Chapter VIII: Part II: The Diary of a Statesman (2)

We had gone from this point about four hundred paces forward, when La Trape showed me that the path was growing narrow, and betrayed few signs of being used. It seemed certain--though the dog still ran confidently ahead--that we were again astray; and I was about to draw rein and return when I saw that the undergrowth on the right of the path had assumed the character of a thick hedge of box--a shrub common only in a few parts of the forest. Though less prone than most men to put faith in omens, I accepted this; and, notwithstanding that it wanted but an hour of sunset, I rode on, remarking that with each turn in the woodland path, the scrub on my left also gave place more and more to the sturdy tree which had been in my mind all day. Finally, we found ourselves passing through an alley of box--which no long time before had been clipped and dressed. A final turn brought us into a _cul de sac_; and there we were, in a kind of small arbour carpeted with turf, and so perfectly hedged in as to afford no exit save by the entrance. Here the dog placidly stood and wagged its tail, looking up at us.

I must confess that this termination of the adventure seemed so surprising, and the evening light shining on the level walls of green about us was so full of a solemn quiet, that I was not surprised to hear La Trape mutter a prayer. For my part, assured that something more than chance had brought me hither, I dismounted and spoke encouragement to the hound. But it only leapt upon me. Then I walked round the tiny enclosure, and presently I discovered, close to the hedge, three small patches, where the grass was slightly beaten or trodden down. A second glance told me more; I saw that at these places the hedge about three feet from the ground was hacked and hollowed. I stooped, until my eyes were level with the hole thus made, and discovered that I was looking through a funnel skilfully cut in the wall of box. At my end the opening was rather larger than a man's face; at the other end not as large as the palm of the hand. The funnel rose gradually, so that I took the farther extremity of it to be about seven feet from the ground, and here it disclosed a feather dangling on a spray. From the light falling strongly on this, I judged it to be not in the hedge, but a pace or two from it on the hither side of another fence of box. On examining the remaining loopholes, I discerned that they bore upon the same feather.

My own mind was at once made up, but I bade my valet go through the same investigation, and then asked him whether he had ever seen an ambush of this kind laid for game. He replied that the shot would pass over the tallest stag, or aught but a man on horseback; and fortified by this, I mounted without saying more, and we retraced our steps. The hound, which had doubtless the habit, as some dogs have, of accompanying the first person who held out the prospect of a walk, presently left us, and without further adventure we reached the Chateau a little after sunset.

I expected to be received by the King with some displeasure, but it chanced that a catarrh had kept him within doors all day; and unable to hunt or visit his new flame, he had been at leisure, in this palace without a court, to consider the imprudence he was committing. He received me therefore with the laugh of a schoolboy detected in a petty fault, and as I hastened to relate to him some of the things which M. de Boisrose had said of the Baron de Rosny, I soon had the gratification of perceiving that my presence was not taken amiss. His Majesty gave orders that bedding should be furnished for my pavilion, and that his household should wait on me, and himself sent me from his table a couple of chickens and a fine melon, bidding me to come to him when I had supped.

I did so, and found him alone in his closet awaiting me with impatience; he had already divined that I had not made this journey merely to reproach him. Before informing him, however, of my suspicions, I craved leave to ask him one or two questions, and in particular whether he had been in the habit of going to Malesherbes daily.

"Daily," he admitted with a grimace. "What more, Father Confessor?"

"By what road, sire?"

"I have hunted mornings, and visited Malesherbes at midday. I have returned as a rule by the bridle-path, which passes the Rock of the Serpents."

"Patience, sire, one moment," I said. "Does that path run anywhere through a plantation of box?"

"It does," he answered, without hesitation. "About half a mile on this side of the rock, it skirts Queen Catherine's maze."

Thereon I told the King without reserve all that had happened. He listened with the air of seeming carelessness which he always assumed when plots against his life were under discussion; but at the end he embraced me again with tears in his eyes. "France is beholden to you!" he said. "I have never had, nor shall have, such another servant as you, Rosny! The three ruffians at the inn," he continued, "are, of course, the tools, and the hound has been in the habit of accompanying them to the spot. Yesterday, I remember, I walked by that place with the bridle on my arm."

"By a special providence, sire," I said gravely.

"It is true," he answered, crossing himself, a thing I had never yet known him do in private. "But, now, who is the craftsman who has contrived this pretty plot? Tell me that, Grand Master."

On this point, however, though I had my suspicions, I begged leave to be excused until I had slept upon it. "Heaven forbid," I said, "that I should expose any man to your Majesty's resentment without cause. The wrath of kings is the forerunner of death."

"I have not heard," the King answered dryly, "that the Duke of Bouillon has called in a leech yet."

Before retiring, I learned that his Majesty had with him a score of light horse, whom La Varenne had requisitioned from Melun; and that some of these had each day awaited him at Malesherbes and ridden home behind him. Further, that Henry had been in the habit of wearing, when riding back in the evening, a purple cloak over his hunting-suit, a fact well known, I felt sure, to the assassins, who, unseen and in perfect safety, could fire at the exact moment when the cloak obscured the feather, and could then make their escape, secured by the stout wall of box from immediate pursuit.

I slept ill, and was aroused early by La Varenne coming to my bedside, and bidding me hasten to the King. I did so, and found him already in his boots and walking on the terrace with Coquet, his Master of the Household, Vitry, La Varenne, and a gentleman unknown to me. On seeing me he dismissed them, and while I was still a great way off, called out, chiding me for my laziness: then taking me by the hand in the most obliging manner, he made me walk up and down with him, while he told me what further thoughts he had of this affair; and hiding nothing from me even as he bade me speak to him whatever I thought without reserve, he required to know whether I suspected that the Entragues family were cognizant of this.

"I cannot say, sire," I answered prudently.

"But you suspect?"

"In your Majesty's cause I suspect all," I replied.

He sighed, and seeing that my eyes wandered to the group of gentlemen who had betaken themselves to the terrace steps, and were thence watching us, he asked me if I would answer for them. "For Vitry, who sleeps at my feet when I lie alone? For Coquet?"

"For three of them, I will, sire," I answered firmly. "The fourth I do not know."

"He is Auvergne's half-brother."

"M. Louis d'Entragues?" I muttered. "Lately returned, I think, from service in Savoy? I do not know him, sire. To-morrow I may be able to answer for him."

"And to-day? What am I to do to-day?"

I begged him to act as he had done each day since his arrival at Fontainebleau, to hunt in the morning, to take his midday meal at Malesherbes, to talk to all as if he had no suspicion: only on his return to take any road save that which passed the Rock of the Serpents.

The King turning to rejoin the others, I found that their attention was no longer directed to us, but to a singular figure which had made its appearance on the skirts of the group, and had already thrown three out of the four courtiers into a fit of laughter. The fourth, M. d'Entragues, did not seem to be equally diverted with the stranger's appearance; nor did I fail to notice, being at the moment quick to perceive the slightest point of his conduct, that while the others were nudging one another, his countenance, darkened by an Italian sun, gloomed on the new-comer with an aspect of menace. On his side M. de Boisrose--for he it was, the grotesque fashion of his dress more conspicuous than ever--stood eyeing the group with a mixture of awkwardness and resentment; until made aware of his Majesty's approach and of my presence in intimate converse with the King he stepped joyfully forward, a look of relief displacing all others on his countenance. "Ha! well met!" quoth the King in my ear. "It is your friend of yesterday. Now we shall have sport. And 'twill cheer us. We need it." And he pinched my arm.

As the old soldier approached with many low bows, the King spoke to him graciously, and bade him say what he sought. It happened then as I had expected. Boisrose, after telling the King his name, turned to me and humbly begged that I would explain his complaint; which I consented to do, and did as follows: "This, sire," I said gravely, "is an old and brave soldier; who formerly served your Majesty to good purpose in Normandy, but has been cheated out of the recompense which he there earned by the trickery and chicanery of one of your Majesty's counsellors, the Baron de Rosny."

I could not continue, for the courtiers, on hearing this from my mouth, and on discovering that the stranger's odd appearance was but a prelude to the real diversion, could not restrain their laughter. The King, concealing his own amusement, turned to them with an angry air and bade them be silent; and the Gascon, encouraged by this and by the bold manner in which I had stated his grievance, scowled at them famously. "He alleges, sire," I continued, with the same gravity, "that the Baron de Rosny, after promising him the government of Fecamp, bestowed it on another, being bribed to do so, and has been guilty of many base acts which make him unworthy of your Majesty's confidence. That, I think, is your complaint, M. de Boisrose?" I concluded, turning to the soldier; whom my deep seriousness so misled that he took up the story, and pouring out his wrongs did not fail to threaten to trounce me, or to add with much fervour that I was a villain!

He might have said more, but the courtiers, perceiving that the King broke at last into a smile, lost all control over themselves, and giving vent to loud peals of laughter, clasped one another by the shoulders and reeled to and fro in an ecstasy of enjoyment. The King gave way also and laughed heartily, clapping me again and again on the back, so that in fine there were only two serious faces to be seen, that of the poor Boisrose, who took all for lunatics, and my own. For my part I began to think that perhaps the jest had been carried far enough.

My master presently saw this, and collecting himself, turned to the amazed Gascon. "Your complaint is one," he said, "which should not be lightly made. Do you know the Baron de Rosny?"

Boisrose, more and more out of countenance, said he did not.

"Then," said the King, "I will give you an opportunity of becoming acquainted with him. I shall refer your complaint to him, and he will decide upon it. More!" he continued, raising his hand for silence as Boisrose, starting forward, would have appealed to him, "I will introduce you to him now. This is the Baron de Rosny."

The old soldier glared at me for a moment with starting eye-balls, and a dreadful despair seemed to settle on his face. He threw himself on his knees before the King. "Then, sire," said he in a heartrending voice, "am I ruined? My six children must starve, and my young wife die by the roadside!"

"That," answered the King, gravely, "must be for the Baron de Rosny to decide. I leave you to your audience."

He made a sign to the others, and, followed by them, walked slowly along the terrace, the while Boisrose, who had risen to his feet, stood looking after him like one demented, muttering in a voice that went to my heart that it was a cruel jest, and that he had bled for the King, and the King made sport of him.

Presently I touched him on the arm. "Come, have you nothing to say to me, M. de Boisrose?" I asked quietly. "You are a brave soldier and have done France service: why then need you fear? The Baron de Rosny is one man, the King's minister is another. It is the latter who speaks to you now. The office of Lieutenant Governor of Angouleme is vacant. It is worth twelve thousand livres by the year. I appoint you to it."

He murmured with a white face that I mocked him and that he was going mad; so that it was long before I could persuade him that I was in earnest. When I at last succeeded, his gratitude knew no bounds, and he thanked me again and again with the tears running down his face. "What I have done for you," I said modestly, "is the reward of your bravery. I ask only that you will not another time think that they who rule kingdoms are as those gay popinjays yonder. Whom the King, believe me, holds at their due value."

In a transport of delight he reiterated his offers of service, and feeling sure that I had gained him completely I asked him on a sudden where he had seen Louis d'Entragues before. In two words the truth came out. He had seen him once only, on the previous day at the forest inn; the courtier had halted at the door and spoken with the three bullies, whom I had remarked there. I was not surprised, nay I had expected this, D'Entragues' near kinship to the Count of Auvergne and the mingled feelings with which I knew that the family regarded Henry preparing me to imagine treachery. Moreover, the nature of the ambush was proof that its author resided in the neighbourhood and was intimately acquainted with the forest paths. I should have carried this information at once to my master; but I learned that he had already started, and thus baffled and believing that his affection for Mademoiselle d'Entragues, if not for her sister, would lead him to act with undue leniency, I conceived a plan of my own.

Two hours after noon, therefore, I set out, as if for a ride, attended by La Trape only; but at some distance from the palace we were joined by Boisrose, whom I had bidden to be at that point well armed and mounted. Thus reinforced--for the Gascon was still strong, and in courage a very Crillon, I proceeded to Malesherbes by a circuitous route which brought me within sight of the gates about the middle of the afternoon. I then halted under cover of a little wood of chestnuts, and waited until I saw the King, attended by several ladies and gentlemen, and followed by eight troopers, issue from the chateau. His Majesty was walking, his horse being led behind him; and seeing this I rode out and approached the party as if I had that moment arrived to meet the King.

It would very ill become me to make idle reflections on the hollowness of Court life: withal, seldom have I known it better exemplified than in the scene then displayed before me. The sun was low, but its warm beams falling aslant on the gay group at the gates and on the flowered terraces and grey walls behind them seemed to present a picture at once peaceful and joyous. Yet I knew that treachery and death were lurking in the midst--even as between the parterres and the walls lay the dark sluggish moat; and it was only by an effort that, as I rode up, I could make answer to the thousand obliging things with which I was greeted and of which not the least polite were said by M. d'Entragues and his son. I took pains to observe Mademoiselle Susette, a beautiful girl still in her teens, but noways comparable as it seemed to me, in expression and vivacity to her famous sister. She was walking beside the King, her hands full of flowers, and her face flushed with shy excitement. I came, with little thought, to the conclusion that she, at least, knew nothing of what was intended by her family; who, having made the one sister the means of gratifying their avarice, were now baiting the trap of their vengeance with the other. Having obtained what they needed, they were ashamed of the means by which they had obtained it: and would fain avenge their honour, while holding to that they had got by the sale of it.

Henry parted from the maid at length, and mounted his horse amid a ripple of laughter and compliments, D'Entragues holding the stirrup, and his son the cloak. I observed that the latter, as I had expected, was prepared to accompany us, which rendered my plan more feasible. Our road lay for a league in the direction of the Rock of the Serpents, the track which passed the latter--and was a trifle shorter--presently diverging from it. For some distance we rode along in easy talk, but on approaching the point of separation, the King looked at me with a whimsical air, as though he would lay on me the burden of finding an excuse for avoiding the shorter way. I had foreseen this and looked round to ascertain the positions of our company. I found that La Varenne and D'Entragues were close behind us, while the troopers with La Trape and Boisrose were a hundred paces farther to the rear, and Vitry and Coquet had dropped out of sight. This being so, I suddenly reined in my horse so as to back it into that of D'Entragues, and then wheeled round on the latter, taking care to be between him and the King. "M. Louis d'Entragues," I said, dropping the mask and addressing him in a low voice but with the scorn which I felt and which he deserved. "Your plot is known! If you would save your life confess to his Majesty here and now all you know, and throw yourself on his mercy!"

I confess that I had failed to take into account the pitch to which his nerves would be strung at such a time, and had expected to produce a greater effect than followed my words. His hand went indeed to his breast, but it was hard to say which seemed the more astounded, La Varenne or he. And the manner in which he flung back my accusation, lacked neither vigour nor the semblance of innocence. While Henry stood puzzled, and not a little put out, La Varenne was appalled. I saw this, that I had gone too far, or not far enough, and at once calling up unto my face and form all the sternness in my power I bade the traitor remain where he was. Then turning to his Majesty I craved leave to speak to him apart.

He hesitated, looking from me to D'Entragues with an air of displeasure which embraced us both, but in the end without permitting M. Louis to speak he complied, and going aside with me bade me with coldness speak out. As soon as I had repeated to him Boisrose's words, his face underwent a change--for he too had remarked the discomfiture which the latter's appearance had caused D'Entragues in the morning. "The villain!" he said. "I do not now think you precipitate! Arrest him, but do him no harm!"

"If he resist, sire?" I asked.

"He will not," the King answered. "And in no case harm him! You understand me?"

I bowed, having my own thoughts on the subject, and the King without looking again at D'Entragues rode quickly away. M. Louis tried to follow and cried after him, but I thrust my horse in the way, and bade him consider himself a prisoner. At the same time I requested La Varenne, with Vitry and Coquet, who had come up and were looking on like men thunderstruck, to take four of the guards and follow the King.

"Then, sir, what do you intend to do with me?" D'Entragues asked. The defiant air with which he looked from me to the men who remained barely disguised his apprehensions.

"That depends, M. Louis," I replied, recurring to my usual tone of politeness, "on your answers to three questions."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Ask them," he said.

"Do you deny that you have laid an ambush for the King in the road which passes the Rock of the Serpents?"

"Absolutely."

"Or that you were yesterday at an inn near here in converse with three men?"

"Absolutely."

"Do you deny that there is such an ambush laid?"

"At least I know naught of it!" he repeated with scorn. "'Tis an old wife's story. I would stake my life on it."

"Enough," I answered slowly. "You have said you would stake your life on it. You shall. The evening grows cold, and, as you are my prisoner, I must have a care of you. Kindly put on this cloak, and precede me, M. d'Entragues. We return to Fontainebleau by the Rock of the Serpents."

His eyes met mine; he read my thoughts, and for a second held his breath. A cold shadow fell upon his sallow face, and then for an instant I thought that he would resist. But the stern countenances of La Trape and Boisrose, who had ridden up to his rein and stood awaiting his answer with their swords drawn, determined him. With a forced and mirthless laugh he took the cloak. "It is new, I hope," he said, as he threw it over his shoulders.

It was not, and I apologized, adding, however, that no one but the King had worn it. On this he settled it about him; and having heard me strictly charge the two guards, who followed with their arquebuses ready, to fire on him if he tried to escape, he turned his horse's head into the path and rode slowly along it, while we, in double file, followed a few paces behind him.

The sun had set, and such light as remained fell cold between the trees. The green of the sward had that pale look it puts on with the last rays, or with the dawning. The crackling of a stick under a horse's hoof, or the ring of a spur against a scabbard, were the only sounds which broke the stillness of the wood as we proceeded. We had gone some way when M. Louis halted, and, turning in his saddle, called to me. "M. de Rosny," he said--the light had so far failed that I could scarcely see his face, "I have a meeting with the Vicomte de Matigny on Saturday about a little matter of a lady's glove. Should anything prevent my appearance----"

"I will see that a proper explanation is given," I answered.

"Or, if M. d'Entragues will permit me," exclaimed the Gascon, who was riding by my side, "I, M. de Boisrose of St. Palais, will appear in his place and make the Viscount de Caylus swallow the glove."

"Sir," said M. Louis, with politeness, and in a steady tone, "you are a gentleman. I am obliged to you."

He waved his hand to me with a gesture which I long remembered, and, giving his horse the rein, he went forward along the path at a brisk walk. We followed, and I had just remarked that a plant of box was beginning here and there to take the place of the usual undergrowth when a sheet of flame leapt out through the dusk to meet us, and our horses reared wildly. For an instant we were in confusion; then I saw that our leader, M. Louis, had fallen headlong from his saddle, and lay on the sward without word or cry. My men would have sprung forward before the noise of the report had died away, and, having good horses, might possibly have overtaken one of the assassins; but I restrained them. Enough had been done. When La Trape dismounted and raised the fallen man the latter was dead, his breast riddled by a dozen slugs.

Such were the circumstances, now for the first time made public, which attended the discovery of this, the least known, yet one of the most dangerous of the many plots which were directed against the life of my master. The course which I adopted may be blamed by some, but it is enough for me that, after the lapse of years, it is approved by my conscience and by the course of events. For it was ever the misfortune of that great king to treat those with leniency whom no indulgence could win; and I bear with me to this day the bitter assurance that, had the fate which overtook Louis d'Entragues in the wood between Malesherbes and Fontainebleau embraced the whole of that family, the blow which, ten years later, went to the heart of France would not have been struck.

* * * * *

The slight indisposition from which the Queen suffered in the spring of 1602, and which was occasioned by a cold caught during her lying-in, by diverting the King's attention from state matters, had the effect of doubling the burden cast on me. Though the main threads of M. de Biron's conspiracy were in our hands as early as the month of November of the preceding year, and steps had been taken to sound the chief associates by summoning them to court, an interval necessarily followed during which we had all to fear; and this not only from the despair of the guilty, but from the timidity of the innocent, who in a court filled with cabals and rumours of intrigues might see no way to clear themselves. Even the shows and interludes which followed the Dauphin's birth, and made that Christmas remarkable, served only to amuse the idle; they could not disperse the cloud which hung over the Louvre nor divert those who on the one side or the other had aught to fear.

In connection with this period of suspense I recall an episode worthy, I think, by reason of its oddity, to be set down here; where it may serve for a preface to those more serious events attending the trial and execution of M. de Biron, which I shall have to relate.

I had occasion, about the end of the month of January, to see M. du Hallot. The weather was cold, and partly for that reason, partly out of a desire to keep my visit, which had to do with the Biron disclosures, from the general eye, I chose to go on foot. For the same reason I took with me only two servants and a confidential page, the son of my friend Arnaud. M. du Hallot, who lived at this time in a house in the Faubourg St. Germain, not far from the College of France, detained me long, and when I rose to leave insisted that I should take his coach, as snow had begun to fall, and lay an inch deep in the streets. At first I was unwilling to do this, but reflecting that such small services are highly valued by those who render them, and attach men more surely than the greatest bribes, I yielded, and, taking my place with some becoming expressions, bade young Arnaud find his way home on foot.

The coach had nearly reached the south end of the Pont au Change, when a number of youths ran past me, pelting one another with snowballs, and shouting so lustily that I was at a loss which to admire more, the silence of their feet or the loudness of their voices. Aware that lads of that age are no respecters of persons, I was not surprised to see two or three of them rush on to the bridge before us, and even continue their Parthian warfare under the feet of the horses. The result, however, was that the latter took fright at that part of the bridge where the houses encroach most on the roadway; and but for the care of the running footman, who hastened to their heads, might have done some harm either to the coach or the passers-by.

As it was, we were brought to a stop while one of the wheels was extricated from the kennel, in which it had become wedged. Smiling to think what the King--who, strangely warned by Providence, was throughout his life timid in a coach--would have said to this, I went to open the curtains, and had effected this to some extent, when one of a crowd of idlers who stood on the raised pavement deliberately lifted up his arm and flung a snowball at me.

The missile flew wide of its mark by an inch or two only. That I was amazed at such audacity goes without saying; but doubting of what it might be the preclude--for the breakdown of the coach in that narrow place, the haunt of rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be part of a concerted plan--I fell back into my place. The coach, as it happened, moved on at that moment with a jerk; and before I had digested the matter, or had time to mark the demeanour of the crowd, we were clear of the bridge, and rolling under the Chatelet.

A smaller man might have stooped to punish, and to cook a sprat have passed all Paris through the net. But remembering the days when I myself attended the College of Burgundy, I set the freak to the credit of some young student, and, shrugging my shoulders, dismissed it from my mind. An instant later, however, observing that the fragments of the snowball were melting on the seat and wetting the leather, I raised my hand to brush them away. In doing so I discovered, to my surprise, a piece of paper lying among the _debris_.

"Ho, ho!" said I to myself. "A strange snowball this! I have heard that the apprentices put stones in theirs. But paper! Let me see what this means."

The morsel, though moistened by the snow, remained intact. Unfolding it with care--for already I began to discern that here was something out of the common--I found written on the inner side, in a clerkly hand, the words, "_Beware of Nicholas!_"

It will be remembered that Simon Nicholas was at this time secretary to the King, and so high in his favour as to be admitted to the knowledge of all but his most private affairs. Gay, and of a jovial wit, he was able to commend himself to Henry by amusing him; while his years, for he was over sixty, seemed warranty for his discretion, and at the same time gave younger sinners a feeling of worth, since they might repent and he had not done so. Often in contact with him, I had always found him equal to his duties, and though too fond of the table, and of the good things of this life, neither given to blabbing nor boasting. In a word, one for whom I had more liking than respect.

A man in his position possesses opportunities for evil so stupendous that as I read the warning I sat aghast. His office gave him at all times that ready access to the King's person which is the aim of conspirators against the lives of sovereigns; and short of the supreme treachery he was master of secrets which Biron's associates would give much to gain. When I add that I knew Nicholas to be a man of extravagant habits and careless life, and one who, if rumour did not wrong him, had lost much in that rearrangement of the finances which I had lately effected, it will be seen that those words, "Beware of Nicholas," were calculated to provoke me to the most profound thought.

Of the person who had conveyed the missive to my hands I had unfortunately seen nothing; though I believed him to be a man, and young. But the circumstances, which seemed to indicate the need of secrecy, gave me a hint as to my conduct. Accordingly, I smoothed my brow, and on the coach stopping at the Arsenal, I descended with my usual face of preoccupation.

At the foot of the staircase my _maitre-d'hotel_ met me.

"M. Nicholas, the King's secretary, is here," he said. "He has been waiting your return an hour and more, my lord."

"Lay another cover," I answered, repressing the surprise I could not but feel at a visit so strangely _a propos_. "Doubtless he has come to dine with me."

Staying only to remove my cloak, I went upstairs with an air as easy as possible, and, making my visitor some apologies for the inconvenience I had caused him, I insisted he should sit down with me. This he was not loth to do; though, as presently appeared, his errand was only to submit to me a paper connected with the new tax of a penny in the shilling, which it was his duty to lay before me.

I scolded him for the long period which had elapsed since his last visit, and succeeded so well in setting him at his ease that he presently began to rally me on my lack of appetite; for I could touch nothing but a little game and a glass of water. Excusing myself as well as I could, I encouraged him to continue the attack; and certainly, if appetite waits on a good conscience, I had abundant evidence in his behalf. He grew merry and talkative, and, telling me some free tales, bore himself so naturally that I had begun to deem my suspicions baseless, when a chance word gave me new grounds for entertaining them.

I was on the subject of my morning's employment. Knowing how easily confidence begets confidence, and that in his position the matter could not be long kept from him, I told him as a secret where I had been.

"I do not wish all the world to know, my friend," I said. "But you are a discreet man, and it will go no farther. I am just from Du Hallot's."

He dropped his napkin and stooped to pick it up with a gesture so hasty that it caught my attention and led me to watch him. More, although my words seemed to call for an answer, he did not speak until he had taken a deep draught of wine; and then he said only, "Indeed!" in a tone of such indifference as might at another time have deceived me, but now was patently assumed.

"Yes," I replied, affecting to be engaged with my plate: we were eating nuts. "Doubtless you will be able to guess on what subject."

"I?" he said, as quick to answer as he had before been slow. "No, I think not."

"La Fin," I said. "And his disclosures respecting M. de Biron's friends."

"Ah!" he replied, shrugging his shoulders. He had contrived to regain his composure, but I noticed that his hand shook, and I saw that he was quite unable to chew the nut he had just put into his mouth. "They tell me he accuses everybody," he continued, his eyes on his plate. "Even the King is scarcely safe from him. But I have heard no particulars."

"They will be known by-and-by," I answered prudently. And after that I did not think it wise to continue, lest I should give more than I got. But as soon as he had finished, and we had washed our hands, I led him to the closet looking on the river, where I was in the habit of working with my secretaries. I sent them away and sat down with him to his paper; but in the position in which I found myself, between suspicion and perplexity, I gathered little or nothing from it; and had I found another doing the King's service as negligently I had sent him about his business. Nevertheless, I made some show of attention, and had reached the schedule when something in the fairly written summary, which closed the account, caught my eye. I bent more closely to it, and presently making an occasion to carry the parchment into the next room, compared it with the hand-writing on the scrap of paper I had found in the snowball. A brief scrutiny proved that they were the work of the same person!

I went back to M. Nicholas, and after attesting the accounts, and making one or two notes, remarked in a careless way on the clearness of the hand. "I am badly in need of a fourth secretary," I added. "Your scribe might do for me."

It did not escape me that once again M. Nicholas looked uncomfortable. His red face took a deeper tinge and his hand went nervously to his pointed grey beard. "I do not think he would do for you," he muttered.

"What is his name?" I asked, purposely bending over the papers and avoiding his eye.

"I have dismissed him," he rejoined curtly. "I do not know where he could now be found."

"That is a pity. He writes well," I answered, as if it were nothing but a whim that led me to pursue the subject. "And good clerks are scarce. What was his name?"

"Felix," he said--reluctantly.

I had now all that I wanted. Accordingly I spoke of another matter, and shortly afterwards Nicholas withdrew. He left me in much suspicion; so that for nearly half an hour I walked up and down the room, unable to decide whether I should treat the warning of the snowball with contempt, as the work of a discharged servant; or on that very account attach the more credit to it. By-and-by I remembered that the last sheet of the roll I had audited bore date the previous day; whence it was clear that Felix had been dismissed within the last twenty-four hours, and perhaps after the delivery of his note to me. Such a coincidence, which seemed no less pertinent than strange, opened a wide field for conjecture; and the possibility that Nicholas had called on me to sound me and learn what I knew occurring to my mind, brought me to a final determination to seek out this Felix, and without the delay of an hour sift the matter to the bottom.

Doubtless I shall seem to some to have acted precipitately, and built much on small foundations. I answer that I had the life of the King my master to guard, and in that cause dared neglect no precaution, however trivial, nor any indication, however remote. Would that all my care and vigilance had longer sufficed to preserve for France the life of that great man! But God willed otherwise.

I sent word at once to La Font, my _valet-de-chambre_, the same who persuaded me to my first marriage, to come to me; and directing him to make secret inquiry where Felix, a clerk in the Chamber of Accounts, lodged, bade him report to me on my return from the Great Hall, where, it will be remembered, it was my custom to give audience after dinner to all who had business with me. As it happened, I was detained that day, and found him awaiting me. A man of few words, as soon as the door was shut, "At the 'Three Half Moons,'" he said, "in the Faubourg St. Honore, my lord."

"That is near the Louvre," I answered. "Get me my cloak, and your own also; and bring your pistols. I am for a walk, and you will accompany me."

He was a good man, La Font, and devoted to my interests. "It will be night in half an hour," he answered respectfully. "You will take some of the Swiss?"

"In one word, no!" I rejoined. "We will go out by the stable entrance, and until we return, I will bid Maignan keep the door, and admit no one."

The crowd of those who daily left the Arsenal at nightfall happened to be augmented on this occasion by a troop of my clients from Mantes; tenants on the lands of Rosny, who had lingered after the hour of audience to see the courts and garden. By mingling with these we passed out unobserved; nor, once in the streets, where a thaw had set in, that filled the kennel with water, was La Font long in bringing me to the house I sought. It stood on the outskirts of the St. Honore Faubourg, in a quarter sufficiently respectable, and a street marked neither by squalor nor ostentation--from one or other of which all desperate enterprises take their rise. The house, which was high and narrow, presented only two windows to the street, but the staircase was clean, and it was impossible to cross the threshold without feeling a prepossession in Felix's favour. Already I began to think that I had come on a fool's errand.

"Which floor?" I asked La Font.

"The highest," he answered.

I went up softly and he followed me. Under the tiles I found a door, and heard some one moving beyond it. Bidding La Font remain on guard, and come to my aid only if I called him, I knocked boldly. A gentle voice bade me enter, and I did so.

There was only one person in the room, a young woman with fair waving hair, a pale freckled face, and blue eyes; who, seeing a cloaked stranger instead of the neighbour she anticipated, stared at me in the utmost wonder and in some alarm. The room, though poorly furnished, was neat and clean; which, taken with the woman's complexion, left me in no doubt as to her province. On the floor near the fire stood a cradle; and in the window a cage with a singing bird completed the homely aspect of this interior, which was such, indeed, as I would fain multiply by thousands in every town of France.

A lamp, which the woman was in the act of lighting, enabled me to see these details, and also discovered me to her. I asked politely if I spoke to Madame Felix, the wife of M. Felix, of the Chamber of Accounts.

"I am Madame Felix," she answered, advancing slowly towards me. "My husband is late. Do you come from him? It is not--bad news, Monsieur?"

The tone of anxiety in which she uttered the last question, and the quickness with which she raised her lamp to scan my face, went to a heart already softened by the sight of this young mother in her home. I hastened to answer that I had no bad news, and wished to see her husband on business connected with his employment.

"He is very late," she said, a shade of perplexity crossing her face. "I have never known him so late before. Monsieur is unfortunate."

I replied that with her leave I would wait; on which she very readily placed a stool for me, and sat down by the cradle. I remarked that perhaps M. Nicholas had detained her husband: she answered that it might be so, but that she had never known it happen before.

"M. Felix has evening employment?" I asked, after a moment's reflection.

She looked at me in some wonder. "No," she said. "He spends his evenings with me, Monsieur. It is not much, for he is at work all day."

I bowed, and was preparing another question, when the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs reached my ears, and led me to pause. Madame heard the noise at the same moment and rose to her feet. "It is my husband," she said, looking towards the door with such a light in her eyes as betrayed the sweetheart lingering in the wife. "I was afraid--I do not know what I feared," she muttered to herself.

Proposing to have the advantage of seeing Felix before he saw me, I pushed back my stool into the shadow, contriving to do this so discreetly that the young woman noticed nothing. A moment later it appeared that I might have spared my pains; for at sight of her husband, and particularly of the lack-lustre eye and drooping head with which he entered, she sprang forward with a cry of dismay, and, forgetting my presence, appealed to him to know what was the matter.

He let himself fall on a stool, the first he reached, and, leaning his elbows on the table in an attitude of dejection, he covered his face with his hands. "What is it?" he said in a hollow tone. "We are ruined, Margot. That is what it is. I have no more work. I am dismissed."

"Dismissed?" she ejaculated.

He nodded. "Nicholas discharged me this morning," he said, almost in a whisper. He dared not speak louder, for he could not command his voice.

"Why?" she asked, as she leant over him, her hands busy about him. "What had you done?"

"Nothing!" he answered with bitterness. "He has missed a place he thought to get; and I must suffer for it."

"But did he say nothing? Did he give no reason?"

"Ay," he answered. "He said clerks were plentiful, and the King or I must starve."

Hitherto I had witnessed the scene in silence, a prey to emotions so various I will not attempt to describe them. But hearing the King's name thus prostituted I started forward with a violence which made my presence known. Felix, confounded by the sight of a stranger at his elbow, rose from his seat, and retreating before me with alarm painted on his countenance, he asked with a faltering tongue who I was.

I replied as gently as possible that I was a friend, anxious to assist him. Notwithstanding that, seeing that I kept my cloak about my face--for I was not willing to be recognized--he continued to look at me with distrust.

"What is your will?" he said, raising the lamp much as his wife had done, to see me the better.

"The answers to two or three questions," I replied. "Answer them truly, and I promise you your troubles are at an end." So saying, I drew from my pouch the scrap of paper which had come to me so strangely. "When did you write this, my friend?" I continued, placing it before him.

He drew a deep breath at sight of it, and a look of comprehension crossed his face. For a moment he hesitated. Then in a hurried manner he said that he had never seen the paper.

"Come," I rejoined sternly, "look at it again. Let there be no mistake. When did you write that, and why?"

Still he shook his head; and, though I pressed him, he continued so stubborn in his denial that, but for the look I had seen on his face when I produced the paper, and the strange coincidence of his dismissal, I might have believed him. As it was, I saw nothing for it but to have him arrested and brought to my house, where I did not doubt he would tell the truth; and I was about to retire to give the order, when something in a sidelong glance which he cast at his wife caught my eye, and furnished me with a new idea. Acting on it, I affected to be satisfied. I apologized for my intrusion on the ground of mistake; and, withdrawing to the door, I asked him at the last moment to light me downstairs.

Complying with a shaking hand, he went out before me, and had nearly reached the foot of the staircase when I touched him on the shoulder.

"Now," I said, fixing him with my eyes, "your wife is no longer listening, and you can tell me the truth. Who employed you to write those words?"

Trembling so violently that he had to lean on the balustrade for support, he told me.

"Madame Nicholas," he whispered.

"What?" I cried, recoiling. I had no doubt he was telling me the truth. "The secretary's wife, do you mean? Be careful, man."

He nodded.

"When?" I asked suspiciously.

"Yesterday," he answered. "She is an old cat!" he continued, with a grimace. "I hate her! But my wife is jealous, and would think all things."

"And did you throw it into a coach," I said, "on the Pont du Change to-day?"

"God forbid!" he replied, shrinking into himself again. "I wrote it for her, and she took it away. She said it was a jest that she was playing. That is all I know."

I saw that he spoke the truth, and after a few more words I dismissed him, bidding him keep silence, and remain at home in case I needed him. At the last, he plucked up spirit to ask who I was; but preferring to keep that discovery for a day to come, when I might appear as the benefactor of this little family, I told him only that I was one of the King's servants, and so left him.

It will be believed that I found the information I had received little to my mind. The longer I dwelt on it, the more serious seemed the matter. While I could not imagine circumstances in which a woman would be likely to inform against her husband without cause, I could recall more than one conspiracy which had been frustrated by informers of that class--sometimes out of regard for the persons against whom they informed. Viewed in this light, the warning seemed to my mind sufficiently alarming; but when I came also to consider the secrecy with which Madame Nicholas had both prepared it and conveyed it to me, the aspect of the case grew yet more formidable. In the result, I had not passed through two streets before my mind was made up to lay the case before the King, and be guided by the sagacity which was never wanting to my gracious master.

An unexpected meeting which awaited me on my return to the Arsenal confirmed me in this resolution and enabled me to carry it into effect. We entered without difficulty, and duly found Maignan on guard at the door of my apartments. But a glance at his face sufficed to show that something was wrong; nor did it need the look of penitence which he assumed on seeing us--a look so piteous that at another time it must have diverted me--to convince me that he had infringed my orders.

"How now, sirrah?" I said, without waiting for him to speak. "What have you been doing?"

"They would take no refusal, my lord," he answered plaintively, waving his hand towards the door.

"What!" I cried sternly; for this was an instance of such direct disobedience as I could scarce understand. "Did I not give you the strictest orders to deny me to everybody?"

"They would take no refusal, my lord," he answered penitently, edging away from me as he spoke.

"Who are they?" I asked, leaving the question of his punishment for another season. "Speak, rascal, though it shall not save you."

"There are M. le Marquis de la Varenne, and M. de Vitry," he said slowly, "and M. de Vic, and M. Erard the engineer, and M. de Fontange, and----"

"Pardieu!" I cried, cutting him short in a rage; for he was going on counting on his fingers in a manner the most provoking. "Have you let in all Paris, dolt? Grace! that I should be served by a fool! Open the door, and let me see them."

With that I was about to enter; when the door, which I had not perceived to be ajar, was thrown widely open, and a laughing face thrust out. It was the King's.