a secretary of State like Robertet was purely and simply a writer; he counted for almost nothing among the princes and grandees who decided the affairs of State. His functions were little more than those of the superintendent of finances, the chancellor, and the keeper of the seals. The kings granted seats at the council by letters-patent to those of their subjects whose advice seemed to them useful in the management of public affairs. Entrance to the council was given in this way to a president of the Chamber of Parliament, to a bishop, or to an untitled favorite. Once admitted to the council, the subject strengthened his position there by obtaining various crown offices on which devolved such prerogatives as the sword of a Constable, the government of provinces, the grand-mastership of artillery, the baton of a marshal, a leading rank in the army, or the admiralty, or a captaincy of the galleys, often some office at court, like that of grand-master of the household, now held, as we have already said, by the Duc de Guise.
“Do you think that the Duc de Nemours will marry Francoise?” said Madame de Guise to the tutor of the Duc d’Orleans.
“Ah, madame,” he replied, “I know nothing but Latin.”
This answer made all who were within hearing of it smile. The seduction of Francoise de Rohan by the Duc de Nemours was the topic of all conversations; but, as the duke was cousin to Francois II., and doubly allied to the house of Valois through his mother, the Guises regarded him more as the seduced than the seducer. Nevertheless, the power of the house of Rohan was such that the Duc de Nemours was obliged, after the death of Francois II., to leave France on consequence of suits brought against him by the Rohans; which suits the Guises settled. The duke’s marriage with the Duchesse de Guise after Poltrot’s assassination of her husband in 1563, may explain the question which she put to Amyot, by revealing the rivalry which must have existed between Mademoiselle de Rohan and the duchess.
“Do see that group of the discontented over there?” said the Comte de Grammont, motioning toward the Messieurs de Coligny, the Cardinal de Chatillon, Danville, Thore, Moret, and several other seigneurs suspected of tampering with the Reformation, who were standing between two windows on the other side of the fireplace.
“The Huguenots are bestirring themselves,” said Cypierre. “We know that Theodore de Beze has gone to Nerac to induce the Queen of Navarre to declare for the Reformers–by abjuring publicly,” he added, looking at the /bailli/ of Orleans, who held the office of chancellor to the Queen of Navarre, and was watching the court attentively.
“She will do it!” said the /bailli/, dryly.
This personage, the Orleans Jacques Coeur, one of the richest burghers of the day, was named Groslot, and had charge of Jeanne d’Albret’s business with the court of France.
“Do you really think so?” said the chancellor of France, appreciating the full importance of Groslot’s declaration.
“Are you not aware,” said the burgher, “that the Queen of Navarre has nothing of the woman in her except sex? She is wholly for things virile; her powerful mind turns to the great affairs of State; her heart is invincible under adversity.”
“Monsieur le cardinal,” whispered the Chancellor Olivier to Monsieur de Tournon, who had overheard Groslot, “what do you think of that audacity?”
“The Queen of Navarre did well in choosing for her chancellor a man from whom the house of Lorraine borrows money, and who offers his house to the king, if his Majesty visits Orleans,” replied the cardinal.
The chancellor and the cardinal looked at each other, without venturing to further communicate their thoughts; but Robertet expressed them, for he thought it necessary to show more devotion to the Guises than these great personages, inasmuch as he was smaller than they.
“It is a great misfortune that the house of Navarre, instead of abjuring the religion of its fathers, does not abjure the spirit of vengeance and rebellion which the Connetable de Bourbon breathed into it,” he said aloud. “We shall see the quarrels of the Armagnacs and the Bourguignons revive in our day.”
“No,” said Groslot, “there’s another Louis XI. in the Cardinal de Lorraine.”
“And also in Queen Catherine,” replied Robertet.
At this moment Madame Dayelle, the favorite bedchamber woman of Queen Mary Stuart, crossed the hall, and went toward the royal chamber. Her passage caused a general commotion.
“We shall soon enter,” said Madame de Fisque.
“I don’t think so,” replied the Duchesse de Guise. “Their Majesties will come out; a grand council is to be held.”
VI
THE LITTLE LEVER OF FRANCOIS II.
Madame Dayelle glided into the royal chamber after scratching on the door,–a respectful custom, invented by Catherine de’ Medici and adopted by the court of France.
“How is the weather, my dear Dayelle?” said Queen Mary, showing her fresh young face out of the bed, and shaking the curtains.
“Ah! madame–“
“What’s the matter, my Dayelle? You look as if the archers of the guard were after you.”
“Oh! madame, is the king still asleep?”
“Yes.”
“We are to leave the chateau; Monsieur le cardinal requests me to tell you so, and to ask you to make the king agree to it.
“Do you know why, my good Dayelle?”
“The Reformers want to seize you and carry you off.”
“Ah! that new religion does not leave me a minute’s peace! I dreamed last night that I was in prison,–I, who will some day unite the crowns of the three noblest kingdoms in the world!”
“Therefore it could only be a dream, madame.”
“Carry me off! well, ‘twould be rather pleasant; but on account of religion, and by heretics–oh, that would be horrid.”
The queen sprang from the bed and placed herself in a large arm-chair of red velvet before the fireplace, after Dayelle had given her a dressing-gown of black velvet, which she fastened loosely round her waist by a silken cord. Dayelle lit the fire, for the mornings are cool on the banks of the Loire in the month of May.
“My uncles must have received some news during the night?” said the queen, inquiringly to Dayelle, whom she treated with great familiarity.
“Messieurs de Guise have been walking together from early morning on the terrace, so as not to be overheard by any one; and there they received messengers, who came in hot haste from all the different points of the kingdom where the Reformers are stirring. Madame la reine mere was there too, with her Italians, hoping she would be consulted; but no, she was not admitted to the council.”
“She must have been furious.”
“All the more because she was so angry yesterday,” replied Dayelle. “They say that when she saw your Majesty appear in that beautiful dress of woven gold, with the charming veil of tan-colored crape, she was none too pleased–“
“Leave us, my good Dayelle, the king is waking up. Let no one, even those who have the little /entrees/, disturb us; an affair of State is in hand, and my uncles will not disturb us.”
“Why! my dear Mary, already out of bed? Is it daylight?” said the young king, waking up.
“My dear darling, while we were asleep the wicked waked, and now they are forcing us to leave this delightful place.”
“What makes you think of wicked people, my treasure? I am sure we enjoyed the prettiest fete in the world last night–if it were not for the Latin words those gentlemen will put into our French.”
“Ah!” said Mary, “your language is really in very good taste, and Rabelais exhibits it finely.”
“You are such a learned woman! I am so vexed that I can’t sing your praises in verse. If I were not the king, I would take my brother’s tutor, Amyot, and let him make me as accomplished as Charles.”
“You need not envy your brother, who writes verses and shows them to me, asking for mine in return. You are the best of the four, and will make as good a king as you are the dearest of lovers. Perhaps that is why your mother does not like you! But never mind! I, dear heart, will love you for all the world.”
“I have no great merit in loving such a perfect queen,” said the little king. “I don’t know what prevented me from kissing you before the whole court when you danced the /branle/ with the torches last night! I saw plainly that all the other women were mere servants compared to you, my beautiful Mary.”
“It may be only prose you speak, but it is ravishing speech, dear darling, for it is love that says those words. And you–you know well, my beloved, that were you only a poor little page, I should love you as much as I do now. And yet, there is nothing so sweet as to whisper to one’s self: ‘My lover is king!'”
“Oh! the pretty arm! Why must we dress ourselves? I love to pass my fingers through your silky hair and tangle its blond curls. Ah ca! sweet one, don’t let your women kiss that pretty throat and those white shoulders any more; don’t allow it, I say. It is too much that the fogs of Scotland ever touched them!”
“Won’t you come with me to see my dear country? The Scotch love you; there are no rebellions /there/!”
“Who rebels in this our kingdom?” said Francois, crossing his dressing-gown and taking Mary Stuart on his knee.
“Oh! ’tis all very charming, I know that,” she said, withdrawing her cheek from the king; “but it is your business to reign, if you please, my sweet sire.”
“Why talk of reigning? This morning I wish–“
“Why say /wish/ when you have only to will all? That’s not the speech of a king, nor that of a lover.–But no more of love just now; let us drop it! We have business more important to speak of.”
“Oh!” cried the king, “it is long since we have had any business. Is it amusing?”
“No,” said Mary, “not at all; we are to move from Blois.”
“I’ll wager, darling, you have seen your uncles, who manage so well that I, at seventeen years of age, am no better than a /roi faineant/. In fact, I don’t know why I have attended any of the councils since the first. They could manage matters just as well by putting the crown in my chair; I see only through their eyes, and am forced to consent to things blindly.”
“Oh! monsieur,” said the queen, rising from the king’s knee with a little air of indignation, “you said you would never worry me again on this subject, and that my uncles used the royal power only for the good of your people. Your people!–they are so nice! They would gobble you up like a strawberry if you tried to rule them yourself. You want a warrior, a rough master with mailed hands; whereas you–you are a darling whom I love as you are; whom I should never love otherwise, –do you hear me, monsieur?” she added, kissing the forehead of the lad, who seemed inclined to rebel at her speech, but softened at her kisses.
“Oh! how I wish they were not your uncles!” cried Francois II. “I particularly dislike the cardinal; and when he puts on his wheedling air and his submissive manner and says to me, bowing: ‘Sire, the honor of the crown and the faith of your fathers forbid your Majesty to –this and that,’ I am sure he is working only for his cursed house of Lorraine.”
“Oh, how well you mimicked him!” cried the queen. “But why don’t you make the Guises inform you of what is going on, so that when you attain your grand majority you may know how to reign yourself? I am your wife, and your honor is mine. Trust me! we will reign together, my darling; but it won’t be a bed of roses for us until the day comes when we have our own wills. There is nothing so difficult for a king as to reign. Am I a queen, for example? Don’t you know that your mother returns me evil for all the good my uncles do to raise the splendor of your throne? Hey! what difference between them! My uncles are great princes, nephews of Charlemagne, filled with ardor and ready to die for you; whereas this daughter of a doctor or a shopkeeper, queen of France by accident, scolds like a burgher-woman who can’t manage her own household. She is discontented because she can’t set every one by the ears; and then she looks at me with a sour, pale face, and says from her pinched lips: ‘My daughter, you are a queen; I am only the second woman in the kingdom’ (she is really furious, you know, my darling), ‘but if I were in your place I should not wear crimson velvet while all the court is in mourning; neither should I appear in public with my own hair and no jewels, because what is not becoming in a simple lady is still less becoming in a queen. Also I should not dance myself, I should content myself with seeing others dance.’–that is what she says to me–“
“Heavens!” cried the king, “I think I hear her coming. If she were to know–“
“Oh, how you tremble before her. She worries you. Only say so, and we will send her away. Faith, she’s Florentine and we can’t help her tricking you, but when it comes to worrying–“
“For Heaven’s sake, Mary, hold your tongue!” said Francois, frightened and also pleased; “I don’t want you to lose her good-will.”
“Don’t be afraid that she will ever break with /me/, who will some day wear the three noblest crowns in the world, my dearest little king,” cried Mary Stuart. “Though she hates me for a thousand reasons she is always caressing me in the hope of turning me against my uncles.”
“Hates you!”
“Yes, my angel; and if I had not proofs of that feeling such as women only understand, for they alone know its malignity, I would forgive her perpetual opposition to our dear love, my darling. Is it my fault that your father could not endure Mademoiselle Medici or that his son loves me? The truth is, she hates me so much that if you had not put yourself into a rage, we should each have had our separate chamber at Saint-Germain, and also here. She pretended it was the custom of the kings and queens of France. Custom, indeed! it was your father’s custom, and that is easily understood. As for your grandfather, Francois, the good man set up the custom for the convenience of his loves. Therefore, I say, take care. And if we have to leave this place, be sure that we are not separated.”
“Leave Blois! Mary, what do you mean? I don’t wish to leave this beautiful chateau, where we can see the Loire and the country all round us, with a town at our feet and all these pretty gardens. If I go away it will be to Italy with you, to see St. Peter’s, and Raffaelle’s pictures.”
“And the orange-trees? Oh! my darling king, if you knew the longing your Mary has to ramble among the orange-groves in fruit and flower!”
“Let us go, then!” cried the king.
“Go!” exclaimed the grand-master as he entered the room. “Yes, sire, you must leave Blois. Pardon my boldness in entering your chamber; but circumstances are stronger than etiquette, and I come to entreat you to hold a council.”
Finding themselves thus surprised, Mary and Francois hastily separated, and on their faces was the same expression of offended royal majesty.
“You are too much of a grand-master, Monsieur de Guise,” said the king, though controlling his anger.
“The devil take lovers,” murmured the cardinal in Catherine’s ear.
“My son,” said the queen-mother, appearing behind the cardinal; “it is a matter concerning your safety and that of your kingdom.”
“Heresy wakes while you have slept, sire,” said the cardinal.
“Withdraw into the hall,” cried the little king, “and then we will hold a council.”
“Madame,” said the grand-master to the young queen; “the son of your furrier has brought some furs, which was just in time for the journey, for it is probable we shall sail down the Loire. But,” he added, turning to the queen-mother, “he also wishes to speak to you, madame. While the king dresses, you and Madame la reine had better see and dismiss him, so that we may not be delayed and harassed by this trifle.”
“Certainly,” said Catherine, thinking to herself, “If he expects to get rid of me by any such trick he little knows me.”
The cardinal and the duke withdrew, leaving the two queens and the king alone together. As they crossed the /salle des gardes/ to enter the council-chamber, the grand-master told the usher to bring the queen’s furrier to him. When Christophe saw the usher approaching from the farther end of the great hall, he took him, on account of his uniform, for some great personage, and his heart sank within him. But that sensation, natural as it was at the approach of the critical moment, grew terrible when the usher, whose movement had attracted the eyes of all that brilliant assembly upon Christophe, his homely face and his bundles, said to him:–
“Messeigneurs the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Grand-master wish to speak to you in the council chamber.”
“Can I have been betrayed?” thought the helpless ambassador of the Reformers.
Christophe followed the usher with lowered eyes, which he did not raise till he stood in the great council-chamber, the size of which is almost equal to that of the /salle des gardes/. The two Lorrain princes were there alone, standing before the magnificent fireplace, which backs against that in the /salle des gardes/ around which the ladies of the two queens were grouped.
“You have come from Paris; which route did you take?” said the cardinal.
“I came by water, monseigneur,” replied the reformer.
“How did you enter Blois?” asked the grand-master.
“By the docks, monseigneur.”
“Did no one question you?” exclaimed the duke, who was watching the young man closely.
“No, monseigneur. To the first soldier who looked as if he meant to stop me I said I came on duty to the two queens, to whom my father was furrier.”
“What is happening in Paris?” asked the cardinal.
“They are still looking for the murderer of the President Minard.”
“Are you not the son of my surgeon’s greatest friend?” said the Duc de Guise, misled by the candor of Christophe’s expression after his first alarm had passed away.
“Yes, monseigneur.”
The Grand-master turned aside, abruptly raised the portiere which concealed the double door of the council-chamber, and showed his face to the whole assembly, among whom he was searching for the king’s surgeon. Ambroise Pare, standing in a corner, caught a glance which the duke cast upon him, and immediately advanced. Ambroise, who at this time was inclined to the reformed religion, eventually adopted it; but the friendship of the Guises and that of the kings of France guaranteed him against the evils which overtook his co-religionists. The duke, who considered himself under obligations for life to Ambroise Pare, had lately caused him to be appointed chief-surgeon to the king.
“What is it, monseigneur?” said Ambroise. “Is the king ill? I think it likely.”
“Likely? Why?”
“The queen is too pretty,” replied the surgeon.
“Ah!” exclaimed the duke in astonishment. “However, that is not the matter now,” he added after a pause. “Ambroise, I want you to see a friend of yours.” So saying he drew him to the door of the council-room, and showed him Christophe.
“Ha! true, monseigneur,” cried the surgeon, extending his hand to the young furrier. “How is your father, my lad?”
“Very well, Maitre Ambroise,” replied Christophe.
“What are you doing at court?” asked the surgeon. “It is not your business to carry parcels; your father intends you for the law. Do you want the protection of these two great princes to make you a solicitor?”
“Indeed I do!” said Christophe; “but I am here only in the interests of my father; and if you could intercede for us, please do so,” he added in a piteous tone; “and ask the Grand Master for an order to pay certain sums that are due to my father, for he is at his wit’s end just now for money.”
The cardinal and the duke glanced at each other and seemed satisfied.
“Now leave us,” said the duke to the surgeon, making him a sign. “And you my friend,” turning to Christophe; “do your errand quickly and return to Paris. My secretary will give you a pass, for it is not safe, /mordieu/, to be travelling on the high-roads!”
Neither of the brothers formed the slightest suspicion of the grave importance of Christophe’s errand, convinced, as they now were, that he was really the son of the good Catholic Lecamus, the court furrier, sent to collect payment for their wares.
“Take him close to the door of the queen’s chamber; she will probably ask for him soon,” said the cardinal to the surgeon, motioning to Christophe.
While the son of the furrier was undergoing this brief examination in the council-chamber, the king, leaving the queen in company with her mother-in-law, had passed into his dressing-room, which was entered through another small room next to the chamber.
Standing in the wide recess of an immense window, Catherine looked at the gardens, her mind a prey to painful thoughts. She saw that in all probability one of the greatest captains of the age would be foisted that very day into the place and power of her son, the king of France, under the formidable title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Before this peril she stood alone, without power of action, without defence. She might have been likened to a phantom, as she stood there in her mourning garments (which she had not quitted since the death of Henri II.) so motionless was her pallid face in the grasp of her bitter reflections. Her black eyes floated in that species of indecision for which great statesmen are so often blamed, though it comes from the vast extent of the glance with which they embrace all difficulties,–setting one against the other, and adding up, as it were, all chances before deciding on a course. Her ears rang, her blood tingled, and yet she stood there calm and dignified, all the while measuring in her soul the depths of the political abyss which lay before her, like the natural depths which rolled away at her feet. This day was the second of those terrible days (that of the arrest of the Vidame of Chartres being the first) which she was destined to meet in so great numbers throughout her regal life; it also witnessed her last blunder in the school of power. Though the sceptre seemed escaping from her hands, she wished to seize it; and she did seize it by a flash of that power of will which was never relaxed by either the disdain of her father-in-law, Francois I., and his court,–where, in spite of her rank of dauphiness, she had been of no account,–or the constant repulses of her husband, Henri II., and the terrible opposition of her rival, Diane de Poitiers. A man would never have fathomed this thwarted queen; but the fair-haired Mary–so subtle, so clever, so girlish, and already so well-trained–examined her out of the corners of her eyes as she hummed an Italian air and assumed a careless countenance. Without being able to guess the storms of repressed ambition which sent the dew of a cold sweat to the forehead of the Florentine, the pretty Scotch girl, with her wilful, piquant face, knew very well that the advancement of her uncle the Duc de Guise to the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom was filling the queen-mother with inward rage. Nothing amused her more than to watch her mother-in-law, in whom she saw only an intriguing woman of low birth, always ready to avenge herself. The face of the one was grave and gloomy, and somewhat terrible, by reason of the livid tones which transform the skin of Italian women to yellow ivory by daylight, though it recovers its dazzling brilliancy under candlelight; the face of the other was fair and fresh and gay. At sixteen, Mary Stuart’s skin had that exquisite blond whiteness which made her beauty so celebrated. Her fresh and piquant face, with its pure lines, shone with the roguish mischief of childhood, expressed in the regular eyebrows, the vivacious eyes, and the archness of the pretty mouth. Already she displayed those feline graces which nothing, not even captivity nor the sight of her dreadful scaffold, could lessen. The two queens–one at the dawn, the other in the midsummer of life –presented at this moment the utmost contrast. Catherine was an imposing queen, an impenetrable widow, without other passion than that of power. Mary was a light-hearted, careless bride, making playthings of her triple crowns. One foreboded great evils,–foreseeing the assassination of the Guises as the only means of suppressing enemies who were resolved to rise above the Throne and the Parliament; foreseeing also the bloodshed of a long and bitter struggle; while the other little anticipated her own judicial murder. A sudden and strange reflection calmed the mind of the Italian.
“That sorceress and Ruggiero both declare this reign is coming to an end; my difficulties will not last long,” she thought.
And so, strangely enough, an occult science forgotten in our day–that of astrology–supported Catherine at this moment, as it did, in fact, throughout her life; for, as she witnessed the minute fulfilment of the prophecies of those who practised the art, her belief in it steadily increased.
“You are very gloomy, madame,” said Mary Stuart, taking from the hands of her waiting-woman, Dayelle, a little cap and placing the point of it on the parting of her hair, while two wings of rich lace surrounded the tufts of blond curls which clustered on her temples.
The pencil of many painters have so frequently represented this head-dress that it is thought to have belonged exclusively to Mary Queen of Scots; whereas it was really invented by Catherine de’ Medici, when she put on mourning for Henri II. But she never knew how to wear it with the grace of her daughter-in-law, to whom it was becoming. This annoyance was not the least among the many which the queen-mother cherished against the young queen.
“Is the queen reproving me?” said Catherine, turning to Mary.
“I owe you all respect, and should not dare to do so,” said the Scottish queen, maliciously, glancing at Dayelle.
Placed between the rival queens, the favorite waiting-woman stood rigid as an andiron; a smile of comprehension might have cost her her life.
“Can I be as gay as you, after losing the late king, and now beholding my son’s kingdom about to burst into flames?”
“Public affairs do not concern women,” said Mary Stuart. “Besides, my uncles are there.”
These words were, under the circumstances, like so many poisoned arrows.
“Let us look at our furs, madame,” replied the Italian, sarcastically; “that will employ us on our legitimate female affairs while your uncles decide those of the kingdom.”
“Oh! but we will go the Council, madame; we shall be more useful than you think.”
“We!” said Catherine, with an air of astonishment. “But I do not understand Latin, myself.”
“You think me very learned,” cried Mary Stuart, laughing, “but I assure you, madame, I study only to reach the level of the Medici, and learn how to /cure/ the wounds of the kingdom.”
Catherine was silenced by this sharp thrust, which referred to the origin of the Medici, who were descended, some said, from a doctor of medicine, others from a rich druggist. She made no direct answer. Dayelle colored as her mistress looked at her, asking for the applause that even queens demand from their inferiors if there are no other spectators.
“Your charming speeches, madame, will unfortunately cure the wounds of neither Church nor State,” said Catherine at last, with her calm and cold dignity. “The science of my fathers in that direction gave them thrones; whereas if you continue to trifle in the midst of danger you are liable to lose yours.”
It was at this moment that Ambroise Pare, the chief surgeon, scratched softly on the door, and Madame Dayelle, opening it, admitted Christophe.
VII
A DRAMA IN A SURCOAT
The young reformer intended to study Catherine’s face, all the while affecting a natural embarrassment at finding himself in such a place; but his proceedings were much hastened by the eagerness with which the younger queen darted to the cartons to see her surcoat.
“Madame,” said Christophe, addressing Catherine.
He turned his back on the other queen and on Dayelle, instantly profiting by the attention the two women were eager to bestow upon the furs to play a bold stroke.
“What do you want of me?” said Catherine giving him a searching look.
Christophe had put the treaty proposed by the Prince de Conde, the plan of the Reformers, and the detail of their forces in his bosom between his shirt and his cloth jacket, folding them, however, within the bill which Catherine owed to the furrier.
“Madame,” he said, “my father is in horrible need of money, and if you will deign to cast your eyes over your bill,” here he unfolded the paper and put the treaty on the top of it, “you will see that your Majesty owes him six thousand crowns. Have the goodness to take pity on us. See, madame!” and he held the treaty out to her. “Read it; the account dates from the time the late king came to the throne.”
Catherine was bewildered by the preamble of the treaty which met her eye, but she did not lose her head. She folded the paper quickly, admiring the audacity and presence of mind of the youth, and feeling sure that after performing such a masterly stroke he would not fail to understand her. She therefore tapped him on the head with the folded paper, saying:–
“It is very clumsy of you, my little friend, to present your bill before the furs. Learn to know women. You must never ask us to pay until the moment when we are satisfied.”
“Is that traditional?” said the young queen, turning to her mother-in-law, who made no reply.
“Ah, mesdames, pray excuse my father,” said Christophe. “If he had not had such need of money you would not have had your furs at all. The country is in arms, and there are so many dangers to run in getting here that nothing but our great distress would have brought me. No one but me was willing to risk them.”
“The lad is new to his business,” said Mary Stuart, smiling.
It may not be useless, for the understanding of this trifling, but very important scene, to remark that a surcoat was, as the name implies (/sur cotte/), a species of close-fitting spencer which women wore over their bodies and down to their thighs, defining the figure. This garment protected the back, chest, and throat from cold. These surcoats were lined with fur, a band of which, wide or narrow as the case might be, bordered the outer material. Mary Stuart, as she tried the garment on, looked at herself in a large Venetian mirror to see the effect behind, thus leaving her mother-in-law an opportunity to examine the papers, the bulk of which might have excited the young queen’s suspicions had she noticed it.
“Never tell women of the dangers you have run when you have come out of them safe and sound,” she said, turning to show herself to Christophe.
“Ah! madame, I have your bill, too,” he said, looking at her with well-played simplicity.
The young queen eyed him, but did not take the paper; and she noticed, though without at the moment drawing any conclusions, that he had taken her bill from his pocket, whereas he had carried Queen Catherine’s in his bosom. Neither did she find in the lad’s eyes that glance of admiration which her presence invariably excited in all beholders. But she was so engrossed by her surcoat that, for the moment, she did not ask herself the meaning of such indifference.
“Take the bill, Dayelle,” she said to her waiting-woman; “give it to Monsieur de Versailles (Lomenie) and tell him from me to pay it.”
“Oh! madame,” said Christophe, “if you do not ask the king or monseigneur the grand-master to sign me an order your gracious word will have no effect.”
“You are rather more eager than becomes a subject, my friend,” said Mary Stuart. “Do you not believe my royal word?”
The king now appeared, in silk stockings and trunk-hose (the breeches of that period), but without his doublet and mantle; he had, however, a rich loose coat of velvet edged with minever.
“Who is the wretch who dares to doubt your word?” he said, overhearing, in spite of his distance, his wife’s last words.
The door of the dressing-room was hidden by the royal bed. This room was afterwards called “the old cabinet,” to distinguish it from the fine cabinet of pictures which Henri III. constructed at the farther end of the same suite of rooms, next to the hall of the States-general. It was in the old cabinet that Henri III. hid the murderers when he sent for the Duc de Guise, while he himself remained hidden in the new cabinet during the murder, only emerging in time to see the overbearing subject for whom there were no longer prisons, tribunals, judges, nor even laws, draw his last breath. Were it not for these terrible circumstances the historian of to-day could hardly trace the former occupation of these cabinets, now filled with soldiers. A quartermaster writes to his mistress on the very spot where the pensive Catherine once decided on her course between the parties.
“Come with me, my friend,” said the queen-mother, “and I will see that you are paid. Commerce must live, and money is its backbone.”
“Go, my lad,” cried the young queen, laughing; “my august mother knows more than I do about commerce.”
Catherine was about to leave the room without replying to this last taunt; but she remembered that her indifference to it might provoke suspicion, and she answered hastily:–
“But you, my dear, understand the business of love.”
Then she descended to her own apartments.
“Put away these furs, Dayelle, and let us go to the Council, monsieur,” said Mary to the young king, enchanted with the opportunity of deciding in the absence of the queen-mother so important a question as the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom.
Mary Stuart took the king’s arm. Dayelle went out before them, whispering to the pages; one of whom (it was young Teligny, who afterwards perished so miserably during the Saint-Bartholomew) cried out:–
“The king!”
Hearing the words, the two soldiers of the guard presented arms, and the two pages went forward to the door of the Council-room through the lane of courtiers and that of the maids of honor of the two queens. All the members of the Council then grouped themselves about the door of their chamber, which was not very far from the door to the staircase. The grand-master, the cardinal, and the chancellor advanced to meet the young sovereign, who smiled to several of the maids of honor and replied to the remarks of a few courtiers more privileged than the rest. But the queen, evidently impatient, drew Francois II. as quickly as possible toward the Council-chamber. When the sound of arquebuses, dropping heavily on the floor, had announced the entrance of the couple, the pages replaced their caps upon their heads, and the private talk among the courtiers on the gravity of the matters now about to be discussed began again.
“They sent Chiverni to fetch the Connetable, but he has not come,” said one.
“There is not a single prince of the blood present,” said another.
“The chancellor and Monsieur de Tournon looked anxious,” remarked a third.
“The grand-master sent word to the keeper of the seals to be sure not to miss this Council; therefore you may be certain they will issue letters-patent.”
“Why does the queen-mother stay in her own apartments at such a time?”
“They’ll cut out plenty of work for us,” remarked Groslot to Cardinal de Chatillon.
In short, everybody had a word to say. Some went and came, in and out of the great hall; others hovered about the maids of honor of both queens, as if it might be possible to catch a few words through a wall three feet thick or through the double doors draped on each side with heavy curtains.
Seated at the upper end of a long table covered with blue velvet, which stood in the middle of the room, the king, near to whom the young queen was seated in an arm-chair, waited for his mother. Robertet, the secretary, was mending pens. The two cardinals, the grand-master, the chancellor, the keeper of the seals, and all the rest of the council looked at the little king, wondering why he did not give them the usual order to sit down.
The two Lorrain princes attributed the queen-mother’s absence to some trick of their niece. Incited presently by a significant glance, the audacious cardinal said to his Majesty:–
“Is it the king’s good pleasure to begin the council without waiting for Madame la reine-mere?”
Francois II., without daring to answer directly, said: “Messieurs, be seated.”
The cardinal then explained succinctly the dangers of the situation. This great political character, who showed extraordinary ability under these pressing circumstances, led up to the question of the lieutenancy of the kingdom in the midst of the deepest silence. The young king doubtless felt the tyranny that was being exercised over him; he knew that his mother had a deep sense of the rights of the Crown and was fully aware of the danger that threatened his power; he therefore replied to a positive question addressed to him by the cardinal by saying:–
“We will wait for the queen, my mother.”
Suddenly enlightened by the queen-mother’s delay, Mary Stuart recalled, in a flash of thought, three circumstances which now struck her vividly; first, the bulk of the papers presented to her mother-in-law, which she had noticed, absorbed as she was,–for a woman who seems to see nothing is often a lynx; next, the place where Christophe had carried them to keep them separate from hers: “Why so?” she thought to herself; and thirdly, she remembered the cold, indifferent glance of the young man, which she suddenly attributed to the hatred of the Reformers to a niece of the Guises. A voice cried to her, “He may have been an emissary of the Huguenots!” Obeying, like all excitable natures, her first impulse, she exclaimed:–
“I will go and fetch my mother myself!”
Then she left the room hurriedly, ran down the staircase, to the amazement of the courtiers and the ladies of honor, entered her mother-in-law’s apartments, crossed the guard-room, opened the door of the chamber with the caution of a thief, glided like a shadow over the carpet, saw no one, and bethought her that she should surely surprise the queen-mother in that magnificent dressing-room which comes between the bedroom and the oratory. The arrangement of this oratory, to which the manners of that period gave a role in private life like that of the boudoirs of our day, can still be traced.
By an almost inexplicable chance, when we consider the state of dilapidation into which the Crown has allowed the chateau of Blois to fall, the admirable woodwork of Catherine’s cabinet still exists; and in those delicately carved panels, persons interested in such things may still see traces of Italian splendor, and discover the secret hiding-places employed by the queen-mother. An exact description of these curious arrangements is necessary in order to give a clear understanding of what was now to happen. The woodwork of the oratory then consisted of about a hundred and eighty oblong panels, one hundred of which still exist, all presenting arabesques of different designs, evidently suggested by the most beautiful arabesques of Italy. The wood is live-oak. The red tones, seen through the layer of whitewash put on to avert cholera (useless precaution!), shows very plainly that the ground of the panels was formerly gilt. Certain portions of the design, visible where the wash has fallen away, seem to show that they once detached themselves from the gilded ground in colors, either blue, or red, or green. The multitude of these panels shows an evident intention to foil a search; but even if this could be doubted, the concierge of the chateau, while devoting the memory of Catherine to the execration of the humanity of our day, shows at the base of these panels and close to the floor a rather heavy foot-board, which can be lifted, and beneath which still remain the ingenious springs which move the panels. By pressing a knob thus hidden, the queen was able to open certain panels known to her alone, behind which, sunk in the wall, were hiding-places, oblong like the panels, and more or less deep. It is difficult, even in these days of dilapidation, for the best-trained eye to detect which of those panels is thus hinged; but when the eye was distracted by colors and gilding, cleverly used to conceal the joints, we can readily conceive that to find one or two such panels among two hundred was almost an impossible thing.
At the moment when Mary Stuart laid her hand on the somewhat complicated lock of the door of this oratory, the queen-mother, who had just become convinced of the greatness of the Prince de Conde’s plans, had touched the spring hidden beneath the foot-board, and one of the mysterious panels had turned over on its hinges. Catherine was in the act of lifting the papers from the table to hide them, intending after that to secure the safety of the devoted messenger who had brought them to her, when, hearing the sudden opening of the door, she at once knew that none but Queen Mary herself would dare thus to enter without announcement.
“You are lost!” she said to Christophe, perceiving that she could no longer put away the papers, nor close with sufficient rapidity the open panel, the secret of which was now betrayed.
Christophe answered her with a glance that was sublime.
“/Povero mio/!” said Catherine, before she looked at her daughter-in-law. “Treason, madame! I hold the traitors at last,” she cried. “Send for the duke and the cardinal; and see that that man,” pointing to Christophe, “does not escape.”
In an instant the able woman had seen the necessity of sacrificing the poor youth. She could not hide him; it was impossible to save him. Eight days earlier it might have been done; but the Guises now knew of the plot; they must already possess the lists she held in her hand, and were evidently drawing the Reformers into a trap. Thus, rejoiced to find in these adversaries the very spirit she desired them to have, her policy now led her to make a merit of the discovery of their plot. These horrible calculations were made during the rapid moment while the young queen was opening the door. Mary Stuart stood dumb for an instant; the gay look left her eyes, which took on the acuteness that suspicion gives to the eyes of all, and which, in hers, became terrible from the suddenness of the change. She glanced from Christophe to the queen-mother and from the queen-mother back to Christophe,–her face expressing malignant doubt. Then she seized a bell, at the sound of which one of the queen-mother’s maids of honor came running in.
“Mademoiselle du Rouet, send for the captain of the guard,” said Mary Stuart to the maid of honor, contrary to all etiquette, which was necessarily violated under the circumstances.
While the young queen gave this order, Catherine looked intently at Christophe, as if saying to him, “Courage!”
The Reformer understood, and replied by another glance, which seemed to say, “Sacrifice me, as /they/ have sacrificed me!”
“Rely on me,” said Catherine by a gesture. Then she absorbed herself in the documents as her daughter-in-law turned to him.
“You belong to the Reformed religion?” inquired Mary Stuart of Christophe.
“Yes, madame,” he answered.
“I was not mistaken,” she murmured as she again noticed in the eyes of the young Reformer the same cold glance in which dislike was hidden beneath an expression of humility.
Pardaillan suddenly appeared, sent by the two Lorrain princes and by the king to escort the queens. The captain of the guard called for by Mary Stuart followed the young officer, who was devoted to the Guises.
“Go and tell the king and the grand-master and the cardinal, from me, to come here at once, and say that I should not take the liberty of sending for them if something of the utmost importance had not occurred. Go, Pardaillan.–As for you, Lewiston, keep guard over that traitor of a Reformer,” she said to the Scotchman in his mother-tongue, pointing to Christophe.
The young queen and queen-mother maintained a total silence until the arrival of the king and princes. The moments that elapsed were terrible.
Mary Stuart had betrayed to her mother-in-law, in its fullest extent, the part her uncles were inducing her to play; her constant and habitual distrust and espionage were now revealed, and her young conscience told her how dishonoring to a great queen was the work that she was doing. Catherine, on the other hand, had yielded out of fear; she was still afraid of being rightly understood, and she trembled for her future. Both women, one ashamed and angry, the other filled with hatred and yet calm, went to the embrasure of the window and leaned against the casing, one to right, the other to left, silent; but their feelings were expressed in such speaking glances that they averted their eyes and, with mutual artfulness, gazed through the window at the sky. These two great and superior women had, at this crisis, no greater art of behavior than the vulgarest of their sex. Perhaps it is always thus when circumstances arise which overwhelm the human being. There is, inevitably, a moment when genius itself feels its littleness in presence of great catastrophes.
As for Christophe, he was like a man in the act of rolling down a precipice. Lewiston, the Scotch captain, listened to this silence, watching the son of the furrier and the two queens with soldierly curiosity. The entrance of the king and Mary Stuart’s two uncles put an end to the painful situation.
VIII
MARTYRDOM
The cardinal went straight to the queen-mother.
“I hold the threads of the conspiracy of the heretics,” said Catherine. “They have sent me this treaty and these documents by the hands of that child,” she added.
During the time that Catherine was explaining matters to the cardinal, Queen Mary whispered a few words to the grand-master.
“What is all this about?” asked the young king, who was left alone in the midst of the violent clash of interests.
“The proofs of what I was telling to your Majesty have not been long in reaching us,” said the cardinal, who had grasped the papers.
The Duc de Guise drew his brother aside without caring that he interrupted him, and said in his ear, “This makes me lieutenant-general without opposition.”
A shrewd glance was the cardinal’s only answer; showing his brother that he fully understood the advantages to be gained from Catherine’s false position.
“Who sent you here?” said the duke to Christophe.
“Chaudieu, the minister,” he replied.
“Young man, you lie!” said the soldier, sharply; “it was the Prince de Conde.”
“The Prince de Conde, monseigneur!” replied Christophe, with a puzzled look. “I never met him. I am studying law with Monsieur de Thou; I am his secretary, and he does not know that I belong to the Reformed religion. I yielded only to the entreaties of the minister.”
“Enough!” exclaimed the cardinal. “Call Monsieur de Robertet,” he said to Lewiston, “for this young scamp is slyer than an old statesman; he has managed to deceive my brother, and me too; an hour ago I would have given him the sacrament without confession.”
“You are not a child, /morbleu/!” cried the duke, “and we’ll treat you as a man.”
“The heretics have attempted to beguile your august mother,” said the cardinal, addressing the king, and trying to draw him apart to win him over to their ends.
“Alas!” said the queen-mother to her son, assuming a reproachful look and stopping the king at the moment when the cardinal was leading him into the oratory to subject him to his dangerous eloquence, “you see the result of the situation in which I am; they think me irritated by the little influence that I have in public affairs,–I, the mother of four princes of the house of Valois!”
The young king listened attentively. Mary Stuart, seeing the frown upon his brow, took his arm and led him away into the recess of the window, where she cajoled him with sweet speeches in a low voice, no doubt like those she had used that morning in their chamber. The two Guises read the documents given up to them by Catherine. Finding that they contained information which their spies, and Monsieur Braguelonne, the lieutenant of the Chatelet, had not obtained, they were inclined to believe in the sincerity of Catherine de’ Medici. Robertet came and received certain secret orders relative to Christophe. The youthful instrument of the leaders of the Reformation was then led away by four soldiers of the Scottish guard, who took him down the stairs and delivered him to Monsieur de Montresor, provost of the chateau. That terrible personage himself, accompanied by six of his men, conducted Christophe to the prison in the vaulted cellar of the tower, now in ruins, which the concierge of the chateau de Blois shows you with the information that these were the dungeons.
After such an event the Council could be only a formality. The king, the young queen, the Grand-master, and the cardinal returned to it, taking with them the vanquished Catherine, who said no word except to approve the measures proposed by the Guises. In spite of a slight opposition from the Chancelier Olivier (the only person present who said one word that expressed the independence to which his office bound him), the Duc de Guise was appointed lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Robertet brought the required documents, showing a devotion which might be called collusion. The king, giving his arm to his mother, recrossed the /salle des gardes/, announcing to the court as he passed along that on the following day he should leave Blois for the chateau of Amboise. The latter residence had been abandoned since the time when Charles VIII. accidentally killed himself by striking his head against the casing of a door on which he had ordered carvings, supposing that he could enter without stooping below the scaffolding. Catherine, to mask the plans of the Guises, remarked aloud that they intended to complete the chateau of Amboise for the Crown at the same time that her own chateau of Chemonceaux was finished. But no one was the dupe of that pretext, and all present awaited great events.
After spending about two hours endeavoring to see where he was in the obscurity of the dungeon, Christophe ended by discovering that the place was sheathed in rough woodwork, thick enough to make the square hole into which he was put both healthy and habitable. The door, like that of a pig-pen, was so low that he stooped almost double on entering it. Beside this door was a heavy iron grating, opening upon a sort of corridor, which gave a little light and a little air. This arrangement, in all respects like that of the dungeons of Venice, showed plainly that the architecture of the chateau of Blois belonged to the Venetian school, which during the Middle Ages, sent so many builders into all parts of Europe. By tapping this species of pit above the woodwork Christophe discovered that the walls which separated his cell to right and left from the adjoining ones were made of brick. Striking one of them to get an idea of its thickness, he was somewhat surprised to hear return blows given on the other side.
“Who are you?” said his neighbor, speaking to him through the corridor.
“I am Christophe Lecamus.”
“I,” replied the voice, “am Captain Chaudieu, brother of the minister. I was taken prisoner to-night at Beaugency; but, luckily, there is nothing against me.”
“All is discovered,” said Christophe; “you are fortunate to be saved from the fray.”
“We have three thousand men at this moment in the forests of the Vendomois, all determined men, who mean to abduct the king and the queen-mother during their journey. Happily La Renaudie was cleverer than I; he managed to escape. You had only just left us when the Guise men surprised us–“
“But I don’t know La Renaudie.”
“Pooh! my brother has told me all about it,” said the captain.
Hearing that, Christophe sat down upon his bench and made no further answer to the pretended captain, for he knew enough of the police to be aware how necessary it was to act with prudence in a prison. In the middle of the night he saw the pale light of a lantern in the corridor, after hearing the ponderous locks of the iron door which closed the cellar groan as they were turned. The provost himself had come to fetch Christophe. This attention to a prisoner who had been left in his dark dungeon for hours without food, struck the poor lad as singular. One of the provost’s men bound his hands with a rope and held him by the end of it until they reached one of the lower halls of the chateau of Louis XII., which was evidently the antechamber to the apartments of some important personage. The provost and his men bade him sit upon a bench, and the man then bound his feet as he had before bound his hands. On a sign from Monsieur de Montresor the man left the room.
“Now listen to me, my friend,” said the provost-marshal, toying with the collar of the Order; for, late as the hour was, he was in full uniform.
This little circumstance gave the young man several thoughts; he saw that all was not over; on the contrary, it was evidently neither to hang nor yet to condemn him that he was brought here.
“My friend, you may spare yourself cruel torture by telling me all you know of the understanding between Monsieur le Prince de Conde and Queen Catherine. Not only will no harm be done to you, but you shall enter the service of Monseigneur the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, who likes intelligent men and on whom your honest face has produced a good impression. The queen-mother is about to be sent back to Florence, and Monsieur de Conde will no doubt be brought to trial. Therefore, believe me, humble folks ought to attach themselves to the great men who are in power. Tell me all; and you will find your profit in it.”
“Alas, monsieur,” replied Christophe; “I have nothing to tell. I told all I know to Messieurs de Guise in the queen’s chamber. Chaudieu persuaded me to put those papers under the eyes of the queen-mother; assuring me that they concerned the peace of the kingdom.”
“You have never seen the Prince de Conde?”
“Never.”
Thereupon Monsieur de Montresor left Christophe and went into the adjoining room; but the youth was not left long alone. The door through which he had been brought opened and gave entrance to several men, who did not close it. Sounds that were far from reassuring were heard from the courtyard; men were bringing wood and machinery, evidently intended for the punishment of the Reformer’s messenger. Christophe’s anxiety soon had matter for reflection in the preparations which were made in the hall before his eyes.
Two coarse and ill-dressed serving-men obeyed the orders of a stout, squat, vigorous man, who cast upon Christophe, as he entered, the glance of a cannibal upon his victim; he looked him over and /estimated/ him,–measuring, like a connoisseur, the strength of his nerves, their power and their endurance. The man was the executioner of Blois. Coming and going, his assistants brought in a mattress, several mallets and wooden wedges, also planks and other articles, the use of which was not plain, nor their look comforting to the poor boy concerned in these preparations, whose blood now curdled in his veins from a vague but most terrible apprehension. Two personages entered the hall at the moment when Monsieur de Montresor reappeared.
“Hey, nothing ready!” cried the provost-marshal, to whom the new-comers bowed with great respect. “Don’t you know,” he said, addressing the stout man and his two assistants, “that Monseigneur the cardinal thinks you already at work? Doctor,” added the provost, turning to one of the new-comers, “this is the man”; and he pointed to Christophe.
The doctor went straight to the prisoner, unbound his hands, and struck him on the breast and back. Science now continued, in a serious manner, the truculent examination of the executioner’s eye. During this time a servant in the livery of the house of Guise brought in several arm-chairs, a table, and writing-materials.
“Begin the /proces verbal/,” said Monsieur de Montresor, motioning to the table the second personage, who was dressed in black, and was evidently a clerk. Then the provost went up to Christophe, and said to him in a very gentle way: “My friend, the chancellor, having learned that you refuse to answer me in a satisfactory manner, decrees that you be put to the question, ordinary and extraordinary.”
“Is he in good health, and can he bear it?” said the clerk to the doctor.
“Yes,” replied the latter, who was one of the physicians of the house of Lorraine.
“In that case, retire to the next room; we will send for you whenever we require your advice.”
The physician left the hall.
His first terror having passed, Christophe rallied his courage; the hour of his martyrdom had come. Thenceforth he looked with cold curiosity at the arrangements that were made by the executioner and his men. After hastily preparing a bed, the two assistants got ready certain appliances called /boots/; which consisted of several planks, between which each leg of the victim was placed. The legs thus placed were brought close together. The apparatus used by binders to press their volumes between two boards, which they fasten by cords, will give an exact idea of the manner in which each leg of the prisoner was bound. We can imagine the effect produced by the insertion of wooden wedges, driven in by hammers between the planks of the two bound legs, –the two sets of planks of course not yielding, being themselves bound together by ropes. These wedges were driven in on a line with the knees and the ankles. The choice of these places where there is little flesh, and where, consequently, the wedge could only be forced in by crushing the bones, made this form of torture, called the “question,” horribly painful. In the “ordinary question” four wedges were driven in,–two at the knees, two at the ankles; but in the “extraordinary question” the number was increased to eight, provided the doctor certified that the prisoner’s vitality was not exhausted. At the time of which we write the “boots” were also applied in the same manner to the hands and wrists; but, being pressed for time, the cardinal, the lieutenant-general, and the chancellor spared Christophe that additional suffering.
The /proces verbal/ was begun; the provost dictated a few sentences as he walked up and down with a meditative air, asking Christophe his name, baptismal name, age, and profession; then he inquired the name of the person from whom he had received the papers he had given to the queen.
“From the minister Chaudieu,” answered Christophe.
“Where did he give them to you?”
“In Paris.”
“In giving them to you he must have told you whether the queen-mother would receive you with pleasure?”
“He told me nothing of that kind,” said Christophe. “He merely asked me to give them to Queen Catherine secretly.”
“You must have seen Chaudieu frequently, or he would not have known that you were going to Blois.”
“The minister did not know from me that in carrying furs to the queen I was also to ask on my father’s behalf for the money the queen-mother owes him; and I did not have time to ask the minister who had told him of it.”
“But these papers, which were given to you without being sealed or enveloped, contained a treaty between the rebels and Queen Catherine. You must have seen that they exposed you to the punishment of all those who assist in a rebellion.”
“Yes.”
“The persons who persuaded you to this act of high treason must have promised you rewards and the protection of the queen-mother.”
“I did it out of attachment to Chaudieu, the only person whom I saw in the matter.”
“Do you persist in saying you did not see the Prince de Conde?”
“Yes.”
“The Prince de Conde did not tell you that the queen-mother was inclined to enter into his views against the Messieurs de Guise?”
“I did not see him.”
“Take care! one of your accomplices, La Renaudie, has been arrested. Strong as he is, he was not able to bear the ‘question,’ which will now be put to you; he confessed at last that both he and the Prince de Conde had an interview with you. If you wish to escape the torture of the question, I exhort you to tell me the simple truth. Perhaps you will thus obtain your full pardon.”
Christophe answered that he could not state a thing of which he had no knowledge, or give himself accomplices when he had none. Hearing these words, the provost-marshal signed to the executioner and retired himself to the inner room. At that fatal sign Christophe’s brows contracted, his forehead worked with nervous convulsion, as he prepared himself to suffer. His hands closed with such violence that the nails entered the flesh without his feeling them. Three men seized him, took him to the camp bed and laid him there, letting his legs hang down. While the executioner fastened him to the rough bedstead with strong cords, the assistants bound his legs into the “boots.” Presently the cords were tightened, by means of a wrench, without the pressure causing much pain to the young Reformer. When each leg was thus held as it were in a vice, the executioner grasped his hammer and picked up the wedges, looking alternately at the victim and at the clerk.
“Do you persist in your denial?” asked the clerk.
“I have told the truth,” replied Christophe.
“Very well. Go on,” said the clerk, closing his eyes.
The cords were tightened with great force. This was perhaps the most painful moment of the torture; the flesh being suddenly compressed, the blood rushed violently toward the breast. The poor boy could not restrain a dreadful cry and seemed about to faint. The doctor was called in. After feeling Christophe’s pulse, he told the executioner to wait a quarter of an hour before driving the first wedge in, to let the action of the blood subside and allow the victim to recover his full sensitiveness. The clerk suggested, kindly, that if he could not bear this beginning of sufferings which he could not escape, it would be better to reveal all at once; but Christophe made no reply except to say, “The king’s tailor! the king’s tailor!”
“What do you mean by those words?” asked the clerk.
“Seeing what torture I must bear,” said Christophe, slowly, hoping to gain time to rest, “I call up all my strength, and try to increase it by thinking of the martyrdom borne by the king’s tailor for the holy cause of the Reformation, when the question was applied to him in presence of Madame la Duchesse de Valentinois and the king. I shall try to be worthy of him.”
While the physician exhorted the unfortunate lad not to force them to have recourse to more violent measures, the cardinal and the duke, impatient to know the result of the interrogations, entered the hall and themselves asked Christophe to speak the truth, immediately. The young man repeated the only confession he had allowed himself to make, which implicated no one but Chaudieu. The princes made a sign, on which the executioner and his assistant seized their hammers, taking each a wedge, which then they drove in between the joints, standing one to right, the other to left of their victim; the executioner’s wedge was driven in at the knees, his assistant’s at the ankles.
The eyes of all present fastened on those of Christophe, and he, no doubt excited by the presence of those great personages, shot forth such burning glances that they appeared to have all the brilliancy of flame. As the third and fourth wedges were driven in, a dreadful groan escaped him. When he saw the executioner take up the wedges for the “extraordinary question” he said no word and made no sound, but his eyes took on so terrible a fixity, and he cast upon the two great princes who were watching him a glance so penetrating, that the duke and cardinal were forced to drop their eyes. Philippe le Bel met with the same resistance when the torture of the pendulum was applied in his presence to the Templars. That punishment consisted in striking the victim on the breast with one arm of the balance pole with which money is coined, its end being covered with a pad of leather. One of the knights thus tortured, looked so intently at the king that Philippe could not detach his eyes from him. At the third blow the king left the chamber on hearing the knight summon him to appear within a year before the judgment-seat of God,–as, in fact, he did. At the fifth blow, the first of the “extraordinary question,” Christophe said to the cardinal: “Monseigneur, put an end to my torture; it is useless.”
The cardinal and the duke re-entered the adjoining hall, and Christophe distinctly heard the following words said by Queen Catherine: “Go on; after all, he is only a heretic.”
She judged it prudent to be more stern to her accomplice than the executioners themselves.
The sixth and seventh wedges were driven in without a word of complaint from Christophe. His face shone with extraordinary brilliancy, due, no doubt, to the excess of strength which his fanatic devotion gave him. Where else but in the feelings of the soul can we find the power necessary to bear such sufferings? Finally, he smiled when he saw the executioner lifting the eighth and last wedge. This horrible torture had lasted by this time over an hour.
The clerk now went to call the physician that he might decide whether the eighth wedge could be driven in without endangering the life of the victim. During this delay the duke returned to look at Christophe.
“/Ventre-de-biche/! you are a fine fellow,” he said to him, bending down to whisper the words. “I love brave men. Enter my service, and you shall be rich and happy; my favors shall heal those wounded limbs. I do not propose to you any baseness; I will not ask you to return to your party and betray its plans,–there are always traitors enough for that, and the proof is in the prisons of Blois; tell me only on what terms are the queen-mother and the Prince de Conde?”
“I know nothing about it, monseigneur,” replied Christophe Lecamus.
The physician came, examined the victim, and said that he could bear the eighth wedge.
“Then insert it,” said the cardinal. “After all, as the queen says, he is only a heretic,” he added, looking at Christophe with a dreadful smile.
At this moment Catherine came with slow steps from the adjoining apartment and stood before Christophe, coldly observing him. Instantly she was the object of the closest attention on the part of the two brothers, who watched alternately the queen and her accomplice. On this solemn test the whole future of that ambitious woman depended; she felt the keenest admiration for Christophe, yet she gazed sternly at him; she hated the Guises, and she smiled upon them!
“Young man,” said the queen, “confess that you have seen the Prince de Conde, and you will be richly rewarded.”
“Ah! what a business this is for you, madame!” cried Christophe, pitying her.
The queen quivered.
“He insults me!” she exclaimed. “Why do you not hang him?” she cried, turning to the two brothers, who stood thoughtful.
“What a woman!” said the duke in a glance at his brother, consulting him by his eye, and leading him to the window.
“I shall stay in France and be revenged upon them,” thought the queen. “Come, make him confess, or let him die!” she said aloud, addressing Montresor.
The provost-marshal turned away his eyes, the executioners were busy with the wedges; Catherine was free to cast one glance upon the martyr, unseen by others, which fell on Christophe like the dew. The eyes of the great queen seemed to him moist; two tears were in them, but they did not fall. The wedges were driven; a plank was broken by the blow. Christophe gave one dreadful cry, after which he was silent; his face shone,–he believed he was dying.
“Let him die?” said the cardinal, echoing the queen’s last words with a sort of irony; “no, no! don’t break that thread,” he said to the provost.
The duke and the cardinal consulted together in a low voice.
“What is to be done with him?” asked the executioner.
“Send him to the prison at Orleans,” said the duke, addressing Monsieur de Montresor; “and don’t hang him without my order.”
The extreme sensitiveness to which Christophe’s internal organism had been brought, increased by a resistance which called into play every power of the human body, existed to the same degree, in his senses. He alone heard the following words whispered by the Duc de Guise in the ear of his brother the cardinal:
“I don’t give up all hope of getting the truth out of that little fellow yet.”
When the princes had left the hall the executioners unbound the legs of their victim roughly and without compassion.
“Did any one ever see a criminal with such strength?” said the chief executioner to his aids. “The rascal bore that last wedge when he ought to have died; I’ve lost the price of his body.”
“Unbind me gently; don’t make me suffer, friends,” said poor Christophe. “Some day I will reward you–“
“Come, come, show some humanity,” said the physician. “Monseigneur esteems the young man, and told me to look after him.”
“I am going to Amboise with my assistants,–take care of him yourself,” said the executioner, brutally. “Besides, here comes the jailer.”
The executioner departed, leaving Christophe in the hands of the soft-spoken doctor, who by the aid of Christophe’s future jailer, carried the poor boy to a bed, brought him some broth, helped him to swallow it, sat down beside him, felt his pulse, and tried to comfort him.
“You won’t die of this,” he said. “You ought to feel great inward comfort, knowing that you have done your duty.–The queen-mother bids me take care of you,” he added in a whisper.
“The queen is very good,” said Christophe, whose terrible sufferings had developed an extraordinary lucidity in his mind, and who, after enduring such unspeakable sufferings, was determined not to compromise the results of his devotion. “But she might have spared me much agony be telling my persecutors herself the secrets that I know nothing about, instead of urging them on.”
Hearing that reply, the doctor took his cap and cloak and left Christophe, rightly judging that he could worm nothing out of a man of that stamp. The jailer of Blois now ordered the poor lad to be carried away on a stretcher by four men, who took him to the prison in the town, where Christophe immediately fell into the deep sleep which, they say, comes to most mothers after the terrible pangs of childbirth.
IX
THE TUMULT AT AMBOISE
By moving the court to the chateau of Amboise, the two Lorrain princes intended to set a trap for the leader of the party of the Reformation, the Prince de Conde, whom they had made the king summon to his presence. As vassal of the Crown and prince of the blood, Conde was bound to obey the summons of his sovereign. Not to come to Amboise would constitute the crime of treason; but if he came, he put himself in the power of the Crown. Now, at this moment, as we have seen, the Crown, the council, the court, and all their powers were solely in the hands of the Duc de Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine. The Prince de Conde showed, at this delicate crisis, a presence of mind and a decision and willingness which made him the worthy exponent of Jeanne d’Albret and the valorous general of the Reformers. He travelled at the rear of the conspirators as far as Vendome, intending to support them in case of their success. When the first uprising ended by a brief skirmish, in which the flower of the nobility beguiled by Calvin perished, the prince arrived, with fifty noblemen, at the chateau of Amboise on the very day after that fight, which the politic Guises termed “the Tumult of Amboise.” As soon as the duke and cardinal heard of his coming they sent the Marechal de Saint-Andre with an escort of a hundred men to meet him. When the prince and his own escort reached the gates of the chateau the marechal refused entrance to the latter.
“You must enter alone, monseigneur,” said the Chancellor Olivier, the Cardinal de Tournon, and Birago, who were stationed outside of the portcullis.
“And why?”
“You are suspected of treason,” replied the chancellor.
The prince, who saw that his suite were already surrounded by the troop of the Duc de Nemours, replied tranquilly: “If that is so, I will go alone to my cousin, and prove to him my innocence.”
He dismounted, talked with perfect freedom of mind to Birago, the Cardinal de Tournon, the chancellor, and the Duc de Nemours, from whom he asked for particulars of the “tumult.”
“Monseigneur,” replied the duke, “the rebels had confederates in Amboise. A captain, named Lanoue, had introduced armed men, who opened the gate to them, through which they entered and made themselves masters of the town–“
“That is to say, you opened the mouth of a sack, and they ran into it,” replied the prince, looking at Birago.
“If they had been supported by the attack which Captain Chaudieu, the preacher’s brother, was expected to make before the gate of the Bon-Hommes, they would have been completely successful,” replied the Duc de Nemours. “But in consequence of the position which the Duc de Guise ordered me to take up, Captain Chaudieu was obliged to turn my flank to avoid a fight. So instead of arriving by night, like the rest, this rebel and his men got there at daybreak, by which time the king’s troops had crushed the invaders of the town.”
“And you had a reserve force to recover the gate which had been opened to them?” said the prince.
“Monsieur le Marechal de Saint-Andre was there with five hundred men-at-arms.”
The prince gave the highest praise to these military arrangements.
“The lieutenant-general must have been fully aware of the plans of the Reformers, to have acted as he did,” he said in conclusion. “They were no doubt betrayed.”
The prince was treated with increasing harshness. After separating him from his escort at the gates, the cardinal and the chancellor barred his way when he reached the staircase which led to the apartments of the king.
“We are directed by his Majesty, monseigneur, to take you to your own apartments,” they said.
“Am I, then, a prisoner?”
“If that were the king’s intention you would not be accompanied by a prince of the Church, nor by me,” replied the chancellor.
These two personages escorted the prince to an apartment, where guards of honor–so-called–were given him. There he remained, without seeing any one, for some hours. From his window he looked down upon the Loire and the meadows of the beautiful valley stretching from Amboise to Tours. He was reflecting on the situation, and asking himself whether the Guises would really dare anything against his person, when the door of his chamber opened and Chicot, the king’s fool, formerly a dependent of his own, entered the room.
“They told me you were in disgrace,” said the prince.
“You’d never believe how virtuous the court has become since the death of Henri II.”
“But the king loves a laugh.”
“Which king,–Francois II., or Francois de Lorraine?”
“You are not afraid of the duke, if you talk in that way!”
“He wouldn’t punish me for it, monseigneur,” replied Chicot, laughing.
“To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“Hey! Isn’t it due to you on your return? I bring you my cap and bells.”
“Can I go out?”
“Try.”
“Suppose I do go out, what then?”
“I should say that you had won the game by playing against the rules.”
“Chicot, you alarm me. Are you sent here by some one who takes an interest in me?”
“Yes,” said Chicot, nodding. He came nearer to the prince, and made him understand that they were being watched and overheard.
“What have you to say to me?” asked the Prince de Conde, in a low voice.
“Boldness alone can pull you out of this scrape; the message comes from the queen-mother,” replied the fool, slipping his words into the ear of the prince.
“Tell those who sent you,” replied Conde, “that I should not have entered this chateau if I had anything to reproach myself with, or to fear.”
“I rush to report that lofty answer!” cried the fool.
Two hours later, that is, about one o’clock in the afternoon, before the king’s dinner, the chancellor and Cardinal de Tournon came to fetch the prince and present him to Francois II. in the great gallery of the chateau of Amboise, where the councils were held. There, before the whole court, Conde pretended surprise at the coldness with which the little king received him, and asked the reason of it.
“You are accused, cousin,” said the queen-mother, sternly, “of taking part in the conspiracy of the Reformers; and you must prove yourself a faithful subject and a good Catholic, if you do not desire to draw down upon your house the anger of the king.”
Hearing these words said, in the midst of the most profound silence, by Catherine de’ Medici, on whose right arm the king was leaning, the Duc d’Orleans being on her left side, the Prince de Conde recoiled three steps, laid his hand on his sword with a proud motion, and looked at all the persons who surrounded him.
“Those who said that, madame,” he cried in an angry voice, “lied in their throats!”
Then he flung his glove at the king’s feet, saying: “Let him who believes that calumny come forward!”
The whole court trembled as the Duc de Guise was seen to leave his place; but instead of picking up the glove, he advanced to the intrepid hunchback.
“If you desire a second in that duel, monseigneur, do me the honor to accept my services,” he said. “I will answer for you; I know that you will show the Reformers how mistaken they are if they think to have you for their leader.”
The prince was forced to take the hand of the lieutenant-general of the kingdom. Chicot picked up the glove and returned it to Monsieur de Conde.
“Cousin,” said the little king, “you must draw your sword only for the defence of the kingdom. Come and dine.”
The Cardinal de Lorraine, surprised at his brother’s action, drew him away to his own apartments. The Prince de Conde, having escaped his apparent danger, offered his hand to Mary Stuart to lead her to the dining hall; but all the while that he made her flattering speeches he pondered in his mind what trap the astute Balafre was setting for him. In vain he worked his brains, for it was not until Queen Mary herself betrayed it that he guessed the intention of the Guises.
“‘Twould have been a great pity,” she said laughing, “if so clever a head had fallen; you must admit that my uncle has been generous.”
“Yes, madame; for my head is only useful on my shoulders, though one of them is notoriously higher than the other. But is this really your uncle’s generosity? Is he not getting the credit of it rather cheaply? Do you think it would be so easy to take off the head of a prince of the blood?”
“All is not over yet,” she said. “We shall see what your conduct will be at the execution of the noblemen, your friends, at which the Council has decided to make a great public display of severity.”
“I shall do,” said the prince, “whatever the king does.”
“The king, the queen-mother, and myself will be present at the execution, together with the whole court and the ambassadors–“
“A fete!” said the prince, sarcastically.
“Better than that,” said the young queen, “an /act of faith/, an act of the highest policy. ‘Tis a question of forcing the noblemen of France to submit themselves to the Crown, and compelling them to give up their tastes for plots and factions–“
“You will not break their belligerent tempers by the show of danger, madame; you will risk the Crown itself in the attempt,” replied the prince.
At the end of the dinner, which was gloomy enough, Queen Mary had the cruel boldness to turn the conversation openly upon the trial of the noblemen on the charge of being seized with arms in their hands, and to speak of the necessity of making a great public show of their execution.
“Madame,” said Francois II., “is it not enough for the king of France to know that so much brave blood is to flow? Must he make a triumph of it?”
“No, sire; but an example,” replied Catherine.
“It was the custom of your father and your grandfather to be present at the burning of heretics,” said Mary Stuart.
“The kings who reigned before me did as they thought best, and I choose to do as I please,” said the little king.
“Philip the Second,” remarked Catherine, “who is certainly a great king, lately postponed an /auto da fe/ until he could return from the Low Countries to Valladolid.”
“What do you think, cousin?” said the king to Prince de Conde.
“Sire, you cannot avoid it, and the papal nuncio and all the ambassadors should be present. I shall go willingly, as these ladies take part in the fete.”
Thus the Prince de Conde, at a glance from Catherine de’ Medici, bravely chose his course.
* * * * *
At the moment when the Prince de Conde was entering the chateau d’Amboise, Lecamus, the furrier of the two queens, was also arriving from Paris, brought to Amboise by the anxiety into which the news of the tumult had thrown both his family and that of Lallier. When the old man presented himself at the gate of the chateau, the captain of the guard, on hearing that he was the queens’ furrier, said:–
“My good man, if you want to be hanged you have only to set foot in this courtyard.”
Hearing these words, the father, in despair, sat down on a stone at a little distance and waited until some retainer of the two queens or some servant-woman might pass who would give him news of his son. But he sat there all day without seeing any one whom he knew, and was forced at last to go down into the town, where he found, not without some difficulty, a lodging in a hostelry on the public square where the executions took place. He was obliged to pay a pound a day to obtain a room with a window looking on the square. The next day he had the courage to watch, from his window, the execution of all the abettors of the rebellion who were condemned to be broken on the wheel or hanged, as persons of little importance. He was happy indeed not to see his own son among the victims.
When the execution was over he went into the square and put himself in the way of the clerk of the court. After giving his name, and slipping a purse full of crowns into the man’s hand, he begged him to look on the records and see if the name of Christophe Lecamus appeared in either of the three preceding executions. The clerk, touched by the manner and the tones of the despairing father, took him to his own house. After a careful search he was able to give the old man an absolute assurance that Christophe was not among the persons thus far executed, nor among those who were to be put to death within a few days.
“My dear man,” said the clerk, “Parliament has taken charge of the trial of the great lords implicated in the affair, and also that of the principal leaders. Perhaps your son is detained in the prisons of the chateau, and he may be brought forth for the magnificent execution which their Excellencies the Duc de Guise and the Cardinal de Lorraine are now preparing. The heads of twenty-seven barons, eleven counts, and seven marquises,–in all, fifty noblemen or leaders of the Reformers,–are to be cut off. As the justiciary of the county of Tourine is quite distinct from that of the parliament of Paris, if you are determined to know about your son, I advise you to go and see the Chancelier Olivier, who has the management of this great trial under orders from the lieutenant-general of the kingdom.”
The poor old man, acting on this advice, went three times to see the chancellor, standing in a long queue of persons waiting to ask mercy for their friends. But as the titled men were made to pass before the burghers, he was obliged to give up the hope of speaking to the chancellor, though he saw him several times leave the house to go either to the chateau or to the committee appointed by the Parliament, –passing each time between a double hedge of petitioners who were kept back by the guards to allow him free passage. It was a horrible scene of anguish and desolation; for among these petitioners were many women, wives, mothers, daughters, whole families in distress. Old Lecamus gave much gold to the footmen of the chateau, entreating them to put certain letters which he wrote into the hand either of Dayelle, Queen Mary’s woman, or into that of the queen-mother; but the footmen took the poor man’s money and carried the letters, according to the general order of the cardinal, to the provost-marshal. By displaying such unheard-of cruelty the Guises knew that they incurred great dangers from revenge, and never did they take such precautions for their safety as they did while the court was at Amboise; consequently, neither the greatest of all corrupters, gold, nor the incessant and active search which the old furrier instituted gave him the slightest gleam of light on the fate of his son. He went about the little town with a mournful air, watching the great preparations made by order of the cardinal for the dreadful show at which the Prince de Conde had agreed to be present.
Public curiosity was stimulated from Paris to Nantes by the means adopted on this occasion. The execution was announced from all pulpits by the rectors of the churches, while at the same time they gave thanks for the victory of the king over the heretics. Three handsome balconies, the middle one more sumptuous than the other two, were built against the terrace of the chateau of Amboise, at the foot of which the executions were appointed to take place. Around the open square, stagings were erected, and these were filled with an immense crowd of people attracted by the wide-spread notoriety given to this “act of faith.” Ten thousand persons camped in the adjoining fields the night before the day on which the horrible spectacle was appointed to take place. The roofs on the houses were crowded with spectators, and windows were let at ten pounds apiece,–an enormous sum in those days. The poor old father had engaged, as we may well believe, one of the best places from which the eye could take in the whole of the terrible scene, where so many men of noble blood were to perish on a vast scaffold covered with black cloth, erected in the middle of the open square. Thither, on the morning of the fatal day, they brought the /chouquet/,–a name given to the block on which the condemned man laid his head as he knelt before it. After this they brought an arm-chair draped with black, for the clerk of the Parliament, whose business it was to call up the condemned noblemen to their death and read their sentences. The whole square was guarded from early morning by the Scottish guard and the gendarmes of the king’s household, in order to keep back the crowd which threatened to fill it before the hour of the execution.
After a solemn mass said at the chateau and in the churches of the town, the condemned lords, the last of the conspirators who were left alive, were led out. These gentlemen, some of whom had been put to the torture, were grouped at the foot of the scaffold and surrounded by monks, who endeavored to make them abjure the doctrines of Calvin. But not a single man listened to the words of the priests who had been appointed for this duty by the Cardinal of Lorraine; among whom the gentlemen no doubt feared to find spies of the Guises. In order to avoid the importunity of these antagonists they chanted a psalm, put into French verse by Clement Marot. Calvin, as we all know, had ordained that prayers to God should be in the language of each country, as much from a principle of common sense as in opposition to the Roman worship. To those in the crowd who pitied these unfortunate gentlemen it was a moving incident to hear them chant the following verse at the very moment when the king and court arrived and took their places:–
“God be merciful unto us,
And bless us!
And show us the light of his countenance, And be merciful unto us.”
The eyes of all the Reformers turned to their leader, the Prince de Conde, who was placed intentionally between Queen Mary and the young Duc d’Orleans. Catherine de’ Medici was beside the king, and the rest of the court were on her left. The papal nuncio stood behind Queen Mary; the lieutenant-general of the kingdom, the Duc de Guise, was on horseback below the balcony, with two of the marshals of France and his staff captains. When the Prince de Conde appeared all the condemned noblemen who knew him bowed to him, and the brave hunchback returned their salutation.
“It would be hard,” he remarked to the Duc d’Orleans, “not to be civil to those about to die.”
The two other balconies were filled by invited guests, courtiers, and persons on duty about the court. In short, the whole company of the chateau de Blois had come to Amboise to assist at this festival of death, precisely as it passed, a little later, from the pleasures of a court to the perils of war, with an easy facility, which will always seem to foreigners one of the main supports of their policy toward France.
The poor syndic of the furriers of Paris was filled with the keenest joy at not seeing his son among the fifty-seven gentlemen who were condemned to die.
At a sign from the Duc de Guise, the clerk seated on the scaffold cried in a loud voice:–
“Jean-Louis-Alberic, Baron de Raunay, guilty of heresy, of the crime of /lese-majeste/, and assault with armed hand against the person of the king.”
A tall handsome man mounted the scaffold with a firm step, bowed to the people and the court, and said:
“That sentence lies. I took arms to deliver the king from his enemies, the Guises.”
He placed his head on the block, and it fell. The Reformers chanted:–
“Thou, O God! hast proved us;
Thou hast tried us;
As silver is tried in the fire,
So hast thou purified us.”
“Robert-Jean-Rene Briquemart, Comte de Villemongis, guilty of the crime of /lese-majeste/, and of attempts against the person of the king!” called the clerk.
The count dipped his hands in the blood of the Baron de Raunay, and said:–
“May this blood recoil upon those who are really guilty of those crimes.”
The Reformers chanted:–
“Thou broughtest us into the snare;
Thou laidest afflictions upon our loins; Thou hast suffered our enemies
To ride over us.”
“You must admit, monseigneur,” said the Prince de Conde to the papal nuncio, “that if these French gentlemen know how to conspire, they also know how to die.”
“What hatreds, brother!” whispered the Duchesse de Guise to the Cardinal de Lorraine, “you are drawing down upon the heads of our children!”
“The sight makes me sick,” said the young king, turning pale at the flow of blood.
“Pooh! only rebels!” replied Catherine de’ Medici.
The chants went on; the axe still fell. The sublime spectacle of men singing as they died, and, above all, the impression produced upon the crowd by the progressive diminution of the chanting voices, superseded the fear inspired by the Guises.
“Mercy!” cried the people with one voice, when they heard the solitary chant of the last and most important of the great lords, who was saved to be the final victim. He alone remained at the foot of the steps by which the others had mounted the scaffold, and he chanted:–
“Thou, O God, be merciful unto us,
And bless us,
And cause thy face to shine upon us. Amen!”
“Come, Duc de Nemours,” said the Prince de Conde, weary of the part he was playing; “you who have the credit of the skirmish, and who helped to make these men prisoners, do you not feel under an obligation to ask mercy for this one? It is Castelnau, who, they say, received your word of honor that he should be courteously treated if he surrendered.”
“Do you think I waited till he was here before trying to save him?” said the Duc de Nemours, stung by the stern reproach.
The clerk called slowly–no doubt he was intentionally slow:–
“Michel-Jean-Louis, Baron de Castelnau-Chalosse, accused and convicted of the crime of /lese-majeste/, and of attempts against the person of the king.”
“No,” said Castelnau, proudly, “it cannot be a crime to oppose the tyranny and the projected usurpation of the Guises.”
The executioner, sick of his task, saw a movement in the king’s gallery, and fumbled with his axe.
“Monsieur le baron,” he said, “I do not want to execute you; a moment’s delay may save you.”
All the people again cried, “Mercy!”
“Come!” said the king, “mercy for that poor Castelnau, who saved the life of the Duc d’Orleans.”
The cardinal intentionally misunderstood the king’s speech.
“Go on,” he motioned to the executioner, and the head of Castelnau fell at the very moment when the king had pronounced his pardon.
“That head, cardinal, goes to your account,” said Catherine de’ Medici.
The day after this dreadful execution the Prince de Conde returned to Navarre.
The affair produced a great sensation in France and at all the foreign courts. The torrents of noble blood then shed caused such anguish to the chancellor Olivier that his honorable mind, perceiving at last the real end and aim of the Guises disguised under a pretext of defending religion and the monarchy, felt itself no longer able to make head against them. Though he was their creature, he was not willing to sacrifice his duty and the Throne to their ambition; and he withdrew from his post, suggesting l’Hopital as his rightful successor. Catherine, hearing of Olivier’s suggestion, immediately proposed Birago, and put much warmth into her request. The cardinal, knowing nothing of the letter written by l’Hopital to the queen-mother, and supposing him faithful to the house of Lorraine, pressed his appointment in opposition to that of Birago, and Catherine allowed herself to seem vanquished. From the moment that l’Hopital entered upon his duties he took measures against the Inquisition, which the Cardinal de Lorraine was desirous of introducing into France; and he thwarted so successfully all the anti-gallican policy of the Guises, and proved himself so true a Frenchmen, that in order to subdue him he was exiled, within three months of his appointment, to his country-seat of Vignay, near Etampes.
The worthy old Lecamus waited impatiently till the court left Amboise, being unable to find an opportunity to speak to either of the queens, and hoping to put himself in their way as the court advanced along the river-bank on its return to Blois. He disguised himself as a pauper, at the risk of being taken for a spy, and by means of this travesty, he mingled with the crowd of beggars which lined the roadway. After the departure of the Prince de Conde, and the execution of the leaders, the duke and cardinal thought they had sufficiently silenced the Reformers to allow the queen-mother a little more freedom. Lecamus knew that, instead of travelling in a litter, Catherine intended to go on horseback, /a la planchette/,–such was the name given to a sort of