pass into mine. By dint of studying him, I ended by admiring the glance of his eye,--so keen, so profound, so bold, in spite of the chilling power of age. I admired his mouth, mobile with thoughts emanating from a desire which seemed to be the solitary desire of his soul, and was stamped upon every line of the face. All things in that man expressed a hope which nothing discouraged, and nothing could check. His attitude,--a quivering immovability,--those outlines so free, carved by a single passion as by the chisel of a sculptor, that IDEA concentrated on some experiment criminal or scientific, that seeking Mind in quest of Nature, thwarted by her, bending but never broken under the weight of its own audacity, which it would not renounce, threatening creation with the fire it derived from it,--ah! all that held me in a spell for the time being. I saw before me an old man who was more of a king than I, for his glance embraced the world and mastered it. I will forge swords no longer; I will soar above the abysses of existence, like that man; for his science, methinks, is true royalty! Yes, I believe in occult science.”

“You, the eldest son, the defender of the Holy Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church?” said Marie.

“I.”

“What happened to you? Go on, go on; I will fear for you, and you will have courage for me.”

“Looking at a clock, the old man rose,” continued the king. “He went out, I don’t know where; but I heard the window on the side toward the rue Saint-Honore open. Soon a brilliant light gleamed out upon the darkness; then I saw in the observatory of the hotel de Soissons another light replying to that of the old man, and by it I beheld the figure of Cosmo Ruggiero on the tower. ‘See, they communicate!’ I said to Tavannes, who from that moment thought the matter frightfully suspicious, and agreed with me that we ought to seize the two men and search, incontinently, their accursed workshop. But before proceeding to do so, we wanted to see what was going to happen. After about fifteen minutes the door opened, and Cosmo Ruggiero, my mother’s counsellor,--the bottomless pit which holds the secrets of the court, he from whom all women ask help against their husbands and lovers, and all the men ask help against their unfaithful wives and mistresses, he who traffics on the future as on the past, receiving pay with both hands, who sells horoscopes and is supposed to know all things,--that semi-devil came in, saying to the old man, ‘Good-day to you, brother.’ With him he brought a hideous old woman,--toothless, humpbacked, twisted, bent, like a Chinese image, only worse. She was wrinkled as a withered apple; her skin was saffron-colored; her chin bit her nose; her mouth was a mere line scarcely visible; her eyes were like the black spots on a dice; her forehead emitted bitterness; her hair escaped in straggling gray locks from a dirty coif; she walked with a crutch; she smelt of heresy and witchcraft. The sight of her actually frightened us, Tavannes and me! We didn’t think her a natural woman. God never made a woman so fearful as that. She sat down on a stool near the pretty snake with whom Tavannes was in love. The two brothers paid no attention to the old woman nor to the young woman, who together made a horrible couple,--on the one side life in death, on the other death in life--”

“Ah! my sweet poet!” cried Marie, kissing the king.