Chapter XIV

At the same instant the blast of the horn rang out in the court-yard and reached the most distant corners of the château. Thereupon each guest ran to his horse, finding him fresh and well-rested, thanks to the care that had been bestowed upon him, and vaulted into the saddle. The huntsman with his stag-hounds, the whippers-in with their packs, were the first to set out. Then the gentlemen drew up in line, and the Duc d'Enghien, mounted on the white horse, and held in his seat by Vialas, made his appearance, surrounded by maids of honor, equerries, and gentlemen in waiting, and followed by his mother in a dazzling costume and riding a jet-black horse. By her side, upon a horse which she rode with charming grace, was the Vicomtesse de Cambes, adorable in her female garb, which she had at last resumed to her great joy.

All search for Madame de Tourville had been made in vain since the night before; she had disappeared: like Achilles, she was sulking in her tent.

This brilliant cavalcade was greeted with unanimous acclamations. The guests stood up in their stirrups, pointing out Madame la Princesse, and Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien, who were strangers to most of the gentlemen, they having never been to court, and being unfamiliar with all this royal pomp. The child bowed with a fascinating smile, Madame la Princesse with majestic affability; they were the wife and son of the man whom his bitterest enemies called the first general in Europe. The first general in Europe was persecuted, pursued, imprisoned by the self-same persons whom he had saved from a foreign foe at Lens, and defended against the rebels at Saint-Germain. This was more than was necessary to arouse enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm knew no bounds.

Madame la Princesse drank in with avidity all these proofs of her popularity; then, upon Lenet's whispering a few words in her ear, she gave the signal for departure, and they soon passed from the gardens into the park, all the gates of which were guarded by soldiers of the Condé regiment. Behind the hunters the wickets were locked; and as if that precaution were insufficient to make sure that no false brother should take part in the festivities, the soldiers remained on sentry duty behind the wicket, and a halberdier, dressed and armed like the one in the court-yard, stood beside each of them, with orders to open to none but those who could answer the three questions which composed the countersign.

A moment after the gates were locked, the notes of the horn, and the furious baying of the hounds, announced that the stag was away.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the park, opposite the wall built by the Constable Anne de Montmorency, six horsemen had halted in the road to listen to the horns and the dogs, and seemed to be taking counsel together as they patted the necks of their panting steeds.

In view of their entirely new costumes, the glistening accoutrements of their horses, the glossy cloaks which fell jauntily from their shoulders over their horses' tails, the magnificence of the weapons which could be seen through artistically devised openings, it was rather astonishing that such smart, well-favored cavaliers should hold aloof at a time when all the nobility of the neighborhood were assembled at the château of Chantilly.

These resplendent worthies were eclipsed, however, by their leader, or by him who appeared to be their leader; plumed hat, gilded baldric, elegant boots with golden spurs, a long sword with carved, open-work hilt,--such, with the accompaniment of a superb sky-blue cloak _à l'Espagnole_, was this gentleman's equipment.

"_Pardieu!_" he exclaimed, after a moment of deep reflection, during which his five comrades gazed at one another in astonishment, "how do we get into the park? By the gate or the wicket? Let us present ourselves at the first gate or the first wicket, and we shall get in all right. Cavaliers of our cut are not left outside when men dressed like those we met this morning are admitted."

"I tell you again, Cauvignac," replied one of the five, "that those same ill-clad men, who, notwithstanding their dress and their rustic bearing, are in the park at this moment, had a great advantage over us,--the countersign. We haven't it, and we can't get in."

"You think so, Ferguzon?" said the first speaker, with some deference for the opinion of his lieutenant; our readers will have recognized in him the adventurer whom they met in the early pages of this narrative.

"Do I think so? I am sure of it. Do you imagine that these people are hunting for the sake of hunting? _Tarare!_ they are conspiring, that's certain."

"Ferguzon is right," said a third; "they are conspiring, and we sha'n't be able to get in."

"A stag-hunt isn't a bad thing, however, when one falls in with it on the road."

"Especially when one is tired of hunting men, eh, Barrabas?" said Cauvignac. "Well, it shall not be said that we allowed this one to pass under our noses. We are all that any one need be to cut a decent figure at this _fête_; we are as shiny as new crown-pieces. If Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien needs soldiers, where will he find smarter ones than we? If he needs conspirators, where will he find any more fashionably dressed? The least gorgeous of us has the bearing of a captain!"

"And you, Cauvignac," rejoined Barrabas "would pass at need for a duke and peer."

Ferguzon said nothing; he was reflecting.

"Unfortunately," continued Cauvignac, laughing, "Ferguzon is not inclined to hunt to-day."

"_Peste!_" said Ferguzon, "I've no special objection to hunting; it's a gentlemanly amusement which suits me to a T. So I don't despise it myself, nor try to dissuade others. I simply say that an entrance to the park where they are hunting is made impossible by locked gates."

"Hark!" cried Cauvignac, "there are the horns sounding the tally-ho."

"But," continued Ferguzon, "what I say doesn't necessarily mean that we may not hunt."

"How can we hunt, blockhead, if we can't get in?"

"I don't say that we can't get in," rejoined Ferguzon.

"How the devil can we get in, if the gates, which are open to others, are locked in our faces?"

"Why shouldn't we make a breach in this little wall, for our private use,--a breach through which we and our horses can pass, and behind which we certainly shall find no one to call us to account?"

"_Hourra!_" cried Cauvignac, waving his hat joyfully. "Full reparation! Ferguzon, you are the one brainy man among us! And when I have overturned the King of France, and placed Monsieur le Prince on his throne, I will demand Signor Mazarino Mazarini's place for you. To work, my boys, to work!"

With that, Cauvignac sprang to the ground, and, assisted by his companions, one of whom sufficed to hold all the horses, he began to tear down the wall, already in a somewhat shaky condition.

In a twinkling the five workers opened a breach three or four feet wide. Then they remounted and followed Cauvignac into the park.

"Now," said he, riding in the direction whence the sound of the horns seemed to come, "now, be refined and courteous, and I invite you to take supper with Monsieur le Duc d'Enghien."